Meet the Presses! Rising from the ashes in a new form

A collective of nine local writers and independent publishers — including five former coordinators of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair — has formed a new group, Meet the Presses, created in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses that Nick Power and I started in 1985. This new group is made of Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Maria Erskine, Ally Fleming, Beth Follett, Maggie Helwig, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power, and me.

Our plan is to curate and organize various events to promote a range of indie and small-press publishing: poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction in book, chapbook, ephemeral and recorded form.

The first event is…

Meet the Presses
INDIE LITERARY MARKET

November 29, noon to 5 pm
Clinton's Tavern (693 Bloor West, near the Christie Subway)
Free admission

This event, the only one of its kind in Toronto, offers the public an opportunity to purchase a lot of really exciting literary publications, most of which aren't available in bookstores, direct from the publishers (and often the writers). The emphasis here is on "literary." I can't wait to be behind my Proper Tales Press table again!

And it feels great to be working on a new event — not only with my old partner in crime Nick Power — but with a great mixture of small-press vets and newcomers.

Our Meet the Presses Facebook page features this quote by bpNichol:

"Supporting small press is supporting literature on the cutting edge. Small press is the guardian of literary culture and of free speech."

Our web page, meetthepresses.wordpress.com, will have a running list of the participating publishers as they're booked. We expect about 30 indie literary presses to take part in this flagship event.

Onward!

And over and out.