I’ll be reading my new short story “Something Important and Delicate” at the launch party for Issue 11 of  carte blanche, the online literary review of the Quebec Writers’ Federation. The launch takes place on Monday, May 17, 7 pm at Kaza Maza, 4629 Parc Avenue.

Clandestine investigative work (checking who else is cc’d in e-mails about the event) has revealed the names of some of the other readers to me, but without any knowledge of confirmations I’ll hold back for now and update later.

Update 5/14/2010

Here’s the list:

Joni Dufour
Julie Mahfood
Abby Paige
Leslie Pasquin
Mara Sternberg
Jeremy Wexler
+ musical guest Sigh Twombly

I know how hurtful it can be to have one’s name put forward without consent. When I was in kindergarten, I modeled in a fashion show fundraiser for the pre-school from which I’d recently graduated (as valedictorian, natch). I caught a glimpse of the list of participants on my way out of the house before school one morning and, upon arriving in class, happily informed fellow alumnus Diana Suter we’d be in a fashion show together. She was mortified and inconsolable, bawling as if I’d just told her we were next up to enter the disintegration chamber. I was thus introduced to the idea of jumping the gun.

More significantly, a few days later, I was introduced to a blue satin baseball-style jacket with a Grease logo patch embroidered on the breast, one of the garments I got to not only model in the fashion show but also dance in. I’m still waiting for life to get that good again.