Pivot and the dog

Feels like it's been a while since I've done a reading in Toronto, but I've been writing a lot. Carey Toane, who runs the Pivot Readings at the Press Club (formerly the I.V. Lounge Reading Series), has asked me to pinch-hit for some slumdog who backed out at the almost-last minute. So on Wednesday, I'm giving my first reading of 2009. I'll be reading mainly poetry, but I'm gonna cram in a little burst of fiction too. I'm really down on readings where the bar makes lots of money and the writers get squat, so I told Carey I was going to put out a tip jar for myself. At which point Carey made the event PWYC, for the first time. I think that's an awesome decision and I hope she continues it, even when gripers like me aren't reading. Here are the details:

PIVOT READINGS AT THE PRESS CLUB
Hosted by Carey Toane
Wednesday, January 28, 2008
8 p.m. at the Press Club,
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC.

Featuring: Kerry Clare, Stuart Ross and James Sandham

Kerry Clare is a writer and a reader. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The New Quarterly, Descant, The Toronto Star, The Globe & Mail, and she regularly writes for the Descant blog. In 2007, she graduated from the Creative Writing Masters Program at the University of Toronto. She writes about books and reading online at Pickle Me This.

Stuart Ross published his first literary pamphlet on the photocopier in his dad’s office one night in 1979. Through the 1980s, he stood on Toronto’s Yonge Street and sold over 7,000 poetry and fiction chapbooks. He is the co-founder of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair and now a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective, Poetry Editor at Mansfield Press, and Fiction & Poetry Editor at This Magazine. He is the author of two collaborative novels, a collection of stories, a book of essays, and six full-length poetry books, and edited the anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (The Mercury Press). This spring, Freehand Books releases his first story collection in more than a decade, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog.

James Sandham was born in St. Catharines, Ontario, and grew up in Fonthill. He has a degree in Political Science from the University of Guelph. Since graduating in 2006 he has been living and writing in Toronto, with his beautiful wife, Desiree. His new book is called The Entropy of Aaron Rosclatt, from Clark-Nova Books.

http://pivotreadings.wordpress.com

In the meantime, I'm working on organizing a reading in March for my Chicago pal Richard Huttel. Also on the bill so far is David W. McFadden. More news on that one as the details become clear. And my Toronto launch for Buying Cigarettes for the Dog is crystallizing, as are launches and readings in Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, the Kootenays, Calgary, Edmonton, and Windsor.

Over and out.