Something You Were, Might Have Been, or Have Come to Represent

In the stories of Something You Were, Might Have Been, or Have Come to Represent, young singer-songwriters strive for fame and identity in the indie music scene. A young woman's creative process is plagued with pop cultural dissonance during a European soul-search; a firstyear university student has an existential crisis and eats the flowers that have started to appear on her doorstep; a call centre employee whose name newly yields a Google search hit is frustrated with his unimpressed co-workers; and one Montreal resident reaches the apogee of success and hits rock-bottom, all in the same year. With dry humour and twists of plot, Jay Winston Ritchie crafts a world replete with lasting images that resonate as both troubling and real. Each story poses an inquiry into how we shape our identity-which parts of ourselves we cull and which remain outside our locus of control.