Anything Not Measurable Is Not Real (story chapbook & audiobook)

A picture of the cover of Anything Not Measurable Is Not Real by Sandra Alland. Baby blue and hand-drawn, the cover is spread open to show the back and front. On the left is the back cover, with the hand-written quote "Water is water is not water" and the name PROPER TALES PRESS. On the right: the title is contained in a line drawing of a glass or tank or water. Below it are the words "Stories by Sandra Alland", with a small sailboat in motion drawn next to the author's name. Cover by Stuart Ross.

Purchase Audiobook Download

Purchase Print Chapbook

Highlights: Audiobook

  • San’s first audiobook
  • recipient of Canada Council for the Arts Digital Originals grant
  • six short stories, description of cover, acknowledgements track

Highlights: Print Chapbook

  • San’s first chapbook of stories in Canada
  • six short stories; 32 pages
  • published by Proper Tales Press, Cobourg, 2019

Description

Anything Not Measurable Is Not Real is a collection of six short stories by Sandra Alland. San launched the chapbook in September 2019, at Bi+ Arts Festival’s Bodies In Resistance in Tkaronto and Taps & Corks on King in Cobourg. Edited by Stuart Ross and published by Proper Tales Press as part of their 40th Anniversary Season. Cover art by Stuart Ross.

“In genres ranging from historical to weird fiction, Anything Not Measurable Is Not Real centres precarious queer and disabled lives – in the past, present, and alternate realities. Themes of class, race, gender and migration weave through worlds that are intimate, political, and often disturbingly funny. Formally playful and character-driven, Anything Not Measurable Is Not Real examines what we do in the aftermath of terrible decisions: our lovers’, our employers’, our countries’, our own. Especially our own.”

Check out “Measurable”, including free streamable ‘film-stories’ and an audiobook, funded by Digital Originals (Canada Council for the Arts, 2020).

Reviews

Amanda Earl, 2020

“Five stars. In six short and compelling tales, Alland mixes the real and topical with the surreal. The stories were a joy to read.” 

More Reviews.

Content Notes

Overall there’s nothing graphic. Throughout, there are examinations of white supremacy and ableism, plus mostly-brief mentions of the following:
-Water,logged (incarceration; capitalist violence including water contamination, forced migration, response to hurricanes)
-Prologue to Trauma (violence based on racism and queermisia; colonial capitalism; alcohol/drinking; death)
-Sliced (self-harm including drug use)
-Air (charity industrial complex; smoking; scorpions)
-Tomorrow Is, After All (climate change; pot smoking)
-Equivalence (incarceration; freak shows and the word “crip” (positively); pain, joint dislocation; classism; transmisia; heights, falling; alcohol)