Sound poeming, Cigs, Mansfield and Mr. John Lavery

The Figure of Speech sessions went really well last week. Both nights were very distinct, with different things happening musically, dancefully and textually. The biggest thrill for me was doing some sound-poem work. Well, that and collaborating with amazing artists in other disciplines. Looking forward to catching a few of the future entries in the Figure of Speech series.

On the Cigarettes front, there are 32 holds now at Toronto Public Library for the book, and 13 copies on order. I'll almost be disappointed when the books finally get into the system and the number of holds drops.

And over at Mansfield, we're ramping up activity for this fall's releases. Spent the last couple days typesetting Robert Earl Stewart's fantastic debut collection, Something Burned Along the Southern Border. Next up is Jim Smith's Back Off, Assassin: New & Selected Poems, and meanwhile, Tom Walmsley is working away on his novel Dog Eat Rat. Other fall titles include re-releases of a couple of Pier Giorgio Di Cicco's vintage titles and a book on literary Toronto by Amy Lavender Harris.

And at Joyland, it's worth checking out John Lavery's exhilaratingly strange and smart new short story in the Montreal section of the site. Lavery is one of the finest short-story writers in Canada and should be receiving an avalanche of attention.

Over and out.