Chicago doesn't disappoint me. I never have the feeling, as I do when I visit New York, that I have missed out on some tantalizing place that has vanished only recently. Chicago's heydays seem so distant, it's as though there is nothing to lament.
Read MoreYes, it's true! carte blanche and the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society have teamed up to bring you a Canada-wide creative nonfiction contest. The winner will receive $500 and her/his text will be published in carte blanche. The winner will be announced in 2014.
Read MoreWhen I was a teenager, I was in a cult. It started at the Mall. There was a novelty store called Natural Wonders where my best friends and I spent all of our time. We latched onto a kindred spirit, Josh, a twenty-something employee who humored us to the point of jeopardizing his minimum-wage job on several occasions.
Read MoreIt's almost not thereBerlin builds, forgets itself.Ost: A bitter pils
Read MoreSecrets make great stories. I think I understood this even as a child, when during dinner parties, I liked to sit under the dining room table. If I sat long enough, the guests forgot I was there… and then I’d hear the best stories, ones not meant for a little girl’s consumption.
Read MoreSitting in front of a laptop with a digital drawing pad at his side, Gruber asks for a volunteer from the audience to do an improvised animation of their psychic spirit. A contemporary dancer from the front row steps up, and Gruber asks him to choose a background and foreground color from the computer’s colour wheel. He begins to doodle, narrating as he goes along.
Read MoreI know the psychoanalysts among us may find this a bit disconcerting, but I’ve been thinking a lot about poor, old Oedipus these days. It’s not Freudian, at least, for my parents’ sake, I hope it’s not; but there is a deeply seated mix of admiration and jealousy at work here. You see, when I think about Oedipus, I think about Sophocles, and when I think about Sophocles, I picture a figure I think I can understand: a writer with a deadline, trying to pull something together in time to make the cut for the annual drama competition in Athens in 429 BC.
Read MoreI asked new media artist (and friend) Frances Adair Mckenzie if I could join her in her studio. Pedaling through the plateau, the bustling streets gave way to empty ones lined with boxy concrete condos and towering buildings full of studio space.
Read MoreThis is the seventh 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 MoreWhat German I knowIs from movies and Karl MarxSo: Arbeiter, Schnell!
Read MoreMichelle Syba tells the story of how a hike in the Mexican jungle made her rethink her faith. She told her story live at This Really Happened at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival on April 26, 2013.
Read MoreJeff Gandell tells the story of how he came to believe that losing his virginity would help him stop losing his hair. He told his story live at This Really Happened at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival on April 26, 2013.
Read MoreArrive at eveningMen urinate by the SeineNotre Dame looms dark
Read MoreJoshua Levy tells the story of how his fear of a turtle helped him learn to swim. He told his story at This Really Happened at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival on April 26, 2013.
Read MoreJust here, GenevaGood food makes me weep sadlySo f*ck you, Nashville
Read MoreThis is the sixth 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 MoreMatt Goldberg tells the story of a surprising outcome of a rite of passage. He told his story live at This Really Happened at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival on April 26, 2013.
Read MoreIn the wake of the 10th anniversary of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, I declare that there is a new stereotype in town. Wait! I know, stereotypes are bad… But hear me out with this one, if only to curse me with accurate citations when you’re done reading.
Read More
