Editor’s Notes

Happy New Year Readers,

This month's issue features poetry by two university students from the University of Ottawa and the University of Victoria respectively. a.m. kozak is very involved in the local literary community; Together with Sean Moreland, he co-hosts the blUe mOnday reading series at Café Nostalgica. Mallory Tater recently graduated from Canterbury Secondary School and placed second in the Bywords' Think Ink Secondary School Poetry Contest last year.

I am thrilled to see that writers who have participated in the local literary community are continuing their writing practice and sending work to Bywords. I hope that others submit work to Bywords. Remember the deadline for Bywords.ca is every month on the 15th for the subsequent month and poems published on the site will be considered for the John Newlove Poetry Award. The judge this year is Angela Rawlings.

I am pleased to announce that we will now be paying $10 for each poem published on Bywords.ca, starting with the January, 2011 issue. We will continue to pay $20 per poem published in the Bywords Quarterly Journal and $20 to each reader.

I recently wrote a blog post talking about how to submit work to poetry publications and how to deal with rejection of your work. I encourage those new to submitting their poetry to take a look.

Our first event of 2011 occurs on February 6, 2011 at the Dusty Owl Reading Series. It is our 8th annual fundraiser for Cornerstone and promises to be loads of fun with great poetry and music. I hope you can attend. If not, it would be marvellous if you sent in a donation to Cornerstone, a wonderful organization that provides shelter, food and support to Ottawa's homeless women.

Thanks to the City of Ottawa for the funding we received in 2010.

Lastly, thanks to this month's selection committee:

Jamie Bradley
Kemisha Newman
Claudia Coutu Radmore
Sarah-Grace Ross
Carol A. Stephen

If you have comments, questions, suggestions or baked goods to offer, please e-mail me at amanda@bywords.ca.

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Amanda Earl