Nov 1! 7-9 pm, 27 Dundurn St. N (Staircase), Hamilton. Sonali Menezes, Conyer Clayton, Emma McKenna, Chris Banks, and Claud Spadafora. Suggested donation $10, PWYC. Image: headshots of readers with covers of their books, plus Ontario Arts Council and Gordon Hill Press sponsor logos. LITLIVELITLIVELITLIVE!
Everyone! Launch PQL/GHP Oct 14, 7:30 start at 401 Richmond Building, Sick Stories Bookstore! So cool as a venue, come out and seeeeeee! [Image: text listing event date, time, location, and readers/non-readers; image of all readers and covers of non-readers’ books provided.]
“It may be an event for poetry in Canada as strangely comprehensive as Hill’s book was in England half a century ago.” Guys, I’m “cosmically inclusive!” You can find me in the glow-in-the-dark bowling alley. Everyone check out the Fiddlehead Disability Issue! And thank you Alastair.
“But it’s his dazzling erudition and tender, furious heart that will invariably compel his readers’ empathy and attention throughout these essays. Whether you’re seeking luminous language and experimental forms, a brilliant polemic, or a life-affirming meditation by a loving father and doctor, What to Feel, How to Feel is a singular, highly original disability treatise that establishes a new frontier for medical narratives in Canadian literature.” Yellow Bookie says thank you Kevin MacDonald and Owen Percy at The Ampersand Review for this attention.
Hope to see you at one!
(1) August 18 2026, 7 pm, Another Story Bookshop, 315 Roncy. Do come for STRUTHERMANIA, brotherrr! (Jenny Berkel, David Barrick, Alex Deng, Maureen Scott Harris).
(2) Aug 6 2026, Type Books Junction, 2887 Dundas St. W. Anna Veprinska, Qurat Dar.
I’m on the scifi committee of this cool conference in Montreal, Feb 5-7 2027: “Geo-Medical Syndemics: Earthquakes, Geotrauma, and Mental Health in the Planetary Imagination.” As you can see if you click, scholars of English, Canadian literature, & Health Humanities very much welcome! Please share. Last time a book came out of the conference held first in 2020; who knows, maybe in this, the second time out, we’ll end up doing it again! Please share the news if you’re in the biz.
Two reviews that make me wonder why I’m so lucky.
(1) Sometimes the universe says, Hey, guy, here you go. Take heart. My thanks to Dawn Macdonald & The Seaboard Review.
(2) I always figured I was bad at this. Thank you Canadian Literature and Dominique Hetu. I relied on Dr. Hetu’s work to make my argument make sense, so it’s an honour to have her assessment.
I just learned I won the Bailey Prize from the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick for my poetry manuscript about the Wolastoq/Saint John River, what will be my final entry in the NB trilogy. This win is terribly meaningful for me, being someone who wrote the first book of poetry criticism on the Maritime region (Margin of Interest); who brought into being the re-boot of the New Brunswick Chapbook Series with Frog Hollow Press; who has a new instantiation of New Brunswick-focused chapbooks with Gordon Hill Press; and whose every word comes from NB. I doubt many people reading this even know who Bailey was, or his work. You should. My thanks to my home. Here’s the note from judge Neil Aitken: “I was really caught off guard by the ambition and complexity of this manuscript, and more than that, how successful these poems were in weaving together so many threads: the ecological, the literary, the historical, the tensions between settler and Indigenous ways of encountering land and water, and the desire to give the river and the land voices that were both intimately aware of the human while somehow also being older and stranger than human. The poems move and shimmer with lyric beauty and nuance, while also connecting to a wider network of literary reference. What a remarkable accomplishment – and what an incredible poetic triumph of imagination!”
Scranton, PA! @ the Inaugural Dr. Pat and Lois Bruno Lecture, where, in addition to talking about neurodiversity in medicine, I read three poems on being unwell and got a chance to hang out and observe clinical skills with the first-year students as well as do a poetry workshop with them. Sold 20+ copies of The Reign and What to feel, how to feel. Bonus photos: the Octopus on top of Cooper’s! And the trip gifts from The Office gift shop. Octi for Aria; Dundee award for Kaz; and Dwight ornament for me, since my old one broke. Thank you Amanda Caleb, Ryan Weber, and Kate Lafferty-Danner, as well as the the Brunos for having me. Guys, they have a center for the medical humanities here. With three PhDs and they’re hiring a fourth! With real estate right in the medical school. Amazing.
A great reading at the Creating Space 16 conference at 50 Sussex Drive in Ottawa. A poetry buying crowd – 23 books sold, wild! Thank you to fellow readers Nancy Huggett, Conner Clayton, and Jim Johnstone; my publishers Palimpsest Press & Goose Lane Editions, and to Dr. Robert Stacey of U o Ottawa for the introduction!
