lapsus linguae

WORDS THE DOG KNOWS Shortlisted for Best English Book – Expozine Alternative Press Awards

The Expozine Alternative Press Awards Gala will be held Tuesday, March 3 at Casa del Popolo, 4873 St-Laurent in Montreal. The Gala starts at 7 pm, awards will begin being presented shortly after 8 pm, and you are all invited to stay and mingle during the DJ night that follows at 10 p.m. Admission is free and beer and liquor specials will be in effect all night.

Come and celebrate the best of the nearly 300 small presses that took part in last fall’s Expozine small press, comic and zine fair! Six prizes will be awarded, recognizing the best book, comic and zine sold at Expozine.

The winners were chosen by an esteemed panel of judges out of the hundreds of publications submitted at Expozine in November. The gala is a rare chance for you to meet and mingle with the most talented up-and-comers of the local publishing scene, as well as purchase copies of the 36 short-listed titles.

The Nominees / Les nominés:

English Book:

Words the Dog Knows, J.R. Carpenter, Conundrum Press, www.conundrumpress.com
The Debaucher, Jason Camlot, Insomniac Press www.insomniacpress.com
The Sunlight Chronicles, Chris Dyer, Divine Life LLC, www.sunlight-chronicles.com
Fear Of Fighting, Stacey May Fowles & Marlena Zuber, Invisible Publishing, www.invisiblepublishing.com
Blert, Jordan Scott, Coach House Books, www.chbooks.com
Jack, Mike Spry, Snare Books, snarebooks.wordpress.com

English Zine:

Four Minutes To Midnight no. 10, www.lokidesign.net/2356
Nailbiter: An Anxiety Zine, www.steemilie.free23.net
Soulgazers, Camilla Wynne, www.endlessbanquet.blogspot.com
Lickety Split no. 7, www.licketysplitzine.com
Mostly True vol.19 issue 7, Bill Daniel, Microcosm Publishing, www.billdaniel.net, www.microcosmpublishing.com
Place Magazine, Winter 08 issue, www.placemag.org

English Comic:

Mourning a lover, Sofeel, myspace.com/sofeel
Welcome to the Dollhouse by Ken Dahl, Microcosm Publishing, www.microcosmpublishing.com
BFF by Nate Beaty, Microcosm Publishing, natebeaty.com, www.microcosmpublishing.com
Hypocrite, Dakota McFadzean, dakota.mcfadzean.googlepages.com
Finding Joy, Luke Ramsey, Anteism Publishing, islandsfold.com
Kieffer #2, Jason Kieffer, jasonkieffer.com

Nominés francophones fanzines :

Trio à emporter, par Kathey Tibo
Gargouillis indigeste #003, www.gargouillis.com
Ffsshmrwlbaouarf par Simon Bossé/ Mille Putois, www.myspace.com/milleputois
Ectropion, collectif de crémation littéraire, www.myspace.com/ectropion
Fanzine sans titre, Geneviève Dumas
Toxico (Fanzine # 3), par Delf Berg, delfberg.blogspot.com

Nominés francophones BD :

Hasemeister : C’était 2007, Frédéric Mahieu, www.hasemeister.com
La terreur noir pâle, C. Reney
Fatima, A. Desmarteaux, Egotrip Productions, www.arthuro.ca
Une aventure de M. Pixel, Étienne Beck, L’Employé du Moi, www.employe-du-moi.org
Chimeris 1: Sirus, Adeline Lamarre, Vaar Éditeur, www.vaar.ca
Humoro Sapiens, Yayo, Les 400 Coups, www.editions400coups.ca

Nominés francophones livres : À venir …

EXPOZINE
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WORDS THE DOG KNOWS excerpted in Geist #71

I love Geist Magazine. And not just because they just published an excerpt of my novel Words the Dog Knows in their latest issue (Winter 2008-2009 #17). No, I love Geist because they picked a particularly odd ball section of the novel to excerpt, a section that speaks to the very core of what the novel is about, a list of rhetorical words the dog-sitter is convinced the dog knows. As they put it over at Geist: “A human interprets the way a dog interprets the world of humans.”

Here are a few words from that list:

home Home is where they keep the kibble. Home is both the origin and the terminus of the walk. Locus of the soundest sleeps, at home all scents are known.

cyberspace The place where people go while dogs are sleeping.

infinity In the time between sleep and waking there is the great nothingness of the nap.

Read the rest on Geist.com: Words Dogs Know

P.S. Another reason why I love Geist is that they published a very short story of mine called Roads out of Rome back in issue #63, two years ago to be precise, that expanded to become one of my favourite sections of Words the Dog Knows. Thanks Geist.
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Words the Dog Knows

Words the Dog Knows, J. R. Carpenter
conundrum press (Montreal)
October 2008
978-1-894994-34-7
Novel
5×7 inches, 168 pages
$15 CDN / US

Words the Dog Knows is now available in many fine bookstores including some of my favorites: Pages, in Toronto, and the Drawn & Quarterly store on Bernard Street in Montreal. The best place to order the book online is from the conundrum press website.

Words the Dog Knows isn’t a story about a dog. It’s a story because of a dog.

Words the Dog Knows Launch Events:

NYC – Thursday October 23, KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street, 7-9 pm
with readings by Karen Russell, Nora Maynard and Corey Frost
more info

Montreal – Friday November 7, Sky Blue Door
5403 B Saint-Laurent, 7-11 pm
also launching: J. R. Carpenter, in absentia
in association with Dare-Dare

Montreal – Sunday November 9, Blizzarts
3956A Saint-Laurent, 8 pm
with Harold Hoefle and Katia Grubisic.

Toronto – Monday November 17, This Is Not A Reading Series
Gladstone Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West, 7:30 pm
also launching: Emily Holton, OUR STARLAND/DEAR CANADA COUNCIL
more info
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Words the Dog Knows is at the printer

At long last my first novel, Words the Dog Knows, is finished. Written, edited, copy edited, laid out, illustrated, proof read, proof read again and sent to the printer. All in just under 10 months! Word on the street is Words will be back from the printer sometime late September / early October. Launch event details are listed below.

Words the Dog Knows is published by conundrum press (Montreal). Here’s what the catalog had to say about it:

J. R. Carpenter’s long-awaited first novel Words the Dog Knows follows the crisscrossing paths of a quirky cast of characters through the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal. Simone couldn’t wait to get out of rural Nova Scotia. In Montreal she buries her head in books about far off places. Her best friend Julie gets her a job in the corporate world. Traveling for business cures Simone of her restlessness. One summer Julie’s dog Mingus introduces Simone to Theo. They move in together. Theo is a man of few words. Until he and Simone get a dog, that is. They set about training Isaac the Wonder Dog to: sit, come, stay. Meanwhile, he has fifty girlfriends to keep track of and a master plan for the rearrangement of every stick in every alleyway in Mile End. He introduces Theo and Simone to their neighbours. He trains them to see the jumbled intimacy of Mile End’s back alleyways with the immediacy of a dog’s-eye-view.

Carpenter writes with humour and directness, melding the emotional precision of her award-winning short fiction with the narrative ingenuity of her pioneering works in electronic literature. The result is a fresh and accessible first novel written and illustrated in the vernacular of the neighbourhood. Cooking smells, noisy neighbours and laundry lines criss-cross the alleyway one sentence at a time.

Words the Dog Knows isn’t a story about a dog. It’s a story because of a dog. Walking with their dog though the same back alleyways day after day, Theo and Simone come to see their neighbourhood – and each other – in a whole new way.

Launch events:

NYC – Thursday October 23, KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street, 7-9 pm
with readings by Karen Russell, Nora Maynard and Corey Frost
more info

Montreal – Friday November 7, Sky Blue Door
5403 B Saint-Laurent, 7-11 pm
also launching: J. R. Carpenter, in absentia
in association with Dare-Dare

Montreal – Sunday November 9, The Green Room
5386 St Laurent, with Harold Hoefle and Katia Grubisic.

Toronto – Monday November 17, This Is Not A Reading Series
Gladstone Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West, 7:30 pm
also launching: Emily Holton, OUR STARLAND/DEAR CANADA COUNCIL
more info
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Words the Dog Knows – Reading at The Yellow Door

This has been the most indoor summer ever, but boy has it been productive. I’ve written a novel. I’m as surprised as you are! It’s called, Words the Dog Knows. It’s not really about the dog. It’s because of the dog. Because of the dog the characters come to see their neighbourhood – and each other – in a whole new way.

It’s almost, almost, almost, but not quite finished, but I’ll be reading excerpts from it anyway at The Yellow Door later this week. Once the book is actually printed, there will launches in Montreal, New York and Toronto. Information about those events will be posted soon. Meantime, here’s the Yellow Door info:

The Yellow Door
POETRY AND PROSE READING
http://www.yellowdoor.org
3625 Aylmer, Montreal (between Pine & Prince Arthur) Tel: 514-398-6243

Thursday, August 28, 2008
Doors open 7:00 pm Reading 7:30 pm At the door $5

J.R. Carpenter is a two-time winner of CBC/QWF Quebec Short Story Competition. Her novel, Words the Dog Knows, is forthcoming from Conundrum Press, fall 2008.

Hugh Hazelton is a poet and translator. His third book of poems, Antimatter, was published with CD by Broken Jaw Press in 2003.

Liam Durcan is a Montreal writer whose novel, Garcia’s Heart, was published in 2007 by McClelland & Stewart.

Rita Donovan Author of six novels & one non-fiction. Her novels have won several awards, among them: CAA/Chapters Award for Fiction, Landed.

Saleema Nawaz’s fiction has been published in Prairie Fire, Grain, & PRISM. Mother Superior (Freehand Books, 2008) is her first short story collection.

Ken Kalman is a poet, playwright, and novelist. Among his publications are a novel, Jesus Loves Me, a play, Defenceless, and Poetry of the Jews.

Laura Golden is author of a poetry book, Laura’s Garden, 1978-2007. Artist, Reiki master, art therapist. From Now On, and Loneliness (Baico Publishing).

Tony Robinson-Smith is author of Back in 6 Years (Goose Lane Editions, 2008): In his first book, adventurer Tony circles the planet by land and sea.

Milton Dawes was one of the seven drummers who started the Tam-Tam drumming on the mountain.

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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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The Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1

THE CAPE – a recent web art fiction – has been included in the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1, edited by N. Katherine Hayles, Nick Montfort, Scott Rettberg, and Stephanie Strickland, now available in CD-ROM format and online: http://collection.eliterature.org/

The Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1 features 60 digital literary works by: Jim Andrews, Ingrid Ankerson, babel, Giselle Beiguelman, Philippe Bootz, Patrick-Henri Burgaud, J.R. Carpenter, John Cayley, M.D. Coverley (Marjorie Luesebrink), Martha Deed, David Durand, escha, Damien Everett, Sharif Ezzat, Edward Falco, Mary Flanagan, Marcel Fr’emiot, Elaine Froehlich, geniwate, Loss Peque~no Glazier, Kenneth Goldmith, Tim Guthrie, Richard Holeton, Daniel C. Howe, Jon Ingold, Shelley Jackson, Michael Joyce, Aya Karpinska, Robert Kendall, Deena Larsen, Kerry Lawrynovicz, Donna Leishman, Bill Marsh, Talan Memmott, Maria Mencia, Judd Morrissey, Brion Moss, Stuart Moulthrop, Jason Nelson, Marko Niemi, Millie Niss, Lance Olsen, Jason Pimble, William Poundstone, Kate Pullinger, Melinda Rackham, Aaron A. Reed, Shawn Rider, Jim Rosenberg, Megan Sapnar, Dan Shiovitz, Emily Short, Alan Sondheim, Brian Kim Stefans, Reiner Strasser, Dan Waber, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Rob Wittig, Nanette Wylde.

The Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1 is an initiative of the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO), a non-profit organization established in 1999 to promote and facilitate the writing, publishing, and reading of electronic literature, headquartered at The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, College Park: http://eliterature.org
THE CAPE
AUTOSTART – A Festival of Digital Literature – will celebrate the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1 in a series of workshops, discussions, readings and jams at the Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA on October 26 & 27, 2006: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/autostart.html

WARNING: Cape Cod is a real place, but the events and characters of THE CAPE are total fiction. The photographs have been retouched. The diagrams are not to scale. Don’t believe everything you read: http://Luckysoap.com/thecape
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Hennessey’s High Pasture

Hennessey's High Pasture
My short story, Hennessey’s High Pasture, appears in The New Quarterly, #98, Waterloo, ON, Spring 2006. This story used to be called The Bayley-Hazen Road. I began writing in 1996, and submitted it to at least a dozen journals since then. I am grateful to every editor who had the good sense to reject it before it was ready. My thanks to the Trautz family, for helping start the story off; to Jenn Goodwin, first reader; Amy Hempel, generous reader; and Kim Jernigan, The New Quarterly editor who turned up at end of the old Bayley-Hazen Road.

Excerpt from Hennessey’s High Pasture:

“Most nights the dogs and I walk up to Hennessey’s high pasture. You can see the whole King’s County from up there. Even when it’s dark you feel it, the earth curving away from you. But I’m not ready yet. I smoke a cigarette. No matter which way I hold it, the smoke blows toward Earl.”

J. R. Carpenter
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The Very Short Story 101

So two fiction writers walk into a bar. That’s not the opening line of a joke, that’s just what fiction writers do. They walk into a bar. Now if they haven’t slept with each other yet they might engage in some witty flirting. If they have slept with each other already or are sleeping with a friend of a friend or secretly hate each other or each other’s writing or have written reviews of each other’s work, some awkward editorializing might be required. But basically, two fiction writers walk into a bar, they drink an alarming amount, there’s chemistry or there’s competition, and eventually one will turn to the other and ask: So, who have you been reading lately?

In January 2006 Mike Bryson, editor of the Toronto-based web journal The Danforth Review, asked 27 Canadian writers what curriculum they would bring to class, if they were asked to teach an introductory level course, The Short Story 101. I’ve never taken an introductory level course on the short story let alone taught one, so I don’t know what makes a good curriculum. Not all of the 27 lists listed on TDR read like curriculum. Some seem like maybe they were compiled to impress fiction writers in bars. But maybe that’s just me.

I used to hate to read short stories. Then I found out I write very short stories, which isn’t quite the same. Anyone signing up for “The Very Short Story 101” would probably be better off just reading poetry. Chances are I’ll never be an English teacher, not with that attitude. But the next time I walk into a bar with a fiction writer, here are some of the authors, stories, or groups of stories that I’ll try and squeeze into the conversation:

Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphoses”
Isaac Babel, “Red Calvary”
Gogol, “The Overcoat”
Chekov, “The Kiss”
James Joyce, “The Dead”
Angela Carter, “The Bloody Chamber”
Haruki Murakami, “The Elephant Vanishes”
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Grace Paley, “The Small Disturbances of Man”
Cynthia Ozick, “The Shawl”
Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”
Barbara Gowdy, “We so Seldom Look on Love”
Anne Carson, “Short Talks”
Lydia Davis, “Almost No Memory”
Mark Richard, “Strays”
Joy Williams, “Honored Guest”
Ron Carlson, “Towel Season”
Lisa Moore, “Open”
Greg Hollingshead, “The Roaring Girl”

So, who have you been reading lately?
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Lust for Life Launch Tonight

I’ll be reading “The Prettiest Teeth” tonight at the Montreal launch of Lust for Life: Tales of Sex and Love at the Sergent Recruteur (4801 St-Laurent, corner Villeneuve).

The event will begin at 7:30 p.m., and will feature readings by contributers: Matthew Anderson, J.R. Carpenter, Tess Fragoulis, Harold Hoefle, Nairne Holtz, Neil Kroetsch, Mark Paterson, Neil Smith, and Barry Webster.

See you there!
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