above/ground press author spotlights : substack : Trivedi, Houglum, Tierney, Christie, Gray, Reid, Unsworth, Ballard, O’Reilly, Ladouceur, Sikkema, Siklosi, Norris, Nećakov, Saklikar, Fagan, Earl + Downs,

Since building my above/ground press substack last spring, I've started posting a series of interviews with above/ground press authors (new platform, new project, after all), focusing on authors published through the press with a new/recent chapbook, as well as multiple publications with the press, to give each interview a bit more heft. Since May, I've posted interviews with Amish Trivedi, Brook Houglum, Orchid Tierney, Jason Christie, Steph Gray, Monty Reid, Lydia Unsworth, Micah Ballard, Nathanael O’Reilly, Ben Ladouceur, Michael Sikkema, Kate Siklosi, Ken Norris, Lillian Nećakov, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Cary Fagan, Amanda Earl and Buck Downs, with forthcoming interviews still to post with poets including russell carisse, Pearl Pirie, Guy Birchard, Jill Stengel, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, N.W. Lea and Gary Barwin, among others. Otherwise, I do post a round-up of new publications every two months or so, as well as a round-up of the weekly "author activity" posts, also every two months or so (but I didn't want the substack to simply be a replication of the blog, right?) Free to sign up! And lands as an email, direct to your in-box. Huzzah! And can you believe the press turns thirty-three years old this summer? Gadzooks!

video from an above/ground press zoom launch : May 28, 2025 : Tierney, Quartermain, Houglum, Doller, Jenks + mclennan

the recording of a recent above/ground press zoom launch is now online : May 28, 2025 : with readings by above/ground press authors Orchid Tierney (OH), Meredith Quartermain (BC), Brook Houglum (BC), Sandra Doller (NY), Tom Jenks (UK) and rob mclennan (ON). Do you remember the other above/ground press zoom launch from last year, as well? And be sure to catch a bunch of other videos over at the YouTube channel, including the ongoing 'virtual reading series' via periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics.

see author biographies for the event here

Meredith Quartermain, Catriona Strang, Brook Houglum : above/ground press (Vancouver) chapbook launch : June 15 2025

Meredith Quartermain, Catriona Strang, Brook Houglum
: above/ground press (Vancouver) chapbook launch

June 15, 2025 @ 7pm | People’s Co-Op Books
1391 Commercial Drive | Vancouver, BC | V5L 3X5

Meredith Quartermain’s most recent book is Lullabies in the Real World (shortlisted for an Alberta Book Publishers’ award). Vancouver Walking won a BC Book Award for Poetry, and Nightmarker was a finalist for a Vancouver Book Award. She is also the author of two novels and two books of short fiction: Recipes from the Red Planet (BC fiction award finalist) and I, Bartleby. From 2014-2016, she served as Poetry Mentor in the SFU Writer’s Studio program. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Prism International, The Dalhousie Review, Event Magazine, The Capilano Review, Golden Handcuffs Review, and many other magazines. She will be launching her above/ground press title, Things Musing (April 2025).

A founding member of the Institute for Domestic Research, Catriona Strang is the author of Unfuckable Lardass, Reveries of a Solitary Biker, Corked, and Low Fancy, and  co-author of Light Sweet Crude, Cold Trip, and Busted with the late Nancy Shaw, whose selected works, The Gorge, she edited.

She frequently collaborates with composer Jacqueline Leggatt, and lives with her two grown kids on stolen xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ Lands. She has been involved for decades in the Vancouver writing community, including in her paid work as editor at Talonbooks. She is recovering from decades of caring labour. She will be launching her above/ground press debut, from What If I Sang "Flower of Scotland"? (January 2025).

Brook Houglum [see her recent author spotlight interview here] has recently published the chapbooks Anthronoise (2024) and Inventory (2025) with above/ground press. She teaches at Capilano University and lives in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ lands. She will be launching her second above/ground press title, INVENTORY (April 2025).

above/ground press zoom launch! Tierney, Quartermain, Houglum, Doller + Jenks, May 28 2025

Check out the above/ground press ZOOM launch we’re doing on Wednesday, May 28, 7pm EDT, with myself reading alongside:

Orchid Tierney (OH)
Meredith Quartermain (BC)
Brook Houglum (BC)
Sandra Doller (NY)
and
Tom Jenks (UK)

, all of whom have recent above/ground press titles. Join via the link, here.

Author biographies:

Orchid Tierney is a poet and scholar from Aotearoa New Zealand. Her collections include this abattoir is a college (Calamari Archive, 2025) and a year of misreading the wildcats (The Operating System 2019). She is the author of several chapbooks including looking at the Tiny: Mad lichen on the surfaces of reading (Essay Press, 2023), my beatrice (Ottawa: above/ground, 2020), ocean plastic (BlazeVOX, 2019), and blue doors (Belladonna* Press, 2018). Tierney is the coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics, and her scholarship has appeared in SubStance, Jacket2, The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry, Teaching the Literature of Climate Change, and The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics Since 1900. She is a senior editor at The Kenyon Review.

She is launching her second above/ground press title, pedagogies for the planthroposcene (May 2025), following my beatrice (2020)

Brook Houglum published the chapbook Anthronoise with above/ground press in 2024. She teaches at Capilano University and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia on unceded Skwxwú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ lands.

She is launching her second above/ground press title, INVENTORY (April 2025)

Meredith Quartermain’s most recent book is Lullabies in the Real World (shortlisted for an Alberta Book Publishers’ award). Vancouver Walking won a BC Book Award for Poetry, and Nightmarker was a finalist for a Vancouver Book Award. She is also the author of two novels and two books of short fiction: Recipes from the Red Planet (BC fiction award finalist) and I, Bartleby. From 2014-2016, she served as Poetry Mentor in the SFU Writer’s Studio program. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Prism International, The Dalhousie Review, Event Magazine, The Capilano Review, Golden Handcuffs Review, and many other magazines.

She is launching Things Musing (April 2025), her fourth publication but first chapbook through above/ground press, following the broadsides “December 4” (#168, April 2003) and “Geography” (#225, 2005), and “Highway 99,” produced as issue #35 of STANZAS magazine (October 2003)

Tom Jenks is a writer and text artist living in Manchester, UK. His books include The Philosopher (Sublunary Editions), Melamine (The Red Ceilings Press) and Pack My Box with Five Dozen Liquor Jugs (Penteract Press), a pangrammatical novel with Catherine Vidler. He edits the small press zimzalla, specialising in literary objects. More at https://tomjenks.uk/

He is launching his above/ground press debut, Chimneys (May 2025)

Sandra Doller is the author of several books of poetry, prose, translation, and the in-between from the most valiant and precarious small presses—Les Figues, Ahsahta, Subito, and Sidebrow Books. Her newest book, Not Now Now, is forthcoming from Rescue Press. Doller is the founder of an international literary arts journal and independent press, 1913 a journal of forms/1913 Press, where she remains éditrice-in-chief, publishing poetry, poetics, prose, and all else by emerging and established writers. She lives in the USA, for now.

She is launching her above/ground press debut, I’ll try this hour (March 2025)

some author activity: Chang-Richardson,Witek, mclennan, Kaplan, Eleftherion, MacEachern, Moure + Houglum,

forthcoming author Ellen Chang-Richardson answers the '12 or 20 questions'; forthcoming author Terri Witek is featured in the spotlight series; rob mclennan is interviewed by JWT BookAdventures; Genevieve Kaplan has work in the latest Word for Word; Melissa Eleftherion reads for the DMQ Virtual Salon; Jessi MacEachern answers four questions for Erín Moure via YouTube; and did you see that Brook Houglum is the second in the new series of author spotlights over at the above/ground press substack?

new from above/ground press: INVENTORY, by Brook Houglum

INVENTORY
Brook Houglum
$5

CITY OF INVERTED CONTAINERS

hummingbird feeder; vitamin D

Vitamix; Cuisinart; Instant Pot

toaster oven; salt, pepper

loose leaf, strainer; sheet music

parrot piñata head; pop cans

candles; pencils; whistles

shelf-stable milk & soup cartons

condiments; Lego mini figures

fish tank with pink rocks and hollow

plastic log; box of shakers &

tambourines; box of balloons &

wrapping paper; water bottles

rubber bands; cotton/acrylic/polyester

/wool folded clothing; leather &

plastic & rubber shoes; tiny working

replicas of Hungry Hungry Hippo

& Operation; incense; framed photos

boxes of screwdrivers/nails/screws

baskets of dice/beads/playing cards

paperweight; calculator; globe

night-vision goggles; binoculars

containers of toothpaste/deodorant/

gel/floss/shampoo/sunblock

sunglasses; nail clippers; hair ties

batteries; scissors; flashlights

boxes of tissue; boxes of garbage sacks

laundry soap; lemons; apples

chargers; keys; hooks; bins

brackets screwed to the walls   

 

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
April 2025
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Brook Houglum published the chapbook Anthronoise with above/ground press in 2024. She teaches at Capilano University and lives in Vancouver on unceded Skwxwú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ lands.

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