VERSeFest / Factory Reading Series : Lydia Unsworth and Nada Gordon,

In case you hadn't caught, The Factory Lecture Series returns to VERSeFest this year, with lectures by Manchester poet Lydia Unsworth and Brooklyn, New York poet Nada Gordon, on Sunday, March 29! A free event! Both poets also read that same evening alongside Jumoke Verissimo! Check out the full schedule and ticket information for this year's sixteenth annual VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival (with some events, as we're able, live-streamed in a pay-what-you-can donation, for those unable to make in-person). Also, there are a bunch of interviews with poets coming to this year's festival up at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, including with Lydia Unsworth, Nada Gordon, Gwen Aube, Sneha Subramanian Kanta, Paul Vermeersch, Hajer Mirwali and Isabella Wang--and more to come next week!

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 [pictured] 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  (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, 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 [pictured] 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 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 [pictured] 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) 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.

two poems + an upcoming (Ottawa) reading,

I've two poems online as part of the new issue of horseshoe literary magazine! So, that's pretty cool. Oh, and did you see I'm reading this Thursday night with touring poet Kevin Spenst (Vancouver) and Conyer Clayton (Ottawa)?

Ottawa Poetry Festival Returns this November

Ottawa, ON – VERSeFest, Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival, returns Nov. 6 – 22^nd with an entirely virtual program featuring 60 poets in English and French through a mix of live and pre-recorded readings, lectures, poetry slams, interviews, and panels. Though a departure from the festival’s customary gatherings, the virtual format will allow for some new and unique events, including poets inviting virtual audiences into their writing spaces and processes, as well as interactive poet-audience opportunities like the “Dial-a-Poet” segments.

Headliners include Karen Solie, a lyrical poet who subverts the expected; Brandon Wint, a national champion slam poet; Angye Goana, a Columbian poet and activist; Albert Dumont, also known as “South Wind,” a poet, storyteller, and Algonquin Traditional Teacher; Anne-Marie Desmeules, winner of the 2019 Governor General's Award for French-language poetry; and Éric Charlebois, a prolific poet inimitable in technique and bold imagery. Performance and poetry blur in several events, including the sound experimentations of Oana Avasilichioaei and Kaie Kellough. While the Translatlantic and American sessions will be bringing poets from Iceland, Ireland, and the United States.

Reflecting on this year’s virtual medium, Festival Director Monty Reid confirms: “It's been a strange year, but VERSeFest is back – thanks to everyone who helped make it happen! It's not quite as big as we had planned back in March, but a whole lot safer.  We'll be online throughout November and we’ll make sure you can find us.  Poetry never goes away.”

VERSeFest President Hubert Lussier adds: Whether you seek a balm to a hurt, an echo to a rage, or simply a moment of pure beauty, the poets brought together by VERSeFest in such a challenging year offer a program that collectively howls back. Our festival has adapted. This is a rendez-vous not to be missed.

All events are free for all audiences.

VERSeFest is organized by volunteers from Ottawa’s poetry community and is grateful for ongoing support from the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Council for the Arts, the Canada Council for the Arts, the ACFO, and many other individuals and organizations. Our Bilingual Ottawa grant from the ACFO this year allows us to offer our poets the opportunity to have poems translated for their reading.

For more information visit versefest.ca

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MEDIA CONTACTS
Vivian Vavassis, Communications Director: communications@versefest.ca

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