Editorial

The launch of the Bywords Quarterly Journal was a mammoth success! Thanks to all of you who read or attended the reading. Thanks also to the Downtown Chapters staff who had to keep fetching chairs for our increasingly large audience, and brought a mike stand even though I couldn’t figure out how to operate the microphone. Staff at Chapters remarked on how enthusiastic we all were about the reading. We have reason to be enthusiastic: Ottawa has some very talented poets, and Bywords is spreading their words all over the world!

We will be holding another reading in late July at Chapters to hear readers from the 2nd quarter of Bywords.ca and to launch the summer issue of the journal. Stay tuned for the announcement in the news section and in as many areas of the site we can get away with.

We are well on our way to meeting sales targets of 100 copies of this first issue. If you haven’t purchased one yet (or 10!), please run to your nearest bookstore: Mother Tongue Books or Patrick McGahren Books on Bank Street, Mags and Fags on Elgin, Benjamin Books on Osgoode, Venus Envy in the Market, or the University of Ottawa bookstore.

We will also be selling BQJs at the upcoming June 14 Small Press Book Fair in the Glebe Community Centre. Look for our summery table and eager salespeople who will try to lure you over with some candy and free poetry. For those of you who haven’t attended, you will discover that the Small Press Book Fair offers a wonderful opportunity to check out all kinds of small magazines from across Canada.

For this issue of Bywords.ca, we received 22 poems. For the June issue we received over 60 poems. I’m very pleased and impressed with both the quality and quantity of submissions.

The website is attracting visitors from all over the world and kudos from literary institutions and poetry fans everywhere. As we reach our mid-way point of existence with Bywords.ca, that’s right it’s been almost 6 months!, we feel very honoured and satisfied that we are accomplishing our mission to showcase the diverse and emerging talents of poets in the National Capital region.

Please remember: if you are or were an Ottawa poet and have recently published a poetry collection, or attained a literary achievement, let us know and we’ll put it in the news.

Thank you to May’s selection committee: Erin Gouthro, Stéphanie Lafleur and Megan McGrath.

If you have any comments, questions, or feedback of any description, please e-mail me at editor@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl