Back by popular demand, This Really Happened returns to the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, on April 26th at the Opus Hotel in Montreal. Come hear stories about reinventions, reincarnations, and major rewrites. Get your tickets early as last year’s event sold out!
Read MoreLes Nombrilistes hire a Frenchman named Didier to translate your Mile End novel, The Fractured Hipster. Sadly, Didier has never set foot in Montreal.When Le branché débranché comes out, your young protagonist, Julian, buys his cigarettes chez l’Arabe, goes out with a nana, wears pull-overs and baskets, washes his clothes at a pressing, and eats myrtilles and pastèque. He swears by yelling, “Putain de merde!”
Read MoreThis is the third installment in a series of 11 audio poems collectively known as "The Benjy Poems," written and directed by Benjamin Hackman, and produced and engineered by Craig Saltz.
Read MoreThis is the second installment in a series of 11 audio poems collectively known as "The Benjy Poems," written and directed by Benjamin Hackman, and produced and engineered by Craig Saltz.
Read MoreThis is the first installment in a series of 11 audio poems collectively known as "The Benjy Poems," written and directed by Benjamin Hackman, and produced and engineered by Craig Saltz.
Read MoreJoel Yanofsky on finding a theme for his autistic son's Bar Mitzvah.
Read MorePaul McAdams on facing death in a golf cart at a closed Gaza border crossing.
Read MoreCongratulations to Heather Davis on winning the 2012 3Macs carte blanche Prize!
Read MoreListen to Michael Hornburg's story on how his children forever changed his relationship to Remembrance Day.
Read More"Paper Person Gets Cheered Up" was created by Meg Ragauskas, a student at Westmount High School. This is the third in a series of three photo essays created by students in Miss Iulia Tripa's art class at Westmount High.
Read More"We Don't Want Bullies" was created by Anne Huang, Dristy Barua, Van Nhi Dang, and Rong Xie, all students at Westmount High School. This is the second in a series of three photo essays created by students in Miss Iulia Tripa's art class at Westmount High.
Read More"Fruit Zombie" was created by Kane Rodriguez-Tait, Jarad McFarlane, Justin Winikoff, and Evelyn Richardson-Haughey, all students at Westmount High School. This is the first in a series of three photo essays created by students in Miss Iulia Tripa's art class at Westmount High.
Read MoreWe’re thrilled to announce that carte blanche’s storytelling series, This Really Happened (TRH), is coming to WordFest in Calgary on October 9, 2012!Featured performers include: Calgary’s Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor, expat American and father of a Canadian war hero Michael Hornburg, puppeteer and educator Candace Ford-Taperek, memoirist Deni Y. Béchard, global adventurer Marcello di Cintio, and the journalist and author Noah Richler.
Read MoreI married a schizophrenic man to fly. Right out of that homeless shelter on Beaver Street, the one tucked so low and in between Duane Reade and the Sanitation Department you’d hardly notice it even with its burgundy door. It was sleeping on pavement moments that uncorked me. One night of that and I dropped in to the drop-in centre. That’s what they’re calling them now. Two days homeless and he put his hand in mine. He’s all tornado and moan. He’s hearing voices and I wipe sweat off his temples. I want to grab my hand back, he’s a street guy, a vaquero, a younger guy, a muchacho malo. I don’t. I keep my hand there and he steals indiscriminately from my future.
Read MoreAt our secret lake the smell of cedars floated on the air, water lapped at a fallen tree, sun warmed the towels we spread on a huge rock. When we went there, we’d lie around in our old pilly swimsuits, or nothing, and not worry about sucking in our stomachs or making conversation. The day washed over us. One time, after a dip in the lake, George asked me, “What’s the opposite of déjà vu?”
Read MoreI am the daughter who left
Pacing father and busied mother
Staring out the window on the front door of yesterday
Watching as leaves fall
They look for my footprints in the grass
Parched
They sit in their tubewell
Creative nonfiction is the term of choice these days. It certainly didn’t start that way, and there are still several other ways of referring to “that way of writing” which readers might also be familiar with: literary nonfiction, literary journalism, narrative prose, you get the idea. We’re trying to find a way to nail this baby, the “baby” being, in the short form of the definition, the application of literary techniques to documentary material.
Read More“Nine kegs of nails” was told by Trevor Ferguson at our storytelling evening, This Really Happened, on April 19, 2012 at the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in Montreal.
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