Can'tLit: Fearless Fiction from 'Broken Pencil' Magazine

(Paperback)

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Description

In 1995, Canadian novelist and critic Hal Niedviecki started publishing Broken Pencil, a magazine dedicated to the zine scene, the independent and alternative arts community that had been boiling below the surface of Canada's culture. The stories in this anthology are outcasts. They are anti-literature. By and large, they read ragged, lacking the refinements of metaphor, magical realism, and perfect epiphany on the prairies. A few of them might even be badly written. On purpose By accident Who really cares This is Broken Pencil, where the words do the work, voices are discovered and developed, and the place for sharp, offensive urban fiction.

Reviews

"The term 'CanLit' is now culturally enshrined as shorthand for all that is established and orthodox (or boring and stuffy) in Canadian fiction. The anthology CantLit sets itself in strong opposition to this orthodoxy . . . Many of the stories are very good . . . fun and free-spirited." -- Quill & Quire

Author Bio

Richard Rosenbaum is the assistant fiction editor at "Broken Pencil, "a magazine devoted to underground culture and independent arts. He lives in Toronto.