Editor’s Notes

Greetings Readers,

Our featured poets this month are Nick Power, Dean Steadman and Shawn MacMillan. Please enjoy their poems evocative of seasonal thoughts, poetic musings, elephants and death.

The spring is replete with literary frolicking amongst the tulips and beneath the bowers of blossoms. I hope you manage to get out and enjoy the activities. If you find yourself indoors, due to cold and flu or just a need to rest up for the coming cottage season, you might like to take a listen to the numerous literary radio shows that take place on local stations CKCU and CHUO weekly. Check the events calendar for a listing and the websites.

On the horizon also for those who enjoy original and creative works, either as creator or imbider, are three indie book fairs, the Ravenswing Craft and Zine Fair taking place on Sunday, May 24 at Minto Park. This is your opportunity to check out the indie or D.I.Y scene in Ottawa and soak up the sunshine.

For an indoors indie event, consider attending the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild's Book Fair which will take place on June 13 at Library and Archives Canada. The event will feature speakers, demonstrations and vendors specializing in bookbinding, book repairs, papermaking, printmaking, paper marbling, letterpress printing, wood engraving, and books as art.

Also in June will be the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair on June 20 at the Jack Purcell Community Centre. There will be vendors from Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and other locations, representing the small press scene in the form of handmade paper, chapbooks, broadsides, and perfect bound books. If you have any interest in creating your own chapbooks and zines, and discovering the various small presses in existence, hobnobbing with small press mavens and mavericks, you will enjoy these events.

Thanks to this month's selection committee

Andrew Faulkner, Gwen Guth, Megan McGrath, Leigh Nash, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Carol A. Stephen, JC Sulzenko, Victoria Vernell, and Lindsey Woodward.

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

Amanda Earl