Versefest is coming in the last week of March from the 25th-30th.
What do we know so far? A lineup of local, regional, national and international is likely.
January 30th Rusty Priske announced “VERSeOttawa (with a little help from the Capital Poetry Collective) crowned the 2014 Ottawa Women’s Champion last night at the Sisters of Slam…Slam. Big round of applause for Roua Aljied!!”
The Women’s Showcase will be March 26th according to Verse Ottawa and somewhere I saw mention of who the 3 others nominated who do also a 20-25 minute solo set. (Where? What goes into twitters stays in twitter unretrievable.)
Tree announced their featured readers as part of Versefest on their upcoming events: David McFadden and Sue Goyette on March 27th.
Dusty Owl, which is changing venue, day and hour, announced their features for March 30th: Nina Berkhout, poet, winner of the Lampman Award, 2013, Jenna Tenn-Yuk, spoken word extraordinaire and Elizabeth Bachinsky, poet and reader from B.C
P.S. Saturday, March 29th: Souvankham Thamavongsa, Stephen Brockwell & Kathryn Mockler with Plan 99.
There’s also the Versefest Hall of Fame induction on March 30 of Amanda Earl and Danielle Gregoire.
What does that leave? About a dozen poets at least, depending on how many per series.
Last year also had Urban Legends (for slam), Factory Reading Series with a poetics panel, Sasquatch Writers (now dead after a long convalescence?), KaDo (for haiku), Arc Magazine, A B Series, In/Words, and Capital Slam.
We’ll all have to stay tuned. Hopefully not for long so word can get out and people can make hopes.