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Confessions Of A Small Press Racketeer
Ross, Stuart
- GenresEssaysNonfiction
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
22 people want to read
About the author
Stuart Ross
38 books122 followersStuart Ross published his first literary pamphlet on the photocopier in his dad’s office one night in 1979. Through the 1980s, he stood on Toronto’s Yonge Street wearing signs like “Writer Going To Hell: Buy My Books,” selling over 7,000 poetry and fiction chapbooks.
A tireless literary press activist, he is the co-founder of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair and now a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective. He had his own imprint, a stuart ross book, at Mansfield Press for a decade, and was Fiction & Poetry Editor at This Magazine for eight years. In fall 2017, he launched a new poetry imprint, A Feed Dog Book, through Anvil Press.
Stuart has edited several small literary magazines, including Mondo Hunkamooga: A Journal of Small Press Stuff, Syd & Shirley, Who Torched Rancho Diablo?, Peter O’Toole: A Magazine of One-Line Poems, and, most recently HARDSCRABBLE.
He is the author of two collaborative novels, two solo novels, two collections of stories, and twelve full-length poetry books. He has also published two collections of essays, Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer and Further Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (both from Anvil Press), and edited the anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (The Mercury Press) and co-edited Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament (Mansfield Press).
Stuart has taught writing workshops across Canada and works one-on-one with authors on their manuscripts. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario. In spring 2009, Freehand Books released his first short-story collection in more than a decade, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog, to almost unanimous critical acclaim.
Stuart was the fall 2010 writer-in-residence at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and the winter 2021 writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa.
In 2017, Stuart won the eighth annual Battle of the Bards, presented by the International Festival of Authors and NOW Magazine. In spring 2023, Stuart received the biggest book award in Ontario, the Trillium Book Prize, for his memoir The Book of Grief and Hamburgers. In fall 2019, Stuart was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian literature and literary community. His other awards include the Canadian Jewish Literary Prize for Poetry and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction. His work has been translated into Russian, French, Spanish, Estonian, Slovene, and Nynorsk.
Stuart is currently working on ten book projects.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 21, 2020
I attended one of Stuart Ross’ solo performances recently where he carried us through for nearly two hours (impressive) replete with anecdotes from his life, jokes (lots of them) and writing exercises, accompanied by wine, cheese and plenty of book selling (including this one). He is the quintessential starving writer who made it to the safe shore (i.e. teaching and editing gigs to supplement his writing and publishing income) through perspiration and perseverance, and he has now won a prestigious literary award that threatens to make him respectable, politically correct and boring. We pray that he does not go over to the dark side.
His book Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer is a distillation of his life over 25 years (the book was published in 2005, so there are still many more years in his life to chronicle, that I suspect come out in the sequel) as a writer, poet, magazine publisher, book editor, and general encyclopedia on the small press literary scene in Canada. His dedication to his craft is total, spending years selling thousands of chapbooks on the streets of Toronto, attending every literary festival he got invited to, slumming around with every known and unknown poet and writer, irritating some and endearing himself to others. The picture of the small press world he paints is starkly funny: everyone knows everybody, everyone owns his own micro-press and publishes everyone else’s writing under the aegis of a benevolent government funding program, everyone compliments and bitches about everyone else, everyone can’t resist the temptation to perform their work in front of an audience, and everyone dreams of winning a big prize in the literary establishment that they are kept at bay from. His advice to budding writers:
1) Forget about making money.
2) Read like crazy, then steal.
3) Buy books, if you expect others to buy yours.
4) Start your own magazine or press.
5) Don’t take creative writing courses, unless your instructor is Stuart Ross.
6) Start performing your work (although he doesn’t really like open mics for their accent on “performance” over “quality”).
Being the owner of a micro-press myself, which Ross graciously elevates to “small press,” because he too has one, I have to agree with him on all these points, although I would modify the second half of point # 5 to read “no matter who your instructor is.” I believe that creativity is inherent and cannot be taught. The writing mills were just an industry that sprang up to supplement writers’ incomes. Sorry Stuart, upon reading your book, I am starting to become an upstart, just as you are!
Small press poets and writers try to gain attention by writing about a crazy reality, and they use monikers that are spelled in combinations of upper case and lower case letters applied out of established grammatical norms – attention grabbers, or branding, as one would say today. Their readings can be bizarre, such as reading a failed grant application on open mic, or reading the table of contents of their book only, or just thumbing the pages of their manuscript in front of an audience while making rude noises before walking away. They are glad when someone, unknown to them, looks up their website or recognizes them in the street.
As to the evolution of the industry, more nuggets fall out:
a) American suck at most things such as world peace, but they produce great writers.
b) Readers prefer funny and light instead of dark and heavy.
c) Poetry is more about personality and performance than about the writing (hence his disfavour of open mics).
This book was strangely re-assuring to me, a fellow small presser, for Ross candidly expresses what many of us suspect but are sometimes reluctant to voice. As for small press writers and publishers, I wonder what their purpose in the world is, given that so little of their work is read due to narrowed or suppressed distribution? Would they have created a better world with their work, or would they merely leave the world a duller place when their technicoloured personalities die out? Strangely, Ross didn’t answer this question in his book. I think I’ll read the sequel to find out.
His book Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer is a distillation of his life over 25 years (the book was published in 2005, so there are still many more years in his life to chronicle, that I suspect come out in the sequel) as a writer, poet, magazine publisher, book editor, and general encyclopedia on the small press literary scene in Canada. His dedication to his craft is total, spending years selling thousands of chapbooks on the streets of Toronto, attending every literary festival he got invited to, slumming around with every known and unknown poet and writer, irritating some and endearing himself to others. The picture of the small press world he paints is starkly funny: everyone knows everybody, everyone owns his own micro-press and publishes everyone else’s writing under the aegis of a benevolent government funding program, everyone compliments and bitches about everyone else, everyone can’t resist the temptation to perform their work in front of an audience, and everyone dreams of winning a big prize in the literary establishment that they are kept at bay from. His advice to budding writers:
1) Forget about making money.
2) Read like crazy, then steal.
3) Buy books, if you expect others to buy yours.
4) Start your own magazine or press.
5) Don’t take creative writing courses, unless your instructor is Stuart Ross.
6) Start performing your work (although he doesn’t really like open mics for their accent on “performance” over “quality”).
Being the owner of a micro-press myself, which Ross graciously elevates to “small press,” because he too has one, I have to agree with him on all these points, although I would modify the second half of point # 5 to read “no matter who your instructor is.” I believe that creativity is inherent and cannot be taught. The writing mills were just an industry that sprang up to supplement writers’ incomes. Sorry Stuart, upon reading your book, I am starting to become an upstart, just as you are!
Small press poets and writers try to gain attention by writing about a crazy reality, and they use monikers that are spelled in combinations of upper case and lower case letters applied out of established grammatical norms – attention grabbers, or branding, as one would say today. Their readings can be bizarre, such as reading a failed grant application on open mic, or reading the table of contents of their book only, or just thumbing the pages of their manuscript in front of an audience while making rude noises before walking away. They are glad when someone, unknown to them, looks up their website or recognizes them in the street.
As to the evolution of the industry, more nuggets fall out:
a) American suck at most things such as world peace, but they produce great writers.
b) Readers prefer funny and light instead of dark and heavy.
c) Poetry is more about personality and performance than about the writing (hence his disfavour of open mics).
This book was strangely re-assuring to me, a fellow small presser, for Ross candidly expresses what many of us suspect but are sometimes reluctant to voice. As for small press writers and publishers, I wonder what their purpose in the world is, given that so little of their work is read due to narrowed or suppressed distribution? Would they have created a better world with their work, or would they merely leave the world a duller place when their technicoloured personalities die out? Strangely, Ross didn’t answer this question in his book. I think I’ll read the sequel to find out.
September 18, 2012
I am not a fan of underground poetry or writing. I picked this up because it reminded me I hadn't seen Stuart peddling his books in Yonge Street for awhile. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I hope Stuart decides to write his "memoirs" some day. The story telling is excellent. Every column was informative, funny, or poignant. I hope he doesn't take it the wrong way but I found it heartwarming.
February 9, 2017
Stuart's old columns about poetry, books, readings, small presses and other writers made me want to write again.
I enjoyed this book thoroughly and not just because he refers to one of my friends as his "arch-nemesis" and another one of my friends as a guy "who wears a beret and writes like a Canadian Bukowski".
I enjoyed this book thoroughly and not just because he refers to one of my friends as his "arch-nemesis" and another one of my friends as a guy "who wears a beret and writes like a Canadian Bukowski".
October 5, 2013
Ross' passion for poetry and small presses together with his frankness, humour and insight make this a good read. My absolute favourite lines:
Good lord, are there people I don't know who look at my website?
Way crappier writers than me get more attention, because they're so goddamn self-absorbed and have no problem with their overinflated egos.
Good lord, are there people I don't know who look at my website?
Way crappier writers than me get more attention, because they're so goddamn self-absorbed and have no problem with their overinflated egos.
May 27, 2010
Bittersweet words of encouragement from the trenches of Canadian small pressdom. Witty remarks on live poetry readings, names, the downside of having a sense of humour in one's creative work, not growing up and "How to Not Write."
October 22, 2009
It is strange but I guess I have a hero now.
January 10, 2013
Loved it. Stuart Ross is an excellent writer with a wicked sense of humour.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews