Pontiac Quarterly: The Cruelty Issue

Lily in motion. Image hosted on my Flickr site.

Pontiac Quarterly is Toronto's only live literary magazine. It's just like a paper magazine, but instead of looking at it guiltily when it arrives in the mail and tossing it onto the ever-growing "to-read" pile on your desk or bedside table, you go to the Drake Hotel and get a beer and the authors read the whole thing aloud to you. (And there are none of those annoying subscription cards!) There's a cover image projected on the back of the stage, classifieds, an advice column (entitled "Liz, What the Fuck?!"), and last Thursday, for Volume 3 Issue 3 (the "Cruelty" issue), there was an illustrator -- Lily Prillinger, up from San Francisco. Above, the wall of illustrations towards the end of the evening, with Lily a graceful blur of creative energy.

Here, Alex Pugsley delivers one of three "short scenes on cruelty and desire":

alex. Image hosted on my Flickr site.

Every time I hear Alex read, I wish he'd hurry up and finish his novel, and now I also think he needs to assemble and publish a collection of these "short scenes," which apparently have been quietly accumulating for years.

Pontiac editor Damian Rogers actually asked me to take photos, so I felt justified in being even more obnoxious with my camera than usual all evening. Check out the resulting photoset! More dramatic pics of Alex, some clearer pics of Lily at work, plus a dancer, and Damian's go-go boots!