12 or 20 (second series) questions with Joshua Chris Bouchard

Joshua Chris Bouchard is the author of Burn Diary (Buckrider Books) and Let This Be the End of Me (Bad Books Press), the latter of which was shortlisted for the 2019 bpNichol Chapbook Award. He wrote or co-wrote five chapbooks, and his poetry appears in Event, CV2, Carousel, Poetry Is Dead, PRISM international, Arc, and more.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first chapbook, Portraits, opened a new world of publishing, collaborating, and sharing the work as opposed to just writing it for my own edification. It was a feeling of: This what poets do, and I feel connected to that tradition. I wanted to be a writer, to publish, to do live performances.

The biggest difference between my work now and my work then is more focus. The work then was a big release of emotion, experiences, and ideas. The work now is more deliberate with themes and overall purpose.

It feels different. After the Toronto launch of my first full-length collection, Burn Diary, I felt a very deep melancholy. I couldn’t figure out why. Eventually I realized it’s because the work changed, and I have changed. And change can be frightening sometimes. Or feel like some big loss. But it’s also necessary and good and signifies progress. It’s best to always move forward.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

My introduction was through music. Lyrics and the feeling of music. We all know that feeling when we hear our favourite song. It’s undeniable. I would listen to metal and hardcore and think: These people are saying something that is true and meaningful to them, and I want to do that too. I also listened to hymns at mass and was really moved by them. This fervent kind of expression and devotion.

I journaled and wrote lyrics to imaginary songs. I would show them to anyone who gave a damn. Everyone thought, I think, that something was wrong with me. My grandmother found one of my journals and was very concerned, which made sense. I was writing about trauma and abuse and horrible things. I think that’s why I liked poetry more than fiction or non-fiction. I didn’t want to construct narratives. I wanted to let it all go – everything I was feeling without rules – and poetry allowed that.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I think I write new projects at a decent clip. I’ll think about the idea of something for a long time and piece it together in my mind. When I sit down to write it’s almost already formed, so the actual process of putting it on the page doesn’t take very long.

First drafts can take a lot of different forms. Some of my earlier chapbooks were not changed much from the first draft besides minor edits. But Burn Diary was shaped and reshaped from the original version quite a bit over years.

When I was just starting out, there was this impulse to throw caution to the wind: just write, leave it all on the page, see what happens. Keep everything as is, let it be raw, let it be faulty. But now there is a more deliberate process. I’m older, maybe wiser, life is different. The writing is different too.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

A poem starts with a thought that I can’t let go. I obsess over it. It could be a word, phrase, or image. Usually, it’s a feeling that I don’t know how to make sense. I work it out on the page and wrangle it until some kind of path comes from it. Usually, they start as short pieces that I curate into a larger thematic work. For example, Burn Diary was written over years with poems from different times of my life. It was then laid out into a large book, rearranged, heavily edited, paired down to its core.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I love doing readings and have done a fair share. I don’t think about performing when I’m writing and I don’t think about writing when I’m performing, but performing has the same importance as writing. The poem on the page has a life and the poem read aloud has a life, but they’re both born from the same source.

The poem on the page is read by someone alone in their house and they have a specific relationship to it in their mind. They can take their time, reread it, leave notations in the margins. The experience of a poem at a performance is very different. It’s read aloud as it’s intended to be experienced by the author. They hear their voice and see their body. I like to do as many public readings as possible, and I think I cut my teeth in the literary scene at open mics and other live gigs. I wouldn’t be the same poet I am today if it weren’t for readings.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

My goal used to be pure emotional expression, even to a fault, even if it meant chaos. I resented anything academic or stuffy or pinned down by arbitrary rules. I hated anything that I perceived as artistically oppressive or authoritarian. Poetry was an act of rebellion.

But now, things are much less clear. My views on myself and the world vary. If anything, I want to elicit a visceral reaction from readers. I want readers to gasp, swoon, cry, laugh, be horrified, glad, complacent, petrified. Again, the feeling when you hear your favourite song or read your favourite poem. It’s there, deep down in the belly. What is that? How does it happen? I think it’s the connection between you, the world, and the artist. Or maybe that’s all bullshit. I don’t know! Mu!

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think writers have a very important part in larger culture, even if they sometimes inflate that sense of importance in certain contexts. Many people have said that writers are the political and cultural barometers of any given society, and I think that is very true. A very large part of the writer’s goal – maybe their only goal – is to account for what is going on in the world in a very concrete way and hold up that unapologetic mirror and say: This is what we are, and this is what are we doing.

There is also the writer who explores the more metaphysical and introspective aspects of life: This is what I’m feeling as a human being. I think there is a place for both and, anyways, those aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Ultimately, I think writers have a moral and artistic obligation to call it as they see it. Be a human and express your humanity.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

It’s nearly always essential. I feel I’m the best judge of my work but that can get you only so far. When you live inside your head all the time you get lost in the corridors of your thinking. An editor is there to guide you and be honest with you. They need to tell you that the idea/word/poem/phrase isn’t good or not doing what you want it to do.

Sometimes an editor can hurt you because your work is so precious that criticism can feel like an axe to the head, but they also give you power to make something the best it can be. I have written many poems that I thought were very good, only to have a good editor (or general reader) tell me that the poem doesn’t make any sense to them. There needs to be a stable conveyer of meaning from author to reader otherwise there is no point in sharing the work outside of yourself, and editors will help you build that.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

This may not be the best advice – I have heard many inspiring things from people about creativity – but it’s something my high-school history teacher told me. He was subbing for the Writer’s Craft course, and we were writing poems. He looked over my shoulder and asked: What’s that line break for? Why is it there? I didn’t know the answer.

He told me that everything you do in a poem needs to have purpose, even line breaks. That stuck with me. To this day I remember that when writing poems: Does this line break or word have purpose? What is it I’m really trying to do? I also find music-recording engineer Steve Albini inspiring. Specifically, his lectures on the creative process and how the capitalist industry impacts artists.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?

I’m a visual thinker, so it’s easy to go from poetry to photography. Photography works out a different part of the artistic brain muscle. You see it as a whole rather than lines left to right, it’s a physical object, and it exists outside my mind. I didn’t create it, it’s already there, its meaning subjective based on the observer. I also sing in a band and have dabbled with visual art. Again, a different muscle at work, but it’s all part of the same nervous system. It’s about expression. Photography can express something that poetry can’t; music that poetry can’t; poetry what neither photograph nor music can’t. I’ll go back and forth without much trouble.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I’m fastidious. I write between 5am – 9am on Saturday and Sundays. I work a full-time 9-5 gig, so weekends are my best opportunities to sit and put the words down. I rarely write anything during the week, except maybe a few notes or lines I think are promising. I think some people are obsessed with writing; they are incapable of doing it. They will write all day if they could, any chance they get, or they will sit down and write a large work from start to finish in nearly one sitting. I sometimes wish that were me, but it’s not. I love to write but life itself always takes precedent.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Music is always my first creative palette cleanser. Music doesn’t demand the same things from a listener as poetry does from a reader. I can lie there and let it wash over me. Again, music hits a different nerve and stimulates a different part of your emotions. The second thing is just living, which sounds very vague and boring, but it helps me a lot. Go to the park. Go grocery shopping. Buy an overpriced eclair. Go to the mall, the worst mall you can find. Malls are incredibly inspiring. They are so oppressive and offensive. Go to the food court and just watch people eat. Invariably I will get that feeling again and ideas start to come.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I love this question. It’s the smell of fire in autumn. Campfires or from home fireplaces. It’s that smell during twilight when it’s kind of cold, there’s a good wind, and the scent of burning wood is everywhere as you walk down the street. It elicits an image of safety, peace, warmth. Or gasoline.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Music and movies are huge influences. Music for the feeling and film for the visual. This reminds me of going to a movie theatre in the early afternoon on a summer day. You’re in the theatre for a few hours, it’s dark, whisper quiet, and you may even be totally alone. You become engrossed in the film, the characters, the story. The film ends and you walk out, and the sun suddenly pulverizes your senses. You feel like you’re in a dream or like you’ve somehow transformed into a new person. You’re a bit wobbly and stupefied. You’re not the same. I love that feeling. I want people to feel like that after they’re finished reading my poems.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Shunryū Suzuki is an important writer and teacher for me. He wrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind which, when I was younger, was like a bible to me. To this day I go back to it occasionally and read passages. Suzuki was a Japanese Zen Master, and the book teaches the practise of Japanese Zen and its basic philosophical tenets. It can be incredibly comforting when I feel utterly defeated by life. My friend Alex once said about therapists: Sometimes you just need someone to tell you you’re not a piece of shit. That’s what Suzuki does for me. He reminds me that I a human being who is flawed but…not a piece of shit.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I have always fantasized about building a cabin in the woods and living there for…maybe forever. Have you seen the Dick Proenneke documentaries? Proenneke went to Alaska in the 1960s and built a cabin by hand and lived there alone for 30 years. He documented the wildlife there and wrote in his journals and that was about it. Not at all like Thoreau or something like that – he was the real deal. I’d also like to write a novel. Ideally a good one.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Psychologist, neuroscientist, or theoretical physicist. You know, the usual. Or a drummer.

I might have been a miner if I never started writing. I would have followed the path of my father and grandfather back home. Some kind of skilled trade. Right now, I’m an Editorial Manager at a digital PR company and have been doing that for 8 years. I suppose I would just be doing that, but not sure if I would have ever got there if it weren’t for writing. Maybe some other corporate gig. Living life and paying bills like anyone else.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Solitude and lack of money. It was something I could do completely alone, any time, any place, and virtually for free. If I had more money, I might have gone straight to buying an instrument and taking music lessons. It was also kind of easy. I didn’t really have to try at it. It came very naturally to write down all my thoughts and feelings. I felt I was good at it and later was good at shaping them and later was good and reading them aloud. Was I delusional? Maybe, but here we are!

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I’m nearly finished reading A Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman. It’s a non-fiction book by a cognitive/neuroscientist that theorizes on the nature of objective reality and human consciousness, under a cognitive and evolutionary-psychological context. It basically argues that objective reality as we perceive it is not actually there, and is more like a shadow of an underlying reality we can’t understand, which is required to survive as animals. I am not sure I agree (or understand) it all but it’s fascinating.

Some months back I finally watched Aftersun, a UK film by Charlotte Wells. A devasting movie about a daughter and father who is not mentally well. It’s sort of an homage to the director’s late father. I also just rewatched Come and See by Elem Klimov. A true classic about the absolute horrors and brutality of war. Painful to watch at parts but certainly one my favourites. The actor who played the kid, Aleksei Kravchenko, was just unreal.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a new poetry collection, but I just started. I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet, but I think it’ll be calmer and quieter than my last collection. So far, it seems funnier. I’m also working on a non-fiction collaborative project. We’re just in the process of outlining it all. I think it will be good to stretch into a different genre. I also sing in a band called LINENS and we’re getting ready to record our first EP.

Overall, I have this sense of terror and dread about the future, but that can also be a good feeling. It propels me forward. Onwards.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (small press) questions with William Kemp and Nicole Brewer on words(on)pages

About William Kemp:

William Kemp is one of the founding editors and poetry editor at words(on)pages, a Toronto-based micropress. He has been published in In/Words Magazine and online at The Hart House Review. He has an illustrated book entitled The ABCs of 20-Something Anxieties and likes dogs of all shapes and sizes.

About Nicole Brewer:

Nicole Brewer is a writer, editor, and micropress publisher in Toronto, Ontario. She is the co-founder of and fiction editor at the micropress words(on)pages. She is passionate about emerging writers, small press culture, short fat dogs, and tea.

About words(on)pages:

words(on)pages was created to be a centralized location through which we do pretty much any of the creative things you associate with literature, some for ourselves, some for others, some for money. These include, but are not limited to creating, designing, editing, and publishing poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. We are also open to suggestions.

We are an organization created by emerging writers for emerging writers. We know that, without a big name to put in your byline, it can be nearly impossible to get recognition for work that may well deserve accolades. We know that getting rejected by publishers and literary magazines gets frustrating. We know that doing open mics week after week for no apparent reason can be disheartening. We know that sometimes it sucks to have a passion so hopelessly non-lucrative as writing, and we want to remind you that your work is valuable.  We want to give you something you can put on a bookshelf, something you can peddle at readings, something you can sell to kind friends and curious strangers. We want to give you proof that your years of late nights and awful jobs and first drafts and rewrites are worth it. Think of our work as tangible proof that hey, your shit’s pretty rad.

1 – When did words(on)pages first start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?

Officially, words(on)pages was started in March 2014, when we launched our “first” three chapbooks—they were by us and a friend, and we were essentially self-publishing under the name “words(on)pages.” Shortly after that, we started taking it seriously as a micropress, figuring out what we we wanted to produce, and how to produce it. The first step was our bi-monthly literary magazine, (parenthetical), which launched its first issue in May 2014. As we produced more issues and booked more readers at our reading series, we were overwhelmed by the amount of talented writers who still hadn’t had the opportunity to be published in a collection of any length, so we decided to open ourselves up to chapbook submissions. Just this April, we launched our first official words(on)pages chapbooks, by Domenica Martinello, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Simina Banu, and philip gordon, and then in October, to round out our first year of chapbooks, we published JC Bouchard, Susie Berg, Astoria Felix, and philip miletic.

Our original goals haven’t exactly shifted since we started—they’re more sharpened, as we learn more about what else is out there and where we belong in the community, what we can do to make ourselves unique as a press and as educators, how much production costs at different levels, who’s being acknowledged and who’s being regularly overlooked in the Canadian literary scene. More than anything, we’ve learned what our “for emerging artists, by emerging artists” mission statement really means, and how we can best stay true to it.

2 – What first brought you to publishing?

In September 2013, we attended the Small Press Fair at the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, and that was our first real exposure to what small presses were doing. We’d been aware of the small press community before this, and picked up small press books here and there, but it was incredibly inspiring to meet presses like BookThug, Thee Hellbox Press, and above/ground press and see all these beautiful and varied books and chapbooks in person. Nicole had just finished a graduate publishing program and Will was in the last year of his publishing program, and we were becoming increasingly aware of how difficult it was to get paid internship or work opportunities in the industry—particularly anywhere cool, like the presses at the fair. So we said, “Fuck it. Let’s start something.” And we did.

3 – What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?

The number one responsibility of small publishing, we believe, is to take chances. One aspect of that is publishing authors that will probably never be on the bestseller lists for one reason or another, but are doing important work and contributing to the ever-growing canon of Canadian literature. Another is taking chances on new or debut authors, who might someday end up being poached by a larger press, but right now you’re the only publisher in their corner. It’s kind of a shitty responsibility, sometimes, because it might mean not selling a ton of books, or getting a ton of press, but we really believe that small press publishing makes up the pillars of literary culture in Canada—by doing the difficult, important work of fostering new and different voices.

4 – What do you see your press doing that no one else is?

There’s no one thing that sets us apart from anyone else—so many people and presses are doing great, original work that overlaps with ours in many ways, but we do feel that a combination of things we’re doing helps set us apart. We have a real focus on community-building and education for young, new, and emerging writers, which means we’ve run workshops about the behind-the-scenes of small press and literary magazine culture, as well as the ins and outs of being an emerging writer, and in June of 2016, we'll be running our first ever multi-week, multi-part workshop (you can find more details here: http://www.wordsonpagespress.com/workshops/). We also provide feedback on all submissions (the writing itself and the actual submission) to try to help writers improve on their submission process. Essentially, we want to make our process transparent, because even after four (or more) years of schooling, we realized there was so much we were never taught about both writing and publishing—stuff we didn’t learn until we were on the other side of it. Another aspect of community-building is going out of our way to find other publications, events, launches, writers, and so on that we appreciate, and sharing their events, or new issues, or new publications, etc.—not because we feel like we need to, but just because it’s cool shit, that we want people to know about, and it helps connect writers, publishers, and publications with one another.

On a more material side, we think publishing a bi-monthly literary magazine sets our press apart (many are quarterly or biannual), and having that literary magazine be hand-bound is also sort of different. Everything we make is hand-bound, which isn’t unique in the small press community, but we haven’t seen a lot of hand-bound literary journals. In addition to that, 100% of the content we publish—chapbooks and literary magazine—is from submissions. We don’t solicit any work, so that we can always find room to publish writers with few or no publication credits. Again, it may not be entirely unique, but we’re a part of a small group of small presses and literary magazines that highly values emerging writers.

5 – What do you see as the most effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world?

Oh gosh. Well, we’re only one year into “real” chapbook publishing, and so far we’ve sold chapbooks in person at our launch, through our online store front, and we're in the process of slowly getting them in local book stores, boutiques, and art stores that will stock them. So we’re no experts. But the number one way seems to be by handselling them: having a launch (and having more than one chapbook at that launch), tabling at fairs of all sizes (art fairs! craft fairs! literary fairs!), booking readings and bringing the chapbook along, etc. Because of that, it goes a long way to have a chapbook that can stand out for how it’s made: to us, the materiality (as in the actual feel and aesthetics) of the chapbook is as important as the content, and a good-looking (and -feeling) chapbook will find its way into the hands of passers-by. Things like having excerpts available online may help, or having a kind of marketing one-sheet to bring or send to indie bookstores or niche boutiques might also help. But for us, so far, the reality has been that most sales happen in person, or through word of mouth about either the author or us as a press.

It sounds simple, but being passionate about what you’re producing, and who you’re publishing goes a long way, and that shows in not only how you produce the chapbook—giving them the respect they deserve by publishing a chapbook you’d want to spend money on yourself—but how you talk about it.

6 – How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?

With (parenthetical), we do almost no editing whatsoever, partly because of time constraints, and partly because we get tons of amazing submissions that don’t even need any editing—they’re immediately publishable. With our chapbooks, it varies a bit more. We feel we get a lot of work that has already clearly been edited multiple times and polished to near perfection. We received lots of great submissions for our 2015 chapbooks and that trend continued with our submissions for 2016, and some of the manuscripts didn’t need any work at all, other than proofreading and some copy editing for house style. Others we ran through lightly a few times. A few others we worked with more closely, whether it was structural or editorial or both. If, down the road, we get to devote more time to words(on)pages than our current day jobs allow, we’re open to working with authors on polishing and shaping manuscripts from their fledgling states.

7 – How do your books get distributed? What are your usual print runs?

So far we’ve simply held launches for our chapbooks and our literary magazine, sold them online, and have (parenthetical) in a select few stores in Toronto—huge props to Book City, TKVO, Art Metropole, and the TCAF store for stocking (parenthetical), btw! Our usual print runs are about 40 to 60 copies, and we print on demand from there.

8 – How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?

We’re the only editors for all of it, and we essentially split the tasks: Will is, officially, the poetry editor, and Nicole is the fiction editor. We both read everything and each get a say in both areas, but defer to the “official” in any disagreements. The main reason we don’t work with other editors is because we’re not into taking work for free, and currently don’t have the budget to pay anyone. We're also pretty passionate about our vision and editorial mandate when it comes to both our chapbooks and (parenthetical), which makes giving up editorial control a bit hard. This is the closest we have to a real, breathing, human baby aside from a pet, and our landlord is allergic to cats and we're too broke for a dog, so giving up control of (parenthetical) or our chapbooks is hard.

In terms of production, we print (parenthetical) covers and our chapbook contents, along with some covers, with an outside source, Swimmers Group. The contents of (parenthetical) we print at home simply for the sake of convenience. We also have an awesome friend that has provided us with their screenprinting abilities for chapbooks. The only drawbacks to these outsourced production aspects are that they increase the production timeline by a few days. And that’s hardly a drawback.

9– How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?

Perhaps the most positive change has been that we really understand, now, that rejection isn’t personal. Rejection isn’t even always a reflection of the work you submitted. There are so many reasons that a piece could get rejected, and “it sucked” is definitely towards the bottom of that list. It’s helped us realize that a “good” story or poem isn’t always a “publishable” story or poem, either because of how it jives (or doesn’t) with the rest of an issue, or maybe because it just doesn’t stand on its own very well. And that a “catchy” story or poem isn’t always “good.” It’s helped our own submission process as writers, because we realized how much a good submission e-mail can put a positive spin on the work you’re submitting. And finally, we get to read so much amazing writing that it’s helped us really pin down what works and what doesn’t in terms of literary techniques and style and presentation—and what works for certain publications.

10– How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?

Well, that’s how words(on)pages started, was by us publishing our own work. So we’re certainly not against it. But we also probably wouldn’t do it again any time soon, because we don’t want to take our meagre resources away from the incredible work we receive from other people. We receive enough of it to have a full publishing schedule, so we just don’t see a reason to publish our own work. That said, we each write a review in almost every issue of (parenthetical)—although that’s less about publishing our own writing, and more about the fact that we want to include non-fiction, but don’t get too may non-fiction submissions. It’s not that we feel the question is irrelevant, just not exceptionally important (to us) in the grand scheme of small publishing.

11– How do you see words(on)pages evolving?

Wow. Geez. A lot of ways, rob. Big dreams, small wallets. We would really love to continue to expand our online reach, both for our blog and for the online version of (parenthetical). We love what we publish, so obviously we want more people to read it. That means putting more time and more resources into building that online platform, creating a beautiful, effective, interactive online platform for online reading. But we also want to stay true to what makes us unique right now: handmade, artisan, limited edition products. So we could see ourselves producing a limited print run of our products for contributors, collectors, and local supporters, while continuing to build an online presence. We would also like to continue building on our presence in bookstores—to reach not only more in Toronto, but other bookstores that promote awesome Canadian work. Perhaps, someday, we could see ourselves producing one or two special edition “real” books, with spines, per year. Maybe from there, if the time allows it, we publish more “real” books with spines, but that starts to bring about a whole mess of questions about staying true to what makes words(on)pages words(on)pages. And maybe we start a different press for “real” books. Or maybe we don’t. That’s for the future to decide.

We would also really like to keep pushing the community-building and education aspects of words(on)pages—and that means we really hope our first multi-week, open to the public workshop goes well. And it means not only do we grow in our readership, but we bring in new and diverse readers with new and diverse voices from emerging writers. “Getting big” is nice, obviously, but we hope it's never at the expense of our mandate to promote emerging writers and engage with and foster a big ol' loving community of rad writers and publishers doing rad work.

12– What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?

It’s impossible to choose between our children, so our proudest accomplishment is twofold. We are incredibly proud to have produced eleven issues of a literary magazine, and to have an issue practically always at the ready, we’re not stopping any time soon. We’re proud because we’ve published over 100 writers, and that group is so diverse: from conceptual and visual poetry to narrative or formal poetry to flash fiction to magic realist short stories, and everywhere in between and beyond. Because we’ve published a previously unpublished fifteen-year-old, and we’ve also published people “with a name”—people like Jay MillAr. So that’s one of the things we’re most proud of.

The other was our two successful chapbook launches We poured everything into producing those first four chapbooks, and the day of the launch, we were nervous wrecks. And then it went better than we ever could have expected—great turnout, unbelievable sales, and everyone we talked to seemed to have had a great time. And we thought we couldn't recreate that with our fall launch, but we ended up somehow way under budget and things went off without a hitch again and it was absolutely staggering. More than anything, that’s what we want: we want to make things, and host things, that make people feel good about buying them, or going to them. And our launch was the perfect example of the perfect execution of that goal.

We don’t really feel like anyone has necessarily “overlooked” anything about our publications, but we do lament that not as many people are looking as we would hope. And that ties in with the biggest frustration: because of our inherent small-ness and our focus on emerging writers, we haven’t really gotten a lot of “notice” so far. That’s not to say we don’t have support. We have an amazing group of people who have supported us from the get go, and that group does seem to grow with every new issue or chapbook we produce, but it’s a slow burn. We don’t often have those “big names” that garner big attention, and when we do, they’re alongside half a dozen other writers with just one or two publishing credits. And we love that about ourselves, but it does mean that our reach has built slowly. It’s only in the past few months that we feel like we’re starting to make an impact and reach a new audience, while we’ve seen other publications start with a wider audience “built in” because of solicited work from bigger names, or connections that we simply didn’t have.

13– Who were your early publishing models when starting out?

Ferno House and BookThug were our two main inspirations starting out. Ferno House made the most beautiful chapbooks we’d ever seen, from the shape to the paper to the design to the typesetting—everything was amazing. Those chapbooks were what made us say, “Hot damn, let’s learn to bookbind.” (At our spring chapbook launch, a few people compared our chapbooks to Ferno’s, and we swooned.) Jay and Hazel at BookThug were inspirations in every way: as mentors, as people, as a couple, as publishers, as a team—in addition to loving every single thing they publish, their work ethic is unbelievable, and their conviction is inspiring.

14– How does words(on)pages work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see words(on)pages in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations?

We try to engage with the immediate literary community in every way possible: in person by attending shows, events, and launches, as well as online by sharing news or deadlines or events. And buying books and journals because we know first-hand that these publications and publishers don't exist without monetary support. For the community at large, that goes back to our education-based initiatives like workshops and presentations. As well, we work really hard to sort of break down any perceived barriers between different “kinds” of writing and performance—in Toronto especially, the literary community can seem quite clique-y, and it’s created a number of divides, whether that’s between spoken word and page poetry, or between poetry and fiction, or playwriting and “other” writing, and so on. We want to encourage writers and readers from all backgrounds to be open to new forms of writing and performance, both from an audience’s perspective, and a creator’s perspective. To us, good writing is good writing is good writing, and we just want to create a space for showcasing it, whether that's on a stage or in print.

We also try to create a dialogue with as many presses and magazines as possible, but in particular we have strong dialogues with The Puritan, The Quilliad, untethered, In/Words Magazine and Press, Anstruther Press, Meat Locker Editions, Desert Pets Press, and BookThug. These dialogues take shape in a few forms, to us. For example, with The Puritan, Anstruther Press, and BookThug, not only do we admire the work they publish and aspire to a lot of their editorial sensibilities, but we share their new issues/books online, and go out to their events to show our appreciation in person and show some solidarity to them as friends and admirers of what they do. For places like The Quilliad, untethered, In/Words, and Meat Locker Editions, we feel like they all very much share the sentiment of “for emerging artists”—they’re all willing to take risks on virtually unknown writers and showcase them like we do.

Another kind of engagement comes from meeting, knowing, and publishing people who are involved with other literary magazines and presses. For instance, in one of our early issues we published a few writers who had been heavily involved with In/Words Magazine and Press in Ottawa—the next issue, we had over a dozen submissions from people who were involved with or had been published in In/Words, and we published a ton of them. Something similar happened with untethered as well, and it’s also happened in reverse: we’ll publish a writer with just one or two previous publications, then see them pop up in two or three or four more magazines whose submissions calls we’ve shared. Through a combination of sharing each other’s new issues and deadlines, as well as writers sharing the issues they’ve been published in, we create a kind of collaborative way of building new writers’ portfolios and extending the reach of each press or magazine—without even really meaning to. We’re all just really interested in getting good, previously under-appreciated writing out into the world.

15– Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?

We host a reading series, words(on)stages. For the first year, we held it monthly and featured 2-3 readers each month. Every second installation would double as a launch for (parenthetical). As of our second year, and continuing on into 2016, we are only hosting words(on)stages bi-monthly, to coincide with (parenthetical) launches. In part, it was a financial decision, but we also didn’t want readers in non-launch months to feel like they weren’t drawing a big enough audience, compared to launch months. For our chapbooks, we have spring and fall launches in April and October respectively, where we launch a handful of our chapbooks—and sometimes collaborate with other chapbook presses and have a co-launch, what with community being so important to us.

We feel public readings (and such) are the lifeblood of the small press community. Whether it’s a launch or a reading series or a reading at a festival or a one-off event, these public readings are the best opportunity to show not only other people in the literary community, but the public how passionate you (the publisher, the author, the bookseller) are about the literature. But beyond that, beyond the sales aspect of it, it’s an opportunity to meet other people in the community, the people behind the presses or the books, or even just other people who like what you like. They are, literally, the community.

16– How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?

We use Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and our website to promote all the work we publish, as well as to spread the word about our events—as any publisher ought to do. More than that, though, we’re all about building our community outside of those we can see and talk to in person. That means we not only showcase work and events from other presses and writers we like, but we try to share things like readings and launches, as well as submission deadlines for other literary magazines or contests to get people involved with presses we respect and bring communities around the country together. We are, after all, a part of Canadian literature, and not only do we publish work from around Canada; we love work from a lot of publishers around Canada too.

17– Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?

We do, indeed—for both (parenthetical) and words(on)stages we’re always accepting submissions; for chapbooks we have a time window that we announce on our website and social media and all that good stuff. All of the info for submissions can be found here: http://www.wordsonpagespress.com/submit/

As for what we aren’t looking for: manuscripts longer than thirty pages, genre fiction (nothing personal, just not for us as a publication), and submissions that don’t follow our guidelines. Anything else we’re totally up for.

18– Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.

WOOL WATER by JC Bouchard: WOOL WATER, JC Bouchard's second chapbook (his first the fantastic “Portraits” from In/Words) is the culmination of ten days spent (mostly) in isolation in Reykjavik, Iceland, and several more months wittling the experience down to a sparse, stark long poem broken up into parts. JC distilled his experience in Iceland into this fantastic manuscript of bite-sized sections that immediately grab you, then linger, that get under your skin and form a narrative that not only stays with you, but you want to share, that you insist on sharing by reading pieces to anyone who will listen and forcing the pocket-sized little collection into their hands. JC's parts form a narrative that's just as serene and calm as it is dark and manic, and it does so in such a way that we've never seen JC play with language and form.

MOTHER2EARTH: an instruction booklet by philip miletic: Though quite the motherfucker to lay out, MOTHER2EARTH: an instruction booklet was a fantastic, weird, eclectic manuscript about the seminal JRPG Earthbound and its Japanese counterpart, Mother 2. The chapbook goes beyond exploring mistranslation. It revels in the translation and mistranslation of the script not only in its story and dialogue, but the actual script of the game's code, and experiments with form, style, reader, and player expectations in such a way that only an awesome, funny, risk-taking, and talented dude like philip miletic can.

meat//machine by Astoria Felix: Encountering Astoria's work first in (parenthetical), we were staggered by how talented she was, and then she sent us a smattering of her work that came together as meat//machine, her debut chapbook that's a culmination of several years of working through trauma and identity. Divided into three parts informally entitled "summer sheets," "circuit board: an interlude," and "meat//machine," this chapbook works through notions of beauty and identity. There's a constant feeling hat something isn't quite right, that somehow the words don't sit easy with the speaker—or the reader for that matter. And what we love is that Astoria was so willing to explore and subvert notions of beauty and identity, and do so in such a stunning and honest way.

12 or20 (second series) questions;