there is no update either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,

, two upcoming (Ottawa) book fair appearances, an above/ground press zoom + an Ottawa in-person reading, etc.

Do you like book fairs? I’ll be tabling at the Made in Alta Vista Market in Ottawa on Thursday, May 29 at the Jim Tubman Chevrolet Rink, 2185 Arch Street (outside the Canterbury Recreation Complex), from 4-8pm, sitting a table attempting to sell copies of various of my books and chapbooks; you should totally show up. Curious to think we’ve been in this house long enough that I’ve now a handful of books now entirely composed here. Check out the above/ground press ZOOM launch we’re doing on Wednesday, May 28, 7pm EDT, with myself reading alongside Orchid Tierney (OH), Meredith Quartermain (BC), Brook Houglum (BC), Sandra Doller (NY) and Tom Jenks (UK), all of whom have recent above/ground press titles. Check here to join the event. I’m also reading in Ottawa on June 1, 2pm with Christine McNair and Amanda Earl at The Lieutenant’s Pump, 361 Elgin Street, most likely from unpublished work, including a short story and a handful of poems. I’ve been working on all sorts of things lately that you probably don’t know about. Secret, exciting things. (probably)

Oh, and the ottawa small press book fair will be held in our usual (new) location at Tom Brown Arena on Saturday, June 21; the fair will be thirty-one years old this fall, if you can imagine. Can you? And we’re doing our usual pre-fair reading the night prior at Anina’s Café in Vanier, with readings by Pearl Pirie (QC), MA|DE (Jade Wallace and Mark Laliberte, Windsor ON), Manahil Bandukwala (Ottawa), James K. Moran (Ottawa) and Mahaila Smith (Ottawa), also. We always have fun at the small press fair. If you haven’t been, you should. I usually take up three full tables with my various books and chapbooks (including my latest titles, Snow day and On Beauty: stories, as well as a variety of older/out-of-print titles), and a whole spread of above/ground press titles. Now that we’re in the new space, there’s plenty of room for the fair to grow, also, with easily double the exhibitors from back when we were upstairs at Jack Purcell.

Did you hear that I’ve a new limited edition chapbook, the sentence of the book, out with American chapbook publisher Ethel Zine? That’s pretty cool; you can order a copy direct from the publisher here (and I think she even hand-sews every copy?); there’s also a chapbook-length selected poems en route soon via CCCP Chapbooks, which Jordan Davis puts together through the subpress collective. He’s gone through a couple of chapbooks and my first few full-length collections, with a further two chapbook-length selecteds en route, to cover different periods of my poetry publishing. I’ve been curious at his selection, leaving the entirety up to his fine eye. Apparently once all three are out, he’s going to offer an “introduction” of some sort, to articulate his framing of the whole project. I’m eager to see that.

Don’t forget that my fall poetry collection, the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press), a follow-up to the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022), is available for pre-order. There’s already a third collection in this proposed trilogy, “Autobiography,” with Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025) as a kind of aside between the first two titles (with a further unpublished aside, “edgeless,” set between the second two titles). A trilogy of five books? Oh, how very Douglas Adams of me, one might say.

Otherwise, Dawn Macdonald was good enough to post a review of A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019) over at her ongoing review substack; thank you! I have copies available, of course, as well as recently-arrived copies of A perimeter (New Star Press, 2016), which is a good thing, but also sad, given the arrival of fresh boxes was due to New Star Press winding down after some fifty years or so. If you ever want copies of anything, its pretty much just book + shipping, so shoot me an email (rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com). Or come by the ottawa small press book fair! I can even sign it if you want! I can also not sign it if you want (I suppose not everyone cares for such a thing). I’ve also completed a couple of editing gigs lately, so I’m open for (poetry) manuscript consultation.

You probably already know that my chapbook press, above/ground press, has a substack now, in which I offer the occasional update and author spotlight. And the postal increase sale is only on for another few weeks! There are some really good deals there; get a handful of poetry chapbooks (some prose, also) or let me fill a whole box! And save the date for August 7 at RedBird Live in Old Ottawa South, where we’re holding the thirty-second anniversary. Some of the poets already confirmed to read, each with a new/recent chapbook in-hand, includes Monty Reid (Ottawa), Jason Christie (Ottawa), Ellen Chang-Richardson (Ottawa), Beatriz Hausner (Toronto), Lina Ramona Vitkauskas (Toronto) and Mandy Sandhu (Toronto) (and possibly another reader or two)! Tickets are available now or at least soon!

Oh, and I’ve been introducing the 11yr old to Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The series, not yet the movies (one thing at a time, of course). And while it is good to be able to finally introduce her to the semaphore version of Wuthering Heights (1847), how could the original do anything now but disappoint? Oh, Heathcliffe.