Small Press Book Fair

I encourage all three of this blog's readers to stop by the Toronto Small Press Book Fair this Saturday at the Toronto Reference Library, between 9am - 5pm. Existere is going to have a booth set up there and I'll be dropping by sometime during the day, so if you want to shiv me in the gullivers, hang around and choose your point of attack wisely. I have a big rib cage. 

Back in Black

Or at least in Toronto. Montreal was gorgeous and fun and the people I met were full of cool. Good work, McGill and co. 

Can someone tell my cats to stop keeping me up at night?

On the plate: writing a review of this year's edition of Coming Attractions.

exes and ohs,

andy

Pivot / Montreal

Attended another Pivot Reading Series event at the Press Club. Good stuff and nice to finally meet this rob mclennan chap the homeboys keep talking about. His blog, in ugly copy/paste font and color: www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

The Pivot's webplace is this: http://pivotreadings.wordpress.com/

There's a good restaurant across the street from the Press Club. M-something or other. My seafood linguine was sex in seafood linguine form. Feed there, if possible. Wait, it's called Musa. Yeah. Good stuff.

It's 6:30 in the AM and I'm about to flee to Montreal to give a paper on female bodybuilding at a conference. My opening riff is about Olivia Newton-John and I'm tempted to wear my lycra singlet from my wrestling days. 

I also saw a six year old get hit by a car on Bloor just before Bathurst yesterday. Note to dimwits behind the wheel: if traffic is stopped at a red light and backed up at least a street, don't try to be a ninja and speed by in the other lane. 

Be well and speak easy. 

andy

Pitching

 Putting the finishing touches on a short non-fiction piece I pitched to a men's website. They gave me a green light a week and a half ago. Every word's come with the ease of a buick squeezed through my urethra.  Hail Marys until it's all packed away and I have fifty bucks in my wallet, waiting to be spent on cat food and date squares. 

xox andy

Ferno House

The debut chapbook from slick new micro press Ferno House was launched to much acclaim on Friday and features writing from the University of Toronto's creative writing department. 

Website: http://www.fernohouse.com

Official sounding details below. . .

Ferno House's debut release is For Crying Out Loud - An Anthology of Poetry & Fiction, a collection of poetry and fiction by the students and instructors of the 2008-2009 Master's Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. They are:

George Elliott Clarke
Laura Maija Clarke
Spencer Gordon
Alex Grigorescu
Andrew MacDonald
Jeff Parker
Wendy Prieto
Jonathan Simpson
Catriona Wright

For Crying Out Loud is a hand-made, perfect bound, and limited edition (120) release. $12.00

isbn 978-0-981253-0-4

Existere.

Existere, a sexy little Toronto-based number with national distribution, is out! I'm holding it in my hands as we speak and it's a thing to behold. My story "Leap" graces its pages. Head over to your local lit journal carrying venue and pick yourself up a copy. Better yet, rustle up a subscription.

Website: http://www.yorku.ca/existere