WORK

The modern injunction to work is deceptively multifaceted—at root an economic necessity, work takes on emotional and even existential meanings as it takes over more and more of our lives. Three young writers present performances based on their highly praised publishing débuts—Dan Perry with Hamburger (Thistledown), Joni Murphy with Double Teenage and Malcolm Sutton with Job Shadowing (BookThug)—each of which offer idiosyncratic perspectives on this reality. They are joined by Tough Guy Mountain, a satirical performance art collective who lambast the whole system.

Read Leks Teto's interview with Malcolm Sutton here.

Read praise for Dan Perry's Hamburger here.

Daniel Perry grew up in Southwestern Ontario and has lived in Toronto since 2006. His stories have appeared in the anthologies Hearing Voices (Bareback, 2014), The Lion and the Aardvark (Stone Skin, 2013) and CVC Book Two (Exile, 2012). Hamburger is his first collection. His second, Nobody Looks That Young Here (Guernica), is forthcoming in 2018.

Joni Murphy is a writer and artist living in New York City. Originally from Las Cruces, New Mexico, she has shown and published work in the United States, Canada, England, Switzerland, Serbia, and Greece. Her creative output takes the form of poetry, criticism, curatorial projects, audio, and performance. She has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Double Teenage is her debut novel. Learn more at www.jonimurphy.com.

Malcolm Sutton lives in Toronto. His fiction has appeared in Maisonneuve and Joyland, and his writing on art has appeared in C Magazine and Border Crossings. He is the Founding Editor of The Coming Envelope journal of innovative prose, and the Fiction Editor at BookThug Press. Job Shadowing is his debut novel.

Tough Guy Mountain is a post-capitalist, economic science-fiction about a company that exists in a separate dimension where it creates brands and then sells them to companies, causes and individuals. It has been operating as an artist collective in Toronto since 2012.