two upcoming above/ground press events in ottawa!

both events at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs), 223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale) in Ottawa; lovingly hosted by above/ground press

doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm

event #1: Nicholas Lea (Ottawa), rob mclennan (Ottawa) & Stephen Cain (Toronto)

Friday, August 28, 2009

author bios:

Nicholas Lea is a poet living in Ottawa. His first book is Everything is Movies (published by Chaudiere Books). He sometimes feels marginalized because he is unambitious and prefers dreams. Everything is a struggle, especially the liminal period between being awake and being asleep called pre-sleep. One day he will just let go of his deep fears and let his life flow like a canoe down a smooth river. "No more excuses," he'll say. And then he'll just float, each breath a perfect j-stroke down the river.

Born in Ottawa, Canadas glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of some twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections Gifts (Talonbooks, 2009), a compact of words (Salmon Publishing, Ireland, 2009), kate street (Moira, Chicago Il, 2009) and wild horses (University ofAlberta Press, 2010), as well as a second novel, missing persons (The Mercury Press, 2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry & poetics, The Garneau Review and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and will be spending much of the next year in Toronto. He regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

Stephen Cain is the author of three poetry collections: American Standard/Canada Dry (Coach House, 2005), Torontology (ECW, 2001) and dyslexicon (Coach House, 1998) and a collaborative series of micro-fictions Double Helix (Mercury, 2006) written with Jay MillAr. He is also co-author, with Tim Conley, of The Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages (Greenwood, 2006). He lives in Toronto where has been a literary editor at the Queen Street Quarterly and fiction editor at Insomniac Press. His newest chapbook is Wordwards (No Press, Calgary).

event #2: Janice Tokar (Ottawa), Michelle Desbarats (Ottawa) & Peter Jaeger (UK)
Wednesday, September 9

Janice Tokar lives in Ottawa, and has been a guest reader at Sasquatch, the Muses and the A B Series. She has been published in The Peter F. Yacht Club, Bywords Quarterly Journal and at Bywords.ca.

Michelle Desbarats was born in Winnipeg, grew up in Montreal and Charlottetown and resides in Ottawa. Her first book of poetry, Last Child to Come Inside, was published by Carleton University and McGill-Queen's University Press. Other publications include work appearing in Arc Magazine, Decalogue, Transpoetry, Burnt Toast, Speak!, Meltwater Review and on CBC Radio and at the Writers' Festival in Ottawa. Michelle was a finalist in the CBC Literary Awards. She has received writing grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the City of Ottawa. She has also participated on Jury boards and as a judge for writing contests both in Canada and the US. Her work has been described as luminous and Don McKay, on the cover of the sold out Last Child To Come Inside, writes "This is poetry full of quick and acutely angled insight, moving with great sureness to glimpse the raven's wing inside the ordinary." Michelle is currently teaching poetry at Carleton University. She is working on two manuscripts.

Peter Jaeger teaches poetry and literary theory at Roehampton University, in London, England. His work includes the poetry collections Power Lawn (1999), Eckhart Cars (2004), Prop (2007), and Rapid Eye Movement (2009), as well as a critical study on contemporary poetics, entitled ABC of Reading TRG: Steve McCaffery, bpNichol, and the Toronto Research Group (2000). He currently divides his time between London and rural Somerset, where he lives with his family.

for further info, rob mclennan 613 239 0337