Larissa completed a master's degree in creative writing at Concordia University. She has published two books of poetry and her work has been short listed for Arc Magazine's poem-of-the-year, the QWF First Book prize and the Kobzar Literary award. She was also a finalist for the CBC Poetry prize. She was previously the reviews editor for Matrix magazine and is a sports writer for AFL Quebec. She writes and hosts a weekly pub quiz in Montreal.
In lunchrooms we appear and disappear, chimera breathing fire in storerooms- our fellas fetching flowers on the way home, we greet them in shadows with Cheshire teeth. In darkrooms we stand over photographic paper, Watch the exposure of latent constellations in alpha particles that radiate from us.
In the desert your compass is cast skyward for a night that pulls its collar tight. Scientists place cardboard hats on beetles to cover the dorsal eyes, obscure the Milky Way. Stars are points on the chart, light fixtures, like crumbs dropped on the path.
Marisol scrolls through the appointment list and marks the scheduled patients who have checked in. The waiting room is already full. On Thursdays, the doctors have both appointments and walk-in hours. Doctor Lamarche is twenty minutes late, and all the wait times will be pushed back even more than usual.
We are looking for an escape route, a planet fit to occupy. Here, we live in headlines, instructed to call fire, to play dead. Every day, they are naming another exoplanet, with key words like "hospitable" and "temperate".
Bird Eat Bird (Insomniac Press) is an impressive debut from a voice that will leave you in stitches. Katrina Best's stories marvel at the seemingly mundane; a middle aged couple's day at the beach or lunch in a London Park, and the reader is pulled below the surface and exposed to the quirky inner workings of some compelling characters.
FeatherTale, n. A confusing and disorganized forum for writers, poets and artists to showcase their genius.