There’s a new journal on the block: Amodern 1: The Future of the Scholarly Journal with articles from “the famous journal Explorations, co-edited by Marshall McLuhan and Edmund Carpenter in the 1950s” to the new ” ecology of scholarship (books, journals, conferences, websites, tweets, etc.), raising the question of how journals should focus their efforts to best contribute to scholarly communication.”
Gwynn Scheltema, with Some Prompting
Sometimes poetry needs a constraint for an excuse to get in shape. Tomorrow at 6:45-7:45 Gwynn Scheltema will be faciliating the Tree Seed Series Workshop on playing with constraints.
Gwynn was a founding editor for Lichen, Arts & Letters Preview. Her fiction and poetry have been published in literary journals, anthologies, and magazines. She is one of five poets featured in One Ticket Five Rides (Whirling Dervish Press, 2003). She is one of the facilitators at Writescape retreat.
in April she’s doing a class on boosting creativity, self-confidence and productivity which runs along the Artist’s Way. Tomorrow she’ll be presenting a word’s way into ways of writing,
Explore poetic constraints and look at what various Oulipo practitioners have created, including poems by Joe Brainard, Christian Bök, and Inger Christensen. Then play with generative devices that will ideally, propel your writing forward into places you may or may not have anticipated it could go.
Afterwards she will have on hand (for sale) her 122 page textbook Inspiration Station. Ruth Walker and Gwynn Scheltema wrote this prompt book to “capture the “being on a writing retreat” feeling so you can escape to write anywhere, anytime. Nudge your creative muse for a few minutes, or set aside an entire day for creativity, imagination and discovery.”
Ottawa Public Library Poetry Workshops
Writers are hosting poetry workshops at branches of the Ottawa Public Library:
Monty Reid on March 2nd,
Peter Richardson on April 6th,
Sandra Ridley, April 13th
David O’Meara on April 20th, and
Stephen Brockwell on April 27th.
Workshops are free. One needs to do early registration and get poems in ahead of time. More info on poetry in OPL programming.
Custom ordered poems as gifts
Want a personalized poem for you or as a gift? donate $10 to VERSeFest and I’ll do it. I’ll make a personalized poem of an acrostic of your name. This offer expires in 7 days.
fw: Layton Reloaded Conference
Registration is now open for “Whatever Else”: An Irving Layton Symposium, May 3-5, 2013.
You are cordially invited to attend “Whatever Else”: An Irving Layton Symposium, the 41st instalment of the annual Canadian Literature Symposium hosted by the Department of English at the University of Ottawa. This will be 3-day gathering featuring paper presentations by 17 literary critics; a film screening and director’s talk by Donald Winkler (Poet: Irving Layton Observed, NFB 1986; Red Carpet for the Sun, Diversus 2002); a round-table discussion of Layton’s life and legacy with Layton biographer Elspeth Cameron, anthologist, editor and poet Seymour Mayne, and poet-critic George Elliott Clarke; a keynote address by Canada’s premier Layton scholar, Brian Trehearne; and an evening of literary readings and performances inspired by the Layton Reloaded poetry project.
Though he was once a towering figure both nationally and internationally, scholarly interest in Layton has dwindled since the mid-1980s. The goal of the symposium is to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Layton’s contribution to Canadian literature and society by way of an examination of his work from a variety of novel perspectives.
The registration cost is $90 for academics and full-time instructors ($45 for the under-employed and retirees). There is no charge for graduate or undergraduate students, but they must register in advance of the symposium. Registration forms can be downloaded from the Canadian Symposium website at www.canlit-symposium.ca
The program is here.