Matrix: the early years
Matrix Magazine has a long and varied history as one of Quebec's more prominent English-language literary magazines. Philip Lanthier tells its origin story.
Matrix Magazine has a long and varied history as one of Quebec's more prominent English-language literary magazines. Philip Lanthier tells its origin story.
Writers are always complaining they don’t have enough time to write, even those who are “full-time” writers. I used to find that puzzling, but now that I have joined the ranks of full-time writers, I understand better. The question, “When do you write?” is not a silly question. This is why writers are careful to broach it only with close friends. The answer has something to do with what I write – and a lot to do with whether I write at all.
Asked to present the keynote talk yesterday at the QUESCREN conference Connect and Disconnect: Anglophones, the English Language, and Montreal's Creative Economy, I took the opportunity to consider what has changed and what has remained the same in Montreal's anglophone literary milieu in the six years since the publication of my essay Writing in the Time of Nationalism (Signature Editions, 2010). What follows is a short excerpt from that talk.
Not long ago I saw the extraordinary Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express, a Josef von Sternberg movie with wonderful black and white cinematography, much of which occurs on a train. In the film Dietrich utters the magnificent line, “it took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.” Presumably not all on the train, but one is allowed to imagine so.
Marylebone Station, London
