Summers spent outside of gas stations, sucking on slurpees
*illustration: Stripmalling, idon'tlikemundays.com

Hey Winnipeg: get ready for the big screen. Jon Paul Fiorentino just sold the rights to Stripmalling, his graphic novel set grimiest of Winnipeg suburbs, Transcona*.

The story’s hero, Jonny, is a drug dealer who dreams of becoming a writer, but is stuck living in his car outside the gas station he works at. Making the working-class neighbourhood his muse, Fiorentino also fictionalized the area in his collection of poems, Transcona Fragments. And when the the borough is re-imagined on film, Fiorentino will co-write the script.

Fiorentino skipped town years ago for greener pastures in Montreal, where he teaches writing at Concordia. But he didn’t leave without causing a bit of a stir on the Winnipeg literary scene.

Back in 2005 Fiorentino called out a couple of other Winnipeg writers in an interview with the city’s alt-weekly, Uptown. Of Chandra Mayor, whose novel Cherry he edited, Fiorentino said, “Chandra’s never given me enough credit…Actually, I wrote Cherry.”

Then he pulled Winnipeg poet and artist Clive Holden into the mud, adding, “Both Chandra and Clive wouldn’t have careers without me.”

No word yet on whether there’s a note of sarcasm we were supposed to catch, or if the film, which was bought by Philms Pictures in Montreal, will be shot in Winnipeg.

But cross you’re fingers Winnipegers.

This could be your close-up.

*Other note-able nobodies from the area include former VJ Bradford How and professional Paris Hilton look-alike Natalie Reid