I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner

Full house at the Poetry Boot Camp on Saturday. It was a close call: one of the participants pulled out Friday evening, but an hour later, someone else wrote and asked if there was any room. Tried a lot of new things with this group, and it turned out really well. A lot of strong writing, and some interesting results with the various experiments. One of the Campers was returning for her fourth time. She said this was the best one yet, and that I'd obviously been honing the projects. Nice to hear.

The boardroom here at my housing co-op isn't particularly inspiring for the workshop, but it sure makes life easy for me, since it's just a couple dozen metres from my door. If I think of a book I want to read from, I can just run up to my apartment and find it. I do miss doing the event at This Ain't the Rosedale Library, though, because that upstairs room is magical, and because it's nice for the Campers to head down and browse the great selection at lunchtime or after the session.

I think it's soon time for another round of the New York Poets workshop.

In other news, I accepted an invitation to read at the Ottawa International Writers' Festival in April. Because I've got so much on my plate, I can't stay for more than a day or two, which is too bad. I think this is about my sixth appearance at the Festival. I'm reading on a bill with Rachel Zolf and Fred Wah, and I'm really excited about that. Rachel's new chapbook, which I swear I'm going to write about here soon, is incredible.

Here are a couple of lines from Rod Smith to sign off with:

I am a Times Reporter.
I kill people.

Nice stuff.

Over and out.