Mansfield Press fall book tour starts on Sunday!

There is so much going on, my head is spinning, Linda Blair-like. I promise, though, there will be no projectile vomiting.

Here's what's happening on Sunday. I'm leaving Cobourg for the village of St. George, Ontario, to kick off the Mansfield fall book tour. Well, sort of kick off the tour. Laura Farina already launched her wonderful second poetry collection, Some Talk of Being Human, in Vancouver back in November. The other books we're sending out into the world are Frank Davey's poetry collection Poems Suitable for Current Material Conditions, Nelson Ball's Some Mornings, Christine Miscione's Carafola, and, in Toronto, Corrado Paina's Cinematic Taxi.

So here's what's coming up over the next week:

Sunday, November 30, 2 pm — St. George, ON
Adelaide Hoodless Hunter Homestead, 359 Blue Lake Road, west of Hwy. 24
Readings + screening of Catherine Stevenson's Nelson Ball & Barbara Caruso / Home Project / A Photo Documentary
Featuring Nelson Ball, Frank Davey, Laura Farina, Christine Miscione
Brian David Johnston will read for Nelson Ball

Sunday, November 30, 7 pm — London, ON
Mykonos Restaurant, 572 Adelaide St N
Readings by Frank Davey, Laura Farina, Christine Miscione
Stuart Ross will read for Nelson Ball

Monday, December 1, 7:30 pm — Toronto
Monarch Tavern, 12 Clinton Street
Frank Davey, Laura Farina, Christine Miscione, Corrado Paina
Stuart Ross will read for Nelson Ball
Nelson Ball & Barbara Caruso / Home Project / A Photo Documentary, by Catherine Stevenson, will play continuously on TV screen

Tuesday, December 2, 7 pm — Cobourg, ON
Impresario Artisan Market, 37 King Street West
Readings by Frank Davey, Laura Farina, Christine Miscione
Stuart Ross will read for Nelson Ball
Nelson Ball & Barbara Caruso / Home Project / A Photo Documentary, by Catherine Stevenson, will play continuously on TV screen

Wednesday, December 3, 7 pm — Ottawa
Black Squirrel Books, 1073 Bank Street
Readings by Frank Davey, Laura Farina, Christine Miscione
jwcurry will read for Nelson Ball

All events free. Books for sale.

It's an exciting season. This is Frank Davey's first book with Mansfield Press, and it's a provocative and wild ride. I first met Frank back in the late 1970s when I took a couple of creative writing courses with him at York University. Our paths have crossed many times since then, but this is the first time we've had an editor/writer relationship. From Weeds to Capitalistic Affections! to this new book, Davey has explored a lot, and deeply, in his poetry.

As for Christine Miscione, I met her back in the fall of 2010 when I was writer-in-residence at Queen's University. Each week, she would slip 20 or 30 pages of a brilliant and harrowing novel underneath my door. That novel has come a long way, and it's very exciting to help usher it into the hands of the reading public. Christine is an original and uncompromising fiction writer, and this is the second book in what is going to be a remarkable literary trajectory.

Nelson Ball has always been a favourite poet of mine—and of so many others. I first met him in the late 1990s, I think, when he and his wife, Barbara Caruso, lived in Toronto, before their move to Paris, Ontario. A couple of years after Barbara's death in 2009, I worked with Nelson on the first full-length manuscript he'd publish without Barbara seeing it first. It's such a pleasure to work with Nelson again. I've learned so much from the experience and enjoyed the camaraderie immensely.

We've waited a long time for Laura Farina's follow-up to her award-winning 2005 debut from Pedlar Press. I met Laura nearly ten years ago, when we both worked at Centauri Summer Arts Camp and I remember her first launch, for which she packed the front of the Cameron House on Queen Street West in Toronto. Laura's poetry is a lot of fun, and often very dark within that fun, and always very smart, and it was a lot of fun to work with her on this new collection. (The amazing cover painting is by the talented-as-heck Jeannie Richardson, who I met when I was a mere teenager.)

Those are the four books that are coming out under the "a stuart ross book" imprint. The other volume in the mix, published under the broader Mansfield Press umbrella, is Mansfield veteran Corrado Paina's very unusual new collection, which is a sort of remix of an older book of his, Hoarse Legend—here, that book is, as I understand it, translated into a language of Corrado's own invention. I'm looking forward to hearing him read those mysterious and playful lines aloud in Toronto.

You can check out the covers of the new books on the Mansfield website. (I designed Frank's and Laura's!) Hope to see you at one of our five stops!

Over and out.