some author activity: Hamilton, mclennan, Tate, Rosenthal + Trivedi,

["describe your writing process as a single gif"] Eaton Hamilton has a new essay up at Guernica magazine; rob mclennan has a new poem up at The Babel Tower Notice Board; Bronwen Tate has a new essay in the "Talking Poetics" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Sarah Rosenthal has a new essay up at Entropy mag; and Amish Trivedi has a new essay up at Post45.

some author activity: Hamilton, Clayton, Barwin + Campos,

a video of Jane Eaton Hamilton reading for EVENT magazine's (Virtual) Fall Reading Series is now online ; Conyer Clayton has new work up (including audio) as part of the Decameron Writing Series; Gary Barwin has a "disaster fable" over at Watch Your Head; rob mclennan has a new poem from the "snow day" manuscript up at his blog; and Isabel Sobral Campos is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

new from above/ground press: Would You Like a Little Gramma On Those? by Jane Eaton Hamilton

 

Would You Like a Little Gramma On Those?
Jane Eaton Hamilton
$5

Carol’s sister Marjory had dangled a pendulum over Florida until it came to rest over Gainesville, the center of the state, so she’d moved there from south Florida.

A jetlagged Carol thought of something. “Isn’t this where Ted Bundy had his farewell murder spree?”

Simone, Carol’s butch partner, said, “Not to mention those chain gangs we saw coming in.”

“You go off like a firecracker in all our faces,” said Carol’s brother, Lincoln, to Carol, pushing back his chair.

Lincoln and Carol lived in western Canada, while Marjory and their mother lived in Florida. It had long been the case after fracturing away from their childhood home in Ontario. Lincoln was oldest, Carol middle, Marjory the baby. Lincoln had beat Carol and her family to Florida by days. The last time Carol had seen him, he’d been paunchy with middle age. Now he looked both older and younger than he had, rake skinny with his goatee gone half grey. “Why on earth say that? Why bring that up now?”

“Is that true?” Lizbeth, Carol and Simone’s older daughter, asked. “I saw a TV program on him. He was just some ordinary guy.”

“Aren’t they all,” said Carol. “Some guys are creepy, but they’re not necessarily the dangerous ones. Some guys are normal, but they’re not necessarily the good ones.”

“Shut-up,” Marjory said in a reedy voice, hands fluttering around her ears. Her streaked hair was oily; she had stress-bruises under each brown eye. “Why would you bring that up? I haven’t seen my sister or nieces in years, and our mother is gone and you’re talking about a serial--" She widened her eyes pointedly to show she didn’t want to say the final word in front of her son.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
as part of above/ground’s prose/naut imprint
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Jane Eaton Hamilton is the author of 9 books of cnf, memoir, fiction and poetry, including the 2016 novel WEEKEND, and two prior collections of short fiction.

Their memoir NO MORE HURT was one of the UK Guardian’s Best Books of the Year and a Sunday Times bestseller. They are the two-time winner of Canada's CBC Literary Award for fiction (2003/2014). They have had a Notable in BASS and three in BAE (2016/2018/2019) and have appeared in The Journey Prize, Best Canadian Short Stories and Best Canadian Poetry. Their work has also appeared in publications such as Salon, The Rumpus, The Missouri Review, the NY Times, Gay Magazine, The Sun and BAX 2020. Roxane Gay chose “The Pleasure Scale” as one of Gay Magazine’s Best of 2019 and Queen Mob's Teahouse cited "The Nothing Between Your Legs," a BAE Notable, as one of the best essays of the decade. Their story “The Pride” won 2nd prize in Writer’s Digest short story contest 2020. They won the Event non-fiction contest in 2020 with their essay, “The Dead Green Man.”

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

above/ground press launches a prose chapbook imprint: prose/naut

Leaning up to the press’ twenty-eighth year of production, Ottawa’s above/ground press launches a prose imprint, “prose/naut,” and announces its first four chapbook titles, which will each become available over the next few weeks:

Amanda Earl, Sessions from the DreamHouse Aria (September 2020)

Jane Eaton Hamilton, Would You Like a Little Gramma On Those? (September 2020)

rob mclennan, Twenty-one stories, (September 2020)

Keith Waldrop, from THE LOSS FOR WORDS (October 2020)

Why a prose imprint? With more than one thousand poetry-specific publications produced over the past nearly thirty years, why branch out into prose? I suppose the straightforward answer is that there appear to be fewer possibilities for publication for lyric prose than even there were five ago, despite the wealth of materials being produced. There is some incredible work being done, and my own frustrations as a reader has brought us, one might say, to this.

The series hopes to include single-author chapbooks of prose, from fiction to other forms, all of which will be included as part of the regular above/ground press annual subscription package. Review/media copies will also be available upon request (while supplies last).

If you wish to pre-order all four titles, I would be open to that: $20 for all four (add $3 postage for American orders; add $10 for international).

If you would rather, you could simply subscribe to above/ground press RIGHT NOW and all four would be included: 2021 annual subscriptions (and resubscriptions) to above/ground press are available: $75 (CAN; American subscribers, $75 US; $100 international) for everything above/ground press makes from the moment you subscribe through to the end of 2021, including chapbooks, broadsheets, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] and quarterly poetry journal Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal].

Just what else might happen? Currently and forthcoming items also include new poetry chapbooks by Julia Drescher (two this year!), Billy Mavreas, ryan fitzpatrick, Sarah Burgoyne and Susan Burgoyne, Paul Perry, Jérôme Melançon, Ava Hofmann, Alexander Joseph, David Miller, Sa’eed Tavana’ee Marvi (trans. Khashayar Mohammadi), katie o'brien, Nathanael O’Reilly, Amelia Does, Andrew Brenza, Genevieve Kaplan, Geoffrey Olsen, Franco Cortese (four over the next few months), Zane Koss, Dennis Cooley, Barry McKinnon and Cecilia Tamburri Stuart as well as a whole slew of publications that haven't even been decided on yet.

Why wait? You can either send a cheque (payable to rob mclennan) to 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7M9, or send money via PayPal or e-transfer to rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com (or through the PayPal button at robmclennan.blogspot.com).

For further information, email publisher/editor rob mclennan at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com, or follow the myriad of links at http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/

Stay safe! Stay home! Wear a mask! Wash your damned hands!