I’m in Montreal for the POP Montreal music festival. Many thanks to Matrix and POP Montreal for arranging the visit as part of the prize for winning Matrix‘s LitPOP fiction award. Flipping through the program for the festival’s eclectic lineup (The Dears…Deerhoof…Laura Veirs…Timber Timbre…Kenny Goldsmith talking at UQAM) I came across this comment on my story.

“People Who Are Michael” by Alex Leslie subverts the traditional short story form and takes technology to task through its narrative while managing to be interesting to the reader. It comments on our online obsessions and memes but does so subtly. Leslie succeeds by taking a subject that is not commonly perceived as being important or poetic on the surface and making it such.

“People Who Are Michael” is in the current issue of Matrix. The poetry winner is Daniel Scott Tysdal whose new book is due out in a month or so from Tightrope.