report: Fisher Small and Fine Press Fair 2026

This past Saturday, above/ground press participated, once more, in the Fisher Small and Fine Press Fair in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, which was pretty cool. I mean, I've been there a few times [see my report on the 2022 fair here], but this is my first visit since Star Trek: Discovery filmed part of an episode in this space, which made it far cooler (naturally). They've been holding small press fairs in the space every two years or so since 2013, and I think this either my third or fourth fair, after the first, the 2022 event and now (I think I also attended the 2015 fair, but I can't find a record for such).

The fair leans into more letterpress works, so publishers such as myself have been invited on more of a rotating basis, given the space is only so large, but this time around, the first floor space was held as an overflow, featuring more of the small chapbook presses, including myself, Knife Fork Book [above], Anstruther Press [above] and Proper Tales Press (Gap Riot Press had been scheduled, but they were unable). The main floor, below us, held many of the usual suspects, including Flycatcher Press, Book*hug Press, Wesley Bates, Grayweathers Press/The MacOdrum Library Book Arts Lab at Carleton University, George A. Walker and Coach House Books.

There was even Jason Dewinetz [above; above/ground press author of a quarter century back] of Greenboathouse Press, who I hadn't seen in person in some two decades-plus, so that was quite nice.

It was good to see above/ground press author Ken Norris (one of the most published authors through the press, at this point; his new title is forthcoming momentarily) and Toronto writer, artist and lawyer Kate Sutherland [above], who I hadn't seen in a while. Poet and critic Bruce Whiteman came by, briefly, as did Canadian poet Sheila Stewart, Victoria writer/editor Kathryn Mockler, former Ottawa-based poet Barâa Arar, above/ground press authors Cary Fagan and Lillian Nećakov and Mark Goldstein and plenty of others. It was far busier than I might have thought, given the small press material was a bit of a side-bar for the letterpress publishers, but there was a consistent crowd most of the day. above/ground press author Conal Smiley (with a new title with Anstruther, by the way) came by to introduce himself, which I appreciated. Always good to actually meet my own authors, face to face. Although it was rather odd to have a couple of tour groups float through, twenty-plus circling our tables, taking photos of the space. Keep moving, keep moving. But an impressive day, all in all.

[Jay MillAr, Book*hug] A young person floated through, introducing themselves as the partner of above/ground press author Noah Sparrow (I didn't catch his name), in Toronto for two years for school; we ended up in a half-hour long conversation on late 1980s Montreal punk bands, which was cool. As well, Brendan Allen introduced himself as a long-time admirer of the press, having been mentored by above/ground press author Megan Kaminski in Kansas, as well as spending time at Temple University, interacting with such as Philadelphia poet Pattie McCarthy and above/ground press author Kevin Varrone, among others. Clearly this fella, in Toronto studying digital poetics, has some very good taste in mentors.

report: the above/ground press 33rd anniversary reading/launch/party!

Happy anniversary! The thirty-third anniversary reading/launch/party occurred over the weekend at Anina’s Café in Vanier (a space of which I am becoming increasingly fond). Thirty-three years! And nearly fifteen hundred publications-to-date, by the by [don't forget the current anniversary sale, happening for but a few more days]. Do you recall my report from last year's event? Or the year prior? With readings and launches of new above/ground press titles by Stephanie Bolster (Montreal), Mark Goldstein (Toronto), Cara Goodwin (Ottawa), Sonja Greckol (Toronto), Harold Hoefle (Ottawa), James Spyker (Toronto) and Grant Wilkins (Ottawa). The crowd for this event was impressive (with some notable absences, due to travel etc), with the occasional above/ground press author and editor sprinkled throughout, including Cameron Anstee, Frances Boyle, Ottawa's current English-language poet laureate, David O'Meara, and Tamara Fairchild (above/ground press produced a chapbook of hers back in 1997, don't forget), as well as artist and photographer Paul Elter, Ottawa writer Matthew Firth and visual artist Daniel Sharp, among others.

Armed with broken foot and accompanying boot, Montreal-based poet and editor Stephanie Bolster opened by launching the recent twentieth anniversary edition of her above/ground press title, BIODÔME, a title originally produced through the press way back in 2006. This new edition was actually prompted by Montreal poet Misha Solomon, who had worked his own chapbook-length response to Bolster's work, and his chapbook-response was produced simultaneously to Bolster's new edition, which also holds an introduction by Solomon [see his introduction to such here; see Bolster's afterword to the collection here]. In case you don't recall, above/ground press actually produced Bolster's solo debut, the chapbook Three Bloody Words, back in 1996, and it was rather terrifying to realize that it has now been ten years since we produced the twentieth anniversary edition of that particular title. 

The second reader was Ottawa-based poet Cara Goodwin, a poet barely a year or so older than the press itself, which does tend to make one feel ancient. After Bolster's reading, it was very exciting to counterpoint such an established writer against a chapbook debut, as Goodwin was launching her new chapbook, Map of What Was Taken, a title that had been in the works for some time. Clearly, Goodwin is a poet worth paying attention to.

The third reader was Toronto poet, editor and publisher Mark Goldstein, launching his own above/ground press debut, The Common Dark, a chapbook-length section of a poetry title he has forthcoming soon (hopefully later this year). How many years have I been soliciting Goldstein for a manuscript? Oh, too many to count (but the wait was completely worth it). I look forward to seeing how this particular title fits into the larger context of something book-length.

The next reader was Toronto poet and translator Sonja Greckol, who landed in town to launch a slightly older title, Dark Matter —Sonja Greckol translation, Materia Oscura—Rocío Céron, Dark Matter – Diverted—Sonja Greckol etranstranslation (2025), that appeared just around Christmas of last year [see the essay she wrote on translating such here] (a title that is soon to appear in a second printing). Part of what became remarkable about this event was that Greckol requested a Spanish speaker from the audience to read Céron's original text, and Goodwin's friend, Dan Josh, someone who claimed to have "no prior relationship to poetry," but read brilliantly! A remarkable blend of voices and considerations.

It was very good to hear Harold Hoefle, a (formerly Montreal-based) poet who recently retired from teaching at John Abbott College, especially given his recent relocation to Ottawa. Having a new chapbook, Leaning In, and him part of this launch felt a nice way to be able to welcome him to town, especially given the number of years he's been travelling in for the sake of multiple literary events, as well as social interactions with Ottawa writers (there's a poem in this new collection for the late Ottawa poet Michael Dennis, for example). Apparently Matthew Firth, back when he was a chapbook publisher, produced Hoefle's chapbook debut some twenty-plus years ago, which I didn't know. 

Toronto-based writer James Spyker and his work aren't the same locally-known quantity as they had been, back in the day, when he and I were part of running Ottawa's The TREE Reading Series in the mid-1990s (Spyker is also co-founder of the ottawa small press book fair, an event he recently started attending once more, as exhibitor). Given how long I've known him (I can't recall if we met five minutes prior to or following the creation of above/ground, which was less than a year prior to me joining TREE as one of the organizers/curators, back in June 1994), it was a bit surprising it took this long for his own above/ground press debut to appear, Bedtime stories for my imaginary friends, the thirty-fifth title produced as part of the press' ongoing prose/naut imprint. He purposefully read a single, slightly surreal prose-piece that hinted as an introduction for the final reader of the evening, Grant Wilkins. 

Ottawa writer, papermaker and quiet builder of complex sounds, shapes and phrases, Grant Wilkins launched what is his sixth above/ground press title produced over the past few years, provocations. Wilkins is another I've actually known since the earlier part of the 1990s, circa 1994, but has only moved into publishing his explorations through sound and text over the past few years, prompted in part through his participation in jwcurry's infamous Messagio Galore sound poetry choir. Wilkins' work [see a recent artist statement he wrote, here] blends the influence of the late American poet Jackson Mac Low with an engagement with sound, chance and play, merging texts and ideas with an unmatched ease and attention to detail.

Thanks so much to everyone to participated! And to Anina's for hosting us! There are already plans afoot, by the way, for some fall surprises (oh, and the 2027 subscriptions will be announcing soon, also; the same rates as this past year, methinks).

new from above/ground press: The Common Dark, by Mark Goldstein

The Common Dark
Mark Goldstein
$6

EMET

to ward with one’s whole being
to make a question of this

self – across centuries   a passage
from need to entry   in the book –

in-sighting this opening – what resounds 
in an archivist’s home

–

an account in response   the archive

our doing – its aftermath
  elders no compromise

our progenitors’
  silence – an inability to speak

  to that point of exclusion –
forebears this   collapse

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

[Mark Goldstein launches The Common Dark in Ottawa on August 22 as part of the above/ground press thirty-third anniversary reading/launch/party]

Mark Goldstein is a writer, editor, translator, and graphic artist. His work includes the serial poem Endlossong (forthcoming), his book length translation of poems by Paul Celan, Thricelandium (2024), his transtranslation of Kafka’s novel, The Trial, as Her Process (2021), poems, essays and interviews published as Part Thief, Part Carpenter (2021), his long poem, Form of Forms (2012), which was a finalist for the International Stiftung Buchkunst 2014 competition in Leipzig, as well as his poem collection, Tracelanguage: A Shared Breath (2010), and After Rilke (2008). Moreover, he co-edited AnyWord: A Festschrift for Phil Hall (2024), as well as the virtual anthology Paul Celan/100 (2020). He can be found online at markgoldstein.ca

To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

the above/ground press 33rd anniversary/reading/launch party! August 22, at Anina’s Café,

celebrating THIRTY-THREE YEARS of continuous activity (and nearly fifteen hundred publications), Ottawa publisher above/ground press presents:

readings and chapbook launches by:

Stephanie Bolster (Montreal), Mark Goldstein (Toronto), Cara Goodwin (Ottawa), Sonja Greckol (Toronto), Harold Hoefle (Ottawa), James Spyker (Toronto) + Grant Wilkins (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by above/ground press editor/publisher rob mclennan
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 2026 at Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way
7pm door/7:30pm reading
$10 at the door / cash or e-transfer / includes 2 chapbooks (of your choice!
[see the report here from last year’s event; and don't forget the 33rd anniversary sale, happening until September 1st!] 

Author biographies:

Stephanie Bolster’s latest book of poetry, Long Exposure, appeared with Palimpsest Press in fall 2025. Excerpts from the book were finalists for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2019. Bolster’s first book, White Stone: The Alice Poems, won the Governor General’s Award and the Gerald Lampert Award and was translated into French as Pierre Blanche. Her poems have also been translated into Spanish, German, and Serbo-Croatian. Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 and The Ishtar Gate: Last and Selected Poems by the late Ottawa poet Diana Brebner, and co-editor of Penned: Zoo Poems, she was born in Vancouver and grew up in Burnaby, BC. She has been a professor of creative writing at Concordia University since 2000 and lives in Pointe-Claire, Québec, on the Mohawk (Kanien’kehá:ka) territory of Skaniatara:ti.

Stephanie Bolster will be launching her fifth above/ground press title, BIODÔME: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (2026).

Born in Cold Lake, Alberta, on a rainy April day in 1992, Cara Goodwin is the daughter of a beautiful Cree mother and a doting military father. Her early years were shaped by movement across the plains: visits to her mother’s relations on reserve and months spent with her Kokum in British Columbia; a move to Oromocto, New Brunswick, at age eight, where she developed an East Coast sense of humour; and a relocation to Yellowknife at fifteen, where she lived until high school graduation.

After a year abroad in Australia at eighteen—where she briefly fancied herself a mysterious foreign waitress before finding work milking cows—Cara moved to Ottawa at nineteen for school. There, she became roommates with her future best friend and has built a chosen family of her own. Now thirty-four, and a proud member of Fort McMurray 468 First Nation, she is focused on deepening her connection to her Cree heritage and considering how to leave the planet in a better place for her nieces.

An Ottawa-based poet, her work has appeared in Bywords, flo. literary magazine, and Room. Over the past five years, she has received two Honourable Mentions for the John Newlove Award and was shortlisted for Room’s Annual Poetry Prize in 2023. In 2025 read as a featured performer for the Riverbed Reading Series, where her poems traced her ancestral roots across what is now called Canada. Cara holds a BA (Hons.) in Social Communications and has completed numerous writing diploma and certificate programs over the years.

Cara Goodwin will be launching her above/ground press debut, Map of What Was Taken (2026).

Mark Goldstein is a writer, editor, translator, and graphic artist. His work includes the serial poem Endlossong (forthcoming), his book-length translation of poems by Paul Celan, Thricelandium (2024), his translation of Kafka's novel, The Trial, as Her Process (2021), poems, essays, and interviews published as Part Thief, Part Carpenter (2021), his long poem, Form of Forms (2012), which was a finalist for the International Stiftung Buchkunst 2014 competition in Lipzig, as well as his poem collection, Tracelanguage: A Shared Breath (2010), and After Rilke (2008). Moreover, he co-edited AnyWord: A Festschrift for Phil Hall (2024), as well as the virtual anthology Paul Celan/100 (2020). He can be found online at markgoldstein.ca

Mark Goldstein will be launching his above/ground press debut, The Common Dark (2026).

Sonja Greckol lives in Tkaronto and is grateful for subways, LRTs and bike lanes wherever.  No Hay Linea En El Tiempo / No Line in Time (Manofalsa Press (Lima/Mexico City) is her latest book. She published Monitoring Station (2023), No Line in Time (2018), Skein of Days (2014) and Gravity Matters (2008). Monitoring Station was listed for the Robert Kroetsch Award, No Line in Time for the LCP Raymond P. Souster Award. Her long poem 'No Line in Time' won the 2017 Briar Patch Writing in the Margins Poetry Contest. Her translation of Rosío Cerón’s ‘Trances’ appeared in Jan 2025 Asymptote Journal and above/ground press published her translation of Cerón's Materia Oscura as Dark Matter, Dark Matter —Diverted. She is the founding poetry editor of Women and Environments International and a member of the Feminist Caucus (LCP). sonjagreckol.com

Sonja Greckol will be launching her above/ground press debut, Dark Matter, by Rosío Céron; translated/etranslated by Sonja Greckol (2025).

Harold Hoefle’s poems have won the Bliss Carman Award, the Great Blue Heron Poetry Award (2014), and a National Magazine Awards silver medal. His debut collection of poems, The Night Chorus, was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. He has also published a collection of short-fiction called The Mountain Clinic (Oberon Press). Harold lives in Ottawa, teaches in Montreal.

Harold Hoefle will be launching his above/ground press debut, Leaning In (2026).

James Spyker is a book and paper artist based in Toronto. He lives in that building where you visited your great aunt when you were a kid. He occasionally returns to writing when blank pages become too much to bear.

James Spyker will be launching his above/ground press debut, Bedtime stories for my imaginary fans (2026).

Grant Wilkins is an occasional poet, printer and papermaker who has made a practice of doing strange things to other people’s words. He has degrees in History & Classical Civilization and in English, and he’s working on another one in Art History. He lives in Ottawa on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

Grant Wilkins will be launching his sixth above/ground press chapbook, provocations (2026).

 

save the date! above/ground press thirty-three: anniversary reading,

readings and new (recent) chapbooks by Stephanie Bolster, Mark Goldstein, Cara Goodwin, Harold Hoefle, Grant Wilkins (and most likely a couple of others); more information soon,

Saturday, August 22, 2026
7pm door / 7:30pm reading
Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way, Ottawa

slight door cover, but will include copies of two above/ground press titles of your choice!

keep in mind, 2026 subscriptions are still available, yes? totally willing to backdate,

and don't forget the above/ground press thirty-third anniversary sale, happening through to September 1st!

some author activity: Manery, Markotić, Doller, Straumsvåg, Heroux, Fagan, Barwin, Reid + Solomon,

forthcoming author Sandra Doller is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Dag T. Straumsvåg and Jason Heroux's collaborative chapbook gets a nice mention by Cary Fagan over at his review blog; Gary Barwin has an archived poem up at The Walrus; Monty Reid is reviewed by Dawn Macdonald; and Misha Solomon has new work up in the Spotlight series.

The Factory Reading Series: a Beautiful Outlaw Press launch with Mark Goldstein and Phil Hall, October 15, 2014

a Beautiful Outlaw Press launch with readings by:

Mark Goldstein (Toronto)
+ Phil Hall (Perth)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Wednesday, October 15, 2014;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
Black Squirrel Books
1073 Bank Street (directly across from The Mayfair)

Beautiful Outlaw Press is pleased to announce its publication of two new works: Essay on Legend, by Phil Hall, and Blacktoll, by Mark Goldstein.

By its title, Essay on Legend echoes Alexander Pope's 18th century poem Essay on Criticism. It is concerned with the insidiousness of story-telling, narrative, anecdote (forms of legend). The thinnest tip of legend is metaphor – the tiny lie of how each word is not itself. Like the Japanese poets, Issa, Basho ... Hall has had some fun renaming himself: he tells the bogus legend of that old poet, Otty. (Basho was the tree outside Basho's door / I live at Otty Lake.) Al Purdy & Louis Zukofsky make appearances, too. As Hall’s essay-poem tracks A to Z., it speaks also of guns & dogs & revision.

Blacktoll is Goldstein’s transtranslation of Paul Celan’s Schwarzmaut, a work Celan wrote sometime after January 30, 1967 – the date on which he first tried to kill himself. It is a continuation of Goldstein’s transtranslational experiments first begun in After Rilke (BookThug 2008) and continued in Tracelanguage (BookThug 2010). Where Tracelanguage exemplifies a “shared breath” that seeks to break with tired translational orthodoxies, Blacktoll attempts to embrace both old and new methodologies as singular.

With 52 copies of Essay on Legend and 85 copies of Blacktoll available, both titles are issued as limited hand-bound editions.

Mark Goldstein is the author of three books of poetry published by the award-winning BookThug: Form of Forms (2012); Tracelanguage (2010); and After Rilke (2008). His poetry and criticism have appeared in periodicals including The Capilano Review, Open Letter, Matrix Magazine and Jacket2.

He has taught transtranslation workshops at the Toronto New School of Writing and SUNY Albany. Goldstein has also lectured on translation in Paris at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales.

Prior to writing and translation, Goldstein was a founding member of indie rock band By Divine Right. He played drums, toured and recorded with Leslie Feist and Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning. He now divides his time between Toronto, Vancouver, and Los Angeles.

Phil Hall won the 2011 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry in English, for Killdeer, published by BookThug.

He also won the 2012 Trillium Book Award for Killdeer. This book of essay-poems also won an Alcuin Design Award, was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize, & will soon be published in a French translation from Éditions Pris de parole.

Hall’s most recent publications are: The Small Nouns Crying Faith (BookThug, 2013), and Notes on Gethsemani (Nomados, 2014). Recently, he has worked in the Wired Writing Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

This fall he is Writer-in-Residence at the University of Ottawa. He is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada. He lives near Perth, Ontario.

He is also the author of two chapbooks through above/ground press: Veralum (2011), and, with Australian poet Andrew Burke, the collaborative Shikibu Shuffle (2012).

new from above/ground press: THE SHINY THINGS by Jay MillAr

THE SHINY THINGS
Jay MillAr
$4

SOMETHING’S HAPPENING HERE

With refreshments wine was usually served and sometimes stronger beverages, and it was not an uncommon sight to see men reeling through the streets and sometimes uproariously drunk at the close of the day.

DEADLY VISIBLE RAYS

In the late thirties there was some discussion relative to the introduction of gas.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2012
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover artwork by Mark Goldstein

Jay MillAr is a Toronto poet, editor, publisher, teacher and virtual bookseller. He is the author of several books, the most recent of which are the small blue (2008), esp : accumulation sonnets (2009) and Other Poems (2010). He is also the author of several privately published editions, such as Lack Lyrics, which tied to win the 2008 bpNichol Chapbook Award. MillAr is the shadowy figure behind BookThug, a publishing house dedicated to exploratory 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. Currently Jay teaches creative writing and poetics at George Brown College and Toronto New School of Writing, where he is also the co-director.

This is Jay MillAr’s fourth above/ground press title, after “from COAST ALL JOURN ALL” (STANZAS magazine, volume 1, issue #17, 1998), LET'S CALL THESE POEMS ST. CLAIR AVENUE (2003) and the collaborative Hijinks: A Sequence from Double Helix (with Stephen Cain, 2003).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com