my imprint logo, residency at Queen's University, & other stuff

So, publisher Denis De Klerck at Mansfield Press has given me my own imprint, under which I'll publish some fiction, some non-fiction, and mainly poetry. Have I mentioned this here before? I'm not sure. Anyway, the first two titles that will be released under the "a stuart ross book" imprint are set to launch in October, at the press's 10th-anniversary hoedown. The books are both first collections of poetry: Goodbye, Ukulele, by Leigh Nash, and Stray Dog Embassy, by Natasha Nuhanovic.

I think the plan is that the previous books I've acquired for the press and edited will become retroactively "a stuart ross book" books. Those'd be titles by Alice Burdick, David W. McFadden, Lillian Necakov, Peter Norman, Jim Smith, Robert Earl Stewart, Steve Venright and Tom Walmsley. It'd be great if you could go buy tons of them so they go out of print and the logo can appear on the second printing.

Oh, my logo: there it is up there. I wanted it to be stark and a bit goofy, to maybe undercut any ego. Hey, it wasn't my idea to have my name in the imprint title!

Very sad that This Ain't the Rosedale Library has been closed. Pages and This Ain't both, in such a short period of time. What happens to small presses as indie booksellers close? Well, I think they'll have to push for direct sales to the public from their websites. You can visit Mansfield (and order books [free postage in Canada!]) right over here. Meanwhile, somebody oughta give Charlie Huisken a big shiny medal for all he's done in the past 30 years for the Toronto literary community. I look forward to seeing what he's up to next.

In other news, I'm going to be writer in residence at Queen's University in Kingston this fall. I just sent in my office hours, which was pretty exciting. I'm hoping to meet with a dozen students a week about their manuscripts, as well as doing various events in the off-campus community: workshops, stuff on radio, and readings (giving and hosting).

Also, after a lot of back-and-forth-and-back between me, ECW editor Michael Holmes and Underlines Studio designer Fidel Peña, we have a prototype cover for my 2011 novel, Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew. I hope to post it here soon.

I also hope to post soon exciting news of a Toronto visit by Chicago poet Gabriel Gudding, one of my favourite American writers. Stay tuned.

What else? Last week's Poetry Boot Camp was a sell-out and a lot of fun. Some good writing happened amid a really interesting group of people. That'll probably be my last Toronto Boot Camp until the new year.

Over and out.