Building and Re-Building Community: Conversations at the Read Quebec Book Fair

The Read Quebec Book Fair, photo via AELAQ

On November 3rd and 4th, the 8th annual Read Quebec Book Fair transformed Concordia’s McConnell Atrium into a warmly lit, buzzing market for English-language books, magazines, and translations. The event series is organized by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec (AELAQ) in partnership with the Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF).  Publishers with a stall at the book fair included Maisonneuve, Drawn and Quarterly, Metonymy Press, Vehicule Press, Concordia University Press, and many more. The book fair represented the diversity of the anglophone literary scene in Quebec, showcasing a multitude of voices, styles, and genres as well as making space for emerging writers and publishers. The attendees were not only able to peruse titles and make purchases, but also to form connections with local writers, publishers, and translators in an intimate setting. The space was alive with conversations about old favourites and new discoveries. 

In addition to the market, the book fair also offered a series of public literary events. On the first afternoon, the eight finalists for the Quebec Writers’ Federation Spoken Word Prize did live performances of their work. Nour Abi-Nakhoul from Maisonneuve, Leigh Nash from Assembly Press, and journalist Adam Leith Gollner spoke about how to “Perfect Your Pitch” for those interested in non-fiction and magazine writing. Billy Mavreas gave a workshop to children on how to create their own comic strips and write postcards to their future selves. Catherine Hernandez—Toronto-based author of Scarborough, Crosshairs, and The Story of Us—also participated in the book fair this year. She took part in a conversation with Linda M. Morra and author Eva Crocker for the live podcast recording of Getting Lit with Linda. She also attended the screening of the film adaptation of her novel Scarborough, an event co-sponsored by Image+Nation Queer Culture, Montreal’s queer film festival, and the queer reading series Violet Hour. 

It is clear that the Read Quebec Book Fair emerges from a web of collaborations and seeks to create and maintain ties within Montreal’s anglophone literary community. I had the pleasure of speaking with Rebecca West, executive director of AELAQ, as well as Catherine Hernandez. We discussed the significance of public literary festivals, the opportunities and challenges of various storytelling mediums, and issues around representation. 

West remarked that the Read Quebec Book Fair started as a holiday book fair: “The initial thinking was to offer publishers a way to connect with their readers ahead of the holiday gift-giving season, which is the biggest book-buying time of the year across the country.” However, attendees started to value the book fair for how it helps them navigate the Quebec English-language literary landscape and, accordingly, the organizers’ objectives have transformed since its inception. The timing of the book fair has also shifted further back from the holiday season, landing on what is for many a rather challenging time of year with the fall semester in full swing and the people of Montreal adjusting to the loss of daylight, colour, and warmth outside. However, it is during these periods that occasions for community building offer the most solace. “It’s still a nice opportunity to get gifts a bit earlier.” said West, “but mostly, it’s a really beautiful opportunity for publishers and authors to connect directly with their readers and have conversations with them. We do have such a nice English-language literary community in Montreal. That’s my favourite thing about the fair.” 

Linda M.. Morra and Catherine Hernandez recording Getting Lit with Linda, photo via AELAQ

The book fair also responds to the challenges faced by the local literary community. Local publishers and booksellers have a limited reach compared to larger presses and corporate distributors and are often squeezed out by the latter. Long-form cultural magazines are shuttering left and right, or otherwise struggling to survive because of limited—and, sometimes precarious—funds. The increased cost of living makes it more difficult for writers to devote time to their creative practice, let alone to engage with their audiences, and our cultural habits are also increasingly algorithmically siloed and directed away from local writing. Visibility alone is not a solution to these problems, but it is nonetheless important for maintaining the relevance of local publishing.

West also points out more specific challenges to the English-language literary community in Quebec: “There’s something to be said about maintaining and strengthening ties in the English-language literary community, especially when we’re seeing what feel like threats to the strength of the community – whether it’s tuition hikes for out-of-province students that have just been announced, or new language laws that are limiting access to services for English-language folks. Our mission, at its core, is always about promoting books but, as part of that, we’re strengthening ties within the community.”

Hernandez also foregrounded the value of having real-life encounters with writers at a time when many of our engagements with literature take place online. She suggested that online forums can, at times, encourage impulsive, rigid reviews of literary works rather than thoughtful discussions of how these texts function and connect with the wider world.  “[I love the way] that a festival allows people to be in the same space and see each other’s humanity,” she says, “It also gives me the opportunity to read the book [out loud] because there is always this oral aspect to my work that comes from having worked in theater and now in film.”

In our discussion and throughout the book fair, Hernandez gestured to what is distinctive about different kinds of storytelling—literature, theater, film—as well as how one can experiment with their boundaries. “I think a major thing you’ll see from Crosshairs onwards is that I always try to name the audience,” she tells me. “In theater, that’s really a common practice… In Crosshairs, the reader is addressed as the long-lost lover of a character named Kay. In The Story of Us, they are spoken to as Liz, the elderly client of the protagonist MG… In naming the audience, you are almost saying ‘you’re part of this journey’… It also just helps you understand why you are being told this story now. It doesn’t take the reader for granted. I love the immediacy of it. I don’t know if I’m going to use this technique in all of my books but, for me, it’s really a call back to my theater roots.” 

The Read Quebec Book Fair, photo via AELAQ

Hernandez also described adapting her novel to film as a way of revising and reimagining the text, with members of the cast and crew bringing in their own interpretations of the story. “What is so beautiful about filmmaking is that it’s not just you. You’re collaborating with a whole bunch of different energies. There were 300 people who touched this film to make it a success. That means that they are bringing their artistry into the work and bringing it to life in a way I never believed was possible.” At the same time, she describes learning to account for the financial expense of making creative decisions in film and television: “If I make a change in my book—a location change, a character change—it doesn’t cost anything. Whereas in film and television, when you make creative choices, it could cost thousands. Something I didn’t truly understand right away when I was writing the screenplay was how my decisions were going to impact the budget.” While financial limits are particularly decisive in film and television, Hernandez reminds us to examine the material conditions (money, resources, space) that enable and limit art. 

Hernandez also spoke about her reckoning with performative inclusion within literary institutions. In recent years, there has been a trend of many of these institutions using their publicly stated commitment to diversity merely as window dressing. “I don’t think people who considered themselves allies really understood that when you give QTBIPOC a space at the table, you actually have to listen to what they are saying and maybe change the DNA of your organization in a progressive direction. A lot of organizations were not willing to do that.” In particular, Hernandez takes issue with the way that racialized people who are included in the fold are implicitly and, sometimes explicitly, asked to be understated about their politics. However, she believes herself to be surrounded by writers who do not acquiesce to these demands: “I definitely am part of a beautiful, burgeoning community of QTBIPOC authors who are not afraid to be a bit more brazen with their politics and to tell undertold or untold stories of Canada. When we’re in a world where storytellers are being silenced when they speak about genocide and [advised] instead to appear neutral in situations [of injustice].” Hernandez was a crucial voice at the Read Quebec Book Fair; she sees the importance of not only celebrating the literary community but also critically (and bravely) responding to the institutional challenges encountered by storytellers. 

Oftentimes our engagement with literature tends to be solitary; we read alone at home, at a cafe, or in our offices. The Read Quebec Book Fair represents an occasion to engage with books collectively. Moreover, through talks, panels, and workshops, it offers much-needed space for reflection about reading and writing: what are the lenses through which we can understand a work of literature? How do literary works resonate with ongoing issues in our world? How can we present our work to publishers so that we can reach our audiences? How can we utilize different modes of storytelling? What is standing in the way of meaningful representation? These sorts of conversations are essential in facilitating in-depth engagements with literature, and for ensuring that our literary communities are viable and constantly evolving. 

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AELAQ

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Aishwarya Singh is a culture writer based in Montreal. 

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Featured Articles

Your Canon is Dead: Exploring Trickhouse Press and Virtual Oasis

Front cover of Virtual Oasis. Designed by Dan Power

When I think about the future, I admittedly drift to something ominous. Today’s youth must concern themselves with disenchanting realities: the rise of hyper-capitalist overlords, crises and collapses in every corner of the world… it’s easy to feel jaded with what could be.

But the future has also brought new opportunities for innovation, for tomorrow’s visionaries to tear it down and start anew. This era of interconnectivity can breed possibility and creativity like never before. This is the philosophy that guides Trickhouse Press, an online indie publishing press – particularly with their collection Virtual Oasis, a “dream shared between machines both fleshy and fibre-optic”.

Trickhouse Press and the Defense of “Weird Work”

Trickhouse Press is the brainchild of Dan Power, a Lancaster-based creative who takes inspiration from the gaps he longs to fill in the publishing industry. Trickhouse was founded during the UK’s lockdown in July of last year. Power notes that the press’ goals are “...to offer high-quality books at low costs, to treat each book as an object in itself, and to try and upset the stodgy UK poetry establishment by dropping books which are risky, playful, inventive, and wilfully going against tradition and convention.” 

One principle of the press is that its only physical components are the publications themselves – submissions, sales and promotions occur entirely online using their webpage and Twitter. “I like the idea of these objects coming out of the ether,” Power shares, “like the digital has transferred into the real world when usually it's the other way around.” These relations between the digital and the physical are of key interest to the press, both thematically and in operations.

Each Trickhouse publication is treated as its own entity, bearing no resemblance to other releases and with no universal stylings for publishing design or format. Each publication carries its own creative philosophy and purpose. As Power puts it, “...each book is treated as a project in itself, and not like another gem in the press' crown.”

Front cover of Sticker Poems. Designed by SJ Fowler

Power is committed to taking the attitudes and processes of today’s creative outlets and flipping those on their head. “I want the press to be a space where weird work can be treated as something other than a novelty,” he explains, “and put on a level footing with the rest of the contemporary canon.” His perspective is inspiring, and much-needed on the scene – creative experimentation is not a cultural phase, but a longstanding and respectable tradition.

Power also expresses that the press holds a deep appreciation for aesthetics, and how “...visual culture forces language to adapt.” Trickhouse aims to “...stretch the definition of a poem as far as it can [go] by playing into the visual properties of the words as much as their meaning or contents.” He offers i know god is watching by Crispin Best as an example – a ludicrous collection of Minion memes accompanied by existentially-strained musings. These memes, a dialect within the digital language of boomers, are re-examined as vessels concealing the heaviest weights of the collective psyche. If this sounds ridiculous, yet believable, good – Trickhouse has delivered on its promises.

The first season of Trickhouse Press’ publications. Photo courtesy of Dan Power

Virtual Oasis: A Human-AI Anthology

Building off of these values and goals is Virtual Oasis, a poetry collection published by Trickhouse Press this past April. 

Virtual Oasis is primarily an exercise in ekphrastic poetry, with human writers taking creative direction from AI-generated photographs and compositions. Creative submissions came from across the UK, representing contemporary scenes in Glasgow, Lancaster, London, and a few places in between. Power observes that “...the poems [in Virtual Oasis] tend to be more conventional, although the variety of the approaches ... and previously untapped source material allow [the work] to feel fresh and striking.” It humours me, how I underestimated these adjectives.

Going into my review of the collection, it was made clear that every stylistic choice in Virtual Oasis serves a purpose and warrants consideration, further obscuring the boundaries between human and artificial intelligence. The main idea is to suggest something far more reciprocal than AI as a source of creative inspiration – AI is in itself a creator, capable of mutual exchange and possibility.

The cover design of Virtual Oasis is a callback to cyberculture, with a Windows 95 WordArt banner and a shore of vaporwave gridlines. While this aesthetic hit its peak years ago, I interpret its purpose (and that of the title) as something precursory to comfort the reader with technological memories. I feel stretched between visuals of the near-past and approaches of the near-future, leaving me with a sense of disorientation that fits perfectly with the freefall of what’s to come.

AI-generated image for “to the woman on the Zoom open mic who started crying” by Rhiannon Auriol. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

A first look inside leads to a subverted oasis. All images for the collection were taken from artbreeder.com, a machine learning-based art website that relies on the ‘remixing’ of existing database images to generate new––and increasingly obscure––creations.

Cross-bred mutant pigs stand with assertion amongst a floating pool of sea anemones. What appears to be both a bird and a banana gapes at me from the depths of a sapphire sea, because why not? I am fascinated by the simultaneous freedom and limitation involved in deciphering this imagery. Does this technology ruminate on failures and successes in the name of creativity? Do the authors?

Regarding the collection’s typeface, Power notes a deeper consideration:

“The font was chosen to resemble code text, since in this anthology the poems function in the same way as lines of code - just as code was read and processed by a computer to generate the images we see on one page, the poems are read and processed by a human reader to generate mental images on the other. In this way, the distinction between artificial and natural intelligence is called into question, as the reader is asked to perform the exact same task as the AI.”

This reflection weighs heavy on my sleepy brain. Let’s see what this reader can accomplish.

AI-generated image for “Leaving is a sense of breaking contract” by Naomi Morris. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

Flipping through the collection, the reader is subjected to the same system crashes faced by technology. I naturally––unintentionally––fixate on the pieces that my brain can make sense of, but every passage is worth the mental exercise. 

Accompanied by a knock-kneed girl with distorted attire, Naomi Morris’ piece “Leaving is a sense of breaking contract” describes personal habits of independence and detachment. I take comfort in its relevance and the synergy of this collaboration.

Matthew Whitton’s “from [ ] [ ] of what remains, With little else [ ] [ ] who complains?” stems from what appears to be a tilted desk lamp illuminating crimson-red walls. This postmodernist piece situates the function of a poem as a lighthouse meant to both highlight and obfuscate literary messages:

“...and what is our purpose, of course, but to say this: that the poem illuminates, without necessarily clarifying, the stream of revolution, which is, at once, an overturning and returning, and our metaphor of the lighthouse, therefore, is not a happy accident or the smug self- assurance of the perfect image; no, it is at work in the poem itself: steadfast, reliable, the light alights always on the same point, but always in motion…”

AI-generated image for “from [ ] [ ] of what remains, With little else [ ] [ ] who complains?” by Matthew Whitton. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

In fact, it is more fulfilling to make one’s way through the thickest fogs of experimentalism that the collection deploys. These entries revel in the syntax errors, ensuring speculation and deep reflection between reader and artist. Somewhere in the contents of James Knight’s “Drone” is commentary on modern technology’s ever-changing forms and functions. This piece is inspired by a similarly chaotic corruption on the AI’s behalf, involving an almost-collage of a disfigured entity strolling through clouds.

Visual Oasis has not done enough to dissolve my skepticism of artificial intelligence – but fortunately, that is not its intention. The collection pushes boundaries and challenges the mind to meta-rationalize its definitions of artistic merit; it prepares us for the future and appeals to our past. Virtual Oasis rejoices in the imperfections of both man and machine, delivering a coherent collection that only sometimes makes sense.

AI-generated image for “Drone” by James Knight. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

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VIRTUAL OASIS

An anthology of human-AI responses

Edited by Dan Power

Trickhouse Press

Lancaster

April 2021

Featuring the creative work of Alex George, Calum Rodger, Dan Power, Denise Bonetti, Emma Bolland, James Knight, Kirsty Dunlop, Maria Sledmere, Mary Clements, Matthew Haigh, Matthew Whitton, Max Parnell, Memoona Zahid, Naomi Morris, Nasim Luczaj, Rhiannon Auriol, Robin Boothroyd, Sam Riviere, Sameeya Maqbool, Scott Lilley, SJ Fowler, T. Person, and Vik Shirley.

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Trickhouse Press

Website | Twitter

Rebecca L. Judd (she/they) is the features editor of Also Cool Mag. She writes and creates out of her studio apartment in Ottawa, kept company by vivid dreams and a cuddly grey kitty named Dora.

This interview was conducted over email, and has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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Olive Andrews Shares "I’m trying to tell you" From Three-Part Poetry Series

Artwork by Olivia Meek AKA Regularfantasy

I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier 

and boiling the kettle and forgetting the tea 

but the floor is warm and I have my lemon shampoo 

there was one day in the spring 

I poured the booze down the drain and put the bottle by the window in the light 

do you remember the night I was up sick 

and feeling very by myself and quiet 

afraid to text I thought you’d be sleeping 

and now you’re here 

and being alone doesn’t fill my brain like that 

as a child to relax I’d imagine 

taking each bone from my body and giving it a good scrub gently pushing it back into place 

but how impossible it is to do everything right 

creating space in my spine is a nice thought 

and really that’s all 

except there’s something right about trying to do better so I try to do better 

and boil the kettle 

Previously published in rock salt, baseline press 2020

Via Olive Andrews

Olive Andrews (they/them) is a poet living in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). Instagram I Twitter

This is the third of three poems they have shared via Also Cool. Their work has been published in a number of magazines, including PRISM International and Plasma Dolphin. Their debut chapbook, rock salt, was published with Baseline press in 2020. They are currently interning at Canthius mag.

Artwork by Olivia Meek AKA Regularfantasy Instagram I Paintings I Design

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Olive Andrews Shares "orange glow" From Three-Part Poetry Series

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I spent all night in the bathroom pissing blood and crying

everything painted bright blue even the hardware

and the fan whirring

if I wanted I could give it all up

be hooked by a finger over my bottom teeth

and pulled liked a fish

in the morning now the wind whistles

I’m in the waiting room still bundled and

fantasizing about being picked up

and falling asleep in the car

what would I look like stripped of everyone I love

would the light through the curtain still glow orange

it doesn’t matter we’re all spun together in the washing machine

turning our whites pink

Previously published in rock salt, baseline press 2020

Via Olive Andrews

Olive Andrews (they/them) is a poet living in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). Instagram I Twitter

This is the second of three poems they’ll be sharing via Also Cool. Olive’s work has been published in a number of magazines, including PRISM International and Plasma Dolphin. Their debut chapbook, rock salt, was published with Baseline press in 2020. They are currently interning at Canthius mag.

Artwork by Olivia Meek AKA Regularfantasy Instagram I Paintings I Design

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Olive Andrews Shares "loneliness moments" From Three-Part Poetry Series

Artwork by Olivia Meek AKA Regularfantasy

loneliness moments

stir the cardamom into your tea and wait

think about weyes blood all day

love yourself silly

all the energy you’ve been searching for

in spring it’s early morning always

you’re out walking

hoping someone will tell you something

dark and heavy

you can sit with for a while

a song comes on about longing

go to a coffee shop and waste the afternoon away

writing nothing in your journal

just watching the pen needle loop

calling landlords

surprised when they’re expecting you

someone says hey three times you realize they’re

talking to you

blocking off the hallway

talking about endings

wondering when they’ll be real to you

the power’s out and it’s exciting

just you and the wood floor and the wind whistling

your boyfriend breathing heavy and the table shaking

finding warmth under duvet

peeling tape up from cardboard

turn your phone off for an hour

wishing the plums were sour

enough to make you pucker

it’s okay until your roommates leave for the weekend

just you and your cat running laps

the frantic dep employee

the neighbour you spot on your walk home from groceries

long enough to remember being 18 again

wrapped up in bed all day

you could have died in that apartment

no one would have noticed

Via Olive Andrews

Olive Andrews (they/them) is a poet living in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). Instagram I Twitter

This is the first of three poems they’ll be sharing via Also Cool. Their work has been published in a number of magazines, including PRISM International and Plasma Dolphin. Their debut chapbook, rock salt, was published with Baseline press in 2020. They are currently interning at Canthius mag.

Artwork by Olivia Meek AKA Regularfantasy Instagram I Paintings I Design

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Elsasoa Jousse Shares "Mother" from Poetry Series "When Mom Is Gone"

Illustration by Reilly Webster

“Mother” is the second poem from the collection When Mom Is Gone by Montreal-based multimedia artist Elsasoa Jousse. In the author’s words, the series focuses on themes of “craving, losing, and then finding motherhood.” Read the piece “Mother,” and keep an eye out for her following works to be released as a short series in the coming weeks.

Illustration by Reilly Webster

- - -

Mother

She should have been her home,

Her shoulder to cry on

When, in time, she would realise the horrors of this world,

But her initiation came earlier

And by the end of it, no shoulder was left for either of them.

It wasn't simply murder,

It was visceral, cold-blooded slaughter.

To kill this senseless, innocent creature,

A child, with no sense of good and bad,

But so young exposed to such extremities...

She could not stay pure so long,

Bathing in her suffering,

Her mother's gift,

A gift for them both.

As God pleasured herself in her twisted humour,

A pleasant shriek sprung from her belly.

Oh, what thrill in that shrill voice!

The joy of creation balanced by its destruction.

They had no power, no power at all to endure this life,

But it is now her duty

To bear the memory

Of her own atrocity.

Elsasoa Jousse is a multimedia artist from France and Madagascar based in Montreal, Canada. Her main interests are poetry, spoken word, music production, and DJing under the name NGL Flounce. Her narrative and lyrical poems form nuanced sketches of self-reflection, loss, sexuality, culture, cycles of life and earth, and the critique of Eco-Fascism.

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