Editor's Note
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.
This marks the final issue for two members of our masthead: Zoe Shaw and Francine Yulo. Zoe, I want to thank you for your outstanding work as our Managing Editor. You’ve been there as a steady powerhouse, helping steer this magazine during the challenging pandemic years and beyond. You will certainly be missed but we wish you all the best in your new endeavors. Francine, thank you for your enthusiasm and dynamic eye curating the Comics section for us over the past few years. Congratulations on your new position as Marketing and Sales Manager at Drawn & Quarterly! This is not a goodbye but more like we’ll be seeing you soon around Montréal’s eclectic arts and literary community. Adieu and best wishes to you both!
For this issue, we invited contributors to surprise us with narrative and poetic experiments, odd stories, humorous pieces, weird fiction, and the quirky. These were merely suggestions and ultimately left the theme of “Play” up for interpretation and you highly creative folks didn’t disappoint.
The fiction section curated by Liana Cusmano features six stories: a tale touching on performance, magic, and mirrors in “body double shadow puppet” by Trynne Delaney; “Conclave at the Tea Table” by Randal Eldon Greene which takes place from the point of view of four year old Lucy’s Teddy Bear ; “Cemetery Wedding” by Mia Dalia is what you get when you mix ghouls and Brooklyn hipsters; a college graduate about to enter the workforce has a sojourn back home in “Creve Coeur” by Anne Zhang; a pothead is up way past his curfew and has to deal with his stern grandfather in “Jared Dean” by Matthew Wood; and in “Work and Play” by Cora Lewis, a reporter attempts to navigate the challenges of adulting.
For comics, there are nocturnal critters gathered around the dumpster for “Trivia Night” by Daniela Rodriguez Chevalier and “Thought Experiment” by Jake Goldwassera takes a look at what could happen if you remove your brain outside during a thunderstorm. These pieces were selected by Francine Yulo.
Our poetry editor, Veronique Synott, curated seven poems: “What Rings” by Trish Salah is filled with haunting questions; “Take Rain”, a collaborative visual piece by Gary Barwin and Elee Kraljii Gardiner muses on rain; “Winnie-the-Pooh (and friends), a found poem” by Louise Carson takes words from the famous silly old bear and his friends to crafts some thought-provoking reflections; Ennie Gloom weaves “Trephination”, the surgical procedure where a hole is drilled into the skull, as an analogy into her bold and intimate poem; “THE SOUND OF RUNNING WATER, OR WUDU” by Meryem Yildiz reads like a prose poem prayer to water; “Ode to Kindred, The Eternal Hunters” by David Ly is inspired by the video game League of Legends; and “Paper Moon” by Atreyee Gupta evokes a menacing conversion between the speaker and the White Queen from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass.
The creative nonfiction section chosen by Caite McNeil features three pieces: “Parlour Games” is an essay by Sarah Giragosian that takes an evocative look at the motivations and choices made by Marion Crane’s character in Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic Psycho; Kaye Miller’s litany of thanksgivings in “Camp Gratitude” before July wildfires; and “Playtime in Carmella’s Room: A Memoir” by Lena Palacios which is made up of biographical fragments about Paula, including details like how she is able to speak to the spirits of her Elders through TV static.
Photography editor, Shaney Herrmann, curated three poignant photography essays: in “Stills of Play”, artist Emma Vitallo’s shots of a dollhouse constructed by her grandfather is filled with childlike wonder; Oleg Sotnikov’s “Play of the Sun” captures moments of spiritual interplay between the sun and plants; and in “Amidst the devastation, hope still floats”, after their community was devastated by floods, Abubakar Sadiq Mustapha photographed young fishermen experiencing moments of levity.
The translation section selected by Nicola Danby features three pieces: the scientific and playful text “Being an Oak” from Laurent Tillon and translated by Jessica Moore; the whimsical mini stories of “Zoologies” from Laurence Leduc-Primeau and translated by Deborah Ostrovsky; and an excerpt of Noémie Weber’s graphic novel “The World of Lost Animals”, translated by Nadiyah Abdullatif and Thomas Feige.
Kudos to our intrepid team of section editors for their work curating the outstanding pieces that make up this issue. I also want to note that the recipient of the 2024 Fresh Pages Editorial Mentorship, Rachel Chin, worked diligently throughout the summer alongside our departing Managing Editor, Zoe Shaw, to oversee the magazine’s operations and to help with launching this issue as our Managing Editor mentee.
Wrapping up this write-up, I realize that today is Friday the 13th and thankfully nothing particularly spooky has happened. Yet… So I’ll cross my fingers, knock on wood, and take advantage of the sunny, crisp fall-ish weather this weekend while I still can. May you do the same, dear readers, and I wish you happy, playful browsing of carte blanche issue 49. Cheers!
Greg Santos
Editor-in-Chief
carte blanche magazine
Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, September 2024