[existence in progress, updated Jan 2nd 2013]
Author, activist, geographer.
I was born 1982 in the Laurentians. Since then I’ve made my way from one pond to the other until I washed up on the contaminated shores of Montreal. If nature’s beauty inspired my first poems, environmental destruction has drawn the rest of my steps, making me both an author and an outspoken ecologist.
I’ve published several novels in both French and English – Valacchia, L’aube noire, The Noxious And the Daemon Flower, Necropolis, Darkling One, Le jardin des rêves.
I explore human nature through various eclectic individual and collective projects. Immediacy is my chief interest, therefore themes of revolt, desire and liberty are prevalent in everything I do.
My method consists of constructing narratives about passion, anger and radical opposition to ignorance, reification and illegetimate authority. I use fiction as both distraction and dialectical device, vying to span images that reassert the value of collective freedom, or as Adorno put it, “reactivating one’s origins”.
My esthetics have often been described as particularly sombre, ergo the infamy of being “Canada’s Darkest Author”. I draw freely from the gothic sub-culture, though it is both as appraisal and critic. Other genres blend into my writings: comedy, horror, cyberpunk, noir, post-apocalyptic and erotica.
My influences range from a number of authors, including Émil Cioran, Theodor Adorno, Jennifer Charles, Wilhelm Reich, John Zerzan, Élisée Reclus, Pier Kropotkin, Bill Hicks, Nick Cave, William Gibson and Marie Gray.
My visuals are the result of a close partnership with one or many photographers. Most book covers were shot by NYC’s Candace “Candylust” Barbieri. The works of David Sénéchal, Julie Brouillard and Samantha Kayleigh Graham have also been featured.
A strong believer of grassroots organization and direct democracy, I have been an active part of several collectives through the years, such as La Forêt Noire, le Comité de la fin du monde and les Anarchistes Anonymes. I’m currently involved with The Anarchist Writers Bloc which produces regular anarchist cabarets in Montreal and publish Subversions, the world’s first and only anthology of anarchist short stories.
Lastly, I perform yearly at the International Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal.
Questions, comments, reactions? Write me at press [at] daemonflower [dot] com.