The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, June 19: Bebenek, carisse, Currie, MARTIN + Saklikar,

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

The Factory Reading Series
the pre-small press book fair reading

featuring readings by:

Jessica Bebenek (Montreal)
russell carisse (NB)
David Currie (Ottawa)
IAN MARTIN (Ottawa)
+
Renée Sarojini Saklikar (Vancouver)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, June 19, 2026
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way

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

Jessica Bebenek is a queer interdisciplinary poet, bookmaker, and educator living between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and an off-grid shack on unceded Anishinaabe territory. Her most recent chapbook, You Don’t Get Out Much (2024), is a memoir of chronic illness & her first ‘real’ book, No One Knows Us There (Book*hug Press, 2025), was a finalist for two Quebec Writer’s Federation Awards and was named a CBC Books Best Book of the Year. @notyrmuse www.jessicabebenek.art

russell carisse is currently living on unceded Wolastoqiyik/Mi’kmaw territory in New Brunswick. Here they live in an off-grid trailer in the woods with their partner and animals, growing food and practicing other forms of underconsumption. Author of five chapbooks, their work appears in the anthology On Occasion: Poems for the People, and ARC Poetry, Queen’s Quarterly, The Temz Review, Touch the Donkey, Website: russellcarisse.carrd.co Mastodon: @russellcarisse@writing.exchange Bluesky: @russellcarisse.bsky.social 

David Currie is not IAN MARTIN. He is a different writer with whom IAN MARTIN is collaborating. David’s work has appeared in various places - he wishes he could be more specific, but he forgot to write them down, and has been collected into six chapbooks. Heat a neutral oil to a boil before turning it to medium-low. Add Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cloves, cardamom, bay leaves, and a nub of ginger. Simmer for an hour, but make sure not to burn. strain the oil into a mason jar with about a cup to a cup and a half of chili pepper powder (the more varieties the better). Oil can be used immediately and kept for about 6 months. He currently resides in Ottawa. Currie and MARTIN are launching a collaborative above/ground press chapbook at this event, so be warned.

IAN MARTIN [pictured] is large and barely in charge. Their work has appeared recently in BAD DOG Mag, Discordia Review, and Sumac Literary Magazine. IAN has published six chapbooks, most recently EVERYONE IS MY ENEMY (2022). When not writing, IAN makes small video games and complains. Visit WWW.IANMARTIN.ROCKS at your own risk.

Renée Sarojini Saklikar is the author of six books, including the award-winning Children of Air India and Listening to the Bees. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies, including Exile Editions, Chatelaine, The Capilano Review, and Pulp Literature. She was Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey (2015-2018), co-founded Lunch Poems at SFU, and teaches Creative Writing at Douglas College. Bramah’s Discovery is the third volume of her epic fantasy in verse series, THOTJBAP. Renee Sarojini is grateful to work, create, and live in East Vancouver on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Factory Reading Series @ VERSeFest: Nada Gordon + Lydia Unsworth, March 29, 2026!

The Factory Reading Series
as part of the sixteenth annual VERSeFest poetry festival presents: 
The Factory Reading Series Lecture Series; two talks/readings by:

Nada Gordon (Brooklyn NY)
+
Lydia Unsworth (Manchester UK)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, March 29, 2026
3-4pm, Arts Court Black Box Studio
A FREE EVENT / check link for info on tickets/passes: https://verseottawa.ca/en/versefest
as well as for the full schedule of readers and events!
March 24-30, 2026

Nada Gordon: [see a new interview here] I live in Brooklyn and work too hard and too much, teaching courses like “Tyranny and the Absurd” and “The Glamour of Language.” Actually, they are just comp, but isn’t that what all art is, actually? I have two Siberian cats. I make things besides poems: garments, baubles, toys. My Etsy shop is https://www.etsy.com/shop/ScentedRushes. I’ve published nine books and lots of chapbooks besides. My selected, The Sound Princess: Selected Poems 1985-2015 found its way into the world last year by way of SubPress. “The Sound Princess” is a literal translation from the Japanese of “Otohime,” the button you push in a toilet stall to make the sound of rushing water so that others don’t hear you pee. It does sound grand, doesn’t it? I was in the hysterico-transgressive poetry movement called Flarf in the 2000s. Before that, I lived in Japan for over a decade. Before Japan, I wrote a thesis on Bernadette Mayer’s work. I studied with Language Poets in Bay Area in the 80s. I was a hardcore punk after I was a flower child. As an actual child I sometimes wrote poems. I was born in Oakland in 1964.

Lydia Unsworth [see a new interview here] is a poet from Manchester, UK. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. She is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Place Writing in Manchester, looking at kinship with disappearing post-industrial architecture. She has 6 poetry collections and 4 above / ground chapbooks, and has two new poetry collections coming out in 2026, Stay Awhile (April, Knives Forks and Spoons Press) and This Now Extends to My Daughter (May, Blue Diode Press).

The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading!

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan,
The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading

at Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way, Ottawa
Saturday, December 27, 2025
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm

with readings from yacht club regulars and irregulars alike, including: Jennifer Baker, Frances Boyle, Conyer Clayton, David Currie, Michelle Desbarats, AJ Dolman, Amanda Earl, Claire Farley, Cara Goodwin, Chris Johnson, Margo LaPierre, IAN MARTIN, rob mclennan, Christine McNair, James Moran, Lee Parpart, Colin Quin, Mahaila Smith, Grant Wilkins and Chuqiao Yang (and possibly others,

see my report on the event two years ago here (last year's event hadn't a report, unfortunately;

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, November 21: Stuart Ross, Liam Burke + Amanda Earl,

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

The Factory Reading Series
the pre-small press book fair reading

featuring readings by:
Stuart Ross (Cobourg ON)
Liam Burke (Ottawa)
+ 
Amanda Earl (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, November 21, 2025
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way

[And don’t forget the ottawa small press book fair, held the following day at the Tom Brown Arena]

Stuart Ross has worked in the small press trenches of Canadian writing for 50 years. His new chapbook, The Thing About the Thing in Exile reprints a dozen poems that appeared in his first publication at age 16, plus a new essay. He has published over 20 books, most recently the poetry collection The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky, the Trillium Book Award–winning memoir The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, and the short story collection I Am Claude François and You Are a Bathtub. He has received the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction, as well as the Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian literature. Stuart runs the Feed Dog Book imprint for surrealist poetry at Anvil Press and the 1366 Books imprint for experimental fiction at Guernica Editions, and has been running his own Proper Tales Press since 1979. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

Liam Burke (he/him/himbo) lives in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe land. He is the winner of the 2023 Diana Brebner Prize, and is most recently the author of status ailment (Anstruther, 2025) and the co-author of Orbital Cultivation with Manahil Bandukwala (Collusion, 2021) and machine dreams with natalie hanna (Collusion, 2021) which was shortlisted for the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award. He was shortlisted for the 2022 Austin Clarke Award for a collaborative poem with Manahil Bandukwala.

Amanda Earl [photo credit: Charles Earl] (she/her) writes, edits, reviews, publishes and makes mischief on the unceded territories of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Peoples. Earl is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the editor of Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry. Subscribe to her Substack, Amanda Thru the Looking Glass and buy limited edition gorgeousness from Creatively Yours, her forthcoming year-long whimsical collaborative creation with her husband, Charles Earl. Her latest chapbook, her eleventh with above/ground press, is SOCIALLY AWKWARD GHOST (2025). More info: AmandaEarl.com. Instagram: earlamanda.

The Factory Reading Series, September 28, 2025: O'Reilly, Lithgow + Ladouceur,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:

Nathanael O'Reilly (Texas)
Michael Lithgow (Ottawa)
+
Ben Ladouceur (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Doors 7pm / Reading 7:30pm
Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa

Nathanael O’Reilly’s [pictured] fourteen poetry collections include Separation Blues: Poems 1994-2024 (Flying Islands Books, 2024), Dublin Wandering (Recent Work Press, 2024), Landmarks (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024), Selected Poems of Ned Kelly (Downingfield Press, 2024) and Boulevard (Downingfield Press, 2024), as well as three chapbooks with above/ground press. His work appears in journals and anthologies published in fifteen countries, including Cordite, The Honest Ulsterman, Meanjin, New World Writing Quarterly, Rabbit, Southword, Trasna and Westerly. He is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Texas at Arlington.

Michael Lithgow’s poetry, fiction and academic writing have appeared in various Canadian and international journals including TNQ, the Literary Review of Canada (LRC), Topia, The /Temz/ Review, Canadian Literature, Existere, The Antigonish Review, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, ARC and Fiddlehead. He has authored two collections of poetry Waking in the Tree House (Cormorant Books, 2012) and Who We Thought We Were As We Fell (Cormorant Books, 2021). His short story ‘The Taxidermy Lesson’ was recently published in The Brussels Review. He teaches at Athabasca University.

Ben Ladouceur has received the Thomas Morton for Fiction, the National Magazine Award (Gold) for Poetry, the Archibald Lampman Award, the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize, the Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and a writer’s residency at the Al Purdy A-Frame. He is the author of the novel I Remember Lights (2025), the poetry collections Otter (2015) and Mad Long Emotion (2019), and ten chapbooks, including the above/ground press titles Lime Kiln Quay Road (2011; second printing, 2014) which was nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and The Last Man (2025), produced as part of his upcoming tenure as University of Ottawa’s new writer-in-residence. He lives in Ottawa.

The Factory Reading Series, August 21, 2025: Currin, Heinis, JAAWORD + Pirie,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:

Jen Currin (Vancouver)
Shery Alexander Heinis (Ottawa)
Jamaal Amir Akbari/JAAWORD (Ottawa)
Pearl Pirie (QC)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Doors 7pm / Reading 7:30pm
Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa

Jen Currin has published two collections of stories, Disembark (House of Anansi, 2024) and Hider/Seeker (Anvil Press, 2018), which was a finalist for a ReLit Award and was named a 2018 Globe and Mail Best Book. They have also published five collections of poetry, including Trinity Street (House of Anansi, 2023) and The Inquisition Yours (Coach House, 2010), which won the 2011 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry and was a finalist for a LAMBDA and two other awards. Currin lives on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Halkomelem-speaking peoples, including the Qayqayt, Musqueam, Kwikwetlem, and Kwantlen Nations, in New Westminster, BC. They teach creative writing and English at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Shery Alexander Heinis is a St. Lucia born poet, writer, and former diplomat. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of In Our Tongues Reading and Art Series, an Ottawa-based arts non-profit that showcases, nurtures, and advances Black, Indigenous, and racialized artists from the National Capital Region and across Canada. She is the author of A Greater Whole, as well as her debut poetry collection, Splinter (self-published). Her work has appeared in ARC Poetry Magazine, The League of Canadian Poets’ Black History Month Chapbook, These Lands, Bywords, In\Words and more. She has been a feature reader at the Ottawa International Writers Festival, VERSeFest Ottawa and The Tree Reading Series among others. Shery is featured in BREATH, a multimedia immersive art installation and the documentary film FOUR WOMEN  on Bell Fibe TV1 and CBC Gem. 

Jamaal Amir Akbari or JAAWORD [pictured] is an award winning poet, songwriter, recording, screen and performance artist, arts educator and creative entrepreneur.  He is Ottawa’s 2017-2019 Poet Laureate Emeritus, and his career in arts education earned him 2016's Ontario Arts Educator Award.

He has brought his work to audiences nationally and abroad, and served as Carleton University’s Artist in Residence for the 2019-2020 school year. He also founded the Origin Arts & Community Centre in 2015, a performance arts hub on the edge of Ottawa’s Hintonburg neighbourhood that provides an event space for performing artists to share their passion. 

His topics range from emotional maturity to black heritage, from parenting to the human condition. He resides in rural Marathon Village, ON, with his wife and 8 children, using the national capital region as his launch pad to teach, mentor and advocate for the arts.

Pearl Pirie lives quietly & slowly in rural Quebec and Ottawa. Her latest is we astronauts from Pinhole Poetry. www.pearlpirie.com
 

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, June 20: Pirie, MA|DE, Bandukwala, Moran + Smith,

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

The Factory Reading Series
the pre-small press book fair reading

featuring readings by:

Pearl Pirie (QC)
MA|DE (Windsor ON)
Manahil Bandukwala (Ottawa ON)
James K. Moran (Ottawa ON)
+
Mahaila Smith (Ottawa ON)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, June 20, 2025
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way

[And don’t forget the ottawa small press book fair, held the following day at the Tom Brown Arena]

author biographies:

Pearl Pirie lives slowly in rural Quebec. A queer, p/t abled settler on unceded land of the Anishnaabe, she is the author of footlights (Radiant Press, 2020)  You can find her on socials— Instagram, Patreon, Substack and at www.pearlpirie.com.

MA|DE (est. 2018) [pictured] is a collaborative writing entity, a unity of two voices fused into a single, poetic third. It is the name given to the joint authorship of Mark Laliberte and Jade Wallace — artists whose active solo practices, while differing radically, serve to complement one another. Their work has appeared in literary journals internationally, including Augur, CV2, Grain, PRISM, Salamander, The Woodward Review and Vallum. MA|DE has written 4 chapbooks, including the bpNichol award-shortlisted A Trip to the ZZOO (Collusion Books 2020). MA|DE's debut full-length poetry collection, ZZOO, is out now from Palimpsest Press, and another collection, Detourism, is forthcoming with Palimpsest in 2028. More: ma-de.ca

Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of Heliotropia (Brick Books 2024; shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award and the Raymond Souster Award) and MONUMENT (Brick Books 2022; shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award). She has been twice longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, and was selected as a Writer’s Trust of Canada Rising Star in 2023. See her work at manahilbandukwala.com.

James K. Moran’s poetry and speculative fiction have appeared in Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology, Burly Tales, Bywords, Glitterwolf, and On Spec. Lethe Press published his fiction collection Fear Itself and horror novel Town & Train. Moran writes across genres about cosmic carports, drag-queen warlocks and nomadic superheroes. He reviews for Arc Poetry Magazine, Plenitude and Strange Horizons. Findable at jameskmoran.blogspot.ca, @jamestheballadeer.bsky.social (Bluesky) and jamestheballadeer (Instagram). Moran lives in Ottawa, on the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.

Mahaila Smith is a researcher, poet, editor and MA student based on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They won the 2024 John Newlove Poetry Award and were nominated for the Rhysling and Best of the Net awards. They adore fibre crafts and collecting sea-glass. You can find more of their work on their website: mahailasmith.ca. Their debut narrative poetry collection, Seed Beetle is available from Stelliform Press.

The Factory Reading Series, March 16, 2025: Etcheverry, Manery, mclennan, Turnbull + Wilkins,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya (Ottawa)
Rob Manery (Vancouver)
rob mclennan (Ottawa)
Chris Turnbull (Kemptville)
+
Grant Wilkins (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Doors 7pm / Reading 7:30pm
Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya, Chilean-Canadian poet, lives in Ottawa, Canada. Professor of philosophy, master's degree in Hispanic language and literature, doctor in comparative literature. He was a member of the Escuela de Santiago and Grupo América, Chilean poetic groups of the 1960s-70s. His poetry, prose and criticism have been published in various countries in magazines and books in Spanish and translations into English, French, Italian and Portuguese. He has published art in various media and formats, on paper and virtually. His latest books are Clorodiaxepóxido, poems, Chile, 2017; Los herederos, science fiction novel, 2018; Canadografia, anthology of Spanish-Canadian prose, Chile, 2017; Samarkanda, poems, Canada, 2019; Outsiders, narratives in English, 2020; Orejas y vanguardias, Chile, 2024. Recently appears in the anthologies Wurlitzer, cantantes del recuerdo en la poesía chilena, Chile, 2018; Antología de la Revista Entre Paréntesis Chile, 2018; Antología de la poesía chilena de la última década, (Chile, 2018), Antología mundial: la papa, seguridad alimentaria (Bolivia, 2019), Bolivia, 2019; Anthologie de la poésie chilienne, 26 poètes d'aujourd'hui (France 2021). He is a collaborator and member of the editorial committee of Entreparéntesis magazine, from Chile, and Off the Record magazine, also Chilean. His latest book of poems is Orejas y vanguardias, Chile, 2024.

Robert Manery lives in Vancouver, BC, where he is the editor of Some, a print-only poetry magazine. He is the author of As They Say (BlazeVOX, 2024), It’s Not As If It Hasn’t Been Said Before (Tsunami Editions, 2001), and the chapbooks Richter-Rauzer Variations (above/ground press, 2012), Many, Not Any (Some Books, 2019), and Elegies (above/ground press, 2022).

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. His latest collection is Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025).

Chris Turnbull's recent book is cipher (Beautiful Outlaw Press 2024). Her most recent chapbook is x° (Gap Riot Press). She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails or their pieces found on trails.

Grant Wilkins is an occasional poet, printer and papermaker who has made a practice of doing strange things to other people’s words. He has degrees in History & Classical Civilization and in English, and he’s working on another one in Art History. He lives in Ottawa on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

collage by Gary Barwin,

The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading!

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan,
The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading

at Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way, Ottawa
Friday, December 27, 2024
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm

with readings from yacht club regulars and irregulars alike, including Michelle Desbarats, AJ Dolman, nina jane drystek, Laura Farina, Cara Goodwin, Chris Johnson, Margo LaPierre, IAN MARTIN, rob mclennan, James Moran, Lee Parpart, Wanda Praamsma, Colin Quin, Joan Rivard + Grant Wilkins (and possibly others,

WITH A NEW ISSUE OF THE PETER F YACHT CLUB TO LAUNCH AS WELL

see my report on last year's event here

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, November 15: Sherwood, Reid, Hamilton, Baglow + Rodrigues,

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

The Factory Reading Series
the pre-small press book fair reading
celebrating THIRTY YEARS of the ottawa small press book fair

featuring readings by:

Claire Sherwood (Montreal)
Monty Reid (Ottawa)
Seymour Hamilton (Chelsea QC)
John Baglow (Ottawa)
+
Tazi Rodrigues (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, November 15, 2024
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
Anina’s Café, 280 Joffre-Bélanger Way

[And don’t forget the ottawa small press book fair, held the following day at the Tom Brown Arena]

Claire Sherwood [pictured] is a Montreal writer, visual poet, and oral storyteller. Her short fiction has appeared in Minority Reports: New English Writing in Quebec (Vehicule Press), and her poetry in Kola Magazine (The Black Writers’ Guild), Zettel Magazine (Underbridge Press), carte blanche magazine (QWF online), Helios (Ediciones de la Salamandra Negra), My Island My City (sitting duck press), What Lasts (2 Susans Poetry Circle). Her new chapbook Eat Your Words was published by Montreal’s Turret House Press.

Monty Reid was born in Saskatchewan but has made his home in Ottawa for the past 25 years. He has published a dozen books of poetry, most recently Garden (Chaudiere, 2014) and Meditatio Placentae (Brick, 2016). He has also published award-winning non-fiction and more than 20 chapbooks with publishers in Canada and abroad. His work has won National Magazine Awards, the Lampman Award, the Stephansson Award (3 times) and has been short-listed 3 times for the GGs. Magazine publications include The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Grain, CV2, The Puritan, Train, Dusie, Manoah and many others. His latest chapbook Vertebrata was published by Montreal’s Turret House Press.

Seymour Hamilton lives in Chelsea, Quebec with his wife Katherine. He is much happier writing stories than he ever was before he retired from ordinary work-work, which in his case involved a lot of marking, editing, and writing in the academic world and the civil service.  He has written eight books of fiction, six of them a post-apocalypse science fiction trilogy that got out of hand and spun off three sequels, with a seventh coming soon.  He also wrote a novel about 1960s back-to-the-land hippies in Nova Scotia, and a collection of inter-related stories called The Laughing Princess, which feature dragons of great power and authority.

John Baglow is a former union executive officer (PSAC), and presently writes and lives in Ottawa. Baglow has published three books of poetry, Emergency Measures (Sono Nis Press, 1976), Journey Under Glass (Penumbra Press, 2004), and more recently, Murmuration: Marianne’s Book (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023). He has also written a critical study of the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid, The Poetry of Self (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987). His poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, nationally and internationally.

Tazi Rodrigues (she/her) is a writer and aquatic biologist. A second/third-generation-settler from Treaty 1 territory, she lives in Ottawa on the unceded land of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. She placed second in the 2023 Kloppenburg Hybrid Grain Contest for her essay on learning Portuguese and listening to fish, and won the 2024 Diana Brebner Prize for her poem on looking for bees. Other writing has appeared in The Fiddlehead, CV2, and Canthius. She is currently writing about ecological sound, caring for the worms and foster cats who live with her, and counting bugs at her neighbourhood pollinator garden.

The Factory Reading Series, July 22, 2024: Clint Burnham + Chris Turnbull,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:

Clint Burnham (Vancouver)
+
Chris Turnbull (Kemptville)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Monday, July 22, 2024
Doors 6:30pm / Reading 7:00pm
Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry
837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,

Clint Burnham was born in Comox and lives in Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish territories. Recent books include The Goldberg Variations (New Star, 2024), White Lie (Anvil, 2021), and Pound @ Guantánamo (Talon, 2016). He teaches at Simon Fraser University and just got back from a hike. above/ground press recently published The Old Man: new stories (2024) in the "prose/naut" series.

Chris Turnbull is the author of cipher (Beautiful Outlaw Press 2024), [ untitled ] in o w n (CUE Books 2014), and Continua (Chaudiere Books 2015). Her poetry chapbooks, collaborations, and installation pieces are in print, online, and within landscapes. She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails (www.etuor.wordpress.com).

The Factory Reading Series, January 23: Amanda Earl, Mia Morgan + Chris Johnson,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:

readings by:

Amanda Earl (Ottawa)
Mia Morgan (Ottawa)
+
Chris Johnson (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Doors 7pm / Reading 730pm
Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry
837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,

Amanda Earl's latest book is Beast Body Epic. Her chapbook, the Seasons, an excerpt from Welcome to Upper Zygonia comes out this winter from Full House Literary. Earl is now offering an editing service. Ask her for more info.

Emilia Morgan is a Palestinian editor, writer, and small-press publisher. Their work appears in various places, including talking about strawberries all of the time, chaudiere books, and Train: a poetry journal. Emilia is the editorial half of Coven Editions poetry press and holds an MA in Literature and Film.

Chris Johnson [photo credit: Curtis Perry] was born in Scarborough, ON, and currently lives on unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. He is the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine, a board member at the Ottawa Arts Council, a member of the selection committee for Bywords.ca, and a member of the creative collective VII. Chris' latest chapbook is 320 lines of poetry (counting blank lines) (Anstruther Press, 2023).

The Factory Reading Series pre-small press book fair reading, November 17: Kearney, Hawes, Pennock, Beaulieu + (possibly) McNair,

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

The Factory Reading Series
the glorious return (after four years!) of the pre-small press book fair reading
celebrating 29 years of the ottawa small press book fair
featuring readings by:

Rae Kearney (new to Ottawa!)
James Hawes (Montreal)
Tyler Pennock (Toronto)
Derek Beaulieu (Banff)
              + possibly (childcare-dependant)
Christine McNair (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, November 17, 2023
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 (NOTE DIFFERENT LOCATION) at the Tom Brown Arena]

Rae Kearney [pictured] is a poet and designer who just moved to Ottawa after spending time on the west coast. This year, she helped edit and design The Lupine (2023), a new journal published alongside the Whistler Writers Festival. Previous work can be found at above/ground press (2020) and in antilangmag no.3 (Winter 2019).

James Hawes lives and writes and makes films in Montreal. His poems have been published in print and online journals across Canada. His full length book of poetry Breakfast With a Heron (Mansfield Press) was shortlisted for the 2020 ReLit Award. He is the author of 3 chapbooks; Bus Metro Walk (Monk Press) was long-listed for the inaugural Nelson Ball Prize, The Hotdog Variations (above/ground press) and under an overpass, a fox (Turret House) was recently shortlisted for the 2023 Nelson Ball Prize. He started Turret House Press in 2023, dedicated to publishing new and experimental Canadian poetry. He has 2 cats.

Tyler Pennock is the inaugural Indigenous Writer-in-Residence at Carleton University. They are a two-spirit adoptee from a Cree and Metis family around the Lesser Slave Lake region of Alberta, and is  a member of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation. They graduated from Guelph University’s Creative Writing MFA program in 2013.Their first book, BONES (Brick Books) was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Indigenous Voices Award for Poetry. Their second book, BLOOD was released in September 2022. They currently teach at the Centre for Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto.

Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty-five collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent volume of fiction, Silence: Lectures and Writings, was published by Sweden’s Timglaset Books, his most recent volume of poetry, Surface Tension, was published by Toronto’s Coach House Books. Beaulieu has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students, the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for this dedication to Albertan literature and is the only graduate from the University of Calgary’s Department of English to receive the Faculty of Arts ‘Celebrated Alumni Award.’ Beaulieu holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton University, has served as poet laureate of both Calgary and Banff, and is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Christine McNair is the author of Charm (Book*hug, 2017) and Conflict (Book*hug, 2012). McNair lives in Ottawa where she works as a book doctor. And she even has a new chapbook with shreeking violet press!

The Factory Reading Series: Adrienne Adams, Dessa Bayrock + Jason Christie,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:

readings by:

Adrienne Adams (Calgary)

Dessa Bayrock (Ottawa)

+

Jason Christie (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan

Monday, October 9, 2023

Doors 7pm / Reading 730pm

Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry

837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,

Adrienne Adams: artist, poet, writer, curator, herb nerd and gardener living and breathing in Treaty 7 territory, dedicated to creating safer inter-sectional space to honour the feminine. She founded and curated Woolf’s Voices, a reading series and collective (2013-2023) with the mission of creating safer intersectional space. You can view her art and writing in filling Station, Herizons, The Firework New Forum, Freefall, NōD, Antilang, Lida, Corvid Queen (Sword & Kettle Press), Deathcap (Coven editions), Rose Quartz, Politics/letterslive (Car Poems), Polyglot, M(O)thering anthology (Inanna Press), Artizein: Arts & Teaching Journal, Herizons, Art-Care Practices for Restoring the Communal (by B. Bickle & M. Fisher) and others. Her chapbook Red Heads was released by above/ground Press in 2022

She has featured at the Single Onion Reading Series, South Country Fair, The New Beat, The Storytellers (IndieYYC), Expressions Poetry, FlyWheel, U of C Spoken Word, YYCSPEAK, PPF, Ignite Festivals and many others, and co-curated for Single Onion and CiSWF.

Dessa Bayrock lives in Ottawa with two cats, one of whom is very loud and almost always nearby. She ran post ghost press for two years and has published three chapbooks: IS IT ABOUT RUINS AND GHOSTS?, The Trick to Feeling Safe at Home, and Worry & Fuck. She recently completed a doctorate about Canadian literary awards. You can find her, or at least more about her, at dessabayrock.com, or at @dessayo on Instagram.

Jason Christie [pictured] lives and writes in Ottawa. He is the author of Canada Post (Invisible), i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and Cursed Objects (Coach House). His most recent chapbooks are: Glass Language Untitled Exaltation (excerpt) (above / ground) and Heavy Metal Litany (Model press). He is looking for a home for a new manuscript of poetry he wrote with the help of several Python scripts. Most recently, he is trying to get AI to not write poems that rhyme.

The Factory Reading Series: Kevin Spenst’s grand tour! w Conyer Clayton + rob mclennan,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:

readings and chapbook launches by:

Kevin Spenst (Vancouver)
Conyer Clayton (Ottawa)
+
rob mclennan (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Doors 7pm / Reading 730pm
Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry
837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,

Kevin Spenst (he/him) [pictured] is the author of Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, and Hearts Amok: a Memoir in Verse (all with Anvil Press), and over a dozen chapbooks including Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press), Upend (Frog Hollow Press) and an upcoming holm with the Alfred Gustav Press. His most recent writing has appeared in the anthologies Event 50: Collected Notes on Writing and Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing. His book launch during the pandemic was featured in a book about creative practices: The Creative Instigator’s Handbook. He teaches creative writing at Vancouver Community College and Simon Fraser University and he lives in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory.

Conyer Clayton is an award-winning writer, editor, and musician whose multi-genre work often explores grief, disability, the climate crisis, and gender-based violence through a surrealist lens. They are the author of But the sun, and the ships, and the fish, and the waves. (Finalist for the Pat Lowther Award and Raymond Souster Award), We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (Winner of the 2021 Ottawa Book Award), and many solo and collaborative chapbooks. They are the Nonfiction Editor for untethered magazine, a Poetry Editor for Augur, and a member of VII; an Ottawa-based poetry collective.

The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, rob mclennan’s most recent titles include the poetry collections the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022) and World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), the chapbook The Alta Vista Improvements (above/ground press, 2023), and a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

The Factory Reading Series @ VERSeFest: Amy Dennis + Natalie Eilbert, March 25, 2023!

The Factory Reading Series
as part of the thirteenth annual VERSeFest poetry festival presents: 

The Factory Reading Series Lecture Series; two talks/readings by:

Amy Dennis (Northern ON)
+
Natalie Eilbert (Green Bay WI)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, March 25, 2023
1-2pm at Knox Presbyterian Church, 120 Lisgar St. Ottawa (simultaneously streamed online free!
$15 tickets / check link for info on tickets/passes: https://www.verseottawa.ca/en/versefest
as well as for the full schedule of readers and events!
March 18-26, 2023

In addition to publications in England and France, Amy Dennis' poetry has appeared in more than twenty Canadian literary publications, including CV2, Event, Queen's Quarterly, and Prairie Fire. Her poetry has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards and a Random House Creative Writing Award. She placed second in the UK’s National Bedford Open Poetry Competition. While completing her Ph.D in literature, she published THE COMPLEMENT AND ANTAGONIST OF BLACK (OR, THE DEFINITION OF ALL VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS) with above/ground press. In 2022, Mansfield Press published The Sleep Orchard, Dennis' collection of ekphrastic poems in response to the life and art of Arshile Gorky. Currently, she works as a learning facilitator and professor.
https://www.verseottawa.ca/en/performer/amydennis

Natalie Eilbert [pictured] is the author of three poetry collections, Overland (Copper Canyon Press, forthcoming 5/16/2023), Indictus (Noemi Press 2018), Swan Feast (Bloof Books 2015). A recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts in poetry, a former Jay C. and Ruth Halls Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, and winner of the George Bogin Memorial Award from Poetry Society of America, Eilbert lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she is a statewide mental health reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
https://www.verseottawa.ca/en/performer/neilbert

both performers also have new work in the new issue of The Peter F Yacht Club, produced specifically for this year’s festival!

The Factory Reading Series: a Covid-era memorial,

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)
Friday, January 13, 2023
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan,

Comprised as a group memorial for poets lost during the Covid-era, there will be readings and recollections by Cameron Anstee, Rhonda Douglas, James Moran, natalie hanna, rob mclennan, AJ Dolman, Chris Johnson, Chris Turnbull, Stephen Brockwell, Bardia Sinaee, Anita Lahey, Monty Reid and others on numerous poets we've been unable to properly memorialize over this period of pandemic isolation, including: Robert Hogg, Phyllis Webb, Douglas Barbour, Michael Dennis, Steven Heighton, Clare Latremouille, Joe Blades, Richard Sanger, Peter Van Toorn, David Donnell, RM (Richard) Vaughan, Brian Fawcett etc (if there's a Covid-era poet-loss you wish to memorialize at the event, please let me know at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com

This event will also mark not only the thirtieth anniversary of The Factory Reading Series (the first event held on Lisgar Street at the late lamented Stone Angel Institute in January 1993) but will see the publication of an accompanying issue of The Peter F Yacht Club.
See last year's virtual issue here
and information on the prior year's stay-at-home issue here

the joyous return of The Peter F. Yacht Club regatta/reading/christmas party!

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan;
The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

with readings from yacht club regulars and irregulars alike, including Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, AJ Dolman, Margo LaPierre, rob mclennan, James Moran, Stuart Ross, D.S. Stymeist and Grant Wilkins (and possibly others,

and might there be a new issue as part of the event? (i haven't decided yet, honestly); but remember the virtual issue we did last year?

a pop-up poetry book launch: Stephen Brockwell + rob mclennan / Aug 20, 2022

Saturday, August 20, 2022: Das Lokal, 190 Dalhousie Street
2-4pm, in the (patio) tent 

launching:

Immune To The Sacred
Stephen Brockwell
Mansfield Press 

read a review of the book by rob mclennan at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics

the book of smaller
rob mclennan
University of Calgary Press 

read a review of the book by Kim Fahner, Margo LaPierre, and Jérôme Melançon at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics

books will be sold directly by the authors

Stephen Brockwell is a Montreal poet living in Ottawa. His sixth book, All of Us Reticent, Here, Together (Mansfield Press, 2016) won the Archibald Lampman Award for poetry. Stephen is a director of the Tree Reading Series, one of Canada’s oldest poetry series, with Avonlea Fotheringham and Brandon Wint. After thirty years in IT, Stephen now works for Esri, the Environmental Systems Research Institute. Stephen has participated in the Engineering Change Lab process for transforming engineering practice toward sustainable infrastructure and communities.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour in March, 2016. A suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022), appears sometime this fall, featuring a delightful cover photo by Stephen Brockwell. In spring 2020, he won ‘best pandemic beard’ from Coach House Books via Twitter, of which he is extremely proud (and mentions constantly). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com