introducing our new team members!
We are pleased to introduce three new members to our masthead! Caite McNeil is our new Creative Nonfiction Editor, Laura Mota-Juang is our new Outreach and Events Organizer, and Ashton Diduck is our new Communications Manager. They have already begun work on issues 48 and 49.
Communications Manager: Ashton Diduck
I first fell in love with carte blanche when we were all feeling most disconnected. Being able to come together in an online space meant that anyone from anywhere could connect over the same body of work. I’ve often returned to pieces I’ve loved from past issues, or sent them to friends, because of how accessible the magazine is. Being able to join the team feels so special, because I get to contribute to these points of connection. As Communications Manager, I am so excited to, not only continue to support the wide network surrounding carte blanche, but also, expand our community even further.
Ashton Diduck is a queer writer currently residing in Tiohtià:ke. He graduated from the Honours English and Creative Writing program at Concordia University in 2023. You can find previously published work in New Note Poetry, carte blanche, or forthcoming in Montreal Review of Books and The Capilano Review. @scumb0yyy on Instagram.
Creative Nonfiction Editor: Caite McNeil
What an honor it is to read and edit carte blanche’s creative nonfiction. Thank you, in advance, for trusting me with your work.
carte blanche knows there’s more than one way to tell a story, and in the world of creative nonfiction, form is what makes stories compelling. Give me your hybrid, your genre-bending, your lyrical, or tell it to me straight. I hope to be surprised by the tales, but also by the telling. Like the entire editorial team at carte blanche, I am committed to elevating marginalized and underrepresented voices, and am interested in the work of both established and emerging writers. I am a reader, writer and editor of nonfiction, but most of all, I am a champion of nonfiction, and of the people who dare to write it. It’s writing that bends and stretches to the limits of human expression, which, I suppose, is why we need it.
Caite McNeil is a writer of nonfiction and graphic nonfiction from Midcoast Maine, where she lives with her husband, young child, and little dog (read: muse). She is the Editor Emerita for The Stonecoast Review and is a former Middle and High School English teacher with a Masters in Education, and a Masters in Fine Arts from Stonecoast MFA. Her work has been published in The Tahoma Review, carte blanche, Mutha Magazine, Flyway Literary Journal, riverSedge Journal, The Dewdrop, Speculative Nonfiction, and the Stonecoast Review. She is currently working on a collection of autobiographical comics.
Outreach and Events Organizer: Laura Mota-Juang
Art is an encounter between a piece and a receiver, and how beautiful it is when we can share space to appreciate and think together! I am overjoyed to join carte blanche as Outreach and Events Organizer because I believe in launches and art events as rituals of creating community and sharing enthusiasm. A moment to remind writers that we're not alone in our craft. A physicality intended to introduce new voices and perspectives. As a writer, I treasure that these events make the embodiment of a text necessary. As an attendee, I am delighted to discover the creations of my contemporaries, and I cherish the opportunity to discuss their ideas. In the role of organizer, beyond creating safe spaces, I find it important to create places of belonging where we take time to hear each other. I admire carte blanche's eclectic cosmos; you can expect it to be translated into our physical encounters.
Laura Mota-Juang is a Taiwanese-Brazilian writer, photographer, and shameless experimentalist in other mediums based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. Her poetry has been published by PRISM International, carte blanche, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Her personal essays appeared at Held Magazine and Also Cool Magazine. She is the author of Light Spill (Block Party Press 2023), a chapbook inspired by Physic’s imagination. Laura was a finalist for QWF’s carte blanche Prize in 2023.