Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross Book Launch
Schedule
Tue, 23 Sep, 2025 at 06:30 pm
UTC-04:00Location
#204-170 Jean Talon O., Atlas Building, Little Italy, Montreal, QC, Canada | Mount Royal, QC
Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross launches her debut fiction collection THE LONGEST WAY TO EAT A MELON
Tuesday, September 23
Doors 6:30pm
Free entry
CASH BAR
Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross in Conversation w/ Carmen Faye Mathes
Opening reading by author Jacob Wren
THE LONGEST WAY TO EAT A MELON:
Equal parts melody and malaise, The Longest Way to Eat a Melon charts the activities of a cast of speakers who all grapple in their own ways with what it takes to conjure a self in the midst of discordance. A brain argues with a non-brain about how to remain productive from a place of exhaustion; two supernaturally inclined twins named Han are separated at birth; and an emerging artist overwhelmed by possibility considers how best to transform a melon into a breakthrough work of art. Incorporating elements of fable, surrealism, satire, and art and cultural criticism, these stories have a playful peculiarity to them, an interweaving of self-deprecation and curiosity, of woe and hope, of absurdity and humanity. Reader, you will want to savor every bite.
JACQUELYN ZONG-LI ROSS is a writer and editor based in Vancouver, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ nations. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and art criticism have appeared in BOMB, C Mag, The Ex-Puritan, Fence, Mousse, and elsewhere. She holds a BFA in Studio Art from Simon Fraser University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. The Longest Way to Eat a Melon is her first book.
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CARMEN FAYE MATHES is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at McGill University. A British Romanticist with expertise in poetry and poetics, affect theory and the history of the emotions, aesthetic philosophy, and literary theory and criticism, Mathes’s teaching and research focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature, mostly poetry, in transatlantic and global contexts. Related interests include the history of medicine, contemporary book review culture and contemporary Canadian poetry. She is the author of "Poetic Form and Romantic Provocation" (Stanford UP, 2022), a book about aesthetic disappointment and the ethical work of poetry.
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JACOB WREN makes literature, performances, and exhibitions. His books include Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed; Polyamorous Love Song (finalist for the Fence Modern Prize in Prose and a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2014); Rich and Poor (finalist for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and a Globe and Mail best book of 2016); and Authenticity is a Feeling. He is artistic co-director of the Montreal-based interdisciplinary group PME-ART. Wren lives in Montreal.
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ACCESSIBILITY:
Rocket Science Room is on the second floor. There is a single flight of stairs off the main entrance with no wheelchair access, however there is a functioning elevator on the main floor. If you require assistance of any kind, please let us know! We'd be happy to accommodate any of your needs to the best of our ability.
Rocket Science Room est au deuxième étage. Il y a un seul escalier à l'entrée principale sans accès en fauteuil roulant, mais il y a un ascenseur qui fonctionne au rez-de-chaussée. Si vous avez besoin d'une assistance quelconque, faites-le nous savoir! Nous serons heureux de répondre à tous vos besoins au mieux de nos capacités.
