Ongoing notes, late November 2005: notes & more notes

Apparently John Barton, former Ottawa poet and Arc editor, who moved to Victoria BC to take over The Malahat Review, has recently been named the new poetry editor for Karen Haughian's Signature Editions out of Winnipeg, replacing outgoing poetry editor George Amabile. It will be interesting to see what books Barton starts with, after years of journal editing.

& I'm sure you already saw the results of the Giller Prize and the Governor Generals Awards? (I was so hoping Erin Mouré would win for poetry, but there you go).

If you look at Calgary writer Larissa Lai's recent blog entries, it appears that she's currently running around China with writers Fred Wah, Rita Wong, Wayde Compton, Glen Lowry and Roy Miki. What do you think they're doing? I'm very much looking forward to the writing that (hopefully) the trip should be instigating. (& why don't I ever get invited? I mean, I'm fun, after all…).

Oh, and I just found out that ECW Press in Toronto (who published my second poetry collection, bury me deep in the green wood back in 1999) is going to publish a collection of my literary essays in 2007, including pieces I wrote on jwcurry, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Barry McKinnon, Margaret Christakos and Breathing Fire II. I can't even remember the last collection of essays they published. Was it that one by John Metcalf in 1995? There must have been something else since.

And check out the piece I wrote on Ottawa writer (born and raised in Kamloops BC) Clare Latremouille, or this interview that someone else did with Gustave Morin. Broken Pencil magazine keeps threatening to post my interview with outgoing Olive chapbook / reading series (Edmonton AB) editor Adam Dickinson, but they didn't say when, exactly. It was meant to be the second in a series of interviews with editor/publisher types of small chapbooks, such as the one I did previously with Jay MillAr, who runs BookThug.

I'm gearing up to make a whole bunch of publications by poets Barry McKinnon (Prince George BC), Stephanie Bolster (Montreal QC), Karen Clavelle (Winnipeg MB), Sharon Harris (Toronto ON) and the late great bpNichol (Toronto ON), among others, so anyone wanting to subscribe (or re-subscribe) to above/ground press should probably do that real soon. makes a great gift.

& does anyone know why I've had a helicopter circling my neighbourhood (Chinatown) the past few mornings?