Calling lovers of books, publishing, and all things writing—the 2026 Blue Metropolis Literary Festival is well under way and is the perfect way to spend a warm Spring weekend in Montreal.

IRL (Amanda Harvey) is a Villeray-based composer, DJ, and writer whose work bridges the gap between ethereal ambient textures and the low-slung rhythms of IDM.

My mind loves a loop. It finds something that doesn't fit, or sit correctly with me, and proceeds to circle it until it's emotionally processed, logicized, or definitively solved.

The sun is out, the air is warmer, and in Montreal that can only mean one thing: Fringe season is nearly upon us. Here at Forget The Box(.ca), the anticipation has hit a fever pitch as we assemble our review team and prepare for the creative surge of the festival.

Natasha Fagant is a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges the gap between fluffy cheesecake erotica and the sobering grit of performance art. Whether she is recounting the bloody history of Montreal as a ghost storyteller or challenging audiences as the queen of uncomfortable arousal, her work uses physical theatre to explore the visceral friction between technology and the human body.

Times of secure, stable, peace are few and far between (for some countries more so than others, and globally all at once, it's never happened). Thus, peace is one of those ideas that runs as an undercurrent, as a rule: pageant queens wish for it, believers pray for it, idealists talk about it.

Teesri Duniya’s production of Behind The Moon delivers an emotionally charged meditation on the immigrant experience that holds the audience in a space of shared reflection. While the production navigates directorial hurdles and inconsistent technical execution, the raw power of Anosh Irani’s script and the dynamic energy of the talented cast of actors keep the heart of the story firmly intact.

Humans are storytellers by nature. Even if we're not writing them down or holding court, our brains are always running in the background, constructing stories that help this existence make sense. God, who killed JFK, and what that bitch meant by what she said – it's all the same to our brains. Facts are facts, but our brains crave explanations.

Six years ago, local literary magazine yolk broke out of its shell and splattered all over Montreal’s literary scene by way of an event called Egg the Poet. The Instagram post promoting this event is captioned as follows: “Come join us January 17th to celebrate the launch of Yolk, a new Montreal-based literary journal dedicated to the word. This is a chance to share what is ours and soon to become yours.”

Anne of Green Gables becoming a multiverse-crossing serial killer wielding a Japanese sword is just the beginning of Kirsten Shute’s Fanfiction Is for Teenage Girls (Cactus Press, 2025). Her chapbook is full of clever, hilarious wordplay and even dips into the history of ancient, reconstructed languages.