Karen Massey interviewed/featured in Arc Poetry Magazine #83

above/ground press author Karen Massey (author of the chapbooks Bullet from 1999 and Strange Fits of Beauty & Light from 2014) is Arc Poetry Magazine's first "Emerging Writer Feature," which includes five new poems, as well as a short interview conducted by Arc editor Rhonda Douglas. You have to pick up a copy of the issue to see the full interview, but a fragment of it reads:

RD: Tell me a little about what occupies you as a writer... do you feel like ou are addressing any central thematic concerns?

KM: I think there are some of the same central concerns. I'm mostly interested in form right now. In my earlier work, in my first chapbook for example, there are some conversations with other writers. I would start with a title, like "Sylvia Plath in Heaven Does Tie-Dye," and then riff on that. Then I found an old textbook, of the time my mother would have been in school, and I realized there was all this older Canadian poetry that they would have studied and I hadn't read any of it, and so as a way to get into them I started to make erasure poems from the originals. And that's how the chapbook I did with rob mclennan (Strange Fits of Beauty & Light) came about... I'm trying to bring some of those ideas into the now. A lot of my stuff comes from titles and I'll go back from there. I hvae one poem recently where I had the title for two years but I had to do some research and the poems sit there for a while, percolating or fermenting, and then they write themselves. And then I edit them. For me, that's the fun part, going back over and editing.

National Poetry Month: Earl, McElroy, Dolman, McCann, Douglas, Irwin, Pirie, Lea, mclennan + Hajnoczky

In case you missed it, the Chaudiere Books blog featured a number of new works by above/ground press authors for National Poetry Month this year, including Amanda Earl, Gil McElroy, Anita Dolman, Marcus McCann, Rhonda Douglas, Marilyn Irwin, Pearl Pirie, derek beaulieu, Roland Prevost, N.W. Lea, rob mclennan and Helen Hajnoczky, as well as whole bunch of others.

some author activity: Pirie, Barwin, hastain, Barton, Douglas, McKinnon, Simpson, Abel,

Pearl Pirie has a new poem in the March issue of Bywords.ca; Gary Barwin offers the fourth "first reading" of M. NourbeSe Philip's 'Zong' #6 over at Jacket2; j/j hastain responds to Jennifer K. Dick's series of essays on the fragment; John Barton has two new poems up at TRUCK, near the end of Colin Morton and Mary Lee Bragg's month curating March, as does Rhonda Douglas; Paul E. Nelson writes on Barry McKinnon; Rachael Simpson participates in the "My Writing Process - blog tour" interview; and Sean Cranbury interviews Jordan Abel for 49th Shelf.

the peter f. yacht club regatta, 2013;

While we usually hold a Christmas reading/party/regatta, hosted by The Peter F. Yacht Club, somewhere between Christmas and New Year, this year Christine and myself hosted a small pot-luck. In part to show off the house and our new five-week-old Rose, it was also a sign of our inability to easily leave the house; we thought, why not bring the party to us, instead?

With roughly a third of those invited unable to make it, we still managed to host some twenty people or more in our little house, as I spent the day baking in preparation. Pearl Pirie posted photos of the cake I made for such over at her food blog, as well as the creamy spaghetti squash primavera and the asparagus and white bean salad I prepared (the fourth photo of her quartet I wasn't responsible for). Given that at least one of our group is vegan and has a gluten allergy, I spent more than a week online seeking out recipes.

During the day, I also prepared a lovely beef stew, and an apple/pear (Japanese pear) crisp. And why is there a cow on the cake? Well, I couldn't find any yacht/nautical cake-y decorations at any of the dollar-stores I visited; and who doesn't love cows?

[A lovely wooden item gifted to us by the Piries] We were able to host a ton of Yacht Club regulars and irregulars, including Monty Reid, Sarah Hill and their Frances, Brecken Hancock, Amanda and Charles Earl, Pearl and Brian Pirie, Sandra Ridley, Roland Prevost and Janice Tokar, Vivian Vavassis, Rhonda Douglas, Marilyn Irwin and plenty of others. I could barely keep track! And, given the distraction of food, house and baby, I took barely any photographs. We stayed up far too late, had so much food and wine that we ended with more than we began, and never even got to the readings. Perhaps next year we'll be able to be public again, and Rose will allow us out of the house long enough to host our regular reading/regatta/party back at The Carleton Tavern!

And who knows -- now that we have a house and are beginning to settle, we may even be gearing up for regular meetings again in 2014; perhaps even a new issue? I'm already gearing up to a whole slew of new above/ground press chapbooks by Camille Martin, Nicholas Lea, Hugh Thomas, David Phillips and more; keep watching this space!

some author activity: Thomas, Martin, beaulieu, Reid, Young + mclennan

[photo of how we would have preferred to move into the new house] Hugh Thomas has a new poem posted as part of the dusie "Tuesday Poem" series; Camille Martin reviews The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University of California Press, 2009), edited by Mark Weiss, over at her blog, and is interviewed by Katie Rosenthal over at Stated Magazine; derek beaulieu gives "advice to aspiring poets" through a q+a with Gauntlet; Monty Reid, Deanna Young and rob mclennan read at the Ottawa Public Library on October 7 with David Groulx, Rhonda Douglas and Chris Jennings, and mclennan also conducts a poetry workshop (pre-registration required) on October 17; and rob mclennan has quite the author page (as do others, I'm sure) over at filling Station magazine.

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, October 11, 2013: Douglas, Bebenek, Manner, Mihok + Hoag,

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

The Factory Reading Series
pre-small press book fair reading

Rhonda Douglas (Ottawa)
Jessica Bebenek (Toronto)
Mark Jordan Manner (Toronto)
Brian Mihok (Buffalo)
+ Jeannie Hoag (Buffalo)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, October 11, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Rhonda Douglas [pictured] is originally from Newfoundland but has lived in Ottawa with her daughter Emma since time out-of-Memorial. She is the author of Some Days I Think I Know Things: The Cassandra Poems. Her poetry has won awards in the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Competition, the Far Horizons award from The Malahat Review and the Diana Brebner prize from Arc Poetry Magazine. Her short fiction has been published in literary journals across Canada and won first prizes from both Room Magazine and Prairie Fire. Rhonda completed her MFA in Creative Writing from UBC in 2012. She spends too much time on airplanes.

Jessica Bebenek is a Toronto poet and writer with work appearing/forthcoming in magazines including Little Brother, The Rusty Toque, [PANK], and Steel Bananas magazines, and is a regular contributor for The Puritan magazine's blog, The Town Crier. She is the founder of the micro-press Loose Ends Press, which had its first official launch this September. She lives downtown with two pet rats and a prose writer.  www.JessicaBebenek.com

Mark Jordan Manner’s work is appearing/forthcoming in Grain, EVENT, Prairie Fire, Ricepaper Magazine, Word Riot, and Paper Darts. He lives in Toronto.

Brian Mihok's work has appeared in Hobart, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. His novel The Quantum Manual of Style was published by Aqueous Books in March 2013. He is an associate editor for sunnyoutside press and also edits matchbook a journal of indeterminate prose.

Jeannie Hoag was born in Wisconsin and lives in Buffalo, New York. Her work has appeared in The Blue Letter, GlitterPony, NOO Journal, and notnostrums.  Her chapbook New Age of Ferociousness was published by Agnes Fox Press, and Informal Invitation to a Traveler, a collaborative book with Kyle McCord, was published through Gold Wake Press. She is a librarian.

check here for information on the 19th anniversary edition of the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair, happening from noon to 5pm on Saturday, October 12, 2013 at the Jack Purcell Community Centre;