Editor’s Notes

Greetings Readers,

To mark the onset of Autumn we have three poems for you, poems that celebrate the beauty and the absurdity of a moment in nature, in strange circumstances and perhaps in ourselves. I hope you enjoy the issue.

With the beginning of fall, students return to school and literary activity increases. The University of Ottawa's Blue Monday's Series and Carleton University's In/Words Reading Series returned at the end of August, while the Tree Reading Series started up again in mid-September in a new venue, Gallery 101 in Hintonburg, which may be the furthest west it has ever been located. The Ottawa International Writers Festival has revealed its program for the fall edition to take place at the end of October. As always it covers a wide range of literary, political, historical and scientific subjects. The 2016 John Newlove Award will take place on October 21. We will announce the recipient and honourable mentions of this year's award and launch "dreampunk," the chapbook of Ronald Seatter, last year's winner. Our Bywords' team has had the pleasure of working with Ron on the chapbook.

Earlier this month, we notified social media followers on our FaceBook page and on Twitter that we were experiencing a lull in submissions for our monthly online magazine. We had a great response, which means that our bank of poetry submissions is overflowing. Please keep the poems coming. We have a voracious appetite. Poems published on Bywords.ca between August, 2016 and September, 2017, receive an honorarium of $35 and are eligible for consideration for the 2017 John Newlove Poetry Award as judged by Montreal poet, Gillian Sze. Remember to read the guidelines before you send us work, and feel free to send me any questions you may have.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Wes Babcock
Amanda Besserer
Robert Martin Evans
Jason Lamantia
Anne LeDressay
Fiona Mitchell
Kemisha Newman
Carol A. Stephen
JC Sulzenko

If you have comments, suggestions, questions or long walks in the dark to discuss poetry to offer, please contact me at amanda@bywords.ca.

See you at upcoming readings soon!

Amanda Earl

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