Air Holes


In 2006 my short story “Air Holes” was one of the three winners of the CBC/QWF Quebec Short Story Competition. The competition called for short stories under 1200 words, my favourite category. “Air Holes” weighs in at a wee 930 words or so. The story was broadcast on Cinq à Six CBC RadioOne July 2006.

In 2007 the competition changed its name and rules and regulations. Now now short fiction, travel writing and memoir all fall into one category, which seems like a cruel and unusual thing to do to short fiction. Oh well. Every three years Véhicule Press still publishes an anthology of winners and honourable mentions. “Air Holes” appears in the most recent of these anthologies, In Other Words: New English Writing from Québec, launched last weekend at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montreal. Here is the opening paragraph:

“The tide will go out at two today. The kids and I will go down to the beach. Between the tidemarks, beneath our feet, tight-lipped steamer clams will burrow sandy deep. But we’ll find them. Their air holes will give them away.”
J. R. Carpenter, “Air Holes”

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Out of the Box: Adventures in Electronic Literature

Since the computer was invented, writers have been using it to forge new literary forms. This year the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival moves into the cutting-edge field of Electronic Literature. Join us for an exploration of topics ranging from the early days of hypertext fiction to the latest in narrative gaming with an all-star panel of authors who write beyond the book and way outside the box:

J. R. Carpenter’is a two-time winner of the CBC Quebec Short Story Competition and a Web Art Finalist in the Drunken Boat PanLiterary Awards 2006. Her novel Words the Dog Knows is forthcoming from Conundrum in the fall of 2008. Her short fiction and electronic literature have been published and exhibited internationally and can be found on http://luckysoap.com.

Jeff Parker is the author of the novel Ovenman and the short story collection The Back of the Line, a collaboration with artist William Powhida. His work in and on hypertext has appeared in The Electronic Book Review, The Iowa Review Web, The Believer, and other publications. He is the Acting Director of the M.A. Program in English in the Field of Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.

Jason E. Lewis is a poet, digital media artist and software designer. His creative work has been featured in exhibitions internationally. He conducts experiments in visual language, text and typography at his research studio www.obxlabs.net.

Alice van der Klei holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature on hypertext as a site of memory practices. She hypothesized that hypermedia because of its rhizomatic nature allows the reader to become aware of the workings of memory and of cultural institutionalisation better than any other cultural practice. She is currently working at the NT2 Laboratory and a lecturer in Études littéraires at the Université du Québec à Montréal. www.nt2.uqam.ca.

This event will be hosted by Nora Young of Spark, CBC Radio’s audio blog of smart and unexpected trendwatching: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/

Saturday, May 3 at 7PM
Room: Régence A.
Delta Centre-ville Hotel, 777 University Street (metro Square Victoria).
You can buy tickets at ADMISSION by telephone at 514-790-7245 or 1 800 361-4595 or on their website, www.admission.com.

The 10th Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival will take place April 30 to May 4, 2008. For more information visit www.bluemetropolis.org.
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Blue Metropolis Foundation is a non-profit organization located in Montreal. Its core purpose is to bring people of different cultures together to share the pleasures of reading and writing in English, French and other languages. To this end it produces a range of literary activities, educational and literacy programmes, including the multilingual Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival. Blue Metropolis Foundation plays a leadership role in the literary, educational and literacy community in the Montreal area as well as nationally and internationally.
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Sniffing for Stories on Cinq à Six

Tune into Cinq à Six on CBC RadioOne 88.5 FM in Montréal at 5PM this evening to hear an interview Host Patti Schmidt recorded with me earlier this week about In-situ Cité. I read an excerpt from Sniffing for Stories, and then we went on to talk about all kinds of other stuff. So fun. You can also listen online: http://www.cbc.ca/cinqasix/

In-situ Cité takes place next weekend, Saturday September 30 & October 1 between Noon and 5PM. The start-off point is the Casa del Popolo, 4873 boul. St-Laurent. My Entre Ville mini-books will be on sale there and I will be at the Casa for a talkback session with In-situ Cité Director Stephen Lawson Saturday at 4PM. For more information follow the above links and/or to make reservations call: 514.843.3685
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SHORT STUFF LAUNCH

My short story “Precipice”, 2003 winner of the Quebec Short Story Competition, has been published in Short Stuff, the second anthology of winning stories of the CBC/QWF Short Story Competition.

The launch will be held tomorrow, Saturday, April 2, at 5:30 pm., in the Jeanne-Mance room of Hyatt Regency Hotel (1255 Jeanne-Mance, in the Complexe Desjardins).

This event is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be on sale onsite at the Blue Met bookstore.

Metropolis Literary Festival-
http://www.blue-met-bleu.com

“Precipice”-
http://luckysoap.com/publications
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