The cognoscenti and the party rats descended upon The Free Times Cafe on Friday, May 29th @7:15 pm for Moosecall #6: The Buck Starts Here - our 6th annual reading & chapbook launch shindig. It was the best recession-busting all-inclusive literary event of the year. The Buck Starts Here
Our 2008 chapbook launch and reading was also a hoot. Ask anyone.
We've been pleased with the rambunctious audiences at all our launches. Moosecall 4: Premium Cuts took the stage at The Victory Cafe in 2007 and we've got photographic evidence from the debut of Moosecall 3: Big Game, Small Stories. The Danforth Review has a nifty piece about that one.Our first two, Moose Call: Mating in the Bleak City/Romance in the Urban Wilderness and Moosecall 2: 10 Lbs In The Freezer, were also released, with due ceremony and irreverence, in 2004 and 2005. (Further incriminating pictures.) The first was reviewed in issue 26 of Broken Pencil, the Annex Gleaner and Dooney's Cafe has a mostly intentionally amusing write-up.
About the group...
Moosemeat is a writing group that meets every second Thursday in Toronto to discuss short stories, chapters from novels or other creative prose written by members. We have a format for critiquing, but basically it's an informal discussion which tempers candour with sensitivity and gives authors a chance to see how others perceive their work and hear suggestions and critiques.
Sounds charming. Who can join?
Why you, my pretty. Such nice big stories you have!
Seriously. Who's in the group.
Our talents range from modest to published authors. This is good, because you are with people whose writing is worse than yours, so you won't feel outclassed, and better, so you'll benefit from their piercing insights and courageous examples. Most of us are out of school and workin' folk. You must submit pieces to be critiqued and participate in the discussions. No poetry. And no fees.
Where do you do it?
Currently, at the University of Toronto in Hart House (groovy campus map) (mapquest), the building that looks like a baronial manor with the tower. St. George and Museum are the closest subway stations. We meet at 7:15 PM and usually wind up between 9:30 and 10:00. We have no affiliation with the university.
What's the format for critiquing?
Good question. In point form:
- We have around six to ten people at a session. Once in a while, a larger herd of 14+ moose make it out.
- We workshop two pieces that have been sent out and read ahead of time.
- There is a round of general remarks where everyone takes two or three minutes to say whether they liked the piece and their principle thoughts and suggestions. The author does *not* respond.
- This is followed by the free-for-all, when people respond to others remarks and this is when the spirited, freewheeling discussion kicks in. The author is still mute.
- The discussion runs its course. Now the beleaguered writer responds with tears of joy or snarls of rage.
- Most pieces are short stories, a few people are working on novels.
- No poetry.
Cost?
I said, no fees. And no poetry.
How do I join?
Contact (to reduce spam it was necessary to obfuscate the addresses)
HeatherW (@) moosemeat DOT org
The mooseherders are licensed helicopter pilots who will rush to wherever you are to hand deliver the stories to be critiqued at the next session and give you directions to where we meet inside the building. Yup.Whatever. Next meeting dates?
- Thursday, January 8 - Mary Lou, Ivaylo
- Thursday, January 22 - Brian, Dawna
- Thursday, February 5 - Jon, Ben
- Thursday, February 19 - Kris, Michelle
- Thursday, March 5 - Niko, Graydon
- Thursday, March 19 - workshop for chapbook stories
- Thursday, April 2 - workshop for chapbook stories
- Thursday, April 16 - workshop for chapbook stories
- Thursday, April 30 - final workshop for chapbook stories
- Thursday, May 14 - Miriam, Andy
- Thursday, May 28 - No meeting
- Friday, May 29 - Moosecall #6 at the Free Times Cafe
- Thursday, June 11 - Michelle, Ben (special debriefing meeting at the Central)
- Thursday, June 25 - Adrian
- Thursday, July 9 - Brian, Zag
- Thursday, July 23 - Miriam, Brian
- Thursday, August 6 - Mary Lou, Jerry
- Thursday, August 20 - NO MEETING
- Thursday, September 3 - Cecily, David
- Thursday, September 17 - Niko, Peter
- Thursday, October 1 - Lana, Sam
- Thursday, October 15 - Jerry, Michelle
- Thursday, October 29 - Sam, Peter
- Thursday, November 12 - Ben, Craig
- Thursday, November 26 - David, Mary Lou
- Thursday, December 10 - Holiday party at Miriam's!
- Thursday, January 14 - Ben, Miriam
- Thursday, January 28 - Beth, Lisa
- Thursday, February 11 - Heather, Isabel
- Thursday, February 25 - Myna, Lisa
- Thursday, March 11 - Sam, Ben
Moosemeat Website World Premiere - December 2003
Last updated - March 2009
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HeatherW (@) moosemeat DOT org
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"Snapshot", "Evolution","Lust" and "Epitaph for the Deluded" are flash fiction stories by members of the group.
Snapshot
by Mary Lou Dickinson
Janet was wondering what to do with the rest of her life when the telephone rang. Cliff was at the corner of Yonge and Bloor with the bustle of that noisy intersection in the background.
"So, are you coming over?" she asked. "We could have lunch."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
That's what they did the last time. Had lunch. They didn't make love or even allude to the long ago affair. She had a new camera and took his photograph. She took one of her neighbours on the east side also. She was glad she had when they both died later, a year apart. Who would have thought that could happen so quickly to two young men? The photograph was taken before anyone talked about AIDS. And another photo of her son at his graduation from university, before he had the stud in his nose. She wanted everyone in her life on film. She made a good stab at it, too. The pictures on her refrigerator were suddenly from another era. At least six years earlier.
Janet and Cliff sat at the table in the little room at the back of the house that looked out over the garden. One red rose was in bloom and a bird moved along the top of the fence. Cliff said he felt anxious, that he ached all over and had gained twenty pounds. He wanted to move to the country. He asked a lot of questions. About why she stayed in Toronto, whether she was seeing anyone. Janet could tell the questions were only a prelude to whatever he wanted to talk about.
Things were worse since his father'd died.
"My father never showed any anger," Cliff said. "But he never showed anything else either."
His hair was grayer than six years earlier and she could see his stomach bulging under his blue t-shirt.
"Do you think someone can change his life by moving somewhere else?" he asked.
"Maybe."
She noticed he'd left all the cucumbers on his plate, so she ate them. She didn't say anything about not knowing what to do with her life. She told him she was cleaning out drawers and throwing things away.
"Me, too," he said.
"But you take the twenty pounds with you," she said.
Evolution
by Bill Zaget
I wonder if the common housefly will ever evolve to the point of understanding "glass." I had been idly watching the poor thing, smacking itself silly against the windowpane. A range of reactions swept through me. Contempt. Pity. Eye-rolling impatience. "No, you buzzy, shite-eating fool, it's solid... sol-id."
What a lowly creature, an insignificant speck in the great weave of the Universe. If it could be deceived by the transparent hardness of glass, what was its worth? And what was my worth, wasting time observing its useless activity?
I dropped along the thread of my drag-line. Surrounding the fly with my wondrous eight legs, I paralyzed the "six-legger" with my lovely poison. Spewing strands from my spinneret, I bound my victim up to devour at my leisure. Tasty as ever!
Lust
by Nikolijne Troubetzkoy
Three fat Mormon boys are sitting on a bench at Broadview Station. They are wearing dark suits, crisp white shirts and shiny nametags. They are all double chins and sideways glances. An old Chinese lady is cornered.
The fattest Mormon keeps looking at me over and over when he thinks I don't see him. He makes me want to move closer. I want to stand in the corner beside them; want to hear them talking about whores in furtive voices - all longing and ties askew. A pack of girls with flowing hair and tight jeans comes up the escalator.
The fattest Mormon moves his eyes to firmer flesh and I feel small again. After the girls pass through the dusty glass doors, his eyes return to me.
I leave the station and walk down the hill under a blue sky. An airplane is cutting a piece out of it in a hot gleam of an arc, the sun flashing stony off its wings.
Epitaph for the Deluded
by Ken Murray
Things'll get better. I was just like you once. You'll understand when you're older. Trust me. I know exactly how you feel.