above/ground press

Amanda Earl on Catherine Owen (via Lemonhound)

2009-07-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Ottawa poet, editor and publisher Amanda Earl blogged on Edmonton poet Catherine Owen's chapbook Fyre (above/ground press, 2008), originally published as a chapbook, and republished online as a free, downloadable pdf publication, all part of the above/ground press ALBERTA SERIES.

a second event of out-of-towners (mostly)

2009-05-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

The Carleton Tavern (upstairs),
223 Armstrong (at Parkdale)

Friday, May 29, 2009

with readings by:

Elizabeth Bachinsky (Vancouver)
Matt Rader (Vancouver)
Wanda O'Connor (Montreal)
& Marcus McCann (Ottawa)

Elizabeth Bachinsky is the author of three collections of poetry, Curio (BookThug, 2005), Home of Sudden Service (Nightwood, 2006), and God of Missed Connections (Nightwood, 2009). Her work was nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2006 and the Bronwen Wallace Award in 2004 and has appeared in literary journals, anthologies, and on film in Canada, the United States, France, Ireland, England, and China. She is an instructor of creative writing at Douglas College in New Westminster where she is Poetry Editor for Event magazine. She lives in Vancouver.

Matt Rader is the author of two books of poems: Miraculous Hours (2005) and Living Things (2008). His poems, stories, and non-fiction have appeared in journals and anthologies across North America, Australia, and Europe and have been nominated for numerous awards including the Gerald Lampert Award, the Journey Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes. He is an instructor of creative writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond, BC. He lives in Vancouver.

Wanda O'Connor once embraced a fond affection for trap shooting. She's been published in three countries and once won a CBC poetry contest about the public service. She has a degree in Creative Writing and Classics from Concordia in Montreal and used to play punk guitar. She now tends tomatoes instead of children.

Marcus McCann is the editor of Ottawa’s gay and lesbian newspaper. He's a host of CKCU's Literary Landscapes and the organizer of both the Transgress festival and the Naughty Thoughts Book Club. After six chapbooks, Soft Where (Chaudiere Books, 2009) is his first full-length collection. http://www.marcusmccann.com/.

a reading by five out-of-towners: Burnham, Stewart, Belford, Midgley, Smith

2009-05-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

The Carleton Tavern (upstairs),
223 Armstrong (at Parkdale)

Monday, May 25, 2009

with readings by:

Clint Burnham (Vancouver)
Christine Stewart (Edmonton)
Ken Belford (Prince George)
Peter Midgley (Edmonton)
& Michelle Smith (Edinburgh)

Clint Burnham is a Vancouver writer and teacher. His most recent books include The Benjamin Sonnets (Bookthug, 2009), Rental Van (Anvil, 2007), and Smoke Show (Arsenal Pulp, 2005).

Christine Stewart writes, teaches and researches experimental poetry and poetics in the English and Film Department, University of Alberta. Selected Publications: “This Then Would Be the Conversation." Antiphonies: Essays on Women’s Experimental Poetries in Canada. The Gig. 2008. Propositions from Under Mill Creek Bridge. Virgin Press. 2007. The Trees of Periphery: above/ground press, 2007. Pessoa's July: or the months of astonishments. Nomados Press. 2006. "We Lunch Nevertheless among Reinvention." Chicago Review. 2006. from Taxonomy. West House Press, 2003.

Ken Belford is the author of six books of poetry including lan(d)guage (Caitlin Press 2008), and when snakes awaken (Nomados 2007). A proponent of what he has termed lan(d)guage, Belford assembles his intellectually independent sequences out of the shifting language of the BC interior, writing out a type of poetic pidgin by mixing language markers of the modern west coast with an older contact lingo of the lands beyond the edge of the farmers and rancher’s field. Self educated, Belford has lived in the roadless mountains of the headwaters of Northern BC's Nass River for half his life. He adapts language and ideas, making a writing with a governance and order of his own. Lan(d)guage is his sixth book. He will be reading from lan(d)guage and a new manuscript, decompositions, to be published by Talon.

Peter Midgley is a storyteller and a writer of children’s books that have won international awards and have been translated into 20 languages. He is also the author of two plays, Archetypes and Namlish, a political farce about Namibian independence. Peter writes in both English and Afrikaans and his poetry has appeared in the South African journals, Literator and New Coin. Some poems also appear in The Story that Brought Me Here: To Edmonton from Everywhere. He is currently working on a bilingual volume of poems, perhaps i should / miskien moet ek and book-length creative non-fiction project, A Truce Stranger than Fiction: Reflections on Namibian Independence.

Michelle Denise Smith is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She was awarded a doctorate in English literature by the University of Alberta in 2008. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Arc, Grain, CV2, and The New Quarterly. She is fascinated by travel or,more to the point, Paris, and she is accordingly at work on a collection of travel essays and a novel titled Hitting the Ground. She is also close to completing her first collection of poems, mnemosyne above dark waters.

ottawa small press book fair, spring 2009 edition; pre-fair reading!

2009-05-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

The Carleton Tavern (upstairs), 223 Armstrong (at Parkdale)

Friday, June 19, 2009

with readings by:
Gillian Sze (Toronto)
Nick McArthur (Montreal)
Laurie Fuhr (Calgary)
Jon Paul Fiorentino (Montreal)
& Cameron Anstee (Ottawa)

author bios:

Gillian Sze was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her poetry has appeared in such venues as CV2, Prairie Fire, pax americana (U.S.), Crannóg (Ireland), Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), and as a featured “Parliamentary Poem of The Week” selection. She is also the author of two chapbooks, This is the Colour I Love You Best (2007) and A Tender Invention (2008). She has an MA in Creative Writing from Concordia and resides in Toronto. Fish Bones, published this spring in the DC Books Punchy Poetry series, is her first full collection of poems.

Nick McArthur grew up in Newcastle, Ontario, and currently makes his home in Montreal. He is a graduate of Concordia University's creative writing program, and his work has appeared in Matrix, Pistol, and on xtranormal.com. Short Accounts of Tragic Occurrences is his first book.

Laurie Fuhr used to live in Ottawa, but now she lives in Calgary. She used to busk guitar in the Byward Market, but now she plays rockabilly bass in a band. She used to write poetry, but now she writes poetry. Laurie is Managing Editor of Filling Station Magazine.

Jon Paul Fiorentino is the author of five booksincluding the poetry collections Hello Serotonin and The Theory of the Loser Class, which was a finalist for the 2006 A.M. Klein Award and winner of the 2006 Expozine Alternative Press Award. He is also theauthor of the comedy book Asthmatica. His first novel, Stripmalling, is out now. He lives in Montreal where he teaches writing at Concordia University and is the Editor of Matrix.

Cameron Anstee is a student in Ottawa. He has a chapbook forthcoming from the Emergency Response Unit. He is presently learning to stitch books and will launch Apt. 9 Press this summer. cameron.anstee@gmail.com

And don't forget the ottawa small press book fair, happening the following day!

Kim Minkus, Christine Leclerc + Jen Currin in Ottawa!

2009-03-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

The Carleton Tavern (upstairs), 223 Armstrong (at Parkdale)

Friday, May 8, 2009

readings by three Vancouver poets:

Kim Minkus
Christine Leclerc
& Jen Currin

author bios:

Kim Minkus is a Vancouver poet, and writing instructor. She is a PhD candidate in Simon Fraser University's English Department where her research interests are contemporary poetics, avant-garde book history, archival studies, and experiment and risk. She has had articles published on poets Susan Howe and Stephen Cain. LINEbooks published her first book of poetry 9 Freight in the fall of 2007 and her second book Thresh is forthcoming. She has had reviews and poetry published in FRONT Magazine, Interim, West Coast Line, The Poetic Front, LOCUSPOINT, ottawater, Memewar and Jacket. She currently teaches at Capilano University.

Christine Leclerc, originally from Montreal, now lives in Vancouver. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her work has appeared in 42opus, Dig, FRONT, FU, Memewar, OCHO, Pistola, subTerrain, terry, the Worksound gallery, and is forthcoming in Interim. Leclerc is the author of Counterfeit, a book of poetry published by Capilano University Editions (CUE) in fall 2008. She teaches creative writing at Langara College Continuing Studies.

Jen Currin has published two books of poems, The Sleep of Four Cities and Hagiography. The Inquisition Yours is forthcoming in 2010. She lives in Vancouver, where she is currently pursuing a Masters in Literature at Simon Fraser University, and trying to grow vegetables in her front yard.

i recently posted

2009-03-04T12:34:00.001-08:00

a bibliography of the above/ground press "poem" broadsides; a full bibliography of the first decade at the back of Groundswell;

currently working on various new publications over the next few months; also, watch out for the sixteenth anniversary reading/launch at the Ottawa Art Gallery in August! details tba...

above/ground press: ALBERTA SERIES now online!

2009-01-26T09:37:00.000-08:00

Edited and produced by rob mclennan
in Edmonton, at the University of Alberta
designed by mdesnoyers

http://www.ottawater.com/albertaseries/albertaseries.html

One > rob mclennan
Two > George Bowering
Three > Christine Stewart
Four > Natalie Simpson
Five > Catherine Owen
Six > Jenna Butler
Seven > Douglas Barbour
Eight > derek beaulieu

These poetry chapbooks were originally produced in numbered runs of two hundred copies, once a month, from September 2007 to April 2008, to correspond with my time in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. All but two, myself and George Bowering, are Alberta authors, and George's came around the time he did a reading in Edmonton at the Olive Reading Series.

In the fifteen years I've been running above/ground press, producing chapbooks, magazines and 'poem' leaflets, I was amazed at what I could potentially accomplish, given that, thanks to the University and my new income, with actual resources. How could I not be producing material out of my English and Film Studies office?

rob mclennan
Ottawa, October 2008

ottawater #5 launch!

2009-01-14T09:56:00.000-08:00

Ottawa’s annual pdf poetry journal
edited by rob mclennan
http://www.ottawater.com/

the fifth issue of ottawater will go live in January 2009, with new writing by Cameron Anstee, Michael Blouin, Stephen Brockwell, Monique Desnoyers, Amanda Earl, Jesse Ferguson, Warren Dean Fulton, Adrienne Ho, Sean Johnston, Ben Ladouceur, Lainna Lane, Marcus McCann, rob mclennan, Christine McNair, Colin Morton, Jennifer Mulligan, Wanda O'Connor, Pearl Pirie, K.I. Press, Roland Prevost, Monty Reid, Shane Rhodes, Suzannah Showler, Sandra Ridley, Mike Spry, Gillian Wallace, Zack Wells, Rob Winger and Rachel Zolf, as well as an interview with poet Nina Berkhout.

The Ottawa launch will be happening Thursday, January 29 at the Ottawa Art Gallery in the Arts Court Building as part of the Factory Reading Series, lovingly hosted by rob mclennan, with readings from various contributors; doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

Angela Szczepaniak, Eva Moran & Jason Camlot at the Factory Reading Series

2009-01-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
as part of the Factory Reading Series at the Ottawa Art Gallery
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Arts Court, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6E2 Canada
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

readings & book launches by three authors:

Angela Szczepaniak
Eva Moran
& Jason Camlot

author bios:

Angela Szczepaniak
Unisex Love Poems (Punchy/DC Books)

A doctoral candidate at the University at Buffalo, Angela Szczepaniak is neck-deep in a dissertation on innovative poetry, detective fiction, andcomic books. In addition to publishing poetry and critical essays, she recently participated in a hygiene themed poetry-art project, and as a result her work can be found on placards in some of the finest public restrooms in Seattle. She is the author of Unisex Love Poems (Punchy/DCBooks). At the moment, she lives in Toronto.

Eva Moran,
Porny Stories (Punchy/DC Books)

Eva a SWF 5' 6" Montreal native living and working in Toronto. Eva is a non-smoker who rarely drinks. But make no mistake, she's a spunky, fun and energetic Leo. Eva has her MA in English Literature from Concordia, is an aspiring boxer, and she works out six days a week. Eva enjoys running, yoga, and long bike rides. She adores petting puppy golden retrievers. She is the author of Porny Stories (Punchy/DC Books). Love her!

Jason Camlot
The Debaucher (Insomniac Press)

Jason Camlot is the author of three collections of poetry, The Animal Library, Attention All Typewriters and most recently, The Debaucher. His critical works include Language Acts: Anglo-Québec Poetry, 1976 to the 21st Century, co-edited with Todd Swift, and Style and the Nineteenth-Century British Critic. He is poetry editor of the Punchy Writers Series (DC Books), and Chair of English at Concordia University.

http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/factoryreadingseries/index-en.php

Jay MillAr & Pearl Pirie, February 13th at the Carleton Tavern

2009-01-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern (upstairs), 223 Armstrong (at Parkdale)
Friday, February 13, 2009

readings by:

Jay MillAr (Toronto)
& Pearl Pirie (Ottawa)

author bios:

Jay MillAr is a Toronto poet, editor, publisher, and virtual bookseller. He is the author of False Maps for Other Creatures (2005), Mycological Studies (2002), and The Ghosts of Jay MillAr (2000). His most recent collection is the small blue (Fall 2007). In 2006 he published Double Helix, a collaborative "novel" written with Stephen Cain. Millar is the shadowy figure behind BookThug, an independent publishing house dedicated to cutting edge work by well-known and emerging North American writers, as well as Apollinaire's Bookshoppe, a virtual bookstore that specializes in the books that no one wants to buy. A long-time fixture of the Toronto writing and publishing scene, Jay has participated in such diverse projects as the UNBC/Via Rail Poetry Train, The Scream in High Park, Test Readings Series and Influency: A Poetry Salon. He is also the co-editor(with Mark Truscott) of BafterC, a small magazine of contemporary writing. Currently Jay teaches creative writing at George Brown College.

Pearl Pirie's words are in blogs everywhere and on paper in gar, 1cent, Peter F Yacht Club and in chapbooks by pooka press, Amanda's Angelhouse Press and rob's above/ground.

The Peter F. Yacht Club regatta/reading/christmas party

2008-12-05T10:25:00.000-08:00

lovingly hosted by Amanda Earl;

The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party;

& issue launch for #12: the "anarchy" issue, edited/produced by Amanda Earl

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)

233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)

Sunday, December 28, 2008

doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

with readings from issue contributors as well as yacht club irregulars;

info: rob mclennan at 613 239 0337 or az421@freenet.carleton.ca

DAMN YOU, FITZPATRICK by Amanda Earl, rob mclennan, Christine McNair, Max Middle, and Pearl Pirie (above/ground press, 2008)

2008-10-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

reviewed by ryan fitzpatrick

I’m not going to lie to you. This chapbook is more than the ephemeral wank that it appears to be. Coming out of a pseudo-disgust for a friend who ditched them in favour of a more glamorous urban setting, the idea that someone might choose Montréal over Ottawa is a palpable irritation felt through these five poems. DAMN YOU, FITZPATRICK slams the impersonal, nomadic impulse that comes with much travel. These five writers explore the notion that travel should be less about places (and the perception of places) than about the people you meet there.

“Fitzpatrick” is a figure that haunts the five poems in this collection, acting as a connection point for these five diverse writers. All five poems share an elegiac tone, even if employed jokingly. The writing here evokes a sense of death; even as Christine McNair opens her poem by evoking a resurrection (“You’ve come back from the dead”), she turns the resurrected figure into a war machine. The poem has an apocalyptic air, creating an account of what Jean Baudrillard calls “the gray imminence”:

"First follow people you meet in the street, at random, for an hour, two

hours, brief sequences, disorganized – with the idea that people’s lives are

arbitrary trajectories, directionless, going nowhere, and that for this very

reason they are fascinating. The network of the other is used as a means of

absenting yourself from yourself. You exist only in the other’s trace, but

without his knowledge; in fact you follow your own trace almost without

knowing it yourself." (Fatal Strategies, p. 161)

Like the scene in McNair’s poem, the gray immanence is an act of erasing the other and in that act leaving a trail of yourself simultaneously reading and eliminating the other. McNair’s poem is in a double bind here as it both evokes the erasing force of the subject (the war machine of the poem) even as she erases that subject with her own subjectivity, thereby spectralizing the same figure she resurrects through language at the beginning of her poem – McNair’s poem acts as a war machine across “Fitzpatrick” leaving his “real” trip through Ottawa as unreadable outside of these poems, which make up a kind of “official account” of his trip.

The rest of the writers in this collection follow “Fitzpatrick,” erasing and writing over him palimpsestically. Amanda Earl transposes a foggy stupor over what “Fitzpatrick” might mean (“but i’m not exactly sure what the prairies are,” “these creatures known as calgaRYiANs / are they all named ryan?”) at the same time as suggesting that to “Fitzpatrick” all eastern cities look alike (“getting so drunk / in sturgeon falls / they think ottawa / is montreal”). East and West are both confused here with regard to the other as each overwrites what the other represents. Even as Max Middle’s short poem (“damn you fitzpatrick / you said we would meet”) wishes for a meeting – between “Middle” and “Fitzpatrick,” between Ottawa and Calgary, between East and West – these two sides seem cursed to moving through one another spectrally.

And while rob mclennan’s poem aims to evoke connections despite distance – it’s important to notice the “strand of hair” mclennan references as a type of haunting even as the ghost of the other moves further from view as you approach it, like a baseball in space – there is some hope left in this narrative of perceptions and misconceptions. The last of the five poems, Pearl Pirie’s poem finds similarity in difference. Pirie’s poem is an attempt to understand what makes Calgary tick, even if only on the level of the food you might eat at 4:00 am. Pirie acknowledges that though we run the risk when travelling of imposing our narratives on the other, we can sometimes find comfort in our differences, falling “thru a portal / to tall tables, huge milk glasses / home mom pigeons coo,” and reappearing comfortably in the narratives of others as a bit player able to participate without erasing and rewriting them.

DAMN YOU, FITZPATRICK (2008)

free to above/ground press subscribers

anyone else, query rob at az421@freenet.carleton.ca for a copy;

2009 subscriptions now available;

2008-09-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

I'm now offering my usual annual $40 above/ground press subscription for 2009 (& check out our group on facebook).

YES! I WANT EVERYTHING ABOVE/GROUND PRESS HAS TO OFFER! GIVE ME A 2009 SUBSCRIPTION (STARTING TODAY, THANK GOD) FOR ONLY FORTY (40) DOLLARS (IN THE US, $40 US).

current & forthcoming & recent publications by Phil Hall, Margaret Christakos, rob mclennan, Andy Weaver, Jesse Ferguson, Nicholas Lea, Lea Graham, Max Middle, Jessica Smith, John Newlove, Stephanie Bolster, Stan Rogal, Gil McElroy, Jennifer Mulligan, Sharon Harris, Jan Allen, bpNichol, ryan fitzpatrick, Julia Williams, Shauna McCabe, Jordan Scott, George Bowering, Barry McKinnon, Cath Morris, Karen Clavelle, Amanda Earl, Marcus McCann, Wanda O'Connor, Kate Greenstreet, Rhonda Douglas, William Hawkins, Sandra Ridley, Fred Wah, Anita Dolman, Stephen Brockwell, Mari-Lou Rowley, Monty Reid, Rachel Zolf, Gwendolyn Guth, Natalie Simpson, derek beaulieu, Rob Budde, Christine Stewart, etcetera.

give $40 to rob mclennan, or mail:
c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7

regular notices are also sent out through an email list of Ottawa-area literary events. to get on the list, email me at az421@freenet.carleton.ca

Ottawa: A Field Guide by rob mclennan

2008-09-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

publisht in Ottawa by above/ground press for a reading at the Ottawa Art Gallery, September 25, 2008, as part of the exhibit Evidence: The Ottawa City Project, curated by Emily
Falvey.

some of these pieces have appeared previously online as a Leaf Press "Monday Poem," as part of a feature on Anny Ballardini's Poet's Corner ― Fieralingue website, and on the author's own blog.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of over a dozen trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles
are the novella white (2007), the travel book Ottawa: The Unknown City (2008), the non-fiction titles subverting the lyric: essays (2008) and Alberta dispatch: interviews & writing from Edmonton (2008). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), Poetics.ca (with Stephen Brockwell) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater. He recently spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at http://www.robmclennan.blogspot.com/

publisht in Ottawa by above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, September 2008. a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy. To order, send $4 + $1 for postage, & in Canadian currency; if sending from outside Canada, send in American, payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1R 6R7; above/ground press subscribers receive (honest!) a complimentary copy; calendar year subscriptions available for $40, & include chapbooks, broadsides, STANZAS magazine & The Peter F. Yacht Club.

Jeanette Lynes, Stephen Brockwell + Christine McNair reading!

2008-09-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

three poets hosted by above/ground press & the small press action network - ottawa (span-o);

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan

Friday, October 17, 2008

doors 7pm, readings 7:30

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)

233 Armstrong (at Parkdale, right by the Parkdale Market)

readings by

Jeanette Lynes (Antigonish NS)
Stephen Brockwell (Ottawa ON)
+ Christine McNair (Ottawa ON)

Jeanette Lynes' fourth collection of poetry, It's Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield poems, has just been published by Freehand Books (2008); one poem from this collection can be heard live on you tube. Her fifth collection of poems, The New Blue Distance, will be published by Wolsak and Wynn in 2009 . Her fourth book of poems, The New Blue Distance, will be published by Wolsak and Wynn in 2008. A co-authored chapbook with Alison Calder will appear under the Jack Pine Books imprint in December, 2007. Jeanette has been a writer in residence at Saskatoon Public Library (2005-2006) and Northern Lights College (July, 2005). She is co-editor of The Antigonish Review, Poet Laureate of the Nova Scotia NDP (New Democratic Party), and an Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at St. Francis Xavier University.

http://www.freehand-books.com/books/2008-fall/its-hard-being-queen.html

Stephen Brockwell lives in Ottawa. He is the author of The Wire in Fences, The Cometology (ECW Press, 2001), Fruit Fly Geographic (ECW Press, 2004) and The Real Made Up (ECW Press, 2007). He has written reviews and articles for The Danforth Review, Rubicon and Books in Canada. Recent work has appeared in Arc, Prairie Fire, the Fiddlehead, the Antigonish Review, and Queen St Quarterly.

http://www.ecwpress.com/books/real_made

Christine McNair's work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, fireweed and Misunderstandings, as well as a recent above/ground press broadside. She won an honourable mention in the Eden Mills Literary Competition and second prize (poetry) in the 27th Atlantic Writing Competition. Her first publication was in a ninth grade English textbook. She apologises profusely to any students traumatised by her story or by the inane English class questions which were appended. She tries to pay the bills working as a book conservator in Ottawa.

http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2008/09/apogee-by-convention-we-name-each-axis.html

info: rob mclennan at 613 239 0337 or az421 (at) freenet (dot) carleton (dot) ca

Alberta Dispatch: interviews & writing from Edmonton

2008-09-08T13:45:00.001-07:00

by rob mclennan, published by above/ground press;

upcoming reading: three poets with non-above/ground press items!

2008-08-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

three poets & three new publications, hosted by above/ground press & the small press action network - ottawa (span-o);

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan

Saturday, September 13, 2008; 7:00pm (readings at 7:30) - 10:00pm
The Carleton Tavern (upstairs), 223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale), Ottawa, ON

readings & launches by

Marcus McCann (Ottawa)
Sandra Ridley (Ottawa)
+ Sachiko Murakami (Vancouver)

Marcus McCann was born in Hamilton and grew up in Southern Ontario. He's the editor of Capital Xtra, Ottawa's gay and lesbian news magazine. He was shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award (2008) and won both the Rubicon Press Midwinter Chapbook contest (2008) and the University of Ottawa 48 Hour Novella Writing Contest (2006). Matrix Magazine included him in their The New Underground issue in 2008. His chapbooks include The tech/tonic suite (Rubicon Press, Edmonton, fall 2008), Force quit (Emergency Response Unit, Toronto, fall 208), petty illness leaflet (Onion Union, Ottawa, 2008), Heteroskeptical (above/ground, Ottawa, 2007) & So Long, Derrida (UESA, Ottawa, 2006). His first trade poetry collection is due in spring 2009 with Chaudiere Books.
http://marcusmccann.blogspot.com/2008/06/petty-illness-leaflet-marcus-mccann.html

Sandra Ridley is a Saskatchewan-born poet who lives in Ottawa. Lift: ghazals for C. (JackPine Press) is part of her first collection of poetry, entitled Downwinders, which won the 2008 Alfred G. Bailey Prize. Ridley was a Fringe Reader at the 2006 Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, and her work can be found in various Canadian journals including Arc, Grain, Prairie Fire, and Taddle Creek.
http://www.jackpinepress.com/

Sachiko Murakami received her MA in English Literature from Concordia in 2006. Her first collection of poems is The Invisibility Exhibit (Talonbooks 2008). She lives in Vancouver where she is a member of the KootenaySchool of Writing collective and the managing editor of The Capilano Review.
http://www.talonbooks.com/index.cfm?event=titleDetails&ISBN=0889225796

info: rob mclennan at 613 239 0337 or az421 (at) freenet (dot) carleton (dot) ca

DEPARTURES

2008-06-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

fiction by:

Amanda Earl
Emily Falvey
Spencer Gordon
Kate Heartfield
rob mclennan
Wes Smiderle
+ Steve Zytveld

Departures comes out of a monthly fiction writer's workshop in Ottawa started in 2006 by Tina-Frances Trineer, with its first meeting December 6, 2006 at Cuppedia on Main Street, with early participants Tina, rob mclennan, Amanda Earl, Kate Heartfield and Josh Massey. Other members Emily Falvey, Steve Zytveld and Wes Smiderle were added in April, 2007, around the time Tina moved to Wakefield. Spencer Gordon joined in September, 2007.

Amanda Earl's sexually explicit fiction appears in anthologies by Cleis Press, Alyson Books, Thunder's Mouth Press, Carroll and Graf and in local magazines, The Puritan and Front & Centre. On line you can find her recent smut at Thaneros.com, Lucrezia Magazine (lucreziamagazine.com) and Lies With Occasional Truth (lwot.net). Her stories and musings on sex & sexuality can also be found at amanderotica.blogspot.com.

Emily Falvey is a writer, curator, and art critic currently living in Ottawa. Her fiction recently appeared in decalogue 2: ten Ottawa fiction writers (Chaudiere Books, 2007), and her essays and art criticism have been published by galleries and museums across Canada.

Spencer Gordon was born in 1984 in Thompson, Manitoba. Although he currently resides in Ottawa, Ontario, he will be attending the University of Toronto in the fall of 2008, taking an MA in English in the Field of Creative Writing. Recently, his fiction has appeared in zaum (previously Mandala). He is the co-editor and co-founder of The Puritan: Ottawa's Literary Prose Journal. Find his interviews with authors such as Robert Kroetsch and Guy Vanderhaeghe online at puritan-magazine.com. He can be reached at spencerkjgordon@gmail.com.

Kate Heartfield rode the OC Transpo beast for 11 years, before giving in and buying a car and a house in the country last year. When she isn't writing fiction, she writes editorials and columns for the Ottawa Citizen. Last year, she was a student in the Humber School for Writers correspondence program, where her mentor was Paul Quarrington.

rob mclennan recently returned to Ottawa after his tenure of writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. The author of over a dozen titles of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the novella white (The Mercury Press), the travel book Ottawa: The Unknown City (Arsenal Pulp Press) and subverting the lyric: essays (ECW Press). A writer, editor, publisher and organizer of the small press action network - ottawa (span-o), he regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

Wes Smiderle is an Ottawa writer. He’s napped on buses, slept around on trains, snoozed at sea and drifted off at the wheel but he’s never been able to fall asleep on an airplane.

Steve Zytveld was born in Kamloops, BC, but has spent most of his life in Ottawa, where he currently lives with his wife Catherine in a cramped downtown apartment with their guinea pigs and thousands of books. He has been a writer of prose and verse, a peace activist, a labour activist, a performance artist, a Parliament Hill reporter, an editor, a publisher, a poster artist, an actor, and a scholar of mediaeval literature. He learned to ride a horse before he learned to drive a car. Nowadays he hosts the Dusty Owl Reading Series when he isn’t working on any of a number of writing projects, including a novel, The Passing of Arthur King, and a nonfiction work tentatively titled No Simple Highway: A History of The Prescott Highway. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including this one.

$6 / +$2 for postage/shipping

above/ground press subscribers rec' a complimentary copy;

mail all your money to:

rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7

new from above/ground press: Peter F. Yacht Club #11

2008-05-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

Edited & compiled & typeset & paid for by rob mclennan
May 2008 (Edmonton issue, part two)

With new work by various Yacht Club regulars & irregulars:

Douglas Barbour;
Jenna Butler;
Amanda Earl;
Jesse Patrick Ferguson;
Laurie Fuhr;
Lea Graham;
William Hawkins;
Karen Massey;
Marcus McCann;
rob mclennan;
Max Middle;
Sean Moreland;
Jennifer Mulligan;
Catherine Owen;
Pearl Pirie;
Roland Prevost;
Wes Smiderle;
Janice Tokar;

$5 / +$2 for postage/shipping
above/ground press subscribers rec' a complimentary copy; mail all your money to:
rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa Ontario Canada K1R 6R7

related links: information on issue #10 ; information on issue #9 ; information on issue #8 (Edmonton issue, part one); photos/report of the Ottawa launch of #8 ; information on issue #7 ; photos/report of the reading/regatta for issue #5 ; Amanda Earl's review of Laurie Fuhr's issue #5/6 (mis-numbered Calgary special) ; information on that issue ; 2008 subscription info w/ some backlist ;

new from above/ground press;

2008-04-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

HOW TO EDIT

Chapter A.

by derek beaulieu

ALBERTA SERIES #8

8 pages, 8 1/2 x 11

produced in an edition of 200 numbered copies in Edmonton, Alberta by above/ground press as the final installment of above/ground press’ ALBERTA SERIES, April 2008.
designed by mdesnoyers

derek beaulieu [see his 12 or 20 questions here] lives in Calgary. he is the author of several books of poetry, the most recent being Chains by Paper Kite Press.

Mail all your money (payable to rob mclennan) to (before May 31):
rob mclennan, writer in residence

Department of English and Film Studies

University of Alberta

3-5 Humanities Centre

Edmonton, AB T6G 2E5

(after June 1st)

858 Somerset Street West, main floor

Ottawa Ontario K1R 6R7

$4 (+ $2 for postage; outside Canada, $6+2$ US)
(while supplies last; produced in a numbered run of 200 copies)

above/ground press subscribers rec' a complimentary copy;

2008 subscriptions still available

new from above/ground press: Peter F. Yacht Club #10

2008-03-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Edited & compiled & typeset & paid for by rob mclennan, in Edmonton AB
March 2008; “in by one, out by four”

$5 / +$2 for postage/shipping

above/ground press subscribers rec' a complimentary copy

with new writing by:

Jeff Carpenter

Trisia Eddy

Lainna Lane

+ rob mclennan

This issue comes out of an informal writing/social group that the four of us (all, but for myself + Lainna, completely unaware of each other previously) started within weeks of my arrival in Edmonton, coming together slowly from mid-September, 2007. The title makes reference to a previous publication of four poets in roughly the same format, in by one, out by four (suggesting just how quickly the little publication was put together) [see my note on such here] in Edmonton in 1980, featuring the poetry of then-Edmonton poets Douglas Barbour (the only one still here), George Melnyk (now in Calgary), Monty Reid (now in Ottawa) and Stephen Scobie (now in Victoria, BC). This little publication is dedicated to them—rob mclennan, March 08, Edmonton AB..

Jeff Carpenter is currently acting as Acting Director of the Alberta Research Group. National Anther is a sequence of acrostics using ten lines from Michael Palmer’s First Figure (1984). Several other constraints were built in to play off the book/folio form whilst riffing off some unlikely couplings from Canadian literature (and beyond). Reading aloud exercises tongues and lungs and minds’ Is. Fast as you can. ☺ Trisia Eddy lives and writes in and around Edmonton, Alberta. Her work has been broadcast on radio, and has appeared both online and in print, most recently with ditchpoetry.com, Perspectives Magazine, Existere, and fait accomplit. She is the founding editor of red nettle press, which released her chapbook, what if there's no weather, in 2007. An upcoming series of red nettle poets is set to be released in 2008. ☺ Lainna Lane has lived in Ottawa, Vancouver, and most recently Edmonton where she is very slowly completing her English and Comparative Literature degree at the University of Alberta. She finances this by working in an office tower guarded by peregrines. When not in office or school she enjoys traveling, working at Other Voices literary magazine, playing dodgeball, and mixing a mean mint julep. She has one publication in this year's student edition of the Olive Reading Series chapbook.☺ rob mclennan is the beginning and the end (or something); the author of thirteen trade poetry titles, he is the author of a novel (white, The Mercury Press) and two non-fiction titles (Ottawa: The Unknown City, Arsenal Pulp; subverting the lyric: essays, ECW Press), and will be launching another on the University of Alberta Bookstore’s espresso book machine in late May. He is (and was) the 2007-8 writer in residence at the University of Alberta in Edmonton☺

coming in May; The Peter F. Yacht Club #11, "Edmonton issue" part two!

new from above/ground press:

2008-03-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAYS'

by Douglas Barbour

ALBERTA SERIES #7
42 pages, 8 1/2 x 11

produced in an edition of 200 numbered copies in Edmonton, Alberta by above/ground press a part of above/ground press’ ALBERTA SERIES, March 2008.

designed by mdesnoyers

Douglas Barbour [see his 12 or 20 questions here], poet, critic, and reviewer, is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Alberta, where he has taught creative writing, poetry, Canadian literature, twentieth century poetry and poetics, and science fiction and fantasy. Books of poetry include Visible Visions: The Selected Poems of Douglas Barbour (NeWest Press 1984), which won Alberta's Stephan Stephannson Award for poetry, and Story for a Saskatchewan Night (rdc press 1989). More recently, Fragmenting Body etc. (NeWest Press 2000), Breath Takes (Wolsak & Wynn 2002), A Flame on the Spanish Stairs (greenboathouse books 2003), and Continuations, with Sheila E. Murphy (University of Alberta Press 2006). Critical works include Daphne Marlatt and Her Works, John Newlove and His Works, bpNichol and His Works (ECW Press 1992), and Michael Ondaatje (Twayne Publishers 1993). Lyric/Anti-lyric: essays on contemporary poetry appeared from NeWest Press in 2001. Transformations of Contemporary Canadian Poetry in English appeared from Adam Marszalek in Poland in 2005. Essays have appeared in journals and anthologies in Canada, the United States, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Denmark. He has delivered papers at conferences on Canadian Studies and modern poetry, in Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, Scotland, and, of course, Canada. He was inaugurated into the City of Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame in 2003.

Mail all your money (payable to rob mclennan) to:

rob mclennan, writer in residence
Department of English and Film Studies
University of Alberta3-5 Humanities Centre
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E5

$6 (+ $2 for postage; outside Canada, $6+2$ US)

(while supplies last; produced in a numbered run of 200 copies)

above/ground press subscribers rec' a complimentary copy;
2008 subscriptions still available

new from above/ground press:

2008-03-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

STRUM OF UNSEEN

by Pete Smith (Kamloops BC)

[after Fred Douglas’ book Menu For Sunset: An Apparent Story Illustrated With Pictures and his photo/text exhibition Menu For Sunset.]

publisht in Edmonton by above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, March 2008. a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy. To order, add $1 for postage, & in Canadian currency; if sending from outside Canada, send in American, payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1R 6R7; above/ground press subscribers receive (honest!) a complimentary copy; calendar year subscriptions available for $40, & include chapbooks, broadsides, STANZAS magazine & The Peter F. Yacht Club.

Pete Smith: Unlettered & unfettered. Migrated from England to Kamloops in 1974. Is a retired psychiatric nurse. Chapbooks include 20/20 Vision and cross of green hollow (Wild Honey Press, Eire), Harm's Length (Cambridge, UK). Long poem sequences, Mother Tongue: Father Silence (Tinfish, Hawaii); CLIV (Alterran Poetry Assemblage); Evacuation Procedures & Second Horace (Great Works). Poems in W, The Gig, The Capilano Review (forthcoming). Essays & reviews in Agenda (London, UK); The Gig (Toronto); The Paper (Sheffield, UK); at jacket #9; & forthcoming in Crayon (USA), The Gig 19 (improvisations on the works of Deanna Ferguson) & a chapter in The Salt Companion to John James (Cambridge, UK).

new from above/ground press:

2008-03-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman
by Amanda Earl
$4

"a response to The Sad Phoenician by Robert Kroetsch, Completed Field Notes, The University of Alberta Press, 2000

italicized phrases are taken directly from the above long poem, which i loved and the rest is written in the spirit of the poem in the voice of a woman who developed a thing for adverbs"

also still available:
E l e a n o r (2007)
by Amanda Earl
$4

publisht in Edmonton by above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, March 2008. a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy. To order, add $1 for postage, & in Canadian currency; if sending from outside Canada, send in American, payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1R 6R7; above/ground press subscribers receive (honest!) a complimentary copy; calendar year subscriptions available for $40, & include chapbooks, broadsides, STANZAS magazine & The Peter F. Yacht Club.

Amanda Earl's poetry is forthcoming in Rampike, The New Chief Tongue and Van Gogh's Ear. above/ground press published her second chapbook Eleanor in 2007. Her poetry has also been recently featured in ottawater.com, Ditchpoetry.com and Unlikelystories.org and published by Vancouver's pooka press, Ottawa's Peter F. Yacht Club and in Calgary's Holy Beep! Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the Bywords Quarterly Journal. You can read about Ottawa's literary shenanigans on her blog: amandaearl.blogspot.com.

new from above/ground press:

2008-03-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

Samuel Hearne 1745-1792

Even at this hour I cannot
reflect on the transactions
of that horrid day
Without shedding tears

curse of canada
by Gregory Betts (St. Catharines ON)
$4

also still available:
The Cult of David Thompson (2005)
by Gregory Betts
$4

publisht in Edmonton by above/ground press in an edition of 300 copies, March 2008. a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy. To order, add $1 for postage, & in Canadian currency; if sending from outside Canada, send in American, payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1R 6R7; above/ground press subscribers receive (honest!) a complimentary copy; calendar year subscriptions available for $40, & include chapbooks, broadsides, STANZAS magazine & The Peter F. Yacht Club.

Gregory Betts [see his 12 or 20 questions here] is the author of If Language (2005), and Haikube (2006). He lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, where he edits PRECIPICe magazine, curates The Grey Borders Reading Series, and teaches Canadian and Avant-Garde Literature at Brock University.