Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts

Friday, July 07, 2023

Touch the Donkey : new interviews w Désil, Ballard, Rae, Tomash + Meyerson,

Anticipating the release next week of the thirty-eighth of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], why not check out the interviews that have appeared over the past few weeks with contributors to the thirty-seventh issue: Junie Désil, Micah Ballard, Devon Rae, Barbara Tomash and Ben Meyerson.

Interviews with contributors to the first thirty-six issues (more than two hundred and forty interviews to date) remain online, including: Pam Brown, Shane Kowalski, Kathy Lou Schultz, Hilary Clark, Ted Byrne, Garrett Caples, Brenda Coultas, Sheila Murphy, Chris Turnbull and Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Stuart Ross, Leah Sandals, Tamara Best, Nathan Austin, Jade Wallace, Monica Mody, Barry McKinnon, Katie Naughton, Cecilia Stuart, Benjamin Niespodziany, Jérôme Melançon, Margo LaPierre, Sarah Pinder, Genevieve Kaplan, Maw Shein Win, Carrie Hunter, Lillian Nećakov, Nate Logan, Hugh Thomas, Emily Brandt, David Buuck, Jessi MacEachern, Sue Bracken, Melissa Eleftherion, Valerie Witte, Brandon Brown, Yoyo Comay, Stephen Brockwell, Jack Jung, Amanda Auerbach, IAN MARTIN, Paige Carabello, Emma Tilley, Dana Teen Lomax, Cat Tyc, Michael Turner, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Colby Clair Stolson, Tom Prime, Bill Carty, Christina Vega-Westhoff, Robert Hogg, Simina Banu, MLA Chernoff, Geoffrey Olsen, Douglas Barbour, Hamish Ballantyne, JoAnna Novak, Allyson Paty, Lisa Fishman, Kate Feld, Isabel Sobral Campos, Jay MillAr, Lisa Samuels, Prathna Lor, George Bowering, natalie hanna, Jill Magi, Amelia Does, Orchid Tierney, katie o’brien, Lily Brown, Tessa Bolsover, émilie kneifel, Hasan Namir, Khashayar Mohammadi, Naomi Cohn, Tom Snarsky, Guy Birchard, Mark Cunningham, Lydia Unsworth, Zane Koss, Nicole Raziya Fong, Ben Robinson, Asher Ghaffar, Clara Daneri, Ava Hofmann, Robert R. Thurman, Alyse Knorr, Denise Newman, Shelly Harder, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Biswamit Dwibedy, Emily Izsak, Aja Couchois Duncan, José Felipe Alvergue, Conyer Clayton, Roxanna Bennett, Julia Drescher, Michael Cavuto, Michael Sikkema, Bronwen Tate, Emilia Nielsen, Hailey Higdon, Trish Salah, Adam Strauss, Katy Lederer, Taryn Hubbard, Michael Boughn, David Dowker, Marie Larson, Lauren Haldeman, Kate Siklosi, robert majzels, Michael Robins, Rae Armantrout, Stephanie Strickland, Ken Hunt, Rob Manery, Ryan Eckes, Stephen Cain, Dani Spinosa, Samuel Ace, Howie Good, Rusty Morrison, Allison Cardon, Jon Boisvert, Laura Theobald, Suzanne Wise, Sean Braune, Dale Smith, Valerie Coulton, Phil Hall, Sarah MacDonell, Janet Kaplan, Kyle Flemmer, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, A.M. O’Malley, Catriona Strang, Anthony Etherin, Claire Lacey, Sacha Archer, Michael e. Casteels, Harold Abramowitz, Cindy Savett, Tessy Ward, Christine Stewart, David James Miller, Jonathan Ball, Cody-Rose Clevidence, mwpm, Andrew McEwan, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Joseph Mosconi, Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy, Oliver Cusimano, Sue Landers, Marthe Reed, Colin Smith, Nathaniel G. Moore, David Buuck, Kate Greenstreet, Kate Hargreaves, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Erín Moure, Sarah Swan, Buck Downs, Kemeny Babineau, Ryan Murphy, Norma Cole, Lea Graham, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Oana Avasilichioaei, Meredith Quartermain, Amanda Earl, Luke Kennard, Shane Rhodes, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Sarah Cook, François Turcot, Gregory Betts, Eric Schmaltz, Paul Zits, Laura Sims, Stephen Collis, Mary Kasimor, Billy Mavreas, damian lopes, Pete Smith, Sonnet L’Abbé, Katie L. Price, a rawlings, Suzanne Zelazo, Helen Hajnoczky, Kathryn MacLeod, Shannon Maguire, Sarah Mangold, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Aaron Tucker, Kayla Czaga, Jason Christie, Jennifer Kronovet, Jordan Abel, Deborah Poe, Edward Smallfield, ryan fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Robinson, nathan dueck, Paige Taggart, Christine McNair, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Nikki Sheppy, Kirsten Kaschock, Lise Downe, Lisa Jarnot, Chris Turnbull, Gary Barwin, Susan Briante, derek beaulieu, Megan Kaminski, Roland Prevost, Emily Ursuliak, j/j hastain, Catherine Wagner, Susanne Dyckman, Susan Holbrook, Julie Carr, David Peter Clark, Pearl Pirie, Eric Baus, Pattie McCarthy, Camille Martin and Gil McElroy.

The forthcoming thirty-eighth issue features new writing by: Samuel Amadon, Amanda Earl, Miranda Mellis, Michael Betancourt, R Kolewe, Monty Reid and Meghan Kemp-Gee.

And of course, copies of the first thirty-six issues are still very much available. Why not subscribe? Included, as well, as part of the above/ground press annual subscription! (did you know that above/ground press turns thirty years old tomorrow? and you know we've that big 30th anniversary fundraiser ending soon, yes?) We even have our own Facebook group. It’s remarkably easy.


Tuesday, October 11, 2022

the book of smaller : some reviews, some interviews/podcasts, (oh, and ive some new chapbooks out,

I should have been mentioning, I suppose, some of the reviews coming in for the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022) (I still have copies for sale, don'chaknow). Kim Fahner, Margo LaPierre, and Jérôme Melançon collaboratively did a really stunning one, over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics. Jami Macarty did a really neat one over at Miramichi Review (although I should point out that my references to Sainte-Adèle were to the village in Quebec, and completely unrelated to Vancouver poet Adèle Barclay). Benjamin Niespodziany provided a short review via Neon Pajamas, which was pretty cool. And there are even some wee reviews over at the book's Goodreads page! What! I mean, even the CBC recommends you read this book, so what are you gonna do?

Susan Johnson interviewed me on the collection on her Friday Special Blend recently, so be sure to listen to the podcast of that. Andrew French also interviewed me for the same via his podcast, Page Fright: A Literary Podcast.

Amanda Earl also interviewed me recently for her podcast, The Small Machine Talks, on the recent 29th anniversary of above/ground press. Pearl Pirie conducted a brief interview with me around the new book, and I answered Colin Dardis' questions via his Fill Your Books! Oh, and I answered Michael Murray's questionnaire recently via his Galaxy Brain (I should probably point out that I post links to all of my interviews here as they appear, in case you ever wonder about those).

Also, did you see that Greg Bem provided a wee review via Goodreads of my chapbook, Autobiography (above/ground press, 2022)? Oh, and I've a new chapbook out now with paper view books, 4 poems on receiving the phizer covid-19 vaccine (second shot, (2022) (my first chapbook published in Portugal!), and another small item out with Kyle Flemmer's The Blasted Tree, Canadian Poem (2022). And I've a chapbook forthcoming with Rose Garden Press as well, sometime next month. There's probably other stuff I'm forgetting about right now, but these are some highlights. I mean, there is just so much going on! What!

Wednesday, October 06, 2021

Touch the Donkey supplement: new interviews with Jung, Auerbach, MARTIN, Carabello, Tilley, Lomax + Tyc,

Anticipating the release later next week of the thirty-first of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], why not check out the interviews that have appeared over the past few weeks with contributors to the thirtieth issue: Jack Jung, Amanda Auerbach, IAN MARTIN, Paige Carabello, Emma Tilley, Dana Teen Lomax and Cat Tyc.

Interviews with contributors to the first thirty issues (nearly two hundred interviews to date) remain online, including: Michael Turner, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Colby Clair Stolson, Tom Prime, Bill Carty, Christina Vega-Westhoff, Robert Hogg, Simina Banu, MLA Chernoff, Geoffrey Olsen, Douglas Barbour, Hamish Ballantyne, JoAnna Novak, Allyson Paty, Lisa Fishman, Kate Feld, Isabel Sobral Campos, Jay MillAr, Lisa Samuels, Prathna Lor, George Bowering, natalie hanna, Jill Magi, Amelia Does, Orchid Tierney, katie o’brien, Lily Brown, Tessa Bolsover, émilie kneifel, Hasan Namir, Khashayar Mohammadi, Naomi Cohn, Tom Snarsky, Guy Birchard, Mark Cunningham, Lydia Unsworth, Zane Koss, Nicole Raziya Fong, Ben Robinson, Asher Ghaffar, Clara Daneri, Ava Hofmann, Robert R. Thurman, Alyse Knorr, Denise Newman, Shelly Harder, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Biswamit Dwibedy, Emily Izsak, Aja Couchois Duncan, José Felipe Alvergue, Conyer Clayton, Roxanna Bennett, Julia Drescher, Michael Cavuto, Michael Sikkema, Bronwen Tate, Emilia Nielsen, Hailey Higdon, Trish Salah, Adam Strauss, Katy Lederer, Taryn Hubbard, Michael Boughn, David Dowker, Marie Larson, Lauren Haldeman, Kate Siklosi, robert majzels, Michael Robins, Rae Armantrout, Stephanie Strickland, Ken Hunt, Rob Manery, Ryan Eckes, Stephen Cain, Dani Spinosa, Samuel Ace, Howie Good, Rusty Morrison, Allison Cardon, Jon Boisvert, Laura Theobald, Suzanne Wise, Sean Braune, Dale Smith, Valerie Coulton, Phil Hall, Sarah MacDonell, Janet Kaplan, Kyle Flemmer, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, A.M. O’Malley, Catriona Strang, Anthony Etherin, Claire Lacey ,Sacha Archer, Michael e. Casteels, Harold Abramowitz, Cindy Savett, Tessy Ward, Christine Stewart, David James Miller, Jonathan Ball, Cody-Rose Clevidence, mwpm, Andrew McEwan, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Joseph Mosconi, Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy, Oliver Cusimano, Sue Landers, Marthe Reed, Colin Smith, Nathaniel G. Moore, David Buuck, Kate Greenstreet, Kate Hargreaves, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Erín Moure, Sarah Swan, Buck Downs, Kemeny Babineau, Ryan Murphy, Norma Cole, Lea Graham, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Oana Avasilichioaei, Meredith Quartermain, Amanda Earl, Luke Kennard, Shane Rhodes, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Sarah Cook, François Turcot, Gregory Betts, Eric Schmaltz, Paul Zits, Laura Sims, Stephen Collis, Mary Kasimor, Billy Mavreas, damian lopes, Pete Smith, Sonnet L’Abbé, Katie L. Price, a rawlings, Suzanne Zelazo, Helen Hajnoczky, Kathryn MacLeod, Shannon Maguire, Sarah Mangold, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Aaron Tucker, Kayla Czaga, Jason Christie, Jennifer Kronovet, Jordan Abel, Deborah Poe, Edward Smallfield, ryan fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Robinson, nathan dueck, Paige Taggart, Christine McNair, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Nikki Sheppy, Kirsten Kaschock, Lise Downe, Lisa Jarnot, Chris Turnbull, Gary Barwin, Susan Briante, derek beaulieu, Megan Kaminski, Roland Prevost, Emily Ursuliak, j/j hastain, Catherine Wagner, Susanne Dyckman, Susan Holbrook, Julie Carr, David Peter Clark, Pearl Pirie, Eric Baus, Pattie McCarthy, Camille Martin and Gil McElroy.

The forthcoming thirty-first issue features new writing by: Brandon Brown, Rusty Morrison, Yoyo Camay, Stephen Brockwell, Melissa Eleftherion, Sue Bracken, Valerie Witte and Jessi MacEachern.


And of course, copies of the first twenty-nine issues are still very much available. Why not subscribe? Included, as well, as part of the above/ground press 2022 subscriptions! We even have our own Facebook group. It’s remarkably easy.

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Surrealist Poets Gardening Assoc. (1984-1993): an interview with Lillian Nećakov, and bibliography

this interview was conducted over email in June 2021 as part of a project to document literary publishing. see my bibliography-in-progress of Canadian literary publications, past and present here

Lillian Nećakov is the author of six books of poetry, numerous chapbooks, broadsides and leaflets. Her new book il virus was published in April 2021 by Anvil Press (A Feed Dog Book). In 2016, her chapbook The Lake Contains an Emergency Room was shortlisted for bpNichol chapbook award. During the 1980s she ran a micro press called “The Surrealist Poets Gardening Assoc.” and sold her books on Toronto’s Yonge Street. She ran the Boneshaker Reading series in Toronto from 2010-2020.

Q: How did the Surrealist Poets Gardening Assoc. first begin?

A: I blame Stuart Ross! I started SPGA in 1984 at our kitchen table at 42 Maitland Street. Stuart and I were living together at the time, he had already started Proper Tales Press and was selling his books on Yonge Street.

We were part of a circle of writers that included small press publishers, Gesture Press [Nicholas Power], The Front Press [Jim Smith] and Curvd H&z [jwcurry]. I was buoyed by their enthusiasm and dedication. It was a really exciting and creative period of my life.

It was relatively cheap and easy to make books and send them out into the world. The whole process was completely hands on and I loved everything about it. I had already been writing and creating collage for a few years and this seemed to be a logical extension of that. There were many nights spent at that kitchen table on Maitland Street, collating, stapling, chewing the fat and dreaming up new projects.

Q: Where did the name Surrealist Poets Gardening Assoc. come from?

A: Again, I blame Stuart! I think it was 1979, Stuart had a package delivered to me (from the Italian Neo-Dada artist Cavellini), it was addressed “Lillian Necakov, Surrealist Poets Gardening Assoc.” Later, when I was thinking of starting my own small press, I thought that would be the perfect name. It proved to be a whole heap of fun too. I used to get mail from various horticultural groups and gardening societies, inviting me to conferences and retreats. I really don’t know what they thought I was growing! Bet, they didn’t think it was poetry!

Q: How were the first publications put together? Were you soliciting work, or did you put out a call? How was work gathered?

A: Mostly, I solicited work from writers and artists who I knew or knew of and whose work I admired. Remember, these were the pre-internet days. There were no cell phones, no email, everything was done in-person, by word of mouth or through post. l solicited work for Elvis Car (the collage magazine) from artists like Cavellini, who lived in Italy and Steve Byram, who lives in the U.S. Those queries had to be sent by post, and it took a while. It was a labor of love.

Q: What were the print runs for these publications? How were they distributed, and what kind of responses were you receiving?

A: Print runs were anywhere from 100-300 maximum, depending on the publication and materials used. For example, The Schwarzenegger Poems by Jim Smith had a clear acetate cover, so that was a bit more expensive to produce, that book had a print run of 200.

The publications were distributed on a local community level, at readings, get togethers, word of mouth and through Charlie Huisken and Dan Bazuin’s incredible independent bookstore This Ain’t the Rosedale Library. Charlie and Dan were great supporters of small press and local writers and artists.


For a while I joined fellow writers Crad Kilodney, Stuart Ross, Mark Laba, and Michael Boyce and sold my own books on Yonge Street. It was a great way to get books into the hands of people who didn’t read poetry or who didn’t have access to the world of small press. But it could also be crazy dangerous and weird. There certainly were moments....

And of course, there was the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, which was co-founded by Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross in 1987. That was the mecca of small press, a great place to buy and sell books, meet writers, artists, readers and spend all your money. That was the place I really got feedback from people about SPGA and it was really positive. I sold a bunch of books and magazines and people seemed genuinely excited about the press and the writers and artists I was publishing.

Q: How did the collage journal Elvis Car originate?

A: I have been creating collage since I was a young teen, always loved it. Some early influences include Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters and Raoul Hausmann.

When I started the Surrealist Poets Gardening Assoc. in 1984, there were no small press publications dedicated solely to collage (in Toronto) that I knew of. I wanted to create a space for collage artists to showcase their work. I wish I had had the means to produce the magazine in full colour, and I regret not producing more issues.

Q: What held you back from producing more?

A: Honestly, I didn’t think that producing the magazine in black and white did the work justice. The original collages were so much more rich and nuanced and I wasn't happy with the outcome in black and white. Producing a full colour magazine, back then, was just too expensive.

Elvis Car no. 113 was produced in full colour, but I was only able to put out 25 copies of that issue and it was physically much smaller than the first issue (1/4 the size). It just wasn’t sustainable.

Q: Is this why you began moving into producing chapbooks?

A: Mostly, yes. I was still really excited about publishing and putting out books. I find so much pleasure in making things. Those early chapbooks were typeset, then the copy was pasted down on paper, assembled into a “mock” book, then taken to the copy shop. After that, you had to assemble each copy of the book, fold and staple each one and then you had your finished chapbook. I mean, you know how much goes into producing chapbooks. I loved the entire process from start to finish.

Q: How were those first titles received? What did you learn through the process of book-making, and becoming both published author and publisher?

A: Within the small press community, the books were really well received. They were affordable, alternative, collectable, a welcome change from mainstream publishing. For those very same reasons, people outside of the small press literary community didn’t know what to make of these chapbooks. I was often told, “but, that's not a real book”. It didn’t fit into their concept of what books were supposed to look or feel like, these were not the kinds of books they were used to seeing at their local Coles bookstore. I would say, “but they are real books, they even have an ISBN and everything”, at that point they would shut up because they had no idea what that meant.

I quickly learned that my love of writing and making books was completely separate from distribution. It was easy – well relatively easy – to write and be a small press publisher, but when it came to getting books to the “masses”, that was another story. It seems that only poets read poetry. It was nearly impossible to get the books reviewed outside of a few small press magazines.

Q: Did taking control of production shift the ways in which you saw your own work?

A: Not so much the way I saw my work, rather the opportunities I saw. If SPGA and other small press publishers were willing to take risks, my writing could find a place outside the mainstream. I have always written against the confines of the audience, I never think about what will appeal to the reader or the publisher when writing. I go off on all kinds of tangents, I have fun, I write first and foremost for myself. Maybe that’s selfish or arrogant, I don’t know, I just know that I have to be as honest and authentic as possible.

Q: Given the occasional aspect of the press, how did titles emerge? Were you approaching writers, or were they approaching you?

A: I approached writers.

Q: I get the sense from your bibliography that the press ran on a case-by-case basis, focusing on and producing one item at a time, with often months or even years in-between. What prompts you to approach someone for a manuscript?

A: What prompted me to approach writers for manuscripts was always their work. If I connected to the writing and was excited about publishing it, I would go for it. To be clear, SPGA hasn’t been publishing for quite some time now.

There were major changes in my personal life in 1989 and I was out of the loop, so to speak, for several years after that. I was focusing my energies on other things, and then, I decided to focus on my own writing. So the last book SPGA published was Richard Huttel’s The Be Seeing You Variations in 1993.

I sometimes think about resurrecting the press, but I think there is a time and place for everything. I think I might just stick to being a surrealist poet who gardens.

 

Surrealist Poets Gardening Association bibliography:

Elvis Car #1: Collage Magazine. 1984. collages by: Bill Bissett, Stephen Byram (NYC), Guglielmo Achille Cavellini Brescia (Italy), Mark Laba, Ward Maxwell, Lillian Nećakov, Jim Smith and Steve Venright.

Lillian Nećakov, A Cowboy in Hamburg. 1985

Brian Dedora, A Table of Contents. 1985.

Kevin Connolly, Wither,. 1985.

Jim Smith, The Schwarzenneger Poems. 1988.

3 postcards (collages by Lillian Nećakov). 1989.

Elvis Car no. 113: Spring 1988. collages by: Lillian Nećakov

Clint Burnham, the and that cane forgot. 1991.

Richard Huttel, The Be Seeing You Variations. 1993.


Saturday, June 26, 2021

₤IbEl (2000): an interview with Andy Weaver, and bibliography

this interview was conducted over email in May 2021 as part of a project to document literary publishing. see my list of interviews and bibliographies of literary publications past and present here

Andy Weaver has published 3 books of poetry. His most recent publication is the chapbook Haecceity, from Gap Riot Press. Back in the mid-1990s, he co-founded and co-edited the first few issues of Qwerty, served on the poetry editorial board of The Fiddlehead, and co-founded and co-coordinated (from 2000-2004) Edmonton’s The Olive reading and chapbook series. He teaches contemporary poetry, poetics, and creative writing at York University.

Q: How did ₤IbEl first start?

A: ₤IbEl started when I was working in an office job editing military airplane manuals at the Edmonton Int'l Airport shortly after finishing my MA and shortly before working an office job editing military airplane manuals drove me back to school. I was bored and missed the process of making things that I’d enjoyed during my two years at UNB in Fredericton. So, two other editors and I decided to start a lit zine. That collaborative process fell apart, but I managed to get one issue of ₤IbEl out a few months after quitting that job.

Q: How did you find the process, compared to your time at The Fiddlehead or Qwerty?

A: Working at The Fiddlehead was fun because of the poetry board meetings, which were a chance to discuss, argue, appreciate aesthetics and see how different people responded to the same poem. Qwerty was similar, though Qwerty was also all ours, so we could do whatever we pleased—we made up the rules as we went along. There were good poems that we had to turn down at The Fiddlehead because they just weren’t “Fiddlehead” poems, and we didn’t have that kind of restraint with Qwerty. The main thing that I loved about working at both was the camaraderie. So, ₤IbEl came about because I missed that sense of community as much as I missed making things. When it ended up just being me editing it, it just wasn’t fun enough to keep me going after the first issue.

Q: Was that the same reasoning for your part of co-founding Edmonton’s Olive Reading Series—the camaraderie and the conversation?

A: Absolutely, yes. The Olive combined the best of two worlds, because we decided to make it a small press (making things) in addition to setting up readings by people we wanted to hear (a chance to gather once a month and listen to and then discuss poetry). At the time, Edmonton didn’t really have a reading series, which was surprising and problematic for a city its size. The Stroll of Poets was going strong, but that was really only a day-long poetry festival every Fall. So, The Olive was an elegant solution to a lot of various needs.

Q: How did the idea of the journal first present itself? What were you hoping to accomplish? Had you any models for this kind of publication?

A: I had just moved to Edmonton, and I was looking for a literary journal to join. I couldn’t find anything, so I decided to start one in order to satisfy a desire to make something and to see what new things people were writing. I didn’t have a specific model in mind, but I did like the lit zines from the ‘70s and thought I could do a small, weird thing like that pretty inexpensively. I was hoping to find some other people around Edmonton who were doing similar things, but there really wasn’t anyone, from what I could tell. There were people doing things in Calgary, but I didn’t know the literary terrain well enough to figure that out until later.

Q: Who was around in Edmonton during that time?

A: I was new in town, so there were probably others I didn’t know of, but at the time I only knew of Jocko [Benoit], who was doing things, and the Stroll of Poets, who were very active but also fairly concentrated on their yearly stroll day. I think rusti lehay had her own micro press. A few years later, the Stroll started to do a monthly reading series, but I don’t think there were any monthly/regular things going on when I arrived in late ‘97. There were emerging poets like Shawna Lemay and Kimmy Beach around, but I didn’t know them well at all. Tim Bowling moved to Edmonton a few years after I did, probably in 2000. I met some people who were interested (Paul Pearson, a close friend and one of the five who started The Olive) and I slowly met more when I started my doctorate at the University of Alberta in Sept ’98—that’s where I met the other Olive originators (Jonathan Meakin and Adam Dickinson were fellow grad students, and Roger Davis—who was actually at the University of Calgary—was engaged to Laura, another friend and  classmate of mine), and how I met Doug Barbour and Bert Almon, who had been holding the fort in Edmonton for a long time and nurturing young poets through creative writing courses at the U of A. If I had held off on ₤IbEl for another year or so, or if I had been able to keep it going for another year, I likely would have roped in The Olive crowd to join the editorial board—but that might have interfered with starting The Olive, so it likely worked out for the best. But when I first got to Edmonton, it felt like a place that had a lot of energy and creative desire, but few local outlets.

Q: How did you originally seek work for ₤IbEl? Were you soliciting, or did you put out a call?

A: My memory is dodgy at best, but I think I solicited from friends and also asked a number of people (like you, rob) to spread the word to whomever they thought might be interested and interesting. I think you and I did a reciprocal notice (I included a notice that your Stanzas was looking for work in exchange for a reciprocal note about ₤IbEl). I might have asked Qwerty to put in a notice, but I can’t remember (and I don’t have my issues here to check). Looking back at the table of contents, about half of the contributors were people I knew and asked directly, and about half must have been through referrals or a notice.

Q: What made you decide on the format of the journal, as well as tone?

A: I wanted the format to be relatively cheap but also distinct. The loose pages inside a plastic binder sheet, inside the business inter-office envelope was cheap and easy to create, but it turned out to be more expensive to mail than I expected.

As for the tone, well, I wanted material that was more interested in formal innovation and challenges, which is what I tend to like to read. But the issue also has a secondary, unfortunate tone from my constant editorial intrusions (jokes on other journals, jokes about the journal process, jokes in the contributors’ bios, etc.) that was probably the product of being bored and not having anyone around to reign me in—so the issue ended up having lots of smart-ass comments from me in the marginal matter. Looking back, I don’t like that at all—it ends up constantly drawing attention to me as editor, rather than putting the focus solely on the writers’ writing, where the reader’s attention should be. So, that intrusive, jokey tone was the product of a bored young man who didn’t understand how to behave in print without others around, I’d say.

Q: How did putting together ₤IbEl compare to working on those first few issues of Qwerty?

A: ₤IbEl ended up becoming too much an echo chamber for my own thoughts, which was the problem behind the editorial intrusions. I think part of the problem was that there wasn’t anyone to really talk to about these things, so my annoying jokes made it onto the page.

With Qwerty, I could make all those annoying comments to my fellow editors when we were sitting around a table and have them ignored in real time, which was a much better result. The Qwerty editors (and there were a lot—I think there were seven or eight editors working together on all of the issues when I was there) would meet pretty regularly to discuss content, and we were all hanging out socially all the time, so it was as much a social club as a magazine.

Also, Qwerty was funded by various bodies at the University of New Brunswick, and those bodies expected issues to come out relatively on time, so there were some times when deadline pressures were real and so was the excitement/anxiety. In order to get out the required number of yearly issues, we once had to publish two issues on two consecutive days, so we were a literary daily for the briefest of time possible.

Q: I find it interesting how important the social component is to how you approach these editorial projects. Had the other editors not slipped away, ₤IbEl might easily have continued, but you might not have been part of The Olive Reading Series; is that fair to suggest? Or would you have been involved in both?

A: I think I would have been interested in doing both, but they likely would have been different. If ₤IbEl had continued, I likely wouldn’t have pushed for The Olive to be a chapbook press as well as a reading series; it probably would have just been a reading series. But I think I still would have wanted to start a reading series even if ₤IbEl had continued, because I really missed going to readings and the only poetry readings Edmonton had going at the time was the occasional bookstore launch. I think it was Paul who found the first venue for The Olive, and I remember how excited the five of us were to get a series going. Plus, since we were setting the slate, we could make the series a more in-depth engagement, because we only had one featured reader per month, and so the reader offered two sets of 15-20 minutes each. Also, and I know this is a bit perverse, but I missed hearing open stage readings, since there is nothing more exciting than hearing a new, emerging poet get up at the mic and blow away an audience that had no expectations. We just had to limit the open stage to 5-7 readers, one poem each. And we put the open stage at the end of the evening but circulated the reading list between the featured readers sets, so you couldn’t read if you didn’t also listen.

Q: What was the response to that lone issue of ₤IbEl, and how was it distributed? Were you already aware that it would be the only issue, or did that emerge later on?

A: By the time the first issue was finished, I had already decided not to do more.

From what I recall, I just sent copies to contributors and some people I thought would be interested. I don’t remember the print run, but it would have been small (either 75 or 100, mostly likely). There were 21 contributors, so I think I sent each of them two copies and then passed out the rest to friends. I have one lone copy sitting on my shelf.

The contributors that I heard back from seemed to be happy with it, which was the only response I remember getting. I don’t know how anyone else would have seen a copy. Distribution was always going to be the worst part of the experience, since that is definitely what I am the worst at.

Q: What do you feel you learned through the process of putting ₤IbEl together? Is small publishing something you might ever return to?

A: I think ₤IbEl taught me—or at least confirmed for me—that what I like the most about working on a literary journal is the collaboration and camaraderie. That’s something I still miss terribly. So, if the right group of people were involved, I’d love to get back to working on a journal or a small press again. If that group doesn’t materialize, I still might get back to it once my kids are a bit older and I have some time to self motivate.

 

₤IbEl bibliography:

Volume 1, Number 1. Spring 2000. Editor High Lord for Life: Andy Weaver. Poems by Sue Sinclair, K.V. Skene, Shane Rhodes, Dave Seymour, rob mclennan, Sarah Hope Denbigh, Matt Santateresa, Tom Schmidt, j.a. Lovegrove, Giovanni Malito, Anne Burke, Steve McOrmond, Dean Irvine, Rosalee van Stelton, Richard Stevenson and rusti lehay. Fiction by Lynne Sakura Delathower and M.F. Tierney. Visual by Paul Dechene.

Saturday, June 12, 2021

Mouse Eggs (1976-81): an interview with Ken Norris and Endre Farkas, and (incomplete) bibliography,

this interview was conducted over email from December 2020 to May 2021 as part of a project to document literary publishing. see my bibliography-in-progress of Ottawa literary publications, past and present here

Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He came to Canada in the early 1970s, to escape Nixon-era America and to pursue his graduate education. He completed an M.A. at Concordia University and a Ph.D. in Canadian Literature at McGill University. He became a Canadian citizen in 1985. For thirty-three years he taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Maine. He currently resides in Toronto.

Endre Farkas was born in Hungary. His family escaped during the 1956 Hungarian uprising, and settled in Montreal. He has collaborated with dancers, musicians, actors, and the other Vehicule Poets. He has published two novels, eleven books of poetry and two plays. His work has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian and Slovenian. He has read and performed widely in Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Europe, and has created performance pieces that have toured across the country and abroad.

He has also translated the poetry of Bari Karoly.

His book How To was nominated for the A.M. Klein poetry award in 1983.  He is the two-time winner of the CBC radio Poetry “Face Off” Competition.

His collaborative book and videopoem with Carolyn Marie Souaid, Blood is Blood, was the winner of Zebra’s International Poetry Film Festival (Berlin) in 2012.

His two novels Never, Again and Home Game were published by Signature Editions in 2016 & 2019 respectively. Home Game was shortlisted for the Hugh MacLennan prize for Fiction. He is a proud non-card carrying member of the Vehicule Poets and Mouse Eggs.

Q: How did Mouse Eggs first begin?

Ken Norris: Great question. I don't remember. Maybe Artie [Gold]. Artie had a sign, didn't he? A sign in his study about Mouse Eggs?

Endre Farkas: Ken, being the Vehicule historian, is probably the best person to answer this. I think Artie suggested the title. I think it was our prolific time and our looking to publish what we wrote toute suite. The sacredness of the immediacy. And in keeping with the Vehicule spirit of “if you want it done, then do it.” I don’t think it was a conscious decision but it was the Vehicule Poets’ house organ. Invitation was by mimeo. Serious little mags were popping up all over the country (I think) but not “playful” ones. Maybe TISH was our predecessor? (at least in name). And we had the “means of production.” Ken, correct me (he will) if I’m wrong.

KN: Artie had a sign, and he had a guy to draw the covers: Marc Nerenberg.

I was a Ph.D. student at McGill, and I had access to a ditto machine, and stencils. Endre had access to a ditto machine and stencils at John Abbott.

The Vehicule Poets were all talking to one another before we were the Vehicule Poets. We were all running magazines. But we wanted to do something that was instant and immediate. That was Mouse Eggs. Circulate the stencils this week and run it off next week. There were no editors. Everybody who was given stencils self-edited. Everybody also typed up their own stuff. Endre and I were the producers of the product. We ran the mimeograph machines and stapled the issues together. I think it was a run of 50 copies. Sold exclusively at The Word.

Was the Gallery the drop-off site for the stencils? I don't remember. Did we mail them in? Back when the postal service worked? Maybe.

Q: Endre: you mention TISH, but had you other models for Mouse Eggs? What else was going on around you in Montreal at that time? Had either of you seen copies of TISH, or had you only heard tell of it?

EF: We also put “Typos copyright of poets.” No, we didn’t mail them. At least I don’t remember doing this though John (McAuley) & Stephen (Morrissey) might have. Yes, John was publishing Maker & Stephen Montreal Journal of Poetics.

I had heard of TISH (Canadian Poetry class with Michael Gnarowski, and George Bowering was in Montreal at the time, so I might have seen a copy or two. I’m sure Artie had copies. George was already connected with Artie.

KN: Artie had copies of TISH, and he would let me “examine” them in his study. I couldn’t take them out of the room. So I’d seen TISH. And I THINK the Frank Davey edited reprint of TISH 1-19 came out in 1975, around Mouse Eggs time.

Booster and Blaster had been a few years earlier, but I wasn’t around for that. I was newly arrived in this incarnation.

Mouse Eggs wasn’t like anything else in Montreal. We just wanted an outlet for work that was hot off the pen. I think the “holiday” themed issues came later.

Q: How were the first issues put together? Were you soliciting work, or did you put out a call? How was work gathered?

KN: I remember handing out ditto sheets to the Vehicule Poets, maybe down at the Gallery. I think everybody got two ditto sheets, two pages. To put whatever they wanted on their pages. So it definitely started with the 7 of us, and maybe 14 pages. So the work was self-selected, and then everyone could be surprised. Including the guy who was putting the issue together, me or Endre. I believe the fourth issue was done in concert with the Spring Poetry Marathon, and maybe that was the Second Annual Spring Poetry Marathon, held at Vehicule Gallery (the first one had been at Concordia). And everyone who participated was given a page. So that was our biggest issue, and our most inclusive issue. I believe Augie Kleinzahler has a poem in that issue, along with LOTS of other people. I remember it as being forty pages, and difficult to staple!!

Q: The Vehicule Poets anthology through John McAuley’s Maker Press was published in 1979, not long after the initial run of the journal. How important was mouse eggs in helping the seven poets in the “Vehicule Poets” shape into an informal group?

KN: Good question. I believe there is a collaborative poem in the first issue of Mouse Eggs written by our seven. That’s the first “collaborative act” of the group, and it gives birth to Mouse Eggs. So I see Mouse Eggs as THE central document of the Vehicule Poets. It’s lighthearted, but it’s also a serious collaborative act. It’s the construction of the clubhouse. It’s the unofficial official organ of the Vehicule Poets.

Q: Moving through the bibliography for mouse eggs, what strikes me is both the incredible pace with which new issues appear, as well as the geographic range of writers, which suggest that word was getting out about what it was you were doing. You’ve contemporaries from across North America appearing in the pages of mouse eggs, but no elder poets, whether Bowering or Blaser or Davey or even Louis Dudek, who was around the Vehicule vicinity. Was this deliberate, or was the journal really one of ongoing happenstance?

KN: Let’s compare Mouse Eggs to CrossCountry for a minute.

In CrossCountry I was interested in getting ALL of the older poets in Canada and America into the pages of the magazine. Heavy-hitters and newcomers. I mean, I got a poem from F.R. Scott who was close to eighty at the time.

Mouse Eggs wasn’t really a magazine. Every issue was a moment in time. It’s Valentine's Day—let’s go!! What have we got?

Who have we got? Here’s the photograph of that moment; now let's move on to the next moment.

I agree--there was an incredible pace. I like what you said about "ongoing happenstance"—that is it exactly. I put poems in Mouse Eggs I would never try out anywhere else.

At McGill, Dudek was talking to me constantly about “permanence” in poetry. Mouse Eggs was as ephemeral as you could get. We were just leapfrogging from holiday to holiday, whim to whim. I tried my hand at writing a few forgeries. There’s a Tom Konyves poem that wasn’t written by Tom Konyves. There's a John McAuley poem that wasn’t written by John McAuley.

CrossCountry was getting money from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Canada Council. Mouse Eggs wasn’t getting money from ANYBODY. Endre was mimeographing issues at John Abbott and I was mimeographing issues at McGill. These days they would probably say that we were stealing paper. But things were looser then.

Louis probably would have been offended if I asked him for poems for Mouse Eggs. We weren’t The Tamarack Review. We were maybe like First Statement, but without the John Sutherland editorials. There was no editor. There was no cohesive aesthetic. It was just meant to be fun. Poets having fun, as opposed to working on their careers. At that time none of us had a careerist bone in our bodies.

Q: Once the Vehicule Poets were formed as an informal group, what did that mean, exactly? Was this a way for the seven of you to distinguish yourselves from the other poets working in the city? Was it a marketing tool for readings? What did it mean to the group of you?

KN: In a way, the Vehicule Poets became aware of themselves by being denigrated by other folks in town who called them “those fucking Vehicule Poets.” And what they meant were those poets who were running the Press and the Reading Series down at the Gallery. And it was, “Oh, they must be talking about us.” And “Oh, they must be talking about the group of us.” And the “us” was the three of us who were editing books for the Press: Endre, Artie, and I. And the “us” was the folks who were running the Reading Series, which was Claudia, Endre, Artie, John, Stephen, and Tom. So when people are talking about “the fucking Vehicule Poets” that must be who they are talking about.

So that’s the way that we were aware of the fact that we were being talked about and being dismissed all together.

In late 1978, we called a meeting at Artie’s house to discuss whether we all wanted to appear in an anthology together. Everybody showed up. Everybody talked about it for a couple of hours. And we decided that we DID all want to appear in an anthology together. So we applied the label “The Vehicule Poets” to the anthology, and it was published by John’s Maker Press in 1979.

But Mouse Eggs started coming out in 1975, before we were ever officially “the Vehicule Poets.” We were just a bunch of friends doing a mimeographed magazine together.

Once we were a group, what it meant was that, when Artie died, and they ran his obituary in the Globe & Mail, they called him Artie Gold, Vehicule Poet.

You should read my poem “Montreal, 1975,” which is in South China Sea. I talk about what it was like for me to find the other six. I say that once we found one another we were “no longer alone / in the vast soup of being.”

So there’s THAT. And that, for me, was significant. I suddenly had friends. I suddenly had friends in poetry. I wasn’t going to have to conduct “a career” on my own. We didn’t THINK in careers then. Did we think “in marketing”? I don’t think so. We were just stating the obvious—we were 7 poets who were hanging out with one another and collaborating with one another.

And one of the things we were collaborating on was Mouse Eggs.

EF: I don’t remember ever consciously thinking about being a Vehicule Poet as a way to distinguish myself from others. Ken is right us being dubbed the Vehicule Poets was derogatory.  I think Tom liked the label because it suggested motion, moving ahead. (Read “No Parking.”) We didn’t ever have a meeting about the name or writing a manifesto. Our manifesto, if you can consider it such, was our experimenting: Tom with his videopoetry, me with my collaboration with dance and music, Stephen in his work with a visual artist, John with concrete poetry, Ken in collaboration with Tom, John, Stephen and me. Claudia’s “radical” work was eroticism and feminism. I thought and still do that Stephen Morrissey poem “regard as sacred the disorder of my mind” was as close as we got to a manifesto. I consider it our unofficial anthem.

Peter Van Toorn referred to the Vehicule Poets as “the messies” and to himself, Solway & Harris as “the neats.” What he meant by “messy” was that that we didn’t focus on craft and form. It was a “fun” and “derogatory” term at the same time.  I think he and the other “neats” were wrong. We were probably as, if not more, concerned with craft. We just weren’t reproducing/manufacturing the old forms. We were interested in “making it new.” And we were having fun. Serious fun. And Mouse Eggs was one the ways we were having it. And for me that was important.

Marketing? The closest I got to doing that was going to the Atwater and Jean Talon markets to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

Q: What do you feel the journal accomplished, and what was behind the decision to end it? Did it simply run out of steam?

EF: I honestly don’t remember.

KN: The first “series” of Mouse Eggs was twelve or thirteen issues in 1975 and 1976.

We came back to it for a “second series” in 1980 and 1981. I still don’t remember how many issues were in the second series, but I am guessing that it was three or four.

We had a lot of fun doing Mouse Eggs. It was only produced in batches of 50 copies. We were mostly doing it for us. It wasn’t going for any kind of cultural impact. We wanted to have fun, and fun was had. It was probably less fun to do the second series, which is why there were fewer issues. The second five years of the Vehicule Poets was less coherent and less energetic. We were still hanging out in twos and threes, not so much in sevens. Claudia left for the States, and I was in the South Seas a lot.

Mouse Eggs bibliography [incomplete]:

Mouse Eggs, one dozen. Poems by Ken Norris, Tom Konyves, Artie Gold, Stephen Morrissey, Jim Mele, Claudia Lapp, Peter Kaye and andre farkas.

Mouse Eggs, two dozen. “SPECIAL HOLIDAY ISSUE--CHRISTMASS,” 1976. Poems by Raymond Filip, Ken Norris, Artie Gold, Tom Konyves, s. morrissey and Patricia Walsh.

Mouse Eggs, three dozen. “Valentine’s Day.” Produced as Stephen Morrissey and Pat Walsh wedding announcement. Poems by John McAuley, Artie Gold, andre farkas, Harland Snodgrass, Ken Norris, TEEK (T. Konyves), Arnold Snardon and stephen morrissey.

Mouse Eggs, four dozen. _____. Produced to coincide with the Second Annual Spring Poetry Marathon. Poems by Mona Elaine Adilman, G.C. Ian Burgess, Muriel Byer, ritchie carson, Catherine Cole, Frances Davis, Donna Dimaulo, Raymond Filip, Gilbert Gelinas, Artie Gold, Bob Johnson, Gertrude Katz, T. Konyves, Helen Kosacky, claudia lapp, Carole H. Leckner, John Lehndorff, Orin Manitt, C.W. Marchant, John McAuley, Elizabeth Metcalfe, stephen morrissey, Dick Mundel, Ken Norris, Leslie Nutting, Inge (Mrs.M.) Packer, Edward palumbo, Robert Rayher, Elizabeth Richards, Allen Roth, Ray Shankman, Harland Snodgrass, Ari Snyder, richard sommer, Paul Walker and Pat Walsh.

Mouse Eggs, five dozen. Easter, 1976. Poems by John McAuley, Ken Norris, janet kask, Jim Mele, andre farkas, Jesus of Nazareth, Jr., Artie Gold and Geoff Young, Murphrie Roos, Jim Joyce and T. Konyves.

Mouse Eggs, six dozen. “Mouse Warnings,” 1976. Poems by Susan Blaylock, guy birchard, Helen Kosacky, stephen morrissey, Patricia Walsh, G.C. Ian Burgess, Marquita Crevier, T. Konyves, claudia lapp, andre farkas, Ken Norris, Robert Galvin, Artie Gold,

Mouse Eggs, eight dozen. “Back to School,” 1976. Poems by Mash, penny chalmers, T. Konyves, claudia lapp, Guy Birchard, ritchie carson, andre farkas, Artie Gold, Maurice Zerkon, Sean Seamus Wilmut, Jeffrey and Colin Morton, Henry Hershfelf, Michael Largo, Ken Norris and T. Konyves.

Mouse Eggs, nine dozen. “Trick or Treat,” 1976. Poems by Hopeton Anderson & Guy Birchard, Jim Mele, S. Morrissey, John McAuley, Opal L. Nations, Ken Norris, T. Konyves and Barry Cornwall. “ENDGAME by Samuel Beckett, A Review,” “Oct. 24, 1976. Powerhouse Gallery, St. Dominique” by T. Konyves.

Mouse eggs, ten dozen. “Christmouse issue,” Poems by guy birchard, morrissey/Walsh, stephen morrissey, Artie Gold, Opal L. Nations, Ken Norris, T. Konyves, Tom Cornmash, andre farkas, Helen Kosacky, Bill Davis, James B. McGinniss, Carol E Cohen, Mike Breiner and Tinker Greene.

Mouse Eggs, eleven dozen. “The Tattooed Mouse,” February 1977. Poems by T. Konyves, Opal L. Nations, Ken Norris, john maccawley, stephen morrissey, artie gold, August Kleinzahler and guy birchard.

Mouse Eggs, twelve dozen. “Reuben’s Garage,” April 1977. Poems by claudia lapp, Opal L. Nations, Stephen Morrissey, Tom Konyves, Andre Farkas, Ken Norris, Artie Gold and ritchie carson.

Mouse Eggs, thirteen dozen. “Baker’s dozen,” June 1977. Poems by Artie Gold, stephen morrissey, Ken Norris, Opal L. Nations, Ken Norris, T. KonYves and Andre Farkas.

Mouse Eggs, one dozen, Series B. “breaking through to the EIGHTIES,” circa February/March 1980. Cover and back cover by Artie Gold. Poems by Stephen Morrissey, Ken Norris, Tom Konyves, Endre Farkas, Claudia Lapp and John McAuley.

Mouse Eggs, Second Gathering (Raiders of the Lost Mouse issue) 1981.

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Queen Street Quarterly (1997-2005): interview with Suzanne Zelazo, and bibliography

this interview was conducted over email from December 2020 to February 2021 as part of a project to document literary publishing. see my list of interviews and bibliographies of literary publications past and present here

Suzanne Zelazo is a writer, editor, and educator. She holds a PhD in English with a specialty in female modernism and avant-garde poetry and performance. Her projects seek to integrate creative expression and the body. She is the author two collections of poetry, Lances All Alike and Parlance from Coach House Press, and is editor or co-editor of several books on female artists.

Q: How did Queen Street Quarterly get started?

SZ: I had been volunteering as the photography editor (which was the only position open) at my college literary mag (The Trinity Review). The journal was as formally traditional as the campus. Although I found that limiting, I got to see a little of what went into such an enterprise. Most importantly, I got to see how and where it was printed, which was around the corner at Coach House Press. The singularity of that press with its commitment to the book as an art object was absolutely crucial to how I conceived of the QSQ. What they do as printers made it very clear to me that I wanted to produce a periodical that would showcase the materiality of the text, specifically by including sound and visual poetry. But, as a lover of much lyric work as well, I wanted a venue that would integrate the traditional and the avant garde. I believed and still do in the power of reciprocal exchange between different genres. One way I saw of enabling that was by according the ephemerality that characterizes much experimental work the weighted presence of a proper bound text and to have it appear on zephyr laid paper that would do much to fix the fleeting in place for the benefit of extended engagement. Additionally, I believed the less experimental material in this configuration would take on a different charge featured alongside seemingly incongruous work.

Looking back, part of the impetus to start the QSQ was no doubt youthful arrogance—I did not see any magazines at that time to which I wanted to submit work, or more precisely, which reflected the kind of work I was writing and interested in, so I figured I’d make one.

Q: What were your models when starting out? Were you basing the journal on anything specific, or working more intuitively?

SZ: I wasn’t basing it on anything specific but discovering older copies of Between C and D: Neo-Expressionist Lower East Side Fiction Magazine, edited by Joel Rose and Catherine Texier (1983-1990) made a huge impact on me. I read every one I could get my hands on. Printed and “bound” as it was, or rather, computer-printed accordion-style and packaged in zipped plastic bags, cultivated my understanding of the periodical as art object. The entire print run is stunning and the magazine’s commitment to the avant garde scene was so inspiring to me. Tish was the same for me in terms of prioritizing generic experimentation.

Q: At the time you began the journal, had you been writing for long? Were you attending readings? How were you engaging with your immediate community?

SZ: I wrote poetry at that time for sure, but I was so young! I was very involved in the literary scene in Toronto at that time and I took learning the ins and outs of it very seriously. I went to as many readings and book launches as I could, often hitting more than a few on a single night. The Toronto poetry community in the 1990s was so vibrant and exciting! We had a lot of fun. You were very much a part of that too rob!

Q: It is true. I remember doing a reading with you at the University of Toronto’s Hart House, where I think we might have first met, and I have a recollection of you hanging out with Darren Wershler and Christian Bök. After the reading, Jack Illingsworth solicited you to review for Books in Canada, prompting me to jump in with a “me too!”

I’m wondering: what was the process of putting together those first few issues? Did you have an open call for submissions, or were you soliciting work?

A: I remember that! It was a great night and that crew always made those events celebratory. Jack Illingsworth is wonderful. He has done so much for writing and writers in Canada both behind scenes and in front.

For the inaugural issue of QSQ I solicited work with the generous help of Mike O’Connor of Insomniac Press. I’m not even sure he’d remember this, but he put me in touch with a list of writers I then approached. That gesture—helping a young writer he didn’t know but was introduced to over the phone through a mutual friend—speaks to his kindness and dedication to all things literary, but it also underscores just how important community is to such undertakings. Many people in the community helped make the QSQ what it was. I will never forget that gesture of Mike’s though, and I try to reciprocate in my own engagement with younger writers and the community at large.

Q: That is very cool. I wasn’t aware of any connection between Insomniac and QSQ. How were you first in contact with Mike? Apart from geographic location, I wouldn’t imagine much overlap between the aesthetics of those first years of Insomniac Press and QSQ.

A: It’s true, there is not much of an aesthetic overlap. But, as a Toronto publisher and very lovely guy, Mike is in touch with many writers in the community even beyond the Insomniac authors. A very close friend of mine at the time was also friends with Mike so he put us in touch and then Mike helped me reach out to a list of authors. It was a fortuitous connection for which I am forever grateful.

Q: One element of the journal I immediately admired was that I was able to see work by certain writers that I don’t think I’d actually seen in journals up to that point. What were you working to achieve with your editorial, and how well do you feel you achieved those initial goals?

SZ: Yes, I do think we achieved our goal of publishing new and emerging experimental writers alongside more established writers and more traditional work. Associate editors Stephen Cain and Natalee Caple, and for a time Neil Hennessy, Jay Millar and Karen McCormack, were all instrumental in soliciting cutting-edge work. We often invited contributions from authors without a long publishing history but whose work we admired and knew of from readings or from their own self-publishing ventures.

Q: What was the process of originally involving Stephen Cain and Natalee Caple? The masthead originally has you as editor, but after a couple of issues, a number of people were brought on to assist, including Cain, Caple and Michael Trussler. How did they get involved, and what were their roles?

A: I have always believed in collaboration and it was very important to me that the magazine reflected the very best of what was happening at that moment. To do that I wanted and needed multiple perspectives. Having an editorial board helped ensure that. Natalee, Stephen, and my brother Phil were the longest standing members and their contributions were enormous. Not only did they read and vet submissions, but they also helped identify new work and solicit contributions, as did the shorter-term members. All of them were absolutely crucial to what the magazine became. The process of getting them involved was fairly straightforward. They are all writers and readers I admire and who were doing something different than me and each other. I invited them to join us and they all graciously volunteered their time and beautiful minds.

When Stephen Cain became my then, long-time partner, he also did a lot of behind the scenes practical, administrative work with me. His commitment to the small press, his encyclopedic understanding of its history, his ear for sumptuous sounds, and his belief in the QSQ was critical on so many levels.

Q: What was the response to Queen Street Quarterly? And how do you feel the journal developed as you went along? What do you feel you achieved?

A: The QSQ was very much a writer’s magazine and the response to it reflected that—it was a well-known unknown. Being a “little magazine,” its lack of commercial status made it both accessible and somewhat inaccessible and that was perfect. We wanted to reflect the literary landscape not just the literary market sweethearts (which we did feature as well). An enthusiastic community grew around the QSQ over the years. It became a place of exchange and in so being, a place of creative generativity. In particular it was a community of LANGUAGE poets, concrete poets, intermedia artists—writers working innovatively between genres, including writers of fiction who were testing out new forms. It was an eclectic, inspired, and inspiring community dedicated to the word. Cultivating that community was definitely an aim I feel we achieved.

Q: How did you manage to pay for the journal? Had you funding? Sales? Were you holding launches?

A: As with most small press endeavours, the finances were always lean. The funding structures are such that you can’t apply for provincial or federal arts grants without proof of viability as an enterprise—you need to have put out a certain number of issues to qualify. As a result, (and I would never recommend this to a young publisher!)  I paid for the first few issues with my student loans at the time. After putting out the requisite number of issues to be eligible to apply, we received OAC and Canada Arts Council support which was invaluable. We were distributed by what used to be called the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association (now Magazine’s Canada), so sales plus semi-regular launches brought in some revenue. We also had a loyal list of subscribers. We always just made it. We didn’t have much overhead because it was produced in my various apartments and after hours in the work spaces of our wonderful layout manager Judith Parker, and as mentioned, the editors volunteered their time.

Q: Were there any submissions that surprised you? Any writers you wouldn’t have thought might have submitted anything to you but did? Who were the “discoveries” you feel you were able to make?

A: I was regularly surprised! I wouldn’t want to claim to have discovered any writer, but I loved being able to provide a forum for writers at early stages of their career like Emily Schultz and Seyward Goodhand. I loved publishing the sonic visual work of W. Mark Sutherland and poems by Karen Mac Cormack alongside the stories we got from Andrew Pyper and Russell Smith. I think those kinds of juxtapositions enacted their own kinds of discoveries.

Q: The journal had a remarkable run. In your editor’s note as part of the final issue (Volume 7, No. 4), you wrote: “I began Queen Street Quarterly because I believe in creative action. I wanted to create a place that would unite the many different voices that were and are Canadian literature. At the time most magazines were singular–exclusively traditional and lyric, or exclusively avant-garde and characteristically ephemeral. Having always believed in the capacity for reciprocity between the most seemingly disparate things, I thought it was important to put the street in the museum and the museum in the street–wherein sound scores, concrete poems, and surrealist games in all of their ephemeral brilliance could be preserved, proper bound and anchored in heavy, zephyr laid paper, and where the narrative and the lyric could be un-mired–refreshed by a proximity to newer forms. At the time, nothing existed which fostered such relationships so I, perhaps naively and perhaps arrogantly, took it upon myself to create such a space.” How do you feel about that statement now? What, in the end, was behind the decision to fold the journal?

A: It is always strange to revisit heartfelt statements from one’s past but despite that, I would say the overall message is still apt. It was a very difficult decision to fold the QSQ—I didn’t make it lightly. Behind it was a number of overlapping reasons, the most practical of which was that I was trying to finish my doctoral dissertation. At that time, however, there was a shift in the industry more generally with independent bookstores folding under the weight of big box bookstores. This had many repercussions on writers and publishers who were not mainstream including a sense of malaise and the need for new strategies for engagement and production.

Although I thought about handing over the editorial responsibilities to someone else, I elected to preserve the history of what it was—to bookend the literary energy of a particular time period and make room for new ideas and directions. Indeed, there were a number of cool publishing venues about to emerge like ditch, and The Puritan.

Queen Street Quarterly bibliography:

Volume 1, No. 1. Spring 1997. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil D. Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Contributing Editors: Richard Preiss, Zöe Renard. Layout: Neil McDonald. Contributions by: bill bissett, Richard Preiss, John M. Currid, George G. Murray, Christian Bök, Natalee Caple, David Urban, Lee Gotham, Jill Battson, Diana Tregenkamp, Matt R. Yeldon, Clare Bermingham and Michael Kirkham. Cover photo: shwa.

Volume 1, No. 2. Summer 1997. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Contributing Editors: Natalee Caple, Michael Trussler. Layout: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Matthew Remski, Herb Jackson, Darren Wershler-Henry, Shannon Bramer, Lara Aase, Stan Rogal, Herb Jackson, Hal Niedzviecki, Gordon Marshall, Chris Doda, Stephen Cain, Michelle Berry, George Murray and Priscila Uppal. Cover photo: Laurel Bidwell.

Volume 1, No. 3, Autumn 1997. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Contributing Editors: Natalee Caple, Michael Trussler. Layout: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Lise Downe, John Barlow, Matthew Firth, Jay MillAr, Christian Bök, Alana Wilcox, Nancy Dembowski, Marc Bechara, Gérald Audet, Matt Santateresa, Brian Panhuyzen, Michael Bryson, Christina Francisco, Natalee Caple and Beatriz Milhazes. Cover: Beatriz Milhazes.

Volume 1, No. 4, Winter 1997/Volume 2, No. 1, Spring 1998. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editor: Natalee Caple. Copy Editor: Stephen Cain. Layout: Judith Parker. Public Relations Manager: Wendy Morgan. Contributions by: A.F. Moritz, Mark Sutherland, Paul Dutton, Patrick Friesen, Tatiana Freire-Lizama, Paul Vermeersch, Lindsay Tabah, rob mclennan, Simon Archer, Brooke Clark, Fred Gaysek, Louise Bak, Julie Moos, R.M. Vaughan, Steve Venright, Darren Wershler-Henry, Catherine Jenkins, Tom Raworth, Peter Jaeger, Joāo Agapito, Nihad Hasanovic, Jill Larill and Vern Smith. Cover: Catherine Jenkins.

Volume 2, No. 2, Summer 1998. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editor: Natalee Caple. Copy Editor: Stephen Cain. Layout: Judith Parker. Public Relations Manager: Wendy Morgan. Editorial Intern: James Arthur. Contributions by: Jeff Derksen, Michael Trussler, Peter McPhee, j.a. LoveGrove, Nancy Bullis, Scott Pound, Jesse Huisken, Alexandra Leggat, Janine Guay, Michelle Berry, John Barlow, Sarah Dearing, Jonathan Bennett and Victor Coleman. Cover: Christian McLeod.

Volume 2, No. 3, 1998. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editor: Natalee Caple. Copy Editor: Stephen Cain. Layout: Judith Parker. Public Relations: Wendy Morgan. Contributions by: Peter Jaeger, Tom Orange, Rabindranath Maharaj, Gordon Michael Allen, Michael Kelleher, Helen Tsiriotakis, Beth Learn, Peter Darbyshire, Stephen Cain, Monika Burkhardt, William Howe, Simmone Howell, Ann Shin, Patrick Roscoe and Suzanne Zelazo. Cover: Jennifer Walton.

Volume 2, No. 4/Volume 3, No. 1, Winter/Spring 1999. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Wendy Morgan. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Ken Babstock, John Barlow, Derek Beaulieu, bill bissett, Randy Boyagoda, George Bowering, Graham Foust, Steve Hayward, Jim Larwill, Alexandra Leggat, damian lopes, rob mclennan, Ingo Meller, David O’Meara, Brian Panhuyzen, Matt Santateresa, Royston Tester, Paul Vermeersch, Anne F. Walker and Marnie Woodrow. Cover art: Ingo Meller.

Volume 3, No. 2. Summer 1999. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Wendy Morgan. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Charles Bernstein, Christian Bök, Jordan Broadworth, Holly Borgerson Calder, Frank Davey, Christopher Dewdney, Sky Gilbert, Neil Hennessy, j.a. LoveGrove, Andrew King, Esther Mazakian, Esta Spalding, Kate Sutherland, Sherwin Tija and tmuir. Cover art: Jordan Broadworth.

Volume 3, No. 3. Fall 1999. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Wendy Morgan. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Gary Barwin, Darryl Berger, Tony Burgess, Cora Cluett, Lauren Davis, Beth Follett, Graham Foust, Michael Holmes, Andrew Pyper, Trish Salah, Emily Schultz, W. Mark Sutherland and Carleton Wilson. Cover art: Cora Cluett.

Volume 3, No. 4. Winter 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Paul Anderson, Jesse Craig Bellringer, Victor Coleman, Bill Griffiths, Hal Niedzviecki, Karen Mac Cormack, Esther Mazakian, Steve McCaffery, David McGimpsey, Jay MillAr, Mary Nyguist, Robert Priest, Matt Robinson, W. Mark Sutherland, Scott Wallis and Andy Weaver. Cover art: Scott Wallis.

Volume 4, No. 1. Spring 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Ken Babstock, Derek Beaulieu, Mike Barnes, Daniel f. Bradley, Kate Brown, Kyle Buckley, Clint Burnham, André Carpentier, Maggie Helwig, M.G. Hesse, bill kennedy, Jonathan Lasker, Erín Moure, Jed Rasula, Stan Rogal, Jeremy Sigler, Marnie Woodrow and Jacob Wren. Cover art: Jonathan Lasker.

Volume 4, No. 2. Summer 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: James Arthur, Kemeny Babineau, Michelle Berry, George Bowering, Jason Christie, Jeramy Dodds, Maria Gould, Janine Guay, Noah Leznoff, Billy Mavreas, Esther Mazakian, rob mclennan, lucas mulder, Ken Norris, a. rawlings, Karen Rosenberg, Erin Soros, Lori Waxman, Zoe Whittall, Julia Williams and Aaron Williamson. Cover art: Lori Waxman.

Volume 4, No. 3, 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Mike Barnes, Jesse Craig Bellringer, Matthew Firth, Stephen Henighan, Paul Kelley, Robert Lake, Howard Lonn, Esther Mazakian, Nichole McGill, Amanda Mekhael, John Riddell, matt robinson, Timothy Rogers, Emily Schultz, Spencer Selby, Lytle Shaw, natalie stephens, Paul Vermeersch and Anne F. Walker. Cover art: Howard Lonn.

Volume 4, No. 4, 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Bruce Andrews, derek beaulieu, Caroline Bergvall, Gillian Best, Taylor Brady, John Degen, Chris Doda, Michael Holmes, Adrian Liu, Michael Mahy, Billy Mavreas, jeremy mcleod, Ken Norris, Clemente Padin, Jay Ruzesky, Rick/Simon and Jessica Smith. Cover art: Rick/Simon.

Volume 5, No. 1, Spring 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Louis Cabri, Margaret Christakos, Jason Christie, Tim Conley, jwcurry, Michael deBeyer, Bill Howell, Jake Kennedy, Robert Lake, Wendy Lu, Rob Read, Michael Redhill, David Rodgers, Stuart Ross and William Woodruff. Cover art: jwcurry.

Volume 5, No. 2, Summer 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Josh Auerbach, Mike Barnes, Terrence Chiusano, Margaret Christakos, Kelly Dignan, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Loss Pequeño Glazier, Maria Gould, Ihor Holubizky, Coral Hull, Eva Jacek, G.P. Lainsbury, Donato Mancini, Sharon McCartney, rob mclennan, Blaise Moritz, Ken Norris, Kent Nussey, Jennifer M. Paquette, Alex Pugsley, Jean-Paul Riopelle, matt robinson and Karen Woodman. Cover art: Jean-Paul Riopelle.

Volume 5, No. 3, 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Copy Editor: Ava Kwinter. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Darryl Berger, Tony Burgess, Bob Cobbing, Stephen Brockwell, Victor Coleman, Tim Conley, Jason Christie, Richard Deming, Jason LeHeup, Shawna Lemay, Gustave Morin, Jessica Smith, W. Mark Sutherland, Royston Tester and J. Ryan Wade. Cover art: Tony Burgess.

Volume 5, No. 4/Vol. 6, No 1, Spring 2002. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Copy Editor: Ava Kwinter. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Christian Bök, George Bowering, derek beaulieu, daniel f. bradley, kyle buckley, Stephen Cain, Jason Christie, Janieta Eyre, Beth Follett, Susan Glickman, Jesse Huisken, Sarah Hurd, Bill Kennedy jeremy mcleod, David McGimpsey, rob mclennan, Jay MillAr, Gustave Morin, Blaise Moritz, Carol Parikh, Andrew Pyper, Meredith Quartermain, Rob Read, matt robinson, Lytle Shaw, J. Mark Smith, W. Mark Sutherland, Alice Teichert, Betsy Trumpner and Darren Wershler-Henry. Cover art: Jenieta Eyre.

Volume 6, No. 2, Summer 2002. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Greg Betts, Geoff Hlibchuk, Michael Holmes, Peter Jaeger, W.B. Keckler, Karen Mac Cormack, Steve McCaffery, Garry Morse, a. rawlings, Steve Savage, Emily Schultz, Natalie Simpson, Chris Turnbull, Martin Turenne and Susana Molinolo. Cover art: Rick/Simon.

Volume 6, No. 3, Fall 2002. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Guy R. Beining, Jonathan Bennett, Jason Camlot, Tim Conley, Andréas Embiricos, Grev Evanson, Allen Fisher, Alan halsey, Jesse Huisken, Jesse Lee Jennison, Evan Jones, Sophie Levy, Jay MillAr, Jeff Musgrave and Alex Porco. Cover art: William Wegman.

Volume 6, No. 4, 2003. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Stephen Brockwell, Kyle Buckley, Abigail Child, Adrian Clarke, Tim Conley, John Delacourt, Jill Hartman, Steven Heighton, Paul Hegedus, Kevin Irie, Brian Jungen, Cory Lavender, Donato Mancini, Barry McKinnon, Jeremy McLeod, Geraldine Monk, Gustave Morin, Alex Porco, Nikki Reimer, Trevor Speller, Lesley Trites, Michael Trussler, Reese Warner, Elena Wolff and Karen Yacobucci. Cover art: Brian Jungen.

Volume 7, No. 1, 2003. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Gavin Babstock, Elizabeth Ben-Ishai, Caroline Bergvall, Bill Boletis, Stephen Brockwell, Natalee Caple, Tim Conley, Pat Cull, Bill Howell, Jake Kennedy, Larissa Kostoff, Mark Laliberte, Drue Langlois and Michael Dumontier, Pasha Malla, Shelby Matthews, Ken Norris, Tamás Prágai, Alexandra Preto, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Linda Spalding, Tamiae Squibb and Moez Surani. Cover art: Drue Langlois and Michael Dumontier.

Volume 7, No. 2, 2004. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Charles Alexander, Michael deBeyer, Gabe Foreman, Seyward Goodhand, Paul Hegedus, Steven Heighton, Peter Jaeger, Kevin Killian, Derek McCormack, Blaise Moritz, Anne Nettles and Russell Smith. Cover art: Edward Burtynsky.

Volume 7, No. 3, 2004. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Louise Bak, Michael Basinski, derek beaulieu, Charles William Boyes, Jason Christie, Tim Conley, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kenneth Goldsmith, Sharon Harris, rob mclennan, Jay MillAr, Gustave Morin, Jeff Musgrave, Hugh Thomas, Martin Turenne and Reese Warner. Cover art: Derek Beaulieu.

Volume 7, No. 4, 2005. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Douglas Barbour, derek beaulieu, Gregory Betts, Frank Davey, Ray Ellenwood, Paul Hegedus, Ailsa Kay, Blaise Moritz, Sheila E. Murphy, Alessandro Porco, a. rawlings, Emily Schultz, Paul Vermeersch, Anne E. Walker and Bruce Whiteman. Cover art: Rick/Simon.