an update, an update, my kingdom for an update,
, because you deserve to know the truth,
It has been a while since I’ve done one of these, I know. Now that VERSeFest 2025 is behind us (why yes, we are already thinking about next year’s sixteenth annual festival; I think a grant application is actually due next week, also), I do get a bit of a respite (Aoife even had a PD day recently, which is when we finally used that silly cotton candy machine she’s been begging for, for how many months), although most of the past week-plus has been scrambling back into all the work I had set aside due to festival-requirements. I’m behind on reviews, I’m behind on a couple of editing gigs, I’m behind on a few other thousand things. I hide in our wee house either at my desk, or downstairs, folding and stapling chapbooks. I should mention that Christine is actually doing a reading in Ottawa on April 15th, and we’re reading together in Ottawa in early June through Amanda Earl, although I don’t recall at this moment exactly where or exactly when (keep an eye on this for such updates, which I’m mostly good at actually updating).
Don’t forget that the spring edition of the ottawa small press book fair is coming up in June, yes? Can you believe the event will turn thirty-one years old this fall? Gadzooks. With the usual pre-fair event the night prior at Vanier’s Anina’s Cafe. And I’ll probably have another anniversary event for above/ground press this summer, most likely in August (I’ve been quietly attempting to get authors lined up for same).
Oh yes, did you see that I’ve started a substack for above/ground press? I’m using it to announce new publications once a month, various author updates and even start an occasional series of spotlights on a variety of above/ground press authors. There are hundreds of titles still in print, so there’s a lot of ground one might cover, which is exciting. You are welcome to follow along (but it is fine if you don’t wish to, as well).
Otherwise, I was recently podcast-interviewed by Hollay Ghadery, which was plenty fun. The podcast has been posted over this way, if you wish to hear our conversation, which was focused on my recent On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024). Kitchener poet and reviewer Chris Banks interviewed me recently, posted over at The Woodlot: Canadian Poetry Reviews and Essays. Michael Greenstein was good enough to review the collection over at The Seaboard Review, and Salma Hussain managed this absolutely stellar and breathtaking review of same over at The Temz Review; she gets me. She really gets me. It is a rare thing, I will tell you, to be read so well.
I have a recent short story newly published over at LEON Literary Review, which is cool. A recent poem appears online at Common House mag, another at Sumac Literary Magazine, and another at Oatleaf Poetry Magazine. Even though I am thinking on the next collection of short stories, there have been more poems lately, and this is a good thing. I would also offer that if you care about reviews of Canadian literature, specifically poetry, you should be following Dawn Macdonald’s substack, as she’s been reviewing up a storm over there.
Oh, and my fall poetry title, the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press), a direct follow-up to the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022), already has a pre-order page! (but I might have mentioned that already; did I mention that already?). I should probably be thinking about fall events, possibly. Where should I go?
And I am going to keep pushing the above/ground press postal increase sale, ongoing until July 9th (the day the press turns thirty-two years old). A thirty percent postal increase is substantial, after all, however small that complication might be in the larger scheme of things. But still.
