Editor’s Notes

Dear Readers,

One of the joys of publishing this monthly online magazine is the opportunity to learn more about the fascinating people who have lived or are currently living in Ottawa. This month’s issue features a film writer and former New Yorker, who lived in the Arctic; a science fiction and fantasy writer, archivist and hockey mom who’s been a long-term Ottawa resident; and finally a Carleton student from Sarnia.

This month’s issue also contains a description of our most recent reading at Chapters on July 17: Bywords Summer Beat (the heat) by Catharine Carroll, accompanied by the fine photography of John W. MacDonald.

Along with cooler temperatures, fall brings a plethora of activities. The Ottawa International Writers Festival starts September 29. Bywords will launch the first of a planned series of chapbooks written by our John Newlove Poetry Award recipient on October 5, 2005. The reading will feature the music of the wonderfully talented songstress, Lee Hayes, readings of Newlove’s poetry and local writer Norma Elliot’s moving and witty poems. We will also announce the winner of this year’s Newlove award. For more about the award, please click on “Newlove Award.”

For the third year in a row, Bywords will participate in the AIDS Walk for Life. We are looking for others who want to walk with us and raise money to help out Bruce House, which provides care for people living with HIV and AIDS. The walk will take place on the evening of September 24. If you’d like to join us as a member of the Bywords’ team or sponsor a member of the team, please e-mail me (editor@bywords.ca). It is always a very inspiring evening and includes music and poetry, and the occasional white tutu and feather boa. Please come out and join us if you can: www.aidswalkottawa.ca

The summer issue of the Bywords Quarterly Journal is out in bookstores now. Pick up your copy today, or purchase one at the Bywords store, along with the works of other local writers.

Thanks to this month’s selection committee:

Jesse Ferguson, Megan McGrath, Kemisha Newman, Sarah Ruffolo, Betty Warrington-Kearsley, Genevieve Wesley, and Christine Zadorozny.

If you have any questions or comments, please send them my way editor@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl