some author activity: Walker, Berlatsky, Niespodziany, Markotić, Archer, Ebbitt + the Indie Lit Market!

Laura Walker has new work up at Astrolabe; Noah Berlatsky has three poems in the new issue of Ranger; Benjamin Niespodziany has two new poems up at HAD; Nicole Markotić is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; Sacha Archer has four pieces up at A-Minor; Katie Ebbitt has new work at talking about strawberries all of the time; and don't forget the Indie Lit Market in Toronto on November 2nd!

some author activity: Cooley, Tierney, o'brien, Carpenter + Dennis,

Dennis Cooley has a poem in the "poetry pause" series via The League of Canadian Poets; Orchid Tierney has some new poems in the latest issue of Marsh Hawk Press; forthcoming author katie o'brien has a poem in the "poetry pause" series as well; J.R. Carpenter displays her Edmonton surroundings as part of the virtual VERSeFest 2020; and Michael Dennis receives the Meet the Presses' Special Recognition Award for Commitment and Devotion to Small Press.

above/ground press at the Meet the Presses Indie Lit Symposium : this weekend!

Please join us this weekend for the virtual Meet the Presses Indie Lit Symposium! We're all hoping that next year we can do the fair (as well as the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair) in person again, but until then, the Meet the Presses collective has organized a whole slew of readings and talks from participants all across the country.

You can register at the link for the event here.

All events are free, with the option to donate if you wish. Please note that you only need to register once and we will send out a Zoom link to each event one hour before it begins. If you don't receive an email in your inbox, please check your spam and junk folders.

Meet the Presses is an all-volunteer literary collective devoted to organizing public events that showcase books, chapbooks, magazines, recordings, broadsheets, and ephemera produced by independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. The collective continues in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses events begun 30 years ago in Toronto by Stuart Ross and Nicholas Power. The collective consists of Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Beth Follett, Stuart Ross, Aaron Tucker, Jacqueline Valencia, and Tali Voron. The Founding Members Emeritus are Maria Erskine, Ally Fleming, Maggie Helwig, Leigh Nash, and Nicholas Power. You can learn more about the collective here.

Thursday, November 26, 2020
bpNichol Chapbook Award Shortlist reading and Winner Announcement, 7-8pm EST
shorlisted titles:
Tolu Oloruntoba, Manubrium (Anstruther Press)
Oubah Osman, Hereditary Blue (Anstruther Press)
Emily Lu, Night Leaves Nothing New (Baseline Press)
Nisa Malli, Remitting (Baseline Press)

Friday, November 27, 2020
The Roots of Small Press, 7-8pm EST
with above/ground press, Proper Tales Press, Book*Hug Press and Coach House Books

Saturday, November 28, 2020
The Future of Small Press, 12-1pm EST
with Metatron Press, Gap Riot Press, Anstruther Press and Knife Fork Book

Outlaw Presses: Pushing the Boundaries of Small Press, 2-3pm EST
with No Press, Noir Z, The Blasted Tree, Simulacrum Press, AngelHouse Press and Room 3o2 Books

Sunday, November 29, 2020
Magazines and Journals, 12-1pm EST
with CAROUSEL Magazine, Filling Station, These Days and Augur Magazine

Small Press and the Craft of Bookmaking, 2-3pm EST
with Baseline Press, Puddles of Sky Press and In Print Collective

above/ground press will be at Meet the Presses' Indie Literary Market in Toronto, Nov 16 2019!

above/ground press at Meet the Presses and the ottawa small press book fairs!

We know you love book fairs, and we know you love seeing above/ground press titles at book fairs, so why not take the opportunity to do such not once, but twice?

We'll be at Toronto's Meet the Presses event this Saturday, November 17th from noon till 5pm at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre (427 Bloor Street West, Toronto). See the link for further information here.

A week later, we'll be at the ottawa small press book fair, Saturday, November 24 from noon till 5pm at Jack Purcell Community Centre (room 203; 320 Jack Purcell Lane, Ottawa). See the link for further information here.

And both events are completely free to attend! Yahoo!

above/ground press authors Renée Sarojini Saklikar's After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees— (2016) and Dana Claxton's THE PATIENT STORM (2016) are on the 2017 bpNichol Chapbook Award‏ shortlist!

It has just been announced! Congratulations to Renée Sarojini Saklikar and Dana Claxton for making the shortlist to the 2017 bpNichol Chapbook Award [and of course, both Renée Sarojini Saklikar's After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees— and Dana Claxton's THE PATIENT STORM are still in print]! I'm in the midst of chapbook making (that might even be a Sacha Archer title in the background I'm stapling...), so am taking but a small pause with wine to hoist to the shortlisted authors. Congratulations, all!

This is above/ground press' fifth appearance on the bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist over the past six years, after Jason Christie's Cursed Objects (2014) and Ben Ladouceur's Lime Kiln Quay Road (2014) made the 2015 list, Christie's Government (2013) made the prior year's list and Fenn Stewart's An OK Organ Man (2012) made the list before that, and Hugh Thomas' Opening the Dictionary (2011) and Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin's let lie/ (2012) were shortlisted the year prior to that. So many lists!

Looking forward to this year's Meet the Presses to hear the winner! You should totally come by and say hello and even pick up copies of these shortlisted titles? The press release for such is below (and at this link):

TORONTO – October 17, 2017 – Tonight, at a Toronto event paying tribute to the late poet bpNichol, the Meet the Presses collective announced the finalists for the 2017 bpNichol Chapbook Award. The prize, awarded annually since 1985, goes to the author of the best poetry chapbook – in the estimation of the judges – published in Canada in the previous year and submitted for consideration. It is named in honour of the late poet, novelist, mentor, and micropress publisher bpNichol (1944–1988).

The $4,000 prize purse, donated by an anonymous benefactor, makes this the richest annual literary award for a poetry chapbook, specified as a collection of no more than 48 pages. The publisher of the winning title also receives $500, thanks to an annual donation by Toronto writers Brian Dedora and Jim Smith.

Judges Helen Guri of Montréal, Québec, and Hoa Nguyen of Toronto, Ontario, chose the finalists from more than 60 submissions from across the country.

The finalists for the 2017 bpNichol Chapbook Award are:

Dana Claxton. The Patient Storm. above/ground press
Doris Fiszer. The Binders. Tree Press
Stevie Howell. Summer. Desert Pets Press
Sonnet L’Abbé. Anima Canadensis. Junction Books
Nanci Lee. Preparation. FreeFall Literary Society of Calgary
Renee Sarojini Saklikar. After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees. above/ground press

The winner will be announced at 2 p.m. on November 18, 2017, at the annual Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market, open from 12 noon to 5 p.m. at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street West, in Toronto. The Market introduces the public to independent literary publishers of books, chapbooks, magazines, ephemera, and recordings generally not available in bookstores. The free event is curated by Meet the Presses, a volunteer literary collective devoted to showcasing the work of independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction.

More details can be found at meetthepresses.wordpress.com.

For more information and interview opportunities, contact the publicist for Meet the Presses: Zarmina Rafi at rafi.zarmina@gmail.com

above/ground press at Toronto's Indie Literary Market, November 18

above/ground press will once again be participating in the annual Indie Literary Market, organized by Toronto's Meet the Presses collective for Saturday, November 18, 2017! See here for the Facebook invitation, and their website here, both of which even contain further information! Hoping to see you there! above/ground press has been producing an absolute ton of stuff lately...

above/ground press at Meet the Presses + the ottawa small press book fair

above/ground press will again be participating in Toronto's annual Meet the Presses INDIE LITERARY MARKET on Saturday, November 19, 2016, 11:30am-4:30pm, at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre, 427 Bloor Street West, Toronto as well as the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair on Saturday, November 26, 2016, noon-5pm, in room 203 of the Jack Purcell Community Centre, Elgin Street at 320 Jack Purcell Lane, Ottawa. Both events are free to the public! But you should totally bring a handful of cash...

Of course, there will be a TON of above/ground press items, including a couple things I haven't even told you about yet! Come by and say hello, if you can...

bpNichol Award Call for Submissions‏

❡ Call for submissions to the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award ❡

The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. The author receives $4,000 and the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.

Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2015), and the poet must be Canadian.

Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of eligible chapbooks. Translations into English from other languages are eligible.

Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a completed submission form or accurate facsimile (download the 2016 Submission Form from our web site: https://meetthepresses.wordpress.com/bpnichol-chapbook-award/), a brief C.V. of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone contact) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

The closing date for the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award is May 31, 2016. Submissions must be received by this date. If submission confirmation has not been received by e-mail by June 30, 2016, please send a query to Beth Follett at: feralgrl@interlog.com.

Send submissions to:
Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
113 Bond Street, St John’s NL A1C 1T6

some author activity: Prevost, Adams, Rogal, Earl + the 2014 Indie Market,

Roland Prevost is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; "The Poem as Archive: A Conversation Between Carrie Olivia Adams + Kristina Marie Darling" is now online at The The; Stan Rogal is interviewed over at Open Book: Toronto; Amanda Earl has some visual poems up at Extreme Writing Community; and Ryan Pratt was good enough to mention the press in his report on the recent 2014 Indie Market organized by Meet the Presses!

above/ground press at Meet the Presses' 2014 Indie Market!

Saturday, November 22, 11:30 am – 5 pm

The Tranzac Club, Toronto

The Meet the Presses collective presents the 2014 Indie Literary Market, where handpicked literary presses and magazines stand behind their work!

The Market will also feature the announcement of the winner of the 2014 bpNichol Chapbook Award! See the shortlist for 2014 here.


Participating publishers and mags tentatively include:
above/ground press (Ottawa) • Mansfield Press (Toronto) • Proper Tales Press (Cobourg) • Pedlar Press (St. John’s) • Rampike (Windsor) • Apt. 9 Press (Ottawa) • Porcupine’s Quill (Erin) • Cough (Toronto) • Baseline Press (London) • Serif of Nottingham (Hamilton) • Frog Hollow (Victoria) • Coach House Books (Toronto) • Laurel Reed Books (Mt. Pleasant) • Gesture Press (Toronto) • Thee Hellbox Press (Kingston) • BookThug (Toronto) • Taddle Creek  (Toronto) • Sunnyoutside Press (Buffalo) • Little Brother Magazine (Toronto) • Biblioasis (Windsor) • Wolsak and Wynn (Hamilton) • Underwhich Editions (Toronto) • Imago/Red Iron (Toronto) • Junction Books (Toronto) • Phafours (Ottawa) • words(on)pages (Toronto) • OutWrites (Toronto)

Facebook event page here.

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.

*

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]

Call for submissions to the 2014 bpNichol Chapbook Award!

Meet the Presses has announced their call for submissions for the annual bpNichol Chapbook Award. As they write in today's release:

Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of a chapbook of poetry in English published in Canada.

Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2013), and the poet must be Canadian.

Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a brief C.V. of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone contact) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

The closing date for the 2014 bpNichol Chapbook Award is March 31, 2014. Submissions must be received by this date. If submission confirmation has not been received by e-mail by April 30, 2014, please send a query to Beth Follett at: feralgrl@interlog.com.

Send submissions to:

Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
113 Bond Street, St John's NL A1C 1T6

Please visit the Meet The Presses website for more information: www.meetthepresses.wordpress.com

new from above/ground press: @BillMurray in Purgatorio, by nathan dueck

@BillMurray in Purgatorio
nathan dueck
$4

Dante Alighieri @DanteAlighieri

May these hashtags thy tune accompany:
#nicktheloungesinger croons show whilst I troll
#toddthenerd with mockery virtual.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November 2013
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Produced, in part, as a handout for Meet the Presses, November 16, 2013 in Toronto (while supplies last). Thanks much to Gary Barwin for his help and support.

The last two letters of nathan dueck’s first name & the first letter of his last spell “and.” only, he prefers writing it “&.” He is the author of king’smère (Turnstone Press, 2004) and he’ll (Pedlar Press, forthcoming).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 [NEW ADDRESS!] or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

above/ground press author Fenn Stewart's An OK Organ Man (2012) on the bpNichol 2013 chapbook award shortlist!

Congratulations to Toronto poet Fenn Stewart, whose 2012 chapbook An OK Organ Man (copies are still available) is on the 2013 bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist! This is above/ground press' second appearance on the shortlist, after two titles appeared on last year's list. Nice, also, to also see above/ground press authors Gil McElroy and Shannon Maguire on the list for other titles, and even one of our authors as a judge! (the press appears to be everywhere these days) Congratulations to the entire shortlist!

Here's the press release that Toronto's Meet the Presses Collective sent out today:

Congratulations: Meet The Presses Collective and the bpNichol Chapbook Award Committee are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2013 bpNichol Chapbook Award.

thirteen poems for releasing love by joanne thorwaldson (leaf press)
An OK Organ Man by Fenn Stewart (above/ground)
Ordinary Time: The Merton Lake Propers by Gil McElroy (baseline press)
fruit machine by Shannon Maguire (Ferno House)
21st century monsters by ryan fitzpatrick (Red Nettle Press)
naturally speaking by Sandra Alland (espresso [paperplates press])

The winner will be announced at 2PM on Saturday 16 November 2013 at the Indie Literary Market, Tranzac Club, Toronto. A cheque for $2,000 goes to the winning poet and $500 to the winning publisher. Donors for the prizes include Anonymous ($2,000 prize), Jim Smith and Brian Dedora ($500 prize).

Judges this year are Sandra Ridley (Ottawa) & kevin mcpherson eckhoff (Armstrong, BC), who received 90 chapbooks from which they made this year's shortlist selection.

                                        ❧ ❧
 
In the spirit of the original Phoenix Chapbook Award, which was adjudicated for its first two years by Frank Davey and bpNichol, and continued as the bpNichol Chapbook Award for 23 years by Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry published in chapbook form. With the demise of Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the Meet the Presses collective was pleased to assume management of the award. Meet the Presses is a Toronto-based collective devoted to promoting micro, small and independent literary presses. This collective has come together in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses event begun in Toronto in the mid-1980s by Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross. Members of Meet the Presses have organized a variety of curated public events, and all the events focus on independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Meet the Presses – an unfunded and non-profit collective – consists of members Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Beth Follett, Hazel Millar, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross.

Hugh Thomas' Opening the Dictionary and Elizabeth Rainer + Michael Blouin's let lie shortlisted for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award!

Congratulations to all the authors shortlisted for this year's prize! above/ground press is thrilled to be included not once, but twice, on this year's list, and for the first time! Michael Blouin's inclusion also comes on the heels of his Archibald Lampman Award, which was presented last night as part of the Ottawa Book Awards. Congrats, all!

Click here for more information on Thomas' chapbook, and here for the Rainer/Blouin collaboration, both of which are still available.

Here's the full announcement, from the Meet the Presses blog:

In 2012, the Meet the Presses collective took over the administration of the annual bpNichol Chapbook Award, which was launched in 1996. Named for the late poet, novelist, and indie publisher bpNichol, the $2,000 prize is awarded to the author of the best poetry chapbook published in the previous year, as selected by two judges appointed by Meet the Presses.

Judges Bill Kennedy and Maggie Helwig — both writers themselves — made the tough choices this year.

The finalists for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award are:

    Spencer Gordon, Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!, Ferno House (Toronto)
    Adrienne Gruber, Mimic, Leaf Press (Lantzville, B.C.)
    Liz Howard, (skullambient), Ferno House (Toronto)
    Robert Martens, Poltergeist, Lipstick Press (Gabriola, B.C.)
    Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin, let lie, above/ground press (Ottawa)
    Hugh Thomas, Opening the Dictionary, above/ground press (Ottawa)

The winner will be announced at the Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market, which takes place on November 17, 2012, noon to 4:30 p.m., at the Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Street, in Toronto.

The market gives the public an opportunity to meet independent literary publishers and authors, and take home books, chapbooks, magazines, broadsheets, and recordings that are largely not available in bookstores.

The Meet the Presses collective is Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Ally Fleming, Beth Follett, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power, Stuart Ross, and Carey Toane.

About the 2012 Judges:

Maggie Helwig lives in Toronto. She was co-coordinator of the Toronto Small Press Fair from 1998 to 2003, and the event coordinator/associate director of the Scream Literary Festival from 2005 to 2009. She was among the founding members of the Meet the Presses collective. Her most recent book is the novel Girls Fall Down, published by Coach House Books in 2008.

Bill Kennedy once cold-called Bob Cobbing from a London phone booth. He proceeded to spend two days of his vacation with Bob perusing Writers Forum publications, an experience he considers his only real bona fide for judging a chapbook award. Bill is the co-author (with Darren Wershler) of Apostrophe (ECW, 2006) and Update (Snare Books, 2010). He’s a long-time literary organizer, from the Café May Reading Series (with Michael Holmes), to the Lexiconjury Reading Series (with Angela Rawlings), to the Scream Literary Festival (with a whole bunch of awesome people) where he did a ten-year stint as Artistic Director. The Apostrophe Engine (www.apostropheengine.ca), the web-based poem that generated the book, has recently appeared as part of the Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. His latest venture is Intelligent Machines (www.intelligentmachines.ca), a digital media co-operative. Bill lives in Toronto.

the bpNichol chapbook award; call for entries,

Announcing a New Administrative Body for the bpNichol Chapbook Award

In the spirit of the original Phoenix Chapbook Award, which was adjudicated for its first two years by Frank Davey and bpNichol, and continued as the bpNichol Chapbook Award for 23 years by Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry published in chapbook form. With the demise of Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the Meet the Presses collective is pleased to assume management of the award. Meet the Presses is a Toronto-based collective devoted to promoting micro, small and independent literary presses. This collective has come together in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses event begun in Toronto in the mid-1980s by Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross. Members of Meet the Presses have organized a variety of curated public events, and all the events focus on independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Meet the Presses – an unfunded and non-profit collective – consists of members Gary Barwin, Elisabeth de Mariaffi, Paul Dutton, Maria Erskine, Ally Fleming, Beth Follett, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power, and Stuart Ross.

Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award.

Call for submissions 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award
A $2000 prize will be awarded for the poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of a chapbook of poetry in English published in Canada in 2011.

Chapbooks should be no less than 10 pages and no more than 48 pages.

Submissions should include a brief C.V. of the author, plus address, telephone number, and email address. Send to:

Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
PO Box 26, Station P, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2S6

The closing date for submissions to the 2012 competition is May 31, 2012.

Please email Meet The Presses for more information: meetthepresses@gmail.com.
A link to previous winners and further information here.