First Boot Camp of the new year

Great reading last night at the Pivot series, run by Carey Toane. I read with two fiction writers, Kerry Clare and James Sandham. Despite a near-blizzard, the place was packed. Lots of good friends were there. I started off with my current Hunkamooga column from sub-Terrain, read about a dozen poems, mostly ones I haven't read before, and finished with recent my short story So Sue Me, You Talentless Fucker, which was a real pleasure to read. During my reading, my pal Gongadin and his dog Benny came in the door, which was right beside where I was standing. Benny had just missed a poem about a dog, so I read him the pertinent lines again.

The crowd was very generous, and the passed hat (a new tradition for Pivot, thanks to my blackmailing tactics) coughed up a nice little bonus. Managed to sell a small pile of books too. The series takes place at the Press Club, on Dundas. It's too small and too narrow, but the atmosphere is good and the bartender is a cool guy.

In other news, I've just scheduled by first Poetry Boot Camp of the year. The details:

STUART ROSS'S POETRY BOOT CAMP
Saturday, February 28, 10am-5 pm (w/ 45-minute lunch break)

Christie/Dupont area
$75 includes materials, light snacks
 & a book by Stuart Ross
To register, write Stuart at hunkamooga@sympatico.ca

A relaxed but intensive 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 writing strategies and relevant readings from the works of poets from Canada and abroad. Arrive with an open mind, and leave with a heap of new poems!

MY BIO

I am the author of six full-length poetry collections, including the acclaimed I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press) and Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New & Selected (ECW Press). DC Books recently published my newest collection, Dead Cars in Managua. I'm Poetry Editor for Mansfield Press and Fiction & Poetry Editor for This Magazine. I also writes a regular column — "Hunkamooga," which recently received props from a New York Times Book Review writer — for the literary magazine sub-Terrain. For nearly 25 years, I've led writing workshops and I've brought my popular Poetry Boot Camp to venues across Canada. In 2009, Freehand Books will release my second short-story collection, Buying Cigarettes For The Dog.

Please spread the word.

Over and out.