Venez travailler pour PME-ART / Come work for PME-ART

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Venez travailler pour PME-ART !
Consultez notre offre d'emploi : Direction générale & production exécutive
Date limite de candidature avec lettre d’intérêt et C.V. : le 10 novembre 2024

Come work for PME-ART:
Read the General Manager & Executive Producer Job Offer
Applications are due by November 10, 2024


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Boycott Indigo

More info at: Boycottindigobooks.com

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Reviews, Press & Events

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Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim is in stores now.


Reviews so far:
Ian Colford in The Seaboard Review
Jean Marc Ah-Sen in Quill & Quire
Alison Manley in The Miramichi Reader
Ariane Fournier in Maisonneuve
Samuel Wise in the Montreal Guardian
H Felix Chau Bradley in the Montreal Review of Books
Greta Rainbow in The Walrus

Press so far:
Writer’s Block at All Lit Up
Possible Politics: A recommended reading list at 49th Shelf
Interview with Open Book

Instagram so far:
booksaredeadly
Adam Ferris
whatithinkaboutthisbook
niknak.tbr.stack
tinamayreads
lindsay_wincherauk
readandbookmarked
leafbyleaf_official
valerier6671
thattmum

Read an excerpt at Send My Love To Anyone.

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Events and Parallel Events

Thurs Sept 19 at 7pm:
MONTREAL LAUNCH with Alexei Perry Cox
at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly

Sun Sept 22 at 1pm:
Frontline Fiction: War and Humanity / Saad T. Farooqi & Jacob Wren
at the Toronto International Festival of Authors

Tues Oct 1 at 7pm:
TORONTO LAUNCH with Malcolm Sutton
at Another Story Bookshop / Eventbrite link

Sat Oct 5 at 11am:
Weaving the Self into Story: An Exploration of Auto-fiction
with Erin Brubacher, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Jacob Wren & Ann Yu-Kyung Choi (Moderator)
at The & Festival, Mississauga

Tues Oct 8 at 7pm:
Sofia Ajram launches COUP DE GRÂCE
in conversation with Jacob Wren
at De Stiil Books

Thurs Oct 10 at 8pm:
Aaron Kreuter's Montreal Launch for Rubble Children
with Jacob Wren and Anita Anand
at Bar NDQ

Sat Oct 19th at 4pm
An afternoon of book launches
Jacob Wren launches Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim
Knut Ove Arntzen launches TEATER I BEVEGELSE
Hordaland Kunstsenter
Bergen, Norway

Wed Oct 23 at 8:30pm:
The Power of Political Prose
with Conor Kerr, Kirsten McDougall, Jacob Wren & Michelle Cyca (Moderator)
at the Vancouver Writers Fest / Waterfront Theatre

Sun Oct 27 at 3:30pm:
The Afternoon Tea
with Myriam J. A. Chancy, Anne Fleming, Conor Kerr, Kirsten McDougall, Claire Messud & Jacob Wren, hosted by Bill Richardson
at the Vancouver Writers Fest / Performance Works

Wed October 30th
Montreal Review of Books Fall Launch
with Amal Elsana Al’hjooj, Arjun Basu & Jacob Wren
at P'tit Ours (formerly Ursa)
Doors at 6:30, readings at 7:00pm

Ask for Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim as your favourite local bookshop or order it directly from the publisher here.

Renee Gladman Symposium

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Very excited to be part of the Renee Gladman Symposium

Porter Square Books: Boston Edition / Thursday, September 5, 2024 - 6:00pm to 9:00pm

RSVP here: https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/renee-gladman-symposium

Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim is available for preorder

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Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim is available for preorder.

Read a long excerpt at Send My Love To Anyone.

And a brief excerpt below:

"I start to think about all the stated reasons for this war and other wars like it. For humanitarian reasons (every time an expensive humanitarian bomb landed on civilians, it was enough to turn even the most optimistic Pollyanna into a hardened cynic). To fight communists. To fight terrorists. To stop the spread of communism or terrorism or extremism or something else. To help people. To improve the lot of women. Because we’re right and they’re wrong. Because: Why do they hate us and why do they hate our way of life? Because war has always existed and will always exist. To increase the quantity of democracy in the world. Because we have a responsibility to the world and to freedom. For freedom. For strategic reasons. To stop a domino from setting off all the other dominoes.

And then I move on to what I think the reasons are for this war and so many others. Because our leaders need therapy. Because a bully needs a victim. Because so-called powerful men are deeply insecure. So politicians in favour of war can get elected or re-elected by voters in favour of war. To make money. To placate the arms industry and their high-priced lobbyists. To justify never-ending increases in the military budget. To distract from rampant domestic problems. To bring certain natural resources and labour into the jurisdiction of the global marketplace. To ensure these resources most benefit the capitalists doing the bombing and least benefit the people being bombed. Because it’s easier to kill people who look or sound different than you. Because hatred takes on a life of its own. To explain to the world that you do it our way or suffer the consequences. Because a protection racket needs to constantly ensure no one steps out of line or seeks protection elsewhere. So they can set up permanent military bases to keep the surrounding countries in line. Because there is no alternative. Because there is only room for one empire at a time."

atmospheric quarterly

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Thank you to the atmospheric quarterly for publishing the opening section from Desire Without Expectation:

https://www.atmosphericquarterly.com/jacob-wren

Here's a short excerpt:

“I understand the desire for revenge. I have felt it, though I have rarely acted on such feelings. Instead I have let the desire for revenge fester within me. And yet, at the same time, I have never felt that if someone who hurt me was hurt in turn, it would make me feel any better. I have felt the desire for revenge but also see such desires as basically pointless. Sometimes I wonder if a sincere apology would make me feel better. Perhaps most of the apologies I have received didn’t quite feel sincere. Or I didn’t know how to take them in. I often find myself apologizing to others. I fear I might have gotten too good at it.”




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To the Giller Foundation: Cut Ties with Genocide

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"We, the undersigned, have made the decision to withdraw our books from consideration for the 2024 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and to refuse participation in all programming or promotions associated with the Giller Foundation."

Read the full letter here.

Instagram post here.

You can also read about it in The Globe and Mail, CBC, Toronto Star, Quill and Quire, and LitHub.

For a longer read: How the Giller Prize Became Associated with Genocide

Grateful to be a part of this. And to all the other authors taking a stand.

In one week, 27 authors with books eligible for this year's Giller Prize have pulled their titles from consideration. 2 of the 5 jurors (Dinaw Mengestu and Megha Majumdar) have also pulled out.

If you have a book out within the Giller Prize eligibility period (Oct 1 2023 - Sept 30 2024), then you should seriously consider signing this letter as well.

# No Business As Usual In Can Lit

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The table of contents from The Poetics of Translation: A Thinking Structure

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The table of contents from:

The Poetics of Translation: A Thinking Structure
by Geneviève Robichaud

(Perhaps the first chapter on PME-ART written by someone other than me.)

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Excerpt from Things That Insist (in three parts)

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“What first attracted me to making performances was the fact that it was so ephemeral. You had to be in the moment and, if it was going to happen, it had to happen right fucking now. Yet now I’m basically over that aspect of it.

Artistically I lead a double life: half my life spent writing books, the other half spent performing. And more and more I prefer the books side of my life for the simple reason that books last.

Every once in a while, someone writes to me, saying they just read a book I wrote a very long time ago, and I experience these messages almost like a relief: that there is an object out there in the world, with my name on it, doing the work for me. Doing the work in my place.

Yet something similar does sometimes happen with performance. For example, I’ll add someone on social media and they’ll send me a message saying they saw me perform ten years ago, and they still fondly remember the experience.

Why do I find this version of past works entering into the present somehow less satisfying? The performance version less satisfying than the one involving books. Is it only because it occurs less frequently?

In 2018, I attempted to partly solve this dilemma by writing a book that recounted twenty years of my performance work. And, in doing so, I made a kind of small discovery: that the descriptions of the performances recounted in the book almost replaced people’s memories of the performances themselves.

The printed version was sharper, clearer and more recent when compared to the vagueness of memory. And yet, of course, there was another way in which memories were more intense, evocative and personal.

Performance is ephemeral, but the performances we remember also exist because we remember them. The very fact we remember them is a testament to their value.

I have never gone to an archive, any sort of archive, to look up a performance I’ve previously seen. I have only ever looked up performances I didn’t see.

In this way, I might intuit that I value the live experience more than I value any recorded account of it. I don’t want to spoil my fading memory of the performance by consulting an archived account of it.

But enough about me.”



From my response to the dance+words’ Dance Dialogues series. Read the entire piece here: https://www.dancepluswords.ca/artistresponses/jacob-wren



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Excerpt from the work-in-progress Desire Without Expectation

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When the weather is good, we sleep outside, far away from other people. There are enough of us to feel safe. Sometimes, in the morning, we would tell each other our dreams. Sometimes our dreams shared characters, the same characters would leave one dream and enter another. We would talk about these dream people, try to describe them to each other, try to ensure they were actually the same figures. That our dreams were falling into sync. Over time we gave these figures names. We argued playfully about what their names might be:

There was The Slickster, who smoothly entered into any dream situation and worked his way through it and into prominence. Other names for The Slickster that we considered and rejected: Mr. Busy, Hungry Guy, Don’t Like Him and Politician.

There was Lady Fighter, who would stand up against any injustice and hold space for others to do the same. Other names for Lady Fighter that were considered: The Organizer, Public Good, Solidarity 101 and When We Fight We Win.

There was New Romantic, who spent most of each dream explaining various genres of music, and the soundtrack of each dream would shift to correspond, like an in-progress personalized mixed tape. Other names considered: Adam Anti, Fade to Grey, Bron Area and Floppy Haircut.

There was The Quiet One, who was often unnoticeable in the background of a scene until some unexpected moment they suddenly became helpful. Other names: The One Who Knows, Catches Everything, Wallpaper Boy and Easily Forgotten.

There was the Irrepressible Being, a kind of ghostly presence that possessed an omnipotent overview of all that happened and therefore could give startling insights at key moments. Other names quickly rejected: Golden Spirit, Imaginary Figment, Dream Dream Dream Figure and Lost Forever.

And then there was you, the protagonist of your own singular dream. There is almost always you.




[I'm gradually realizing that Desire Without Expectation might be the final part of a planned trilogy based loosely around questions concerning the desire for utopia.]



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