The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, June 12, 2015: Irwin, Steadman, Cumming + Ross,

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

The Factory Reading Series
pre-small press book fair reading
featuring readings by:

Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa)
Dean Steadman (Ottawa)
Alicia Cumming (Kemptville)
+ Stuart Ross (Coburg)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, June 12, 2015;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

[And don’t forget the ottawa small press book fair, held the following day at the Jack Purcell Community Centre]

A graduate of Algonquin College’s Creative Writing program, winner of Arc Poetry Magazine’s 2013 Diana Brebner Prize, and a 2014 Hot Ottawa Voice, Marilyn Irwin’s work has been published by above/ground press, Arc, Bywords, In/Words, and New American Writing, among others. Her previous chapbooks include for when you pick daisies (self-published and above/ground, 2010), flicker (above/ground, 2012), little nothings (self-published, 2012), and tiny (In/Words, 2014). for when you pick daisies was printed in full for the third time in the anthology Ground rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013 (Chaudiere Books, 2013). Her most recent chapbook the blue, blue there was published by Apt. 9 Press. She is currently working on her first full length manuscript, runs shreeking violet press and lives with her two cats in Ottawa, Ontario.

Dean Steadman’s work has been published in Canadian journals and e-zines, as well as in the anthology Pith and Wry: Canadian Poetry (Scrivener Press, 2010). He was a finalist in the 2011 Ottawa Book Awards for his poetry collection, their blue drowning (Frog Hollow Press, 2010). His second poetry collection, Après Satie —For Two and Four Hands, will be published by Brick Books in 2016. AngelHousePress will be publishing his chapbook, Worm's Saving Day, in June, 2015.

Alicia Cumming [pictured] is an English-as-a-Second Language support teacher based in Kemptville, Ontario. She became inspired to examine our expectations and experiences of womanhood after spending time in community settings where social norms for women were critically questioned. Much of her work seeks to focus on how such norms, innocuous as they may seem, deeply suppress the autonomy of women. Website: aliciacumming.tumblr.com

Stuart 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,” selling over 7,000 chapbooks. He is the author of more than 15 books of fiction, poetry and essays, most recently Further Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (Anvil Press, 2015) and A Hamburger in a Gallery (DC Books, 2015). Stuart’s many chapbooks include three released in 2014—Nice Haircut, Fiddlehead (Puddles of Sky Press), A Pretty Good Year (Nose in Book Publishing) and In In My Dream (BookThug)—and others from Room 3O2 Books, The Front Press, Apt. 9 Press, Silver Birch Press, Pink Dog Press and his own Proper Tales Press, which he launched 36 years ago. He is co-translator of My Planet of Kites, by Marie-Ève Comtois (Mansfield Press, 2015). Stuart is a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective and has his own imprint, “a stuart ross book,” at Mansfield Press. Stuart lives in Cobourg, Ontario, and blogs at bloggamooga.blogspot.ca.