report from the mansfield launch, toronto: mclennan, brockwell, dennis etc

This past Monday night in Toronto, Mansfield Press hosted an evening of book launches, including five poetry titles—Amy Dennis' The Sleep Orchard [see my review of such here], Anton Pooles' Ghost Walk, Candace de Taeye's Pronounced / Workable, Corrado Paina's Changing Residence: New and Selected Poems and Stephen Brockwell's Immune to the Sacred [see my review of such here]—as well as my suite of pandemic essays, covering the first one hundred days of original Covid-19 lockdown, essays in the face of uncertainties [I also have copies available, if anyone is so inclined]. It was a very good night! Although the lighting was odd, and more than a wee bit distracting (it kept changing colours, which meant the lighting shifted, and we all each stumbled a bit during our individual sets, finding difficulty with seeing properly). And yes, most if not all of the crowd were masked (unmasking only to read, obviously). And our dear publisher, Denis, was even good enough to post a small report on the event, as well as a lovely post referencing me, my book, and some of my own ongoing reviewing and interviewing work.

Everyone gave stellar readings, naturally. It was particularly interesting, as I hadn't actually heard most of these writers read, so that was good. And there were plenty of folk there I hadn't seen in some time, from Stephen Cain and Sharon Harris, Andy Weaver, Jennifer LoveGrove, Phlip Arima, Carol Harvey Steski and Catherine Graham! Stephen and I travelled to Toronto by train, only staying overnight, but managing to catch a good amount of breath after a flurry of other recent activities and events. Oh, and we saw Mark Goldstein prior to the event, who was unable to come through, but at least we managed to get a good update on his doings. And I got to hang out with Jennifer LoveGrove after! I can't even remember the last time I got to do that. It was curious to realize that the upstairs space of the venue was actually where I'd launched with Mansfield prior, back in 2019, for A halt, which is empty, launching alongside Tim Conley and others. Doesn't that seem like forever ago?

Jennifer LoveGrove

And I even manged to convince Stephen to play pinball with me! Right at the end of the evening, last to leave (naturally). Oh, and did I mention we saw David O'Meara on the train ride back home the next morning?

m a n y _ g e n d e r e d _ m o t h e r s : f o u r _ r e c e n t _ e s s a y s

many gendered mothers is a project on literary influence featuring short essays by writers (of any/all genders) on the women, femme, trans, and non-binary writers who have influenced them, as a direct or indirect literary forebear.

This project is directly inspired by the American website Literary Mothers, created by editor Nadxieli Nieto and managing editor Nina Puro. While we hope that Literary Mothers might eventually return to posting new pieces, our site was created as an extension and furthering of their project (in homage, if you will), and not meant as any kind of replacement.

We've now twelve essays posted! Our most recent include:

Robin Richardson on Anne Frank

Elee Kraljii Gardiner on Betsy Warland

Jane Eaton Hamilton on Ntozake Shange

Jennifer LoveGrove on Libby Scheier

Please check out our submissions page for more information.

Forthcoming essays include: Doyali Islam on Sylvia Legris, Adrienne Gruber on Brecken Hancock, Dorothy Palmer on Stella Young, Ian Whistle on Judith Copithorne, Dawn Promislow on Nadine Gordimer and A.H. Reaume on Virginia Woolf.