the ottawa small press book fair, fall 2026 edition: November 14, 2026

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

   

 the ottawa
    small press
    book fair

autumn 2026 :
will be held on Saturday, November 14, 2026 at Tom Brown Arena, 141 Bayview Station Road, Ottawa

“once upon a time, way way back in October 1994, rob mclennan and James Spyker invented a two-day event called the ottawa small press book fair, and held the first one at the National Archives of Canada...” Spyker moved to Toronto soon after our original event, but the fair continues, thanks in part to the help of generous volunteers, various writers and publishers, and the public for coming out to participate with alla their love and their dollars.

General info:
the ottawa small press book fair
noon to 5pm (opens at 11am for exhibitors)

admission free to the public.
$25 for exhibitors, full tables
$12.50 for half-tables
(payable to rob mclennan, c/o 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9; paypal options also available

Note: due to demand, we offer half as well as full tables (because not everyone needs a full table, and this allows more exhibitors to participate). this fair will also have fewer table spots than recent fairs, so be aware that this will limit author space more than usual,

To be included in the exhibitor catalogue [too many of you aren't reading this part; please read this part]: please include name of press, address, email, web address, contact person, type of publications, list of publications (with price), if submissions are being considered and any other pertinent info, including upcoming Ottawa-area events (if any). Be sure to send by November 1st if you would like to appear in the exhibitor catalogue.

And hopefully we can still do the pre-fair reading as well! details TBA
: and we're on Bsky now! that's exciting, yes? follow us!

BE AWARE: given that the spring 2013 was the first to reach capacity (forcing me to say no to at least half a dozen exhibitors), the fair can’t (unfortunately) fit everyone who wishes to participate. The fair is roughly first-come, first-served, although preference will be given to small (literary) publishers over self-published authors (being a “small press fair,” after all).

The fair usually contains exhibitors with poetry books, novels, cookbooks, posters, t-shirts, graphic novels, comic books, magazines, scraps of paper, gum-ball machines with poems, 2x4s with text, etc, including regular appearances by exhibitors including: above/ground press ; Anvil Press / A FEED DOG BOOK ; Apt. 9 Press ; Arc Poetry Magazine ; Assembly Press ; Manahil Bandukwala ; battleaxe press ; Jessica Bebenek ; Book*hug Press ; Bird Lips Zine ; The BumblePuppy Press ; Bywords ; Dave Cooper ; CreateSpace ; Amanda Earl ; Elliott Dunstan ; equitableEducation.ca ; Good Golly Zines ; The Grunge Papers ; John Haas ; Seymour Hamilton ; Heartlines Spec ; Horsebroke Press ; L'Interligne : Kersplebedeb Publishing (LeftWingBooks.net) ; Paragon of Virtue Press / la presse POV ; phafours press/Writebulb app/Pearl Pirie ; Proper Tales Press ; Puddles of Sky Press ; Raccoon Comics ; ROOM 3o2 BOOKS ; Sarah's Zines ; Simulacrum Press ; shreeking violet press ; sider0xylon press ; swooncor ; Tel # Publishing ; Things in my Chest ; Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] ; Turret House Press ; Alberte Villeneuve-Sinclair ; Wyrdsmyth Press ; etc etc etc.

the ottawa small press fair is held twice a year (apart from these pandemic silences), and was founded in 1994 by rob mclennan and James Spyker. Organized/hosted since by rob mclennan.

Come on by and see some of the best of the small press from Ottawa and beyond!

Free things can be mailed for fair distribution to the same address. Unfortunately, we are unable to sell things for publishers who aren’t able to make the event.

Also: please let me know if you are able/willing to poster, move tables or distribute fliers for the event. The more people we all tell, the better the fair!

Note: spring 2027 we are returning to the Glebe Community Centre for June 19, 2027 (with a slight increase in table rates, for the first time in a decade) and autumn 2027 we are returning to Tom Brown Arena, date tba

Contact: rob mclennan at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com for questions, or to sign up for a table.

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part two, : Jordan Davis + Ethan Rein Vilu,

[Grant Wilkins; see part one here] Be aware the next ottawa small press book fair is November 14 at Tom Brown Arena, yes? Even though I haven’t properly announced it, I’m already getting vendors. And don’t forget that myself and above/ground press will be attending the Fisher Library Small Press Fair in Toronto on September 19, yes?

Grand Lake NB/Teaneck NY: Further from russell carisse’s sider0xylon press is the small chapbook SORRY, GOD by New Jersey poet and editor Jordan Davis, a poet I’d very much like to see further from [see my review of Davis’ latest full-length collection here]. SORRY, GOD is a chapbook made up of sixteen short, accumulated and untitled poem-fragments, a long poem composed via one step against another in sequence. “If you think about the future / everything gets worse but,” he writes, early on in the sequence, “if you think about other people / you have a chance / of not being the reason / everything gets worse [.]” The title suggests a kind of lyric act of contrition, yet the piece opens more into a suggestion of how to approach being an interacting with the world in a positive and constructive way, instead of simply being the problem, as it were. As the sequence opens:

How does it even happen
I was right there
paying attention, even!
and right in my blind spot — 

complete understanding
blipped out of existence —

[Christian McPherson, author]

Ottawa ON/Calgary AB: It is good to see new work from Calgary poet and editor Ethan Rein Vilu, THE LONESOME GLORY (Ottawa ON: Horsebroke Press, 2026), an assemblage of what appear as sonnet-variants, following chapbooks DRAWINGS FROM BEFORE THE RED YEAR (Anstruther Press, 2024) [see my review of such here] and A DECISION RE: ZURICH (The Blasted Tree, 2020). The seventeen poems that make up THE LONESOME GLORY speak on horseraces, offering specific lyrics on “Kentucky Derby, 2003” to “Starlet Stakes, 2022,” the Belmont Cup and “Yearling Sale, 1954,” writing in and around poems set within that particular world, but from different temporal points, which becomes curious in itself. Why so much movement across time? The poems bounce around perspectives of not a singular event but a larger, ongoing culture, which is curious to see. “For some,” the poem “Kentucky Derby, 2003,” begins, “it was an eden pierced / by world-weariness.” Vilu writes of horseracing in ways transcendent and intimate, mundane and glorified. While the moments that Vilu writes are interesting, I’m uncertain how these moments connect to each other, beyond elements of structure, and the loose content of horseracing. What is the purpose to this assemblage, what is the structure? There are moments I wish the narrative was less straight and more nuanced, more subtle, such as the poem “Starlet Stakes, 2022,” that closes:

She was denied her fairy-tale ending,
and yet her brave narrative prevails.
the race possessed the rhythm
of a legend—an arc unwinding
deep across the Orange County sky.

 

[Jay MillAr, Book*hug Press] 

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part one, : Jason Camlot and Stuart Ross, + Monty Reid,

[Manahil Bandukwala at the Brick Books table; Leigh Nash and Andrew Faulkner at the Assembly Press table] Another small press book fair! Do you remember my notes from last fall on the ottawa small press book fair [see parts one, two] or my combined notes on Toronto's TIFA Small Press Market/Meet the Presses’ Indie Lit Market [see parts one, two, three, four]? So much small press! And our next Ottawa fair will be Saturday, November 14th at the Tom Brown Arena, so be sure to mark your calendars. Did you know there’s a zine fair coming up in Sherbrooke, Quebec on July 4th? (a handful of issues of Touch the Donkey will be available there gratis, by the way) And apparently there’s another Fisher Library Small Press Fair in Toronto on September 19^th!

Ottawa/Cobourg ON/Montreal QC: Jason Camlot and Stuart Ross have been working a curious sequence of chapbook-length response projects (all part of a larger manuscript-in-progress, “THE SHOOKY SESSIONS (A Litany),” a handful of such appearing recently in print [including titles through above/ground press, № Press and Vallum’s Chapbook Series], one of the latest being Shooky Session 4 (with allergies) (Ottawa ON: Apt. 9 Press, June 2026), subtitled “Paul Celan, Selections / 11 December 2023 / Sarah Burgoyne’s Place.” Each chapbook-length project, it would seem, is composed as a collaborative response to a poetry title pulled off a bookshelf at random, this one being Paul Celan’s Selections (University of California Press, 2005), edited by Pierre Joris. As the note at the back of the chapbook offers: “This chapbook presents poems written during the fourth of seven listening poetry sessions that Stuart Ross and Jason Camlot held between December 5, 2022, and December 18, 2024.” With the other prompt-titles in the sequence, Celan is an interesting selection, given the work can’t help but be a richly generative text. The notion of the “response text” is one that runs the length and breadth of literature, including what one might term straight translation to more abstract translations, from bpNichol’s Translating Translating Apollinaire to Erín Moure’s Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person (Anansi, 2001) to more recent mis-translations by Montreal poet Hugh Thomas. Not that a response is the same thing as translation, or even mis-translation, but I would say the ideas are certainly related. Siblings, perhaps.

As well, Ross is one of but a handful of writers (I would include Gary Barwin in such as well) who seem to be constantly, even perpetually, pushing the boundaries of their own comfort and possibility through projects, including collaboration, all of which can’t help but feed into either author’s solo work. I am very curious to see this eventual published collection, and the way each chapbook-length project might play off each other, possibly. As the poem begins:

The divers are crowned by halos.
They are not brainless,
nor are they flames of vegetable.
Let’s dance around my eyes,
celebrate my glorious decapitation,
my glistening kisser.

Ottawa ON/Grand Lake NB: In case you were unaware, New Brunswick poet russell carisse [see my recent interview with carisse here] has started a chapbook press, sider0xylon press, which debuted at this most recent ottawa small press book fair. One of the first titles is the sequence OPERATIVES by Monty Reid, hand-sewn and produced “on a 1929 LCSmith & Corona Standard #8-12,” each copy individually typed and numbered in an edition of fifty copies. Throughout this ten-part sequence, Reid invokes a slow and considered lyric unfurling that works perfectly in this format, each short section on its own page, allowing each line to properly absorb. As the opening piece, titled “Brush Pass,” reads:

You never know what you’ll be given.

You might not feel the slightest touch
as the messenger passes. 

You never know where it came from
although you suspect a source. 

Your job is not to know. You are the form
the message takes, every time.
 

Small press and anarchist book fairs in the Glebe! interview with rob mclennan by Greg Macdougall,

Greg Macdougall recently interviewed me on tomorrow's ottawa small press book fair event, and an abridged version appeared as an article in the Glebe Report; here is the full interview. Thanks much!

On Saturday June 20^th, the ottawa small press book fair is at the Glebe Community Centre, from noon until 5pm. Then a week later, on June 27, the Ottawa Anarchist Bookfair is also being hosted there, from 10am until 3pm.

This may be a unique opportunity! The long-running, twice-annual small press fair is only temporarily at the GCC while Tom Brown Arena is being renovated. Last year, the anarchist fair was at Jack Purcell CC. Both fairs are free admission.

More detail about the anarchist fair follows below.

But first, here is an interview with OSPBF organizer rob mclennan:

The ottawa small press book fair - Q&A with rob mclennan

Q: So, what exactly is meant by "small press"? It is a 'Small Press Book Fair’, not a 'zine fair' (such as the HallowZine fair at the GCC the past two Octobers), so what are the general criteria or definition of a 'small press'?

A: Small press I would classify predominantly as small literary publisher, whether of a journal or chapbook-sized magazine or publisher of small single-author collections. I mean, 'zine is a small magazine, whatever that entails. Small press is a press who publishes small-run publications, whether photocopied, letterpress, hand-printed, hand-sewn, stapled, whatever.

Q: What kind of content will people be able to find from the tablers who'll be there June 20th?

A: Predominantly literary: poetry and fiction, but also some comics, non-fiction.

Q: It seems poetry might have a slightly different [distribution] model than other modes of writing. How would you say the small press book fair fits into the poetry distribution ecosystem?

Well, small press runs the range, obviously. some of these publications are hand-sewn or stapled, so will never see the inside of a bookstore, certainly aren't distributed through an actual distributor. Hand-sales are where such publications live, and even thrive. As bpNichol termed it, the gift economy. Those of us that make such purposefully-small publications share and trade and exchange and keep that conversation going, whether across years or kilometres or even across languages. Even the small presses that do have larger businesses (in comparison) hold such a small footprint compared to the big five (ie: the multinational literary publishers), with books that might win readers and awards, but aren't selling in the thousands. This event is for those books under the radar, often purposefully so. Do you think something hand-sewn or hand-printed in a run of 50 copies will ever see the inside of a chain bookstore?

Q: So this event, the ottawa small press book fair, you've been running for 32 (?) years, and with a couple exceptions, twice a year... maybe you can say a bit about the history? It is quite an accomplishment! Also, you obviously must see it as being worthwhile - what are some of the most important reasons to do it, both in terms of what it offers to the (local) literary community, and what is most rewarding personally for you?

A: Yep, the first fair was fall 1994, with the second in fall 1995. By spring 1996, it landed twice a year, with the only exceptions during the Covid-era, twice a year run by myself. James Spyker and I founded the first one (he moved away after the first event), a fair founded on the model of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair (an event founded in 1987, an extension of the original Meet the Presses fairs in Toronto, which now run annually).

This material, these books and writers and publications, are so easily and quickly overlooked, but exist as the foundation of any literature. This is where many writers begin, and were a handful even choose to live, entirely. Some writers remain with a foot here, whether as reader or writer or publisher or editor or some combination thereof (or all of the above) their whole careers, whatever engagements or books they might have through presses such as Penguin Random House or whatnot. This is literature, quite literally, at the ground level.

What I’ve personally enjoyed over the years has been seeing certain writers and/or presses emerge and then flourish across years. Some publishers use our event as a target for new publications, with the presumption that without our event, certain titles might not have been published, which is pretty cool. Look at what Cameron Anstee's Apt 9 Press has achieved over the years, or Amanda Earl, through her writing and publishing. There is such a remarkable array of talent in this town, much of which requires support to be able to flourish. I can only hope that the ottawa small press fair can simply be one of those supports.

Q:  So we also want to mention the fair usually has an event the night before, with some of the authors doing readings. And given how long you've been doing this, and how the growth of the internet etc has had major impacts on writing and publishing and everything else, what are some lessons you would point out, both professionally and personally?

A: The reading the night prior will be at Anina's Cafe in Vanier, with a handful of participating writers, some of which has yet to be confirmed [readers have now all been confirmed], of course. Vancouver poet Renee Sarojini Saklikar will be there, for one. I like the idea of an anticipatory event. The Toronto fair used to always have readings that same night, which I always found exhausting. By the time a fair is over, I’m wiped out, and just want to have conversation with other exhibitors, not have to sit quiet for anything. The event is free, 7pm [Friday June 19], all welcome.

The internet has been a boon for marketing, certainly, and provided the ability for people to find their people, wherever they might be, which can only be positive (well, for literary endeavours, anyway). There's nothing that can replace in-person interaction, I would say. Or a book or journal in-hand.

Q: As an author, as a publisher (above/ground press), and as a literary critic, what advice do you have for young / aspiring / early-career writers?

A: Not terribly complicated, really. Keep going, read everything, don't give up. Find your people.

Q: One of the things you're known for is the “12 or 20 Questions" interviews you do of other writers. Is there a question you'd like to ask yourself here?

A: Heh, maybe. Why do you take on so much? is a good one, although I haven't specifically an answer for that one. 

I learned notions of community and communal responsibility through the example of my farmer-father, and how he engaged with the people around him. What one can do, one does for others, in the ways that one can. He set a high bar.

** The ottawa small press book fair is Saturday June 20^th, 12 noon until 5pm at the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Ave (at Lyon). Website: smallpressbookfair.blogspot.com **