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 ** 

two new chapbooks, the uAlberta writer-in-residence (online) showcase, an interview + an above/ground press (zoom) conversation,

So, ryan fitzpatrick interviewed me across those early days of the pandemic, a selection of such is now available online via his MODEL Press as a free pdf download (check out further titles here, of course), in case such intrigues. As well, I've two recent chapbooks through above/ground press: an excerpt of my work-in-progress poetry manuscript, Origin Stories, in which I responded across 2025 to Benjamin Niespodziany's weekly "Sunday poem + prompt" substack, and an excerpt of "the green notebook," a prose writing and reading journal composed across a full calendar year (a number of which I'd been posting-as-excerpts across my substack). Watch, also, as I've got forthcoming chapbooks through Broke Press and Subpress, which is pretty cool.

I'm doing two online events over the next little bit. This Friday evening I'm part of the online Writer-in-Residence 50th Anniversary Alumni Showcase (well, online unless you are in Banff, Alberta): May 15, 2026 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM, Clvb 33, St. Julien Way, Banff, AB and online. REGISTER HERE. "The Writer-in-Residence program in the Department of English and Film Studies is delighted to invite you to attend our 50th anniversary Writer-in-Residence Alumni Showcase at the Banff Centre's Clvb 33. All are welcome to attend either in person or virtually. There will be readings from Thomas Wharton, Fred Wah, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Cody Caetano, JR Carpenter, rob mclennan, Daphne Marlatt, Jana Pruden, Hiromi Goto, and Marilyn Dumont." 

A week or so later, American poet and translator Cole Swensen will be interviewing myself, Jennifer Baker and Misha Solomon as part of "Publishing in-Transit: above/ground press," a whole conversation on and around above/ground through Brooklyn Rail. Wednesday, May 20, 2026 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific, via Zoom. REGISTER HERE. Oh, what an exciting week or so of things!

Cleveland Review of Books, Jamie Tennant + Winnipeg Free Press,

American ex-pat poet Katie Ebbitt was good enough to interview me recently, newly up at the Cleveland Review of Books! That's pretty cool, I'd say. We talked about the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025) and of some of my activity through above/ground press. Jamie Tennant, master podcaster, had me on recently for a conversation around the new poetry book as well, now posted online. And Winnipeg poet melanie brannagan frederiksen reviewed the same poetry title over at Winnipeg Free Press as part of a group review, alongside new titles by Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi and Margo LaPierre as well! Thanks so much! You can catch her review at the link, or below, as she writes:

The latest collection from rob mclennan, The Book of Sentences (University of Calgary Press, 198 pages, $20), is rooted in his close attention both to the matter that makes quotidian life and to the semantic components of language. The COVID-19 pandemic, mclennan’s father’s death, the deaths of poets and friends and the emergence into a more fragile and fractured world are rendered in “The plain language of the earth. Our youngest monologues/ the long grass, anticipating mowers. In lockdown the world// is through this window.”

Among the things mclennan is both working out and honouring in the collection are the personal and intellectual losses and legacies. In Burning the dead grass, he uses the remembered “springtime ritual: layers of controlled burn” as an entry point to consider the settler relation to the land: “Monty Reid: No way to distinguish// what one has chosen to remember// from what one has chosen to forget. {…]/ {…] Lineages// the settler descendants do not reference.”

Overall, the book of sentences is a prolonged consideration of the intersection of writing, thinking and life. From the poems called Autobiography, one of which begins, “Neither a short walk nor a short talk. Once upon a time,” to Lecture, on craft, where “Not the first death./ The ways in which we/ swallow form. A crease// of each turned page,” mclennan brings together citation and observation with equal degrees of attentiveness.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold, and other rowdy tales,

Okay, possibly not rowdy. We survived another Christmas, at least the immediate bits of such, with a few more adventures and gatherings ahead. Aoife and I have been doing a Marvel Movie marathon the past week or so (in order of release), some six or seven movies in, at this point. I've not been able to convince Rose of any of this. As far as updates: Jérôme Melançon has composed the most lovely review of the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025), posted via the temz review. Did you see that the book was also part of this year's CBC Book's list of "The Best Canadian Poetry of 2025" as well? Very nice! I so rarely get on lists such as those. As part of the lead-up to this year's Ottawa Book Awards, Susan Johnson re-ran the CKCU Radio interview she and Brecken Hancock did with me on the book, which was fun. You probably already know that I didn't win the Ottawa Book Award for On Beauty (University of Alberta Press, 2024). I wrote about that here.

There's also a recent interview with me via On Creative Writing that got posted, as well. Read Alberta even recommended the book as part of "Alberta Books for the Poetry Reader"!

Public Reverie posted a few poems from my work-in-progress "Fair bodies of unseen prose," and Work and Days (Beautiful Days Press, Brooklyn) included some of the same, plus another project, in Vol. 6 of their journal, both print and online. I even have new poems in Gone Lawn. Oh, and the recording of the recent (zoom) conversation between Renée Sarojini Saklikar and myself on above/ground press is now online, as Aoife scours the shelves behind me, like the Junk Lady in Labyrinth (1986).

49th Shelf recently asked me for some reading recommendations, so I offered a list of such here, including titles by Anna Swanson, Qurat Dar, Isabella Wang, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Gillian Sze, Jumoke Verissimo, Hajer Mirwali and Sadiqa de Meijer.

What might 2026 bring? I'm pushing through these poetry manuscripts, hoping, in part, to return to short stories, return to that novel I was working on. There's also a whole swath of exciting things I'm working on via above/ground press and Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] and periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics and the "Tuesday poem," as well as curating our spring edition of VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival. Did you know if you donate by the end of the year, we'll even send along a nice tax receipt? 

some reviews + interviews re: On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024)

I've been feeling very fortunate for the amount of reviews/interviews around my collection of short stories, On Beauty: stories (University of Alberta Press, 2024), a book not yet a year old. And might we see you this afternoon at the Made in Alta Vista Market? Jim Tubman Chevrolet Rink, 2185 Arch Street, Ottawa (outside the  Canterbury Recreation Complex). I'll have copies of On Beauty available for sale (along with a whole slew of other books/chapbooks etcetera) from 4-8pm. Come on by! And don't forget I'm reading in Ottawa with Amanda Earl and Christine McNair this coming Sunday! June 1, 2pm at the Lieutenant's Pump at 361 Elgin Street (most likely from a slew of unpublished work, fyi)

I recently caught Andrew Torry's review over at Alberta Views, which is pretty good, but it was Salma Hussain via The Temz Review that is easily my favourite (she really gets what the book was attempting/doing, etcetera). There's also Michael Greenstein via The Seaboard Review, Joyce MacPhee via Apartment613, Natasha Baldin via The Charlatan, the piece "8 Alberta Books That Don't Follow the Rules" at ReadAlberta.ca (is mine an "Alberta Book"? I mean, it was produced by a publisher in Alberta; does that make it an "Alberta Book"?), Alice Violett via her blog and J Jill Robinson, via Goodreads. So nice! Hugely appreciating how many folk are responding at all, let alone so positively. As well, further reviews of my work I've linked over here, on my author website.

There have even been a few interviews around the collection, which is pretty cool. Hollay Ghadery and I discussed the collection as part of the New Books Network podcast not long back, via JWT BookAdventures, reposted for reading ease at my clever substack, with Jamie Tennant over at his podcast last fall, with Ivy Grimes via her substack, and with the delightfully-brilliant Alan Neal as part of CBC Ottawa's All in a Day, which was enormously cool. As well, further interviews I've done exist over here, in case such appeals (there's a whole bunch of them, including some other recent ones). Here's hoping I can place the follow-up collection, which has been making the rounds since last summer (and hopefully this year I can complete the novel-in-progress that sits between the two collections, finally). And, naturally, there's always that small part of me that wants to get all of this off my plate so I can begin to dig deep into some new prose-thoughts I've been having lately around The Crystal Palace, of all places. Where might that go?

poems, essays, interviews, chapbooks + upcoming readings: Toronto, Kingston, Calgary etc;

In case you hadn't seen, I was interviewed recently by Ivy Grimes, for her clever substack. She’s interviewed a whole ton of folk over there, so be sure to check out her archives. And you saw that Stan Rogal interviewed me for periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, and Cara Waterfall interviewed me for her substack as well, yes? I had a recent poem up at Amsterdam Review, and a section of “the green notebook” up at Annulet, with another section up recently at Eunoia Review. Did you see all the Canadian books I recommended recently over at 49th Shelf? I also have a poem in Allium, A Journal of Poetry and Prose. My new short story collection, On Beauty, was also featured not long ago over at the Creative Writing at Leicester site. I should probably be sending more work out, but there’s been less of that lately, between my attentions around the works-in-progress “the green notebook” and “the genealogy book.” I’m hoping once at least one of those projects is off my plate I can start focusing again on poems again, as well as that novel-in-progress I keep referencing (some of which furthers threads from On Beauty, by the way). I also keep forgetting to tell you about chapbooks I've had out recently, including Retreat journal: (Montreal: Turret House Press, 2024), : condition report (Toronto: Gap Riot Press, 2024) and the great silence of the poetic line (Banff: No Press, 2024). Support those presses! Order things! Although if you were following either my enormously clever substack or my ongoing Patreon, you would have already known about these items (it is a lot to update all of these systems, you know).

Oh, and did you hear I’m going to be interviewed by Alan Neal for CBC Radio Ottawa’s All In A Day on Tuesday afternoon? We’re taping around 2pm due to my schedule collecting our wee monsters from school, so I don’t know yet what time my segment will air. The show runs from 3-6pm EDT, so you can attempt to catch live, or check the website after to catch it recorded.

Christine is reading in Toronto on Monday night, as part of the Book*hug Press launch, and in Hamilton on Thursday, November 7, as part of a further Book*hug launch, which has me a few days solo with our young ladies, which is fine. I’m also heading out Toronto way on Friday morning, as Christine and I will meet up for an event I’m part of on Dundas Street West on Friday, November 8, reading to help launch a small handful of new letterpress items published by someone editions (including something of mine) (I’ll also have a handful of copies of my short story collection on hand, if you want a copy). Christine even has a clever graphic she made up with all of her events, some of which I’m part of, even. Oh, and Christine and I read in Kingston on Sunday, November 17 with Alison Chisholm at the Drift/Line Series, which I’m looking forward to, lovingly hosted by poet Wanda Praamsma. Do you know her work?

And then there's our reading later this month in Calgary, also, via Single Onion, November 21. There are also plans afoot for Christine and I to read in Vancouver in February, but nothing yet is confirmed.