Issue 49 — carte blanche magazine

There are many ways to tell a story.

Editor's Note

by Greg Santos

As I write this editorial for our second issue of 2024, we are in a period of transition in Montréal. While it’s no longer summer, it’s also not quite officially fall. Mid-September is that whimsical time of the year when pumpkin spice everything is upon us and kitschy Halloween decorations are starting to pop up around our neighbourhoods. With this playful spirit in mind, the carte blanche team and I are thrilled to present the twenty-four “Play” themed fiction, poetry, comics, photography, translation, and creative nonfiction pieces which make up issue 49.

carte blanche magazineSeptember 16, 2024editorial

Thought Experiment

by Jake Goldwasser

Jake Goldwasser is a writer and cartoonist based in New York. His poems have appeared in the New England Review, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. His cartoons and comics regularly appear in the New Yorker.

comicscarte blanche magazineSeptember 15, 2024Jake GoldwasserComment

Trivia Night

by Daniela Rodríguez Chevalier

Originally from Mexico and with a Quebecois pépé, Daniela Rodríguez Chevalier is passionate about film, comix, poetry & hybrid forms, art-making in community, translation, and independent radio.

comicscarte blanche magazineSeptember 14, 2024Daniela Rodriguez ChevalierComment

Parlour Games

by Sarah Giragosian

Before the infamous “shower scene” in Alfred Hitchcock’s horror film Psycho, there’s target practice in the parlour, a sequence that at once grips and baffles me. Why does Marion Crane stay? There are too many red flags: Norman’s rictus of a smile, the sad stitching of the taxidermied raptors, his—cough, cough—hobby of “stuffing things.”

non-fictioncarte blanche magazineSeptember 13, 2024Sarah GiragosianComment

Camp Gratitude

by Kaye Miller

i remember July before the wildfires, when we nestled on the porch beneath clothesline, the dripping of dishrags, and tucked ourselves small between grill and propane tank, waiting for that first tin-roof chime of rain. our team of fifteen, before the campers came, our anticipation, o’ sweet pinewood porch, watching the cap of clouds on the horizon. a ghostly pillar of cumulonimbus, slow gliding into camp.

non-fictioncarte blanche magazineSeptember 12, 2024Kaye MillerComment

Playtime in Carmella’s Room: A Memoir

by Lena Palacios

As a child of the late 70s and 80s, Paula often fell asleep in front of the TV and awakened startled to “snow” or static. She would tempt fate by calling on the demonic spirits of the other side of the white noise like Poltergeist’s little, blonde White girl, Carol Anne.

non-fictioncarte blanche magazineSeptember 4, 2024Lena PalaciosComment

Cemetery Wedding

by Mia Dalia

Of all the many nuisances the Laurel Hill Cemetery’s ghouls have had to cope with over the years—and there had been many, from population booms and busts and the industrial revolution to gentrification, community tree planting projects, vandals, loud mourners, goths, Halloween junkies, junkies in general, etc., etc.—nothing irked them quite as much as hipsters.

fictioncarte blanche magazineSeptember 3, 2024Mia DaliaComment

body double shadow puppet

by Trynne Delaney

While I lay in bed for the seventh day, only rising to shit and piss, eat, drink, and attend to the very most essential animal functions, I became aware of the mirror. It was my ex’s idea to install it there, an obelisk of a thing that took up half the wall, where we could see ourselves on the bed.

fictioncarte blanche magazineSeptember 2, 2024Trynne DelaneyComment

Conclave at the Tea Table

by Randal Eldon Greene

Lucy hugs me close. I am Lucy’s favourite friend. We go everywhere together. She takes me to the store, I attend church with her, and we love to go to parties together. Parties are our favourite.

fictioncarte blanche magazineSeptember 1, 2024Randal Eldon Greene Comment

Work and Play

by Cora Lewis

The first summer after college, I worked as a hostess in a restaurant. The place was open to the street at night, and—as with every place open to the street—rats would run in from trash-laden sidewalks, darting towards the kitchen with its smells.

fictioncarte blanche magazineAugust 31, 2024Cora LewisComment

Jared Dean

by Matthew Wood

Jared Dean was completely fucked. It was way past curfew, and he was high out of his mind. He was more stoned than he’d ever been in his life. Every time he looked up at a streetlight, or a car drove by, there were smeary trails behind them, and he could not stop giggling. He was alone.

fictioncarte blanche magazineAugust 30, 2024Matthew WoodComment

Creve Coeur

by Ann Zhang

There were no couples in Lottie’s Bridal, only my sister and I and, on the opposite side of the rack, a group of teenage girls petting a flowery tulle dress. A blonde girl who laughed louder than her friends snatched the hanger and held it against her neck.

fictioncarte blanche magazineAugust 29, 2024Ann ZhangComment

Amidst the devastation, hope still floats

by Abubakar Sadiq Mustapha

Meet the young fishermen who refuse to let their spirits sink. After their community was ravaged by floods, leaving homes and farmlands submerged in water, these resilient boys found a way to reel in a new sense of purpose.

photographycarte blanche magazineAugust 28, 2024Abubakar Sadiq MustaphaComment

Play of the Sun

by Oleg Sotnikov

These photographs are about the play between the sun and plants. As the sun sinks into the horizon and it shares its last rays before the night, a leaf shifts slightly to follow its light.

photographycarte blanche magazineAugust 27, 2024Oleg SotnikovComment

Stills of Play

by Emma Vitallo

In "Stills of Play," I photographed a dollhouse constructed by my grandfather to create a rich, multi-layered experience that resonates with themes of memory, heritage, and self-discovery. The dollhouse creates a dynamic stage where toy horses and unicorns symbolize childhood memories and familial bonds.

photographycarte blanche magazineAugust 26, 2024Emma VitalloComment

Take Rain

by Gary Barwin and Elee Kraljii Gardiner

Take rain
for example, the glint (in)visible on
dark nights

poetrycarte blanche magazineAugust 25, 2024Gary Barwin, Elee Kraljii GardinerComment

Winnie-the-Pooh (and friends), a found poem

by Louise Carson

‘I only came to oblige. But here I am.’

And ‘You’re the only one who seems to understand –
about tails.’

poetrycarte blanche magazineAugust 24, 2024Louise Carson Comment

Trephination

by Ennie Gloom

“Tell me where it hurts,”
we say in unison,
lying next to each other
in your twin bed.
You insist you must be first,
it’s an emergency.

poetrycarte blanche magazineAugust 23, 2024Ennie GloomComment

Paper Moon

by Atreyee Gupta

would you like tea, the white queen asks,
of course you would because I want some—
come dine with me.

poetrycarte blanche magazineAugust 22, 2024Atreyee GuptaComment

Ode to Kindred, The Eternal Hunters

by David Ly

Death would cast its circle around me leaving little time to decide if the end should enter by way of Wolf’s teeth or upon Lamb’s swift, unwavering light-tipped arrows: both sensed me coming undone as I quivered being their next mark.

poetrycarte blanche magazineAugust 21, 2024David LyComment