Stuart Ross's Blog, page 28

PRAYER OF DEFAMATION

PRAYER OF DEFAMATION

I have been retained by and who have instructed me to letter to you respect to the Toronto apparently making these statements maliciously to attack the reputation and character of, frankly, and with the intent to injure them in their office, professional, calling, or malicious and exceed the limits of comment and free speech, I have read legal proceedings against you many, for example, your recent e-mail on or around January 3, copied to numerous parties nature and tone...

Indie Literary Market stash

It was like coming home last Saturday, attending (and helping to organize) the Indie Literary Market at Clinton's Tavern in Toronto. Not only because I got to do some postering earlier in the week with Nicholas Power, with whom I founded the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, but because this was a room filled with great literary presses and magazines, and the people who came seemed largely to be after actual literature.

The Indie Literary Market was curated by Meet the Presses, a collective that'...

AISP

Last week I attend the 30-something-year reunion for my secondary, AISP (Alternative & Independent Study Program; it's now called Avondale Alternative School). It was a pretty incredible experience. Lots of joy, and some dollops of sadness, and much reflection on mortality.

I got selected, first, to write a kind of ode to the school, and then to actually MC the entire evening, which turned out to be a lot of fun. And a great honour. AISP has some pretty notable alumni, for such a tiny school.

I...

Indie Literary Market this Saturday in Toronto

Our Meet the Presses gang has organized a second Indie Literary Market, happening this Saturday at Clinton's back room in Toronto. One nifty feature this time around will be a sort of "build-your-own-anthology," where you can collect anthology pages from the tables you visit and then have your personalized collection bound on your way out the door. I'll be there with my Proper Tales table, and two new publications:

• HARDSCRABBLE 2: the new issue of my poetry magazine contains great poems by K...

Toronto Poetry Vendors

OK, so Elisabeth de Mariaffi and Carey Toane have got some poetry vending machines going. They seem to be pretty sweet. There's one already installed at This Ain't the Rosedale Library.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, May 26) I'm taking part in the installation of another machine at a coffee joint on Dupont. Presumably I'll be reading my poem right outta the gizmo.

Worth noting that there has been one other poetry vending machine in Canada (that I know about): the bubble-gum-style contraption that Tamara ...

Ticker Text … and more

My fine friend Jason Camlot, a great poet and a prof at Concordia, has put together an intriguing project that boggles my non-techie mind: The Ticker Text Project. He's looking for poets around the globe to participate. Check it out.

On a side note, get Jason's most recent book, from Paul Vermeersch's 4 a.m. Books imprint with Insomniac: The Debaucher. It's Montreal! It's Jewish! It's poetry! And it's a great book.

Some loose ends to be tied up:

I did not win the Alberta Readers' Choice Award. T...

Necakov, Power, Ross, Smith reunion!

Very excited about tomorrow's reading in Toronto. Lillian Necakov, Nicholas Power, Jim Smith and I have been part of the same writing community since the early 1980s, and we're all appearing on the same bill at St. Clair/Silverthorn Library. I'm not sure that we've all ever read together before. Here's the skinny:

STILL KEEPIN' TORONTO READING
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
6:30pm - 8:00pm
St. Clair/Silverthorn Library
1748 St. Clair Avenue West (near Old Weston Road)

A lively early evening of new...

Meanwhile, back in Ontario…

Hmm, is it being negative to suggest to someone that they proofread their online book reviews before posting them? I think it's being constructive. It's for their own good. It's for the good of writing.

Meanwhile, I'm back in Ontario, after a great three-weeks-and-a-bit out west, first in Edmonton, and then in the Kootenays. Spent most of my Kootenay time in New Denver, but also did workshops and readings in Burton, Nakusp, Grand Forks, Nelson, Kaslo, and Rossmore. An amazing time, and I reall...

Thanks!

Big thanks to all of you who voted for me online for the Alberta Readers Choice Award. The winner will be announced on May 14. I'll wait to see whether they're offering to fly me out.

Meanwhile, here I am in New Denver. Great week teaching at the school here. Thursday night was a blast with the elementary-school coffeehouse over at Silverton Hall. Last night was the secondary-school coffeehouse, with great readings by Michelle, Sadye, Angelo and Danika — a very small contingent of students, bu...

A few days left to vote for Cigarettes! Plus two new nominations!

OK, here I am in the little cabin in New Denver, B.C. Just about dusk. Raining pattering on the metal roof. Slocan Lake, which I see out my window here, is choppy and beautiful.

Came out west a couple weekends ago, first to Edmonton, where I took part in a panel organized by the Alberta Readers Choice Award people. Strange experience, but a lot of fun. Even if the champion for one of the other books dismissed Buying Cigarettes for the Dog as "fluff." Simone Lee, of Calgary's Pages Bookstore o...