Eat Shoots & Weep

The Public Lending Rights cheque came yesterday. Hallelujah.

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I'm hesitating for a moment or two before sending in the Final Final Final of Dead Cars. I sent off the Final Final a few days ago, and I was going through the "Oh my god, this is crap" phase that I always go through when a book is in the works. But then, a few hours later, Jason emailed me to tell me he was really happy with the new version, and the five or six new poems I crammed into it. Now I just have to look at a few little copyedits and it's done. Any second now.

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Spent some time the last couple days preparing what might be my last statement about the recent Small Press Book Fair brouhaha. Clear the air about various allegations and so forth. Something that can help me psychologically and emotionally loosen myself from the oppression of the threatened lawsuit.

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Saw Rachel Zolf at Toronto Wordstage the other night (where Elyse Friedman gave a great Valentine's Day reading of her story "Truth") and got a copy of her beautiful new chapbook, Shoot & Weep. Not to be confused with Eat Shoots & Weep. It's from Nomados. I heard her read from this manuscript at Word on the Street in September. I'll be writing more about it in the next few days.

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Met with Seb Agnello, who's going to be manufacturing the Orphan's Song CD. It's getting closer. Advance orders: single copies are $15 + $3 S&H, or two for $35 total (the two-fer price includes a free copy of Razovsky at Peace, Farmer Gloomy's New Hybrid, or The Mud Game).

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A few spaces still available in next Saturday's Poetry Boot Camp. Here's the guff:

STUART ROSS’S POETRY BOOT CAMP
Saturday, February 23, 10 am to 5 pm (includes lunch break)
Christie & Dupont area

Fee: $75 (advance registration required - please email or phone for payment options)
Includes materials and light refreshments.
Enrolment limited to 12 participants.

Poet, editor and writing instructor Stuart Ross offers an intensive but relaxed one-day workshop for beginning poets, experienced poets, stalled poets, and haikuists who want to get beyond three lines. Poetry Boot Camp focuses on the pleasures of poetry and the riches that spontaneity brings, through lively directed exercises and relevant readings from the works of poets from Canada and abroad. Stuart also touches on revision, collaboration, and publication. Arrive with an open mind, and leave with a heap of new poems and writing strategies!

Over and out.