Another fair wrapped. Next Nov 14th, back at the Tom Brown Arena. I didn’t try to talk to everyone, or man the table every minute, nor did I get to every table I intended, getting caught up in conversations, but it’s all good.

I finished the first printing of Mono at 52 copies and sold a bunch. So that was nice. Last year I barely covered the cost of the table. This year was more normal, just under $300 sold from everything and a whack of new books and chapbooks to read.

New chapbooks: T, W & O (Puddles of Sky Press, 2026) from Michael e. Casteels delivered at the fair. Sold a handful of those, pictured below.

I made another printing of last fall’s Crime and Ornament since it sold out last year, but this time with trimmed pages and staple binding.

I am at a loss of how to get these images to display in any orderly fashion but here’s a couple crowd shots. Since one vendor said I photograph him each year in time lapse until he dies, I’ve been more hesitant to rigorously catalogue all the regulars.

Can’t seem to get text between photos or captions, heaven or WordPress help me, but there’s a phafours author, Tamsym, dropping by, and Sonya with a photo op of buying the first copy of Mono. And the bottom one is Luminita and I sharing a table. She brought her tanka and haiku books and her cards she made.

If you cannot afford, or cannot wait, an ebook version of Mono is at digitally yours.

Last Monday I started collecting leaves and testing designs. I have a post about the earlier stage of inking for making the chapbook covers at the Ottawa small press almanac… The chapbook is coming out on Saturday June 20th at the small press fair. (Another post is coming elsewhere Sunday afternoon about haiku. I’ll let you know.)

Assembly was greatly sped up once the two hour search for my long-armed stapler turned it up, right by the Christmas wrap, which makes a sort of retroactive sense since I last used it in December.

The first dozen are done-done. The print run I’m aiming for is 51. (Printer keeps overheating so plodding along).

It really helps to have page numbers and the numbered mock up to make sure pages go in the right order, and the cheat sheet of what size to do page and cover trimming. Trimming’s not so bad once you get into the production-line rhythm.

• You can see some detail inside. One monoku per page on tent folded chapbook. An inner translucent sheet to add a little something. Overall, chic, clean, and elegant I think. And with some fabulous poems by haikuist doing one-line wonders.
• Antoinette Cheung
• Claudia Coutu Radmore
• Chuck Brickley
• Dorothy Mahoney
• Ellen Cooper
• Hifsa Ashraf
• Jim Kacian
• kjmunro
• LeRoy Gorman
• Marshall Hryciuk
• Maxianne Berger
• Michael Dylan Welch
• Michael Dudley
• Mike Montreuil
• Pamela Cooper
• Roland Packer

Afternoon of Saturday, June 20, 2026 in the Main Hall of the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Avenue (at Lyon St. S), Ottawa. Come see it and all the other literary goodies on offer.

Or, by, you know, email to order, bumping into me, luck. Contributor copies in the mail soon. (Waiting on a few addresses.)

Want to get stocked up on more odd and intriguing things to read? the ottawa small press book fair, spring 2026 is on this weekend
–the afternoon until 5pm of Saturday, June 20, 2026 in the Main Hall of the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Avenue (at Lyon St. S).

There was a cancellation so I will table, and hang around talking. I’ll have the new title, MONO of one-line poems. I’ll show you a picture once it’s made (tree)flesh.

Also, happen to have read some haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun that lit you up? Contact me and see if we can get your review of it up somewhere, print or online.

A few more coming in the next few weeks, but here are three I’ve done, John’s Table by Lesle Lewis (Piżama Press, 2026), and Tamil Terrains: poems, translations, reflections, edited by Nedra Rodrigo and Geetha Sukumaran (Trace Press, 2025) and The Poet’s Cookbook, edited by André Narbonne

It’s summer, for sure this time. Gave my author site a cleanup for broken links and to be better organized. Read a bit. Sent a couple more submissions. Took a walk. Transcribed some.

Birdsong of various chirps, and another, somewhere among cat’s meow, falsetto donkey and door hinge. Took a horsefly, a wasp, a few deerfly out to see the sky. Snacked, drank, read some more. Received a few more submissions for my one-line chapbook call. Wrote some more.