above/ground press author Jason Christie's Government (2013) on the 2014 bpNichol Chapbook Award‏ shortlist!

Congratulations to new Ottawa resident Jason Christie for making the shortlist to the 2014 bpNichol Chapbook Award! Thrilled to see, also, two other above/ground press authors--Christine McNair and Phil Hall--on the shortlist for further titles. Congratulations, all!

This is above/ground press' third and third annual appearance on the bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist, after Fenn Stewart's An OK Organ Man (2012) made last year's list, and Hugh Thomas' Opening the Dictionary (2011) and Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin's let lie/ (2012) were shortlisted the previous year.

Looking forward to this year's Meet the Presses (our first appearance at such) to hear the winner! The press release for such is below:

Meet the Presses Announces bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist and Doubling of Award Purse

TORONTO (10 October 2014) — Meet The Presses announced today that, beginning this year, the prize purse of the bpNichol Chapbook Award will double from $2,000 to $4,000, thanks to the generosity of its Anonymous Donor. Meet the Presses is a volunteer collective that organizes public events showcasing books and chapbooks, magazines, recordings and broadsides produced by independent publishers of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction,

This year’s bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist consists of six poetry titles:

Government: Jason Christie (above/ground)

Life Savings: Mat Laporte (Odourless)

pleasantries and other misdemeanours: Christine McNair (Apt. 9)

a fist made and then unmade: matt robinson (Gaspereau)

Oilywood: Christine Leclerc (Nomados)

X: Phil Hall (Thee Hellbox)

The winner of this year’s bpNichol Chapbook Award will be announced at Meet the Presses’ fifth Indie Literary Market, on Saturday November 22, at the Tranzac Club in Toronto. The Market is an invitational event focused exclusively on things literary. It provides an opportunity for the public to meet independent literary publishers and purchase publications that may not be readily available (or available at all) in bookstores and other commercial outlets. The collective came together in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses events begun 29 years ago in Toronto by Stuart Ross and Nick Power.

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The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry published in chapbook form. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. This year’s judges are Kevin McPherson Eckhoff and Sandra Ridley. The author now receives $4,000 and, thanks to the largesse of writers Brian Dedora and Jim Smith, the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.

For more information, write meetthepresses@gmail.com or phone 709.738.6702.

Meet the Presses

Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Ally Fleming, Beth Follett, Hazel Millar, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power, Stuart Ross, Eric Schmaltz and Jess Taylor.

[Founding Members Emeritus: Maria Erskine, Maggie Helwig]

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, June 6, 2014: Reed, Menear, Eaton, Power + Saklikar

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:

The Factory Reading Series
pre-small press book fair reading

featuring readings by:

Marthe Reed (NY State)
David Menear (Toronto/Montreal)
Chris Eaton (Toronto)
Nicholas Power (Toronto)
+ Renée Sarojini Saklikar (Vancouver)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, June 6, 2014;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern, 
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

as a preview for the following day’s ottawa small press book fair!

Marthe Reed is the author of four books: Pleth, a collaboration with j hastain (Unlikely Books 2013), (em)bodied bliss (Moria Books 2013), Gaze (Black Radish Books 2010) and Tender Box, A Wunderkammer (Lavender Ink 2007). A fifth book of poems will be published by Lavender Ink (2014). She has also published six chapbooks (Dusie Kollektiv, above/ground press, and Shirt Pocket Press). Her collaborative chapbook thrown, text by j hastain with Reed’s collages, won the 2013 Smoking Glue Gun contest and will appear in 2014. An essay on Claudia Rankine’s The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue appears in American Letters and Commentary. She is Co-Publisher of Black Radish Books.

David Menear has spent most of his life between Toronto and Montreal, but has also lived in both London, U.K. & Divonne, France. Schooled in NYC. A father of four he is back in Toronto at ‘The Beach’ writing hard and playing tennis with enthusiasm and mediocrity. His short stories have been published in QWF/Carte Blanche & The Danforth Review. Poetry included in The International Nelson Mandela Tribute Anthology & Ditch. He will be launching a new chapbook produced by Amanda Earl’s DevilHouse!

Chris Eaton is the author of four books of fiction, most recently Chris Eaton, a Biography, and occasionally writes and performs music under the name Rock Plaza Central. He lives in Toronto but his heart still resides in New Brunswick.

Nicholas Power [pictured] is a founding member of the Meet the Presses literary collective, and has performed with the storytelling duo The Wordweavers and the sound poetry ensemble Alexander’s Dark Band. He works as a psychotherapist in private practice. He has been published by Underwhich Editions (wells), The Writing Space (a modest device), and Battered Press (No Poems). Poems have appeared in Rampike, Descant, bywords.ca, leafpress.ca and ottawater.com. He has been editing and publishing with his own Gesture Press for 30 years. His new book just out from Tekst Editions is called Melancholy Scientist.

Educated at the University of British Columbia (B.A., LL.B) and a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio, Renée Sarojini Saklikar writes thecanadaproject, a life-long poem chronicle. Work from thecanadaproject appears in literary journals and newspapers, including The Vancouver Review, Geist, SubTerrain, Poetry is Dead, CV2, and Arc Poetry Magazine and in the anthologies, Alive at the Center, Contemporary Poems from the Pacific Northwest, and Force Field, 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. Renée’s elegiac sequence, children of air india, un/authorized exhibits and interjections, (Nightwood Editions, 2013) is the first book length poetic examination of the bombing of Air India Flight 182 to be published in North America. Renée serves as a mentor for SFU’s Southbank Writers Program and is the co-founder of a new poetry reading series, Lunch Poems at SFU. http://thecanadaproject.wordpress.com Twitter: @reneesarojini