Go to a movie, come away with a gig

So I went to see Avatar (not for the first time) with a friend this evening (I know the story's sort of simple, but it's so damn gorgeous.) We were waiting for showtime when I spotted Faye Estrella coming toward us, having just gotten out of the previous showing. So I waved, said hi, and talked to her a little bit about the upcoming Dusty Owl (which will be both a launch for the Bywords Quarterly Journal and a celebration of Steve Sauvé's life: he died on the 17th of January last year.)

And she said, "Hey wait... you want to feature at Voices of Venus in February?" (She's one of the coordinators of the series, which is an all-women poetry series that started up just this year.)

So I said yes. And I'm going to be reading at VoV, on February 9th. I'm pretty sure this is my first ever feature. Gleep! 

Luckily, I can't think of a better series than Voices of Venus to break out what I have so far of my Chasing Boudicca poem cycle.

Calling all spoken word performers/poets...

A message I got from Faye Estrella AKA Festrell:

Books to Prisoners (Ottawa) and Exile Infoshop are putting together a
show for Akili Castlin, where local performers read his slam poetry
from his book "Who Am Eye: a spokenword memoir".

The Deets:
Saturday January 30th
7pm and onwards
@ UMI CAFE (Somerset & Percy)

I was asked to help find performers who wish to participate. I'm going
to be there. How about you?

Here's more details on the memoir and Akili Castlin himself.

'WHO AM EYE is a spokenword memoir, presented in three parts, that
explores the realities of life as a multiethnic black man.

The poems combine sharp political criticism with an honest examination
of the author’s particular experiences as he tries to “navigate the
vertiginous space between being poor, black and living from paycheck
to paycheck and middle-class, white and privileged: the equivalent of
going from the field to the overseer’s house, and back again.”'

Akili Castlin is a prisoner housed in Pelican Bay State Prison’s
Security Housing Unit. He is an author, avid reader and dedicated
political activist.

http://akilicastlin.wordpress.com/about/

Send/forward this email to anyone else you think would be interested.

A poem about practice

I came across this poem today, and was reminded not of any muscians I know, but of a novelist friend of mine who gets up at an hour in the morning that most of us would call ungodly so she can write for at least an hour in a coffee shop before starting her day job. She spends whole weekends and vacations sequestered with the laptop, in her house or at a convent (yes, a convent) ... and this spring she is publishing her third novel in something like two years. This poem reminds me of her.

 

I wanna win a trip to Kenya!
Summer Literary Seminars is announcing its annual unified (Montreal, Lithuania and Kenya) literary contest, held this year in affiliation with Fence Magazine. We are thrilled this year to have Mary Gaitskill judging the fiction, and Mary Jo Bang judging the poetry.

Contest winners in the categories of fiction and poetry will have their work published in Fence, as well as the participating literary journals in Canada, Lithuania and Kenya. Additionally, they will have the choice of attending (airfare, tuition, and housing included) any one of the SLS-2010 programs – in Montreal, Quebec (June 13 - 27); Vilnius, Lithuania (August 1 - 14); or Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya (December).

Second-place winners will receive a full tuition waiver for the program of their choice, and third-place winners will receive a 50% tuition discount.

A number of select contest participants, based on the overall strength of their work, will be offered tuition scholarships, as well, applicable to the SLS-2010 programs.

Full details: http://www.sumlitsem.org/slscontest.html

Contest Deadline: February 28, 2010.

Happy New Year - now let's list things!
Just came across these two articles... ah, lists. New Year's is always about lists, right? Top tens and hot-or-nots. So, here's a hot-or-not for Ottawa (I love that Guerilla Magazine kicks the ass of the embarrassing XPress, ditto the Elmdale Tavern wiping the foor with Barrymore's - nice to see new stuff coming up and supplanting the stalwarts. Ottawa's too much in love with tradition) and a list of the top ten literary feuds of the decade because hey, what's a literary community without vitriol, bile, and hurled insults?

Random House's e-grab

The American Authors Guild has been reacting strongly to Random House's misguided attempt to assert e-rights over older titles whose contracts pre-date the e-book.

I love the Authors Guild's response: "A fundamental principle of book contracts is that the grant of rights is limited.  Publishers acquire only the rights that they bargain for; authors retain rights they have not expressly granted to publishers.  E-book rights, under older book contracts, were retained by the authors."

I'm interested by the developments here, just because it's kind of fascinating to watch a whole new species evolve. (Is this what linguists felt watching Hawaiian Creole develop over the course of a generation?) And because in the industry I work in, whatever happens in the foggy world between digital and paper is going to have inevitable repurcussions.

It seems like no one knows what the rules are, and they're bashing them out as they go. Unfortunately, publishers sometimes emply people who make less-than-thought-through blanket assumptions, like, "losing copyright is bad, therefore we should just jump on and assert copyright we don't legally have because you just never know." 

How will it all shake out? It won't. A vivid line I have heard a couple of times from Cory Doctorow: "We're in a period of perpetual, wrenching technological change, and it's never gonna level out and settle into something stable." 

Hey, if you're me, that just sounds kinda exciting. If also a bit 'interesting' in the Chinese Curse sense. 

Weird what pops up.

Just spotted a clip from the September Nick Cave reading on a 'listen online' site: it's weird seeing this kind of thing cropping up. Things on the web have lives of their own.

(It makes me smile that it's the "Gladiator II" clip, too.)

Rally for Arts and Culture

There's a rally in support of arts and culture and taking a stand against the Harper government's attacks on the sector taking shape - it was on the down low till today but I've got a date now... 

The rally is on Sunday 13th. That's THIS Sunday.
At the Bronson Centre, 211 Bronson Avenue.
Doors open at 1:45: Concert at 2 pm.
 
Featuring performances by Canadian musicians and artists, speeches from politicians,  cultural organizations and union representatives
 
Join us for this free event of solidarity and show your support for culture & heritage!

I got the word on the rally from a friend on strike at the Museum of Civilization. More than two months they've been on strike, and nothing's happened so far. This rally's bound to have some effect.  

Oh joy!

The Writers Festival toques are in! We got them ordered for our upcoming volunteer appreciation party in the New Year as a thank you present for their guts and dedication in sticking by us even through the broken boiler and the onslaught of "Saint Frigid's." And they're here! Jubilation!

I can't wait to see if mine fits under my bike helmet.

 

... and rob's workshop is back

rob mclennan says:

"If anyone is interested, I've just booked a series of dates for my new
seasonal poetry workshops at Collected Works Bookstore, Wellington &
Holland, Ottawa, happening on Wednesday nights: January 6, 13 and 27;
February 3, 10 and 24; March 3, 10.

$250 for 8 sessions.
7pm to 9pm.

for information, contact rob mclennan at az421@freenet.carleton.ca or 613
239 0337;

an eight week poetry workshop (spread out a little, for the sake of
scheduling), the course will focus on workshopping writing of the
participants, as well as reading various works by contemporary writers,
both Canadian & American. participants should be prepared to have a
handful of work completed before the beginning of the first class, to be
workshopped (roughly ten pages)."