Copies are printed and ready to go at $15 a piece. It looks pretty. (Admittedly I may be a biased speaker but Monique Desnoyers did a lovely job of visuals for sections.) been shed bore (Chaudiere Books, 2010) is being launched at 5 p.m. with The Dusty Owl Reading Series at Swizzles.
Swizzles is queer friendly and family friendly with a limited food menu and a bar. It’s downtown and downstairs from the Green Papaya, 246 Queen Street, Ottawa.
The music will be bluegrass by Call Me Katie with guitar, cello, bass, violin, [mandolin] and vocals. And fellow Sage Hiller Bernadette Wagner is joining me to open the reading. Her poetry collection book, This hot place is nominated for the First Book Award in the Saskatchewan Book Awards.

I’ll have a sparkly homemade catapult (decorated with words from the text) on hand to toss goodies (candies, nuts, cranberries, wasabi peas, and of course, my good friend chocolate).
It should be loads of fun.

Questionless Books at OpenBookToronto asked John W. MacDonald to finish a few phrases..

At its core, a Writer is… somewhere between f/5.6 to f/8
As opposed to an Author, who is… f/1.4
A Manuscript that’s ready to be read by others is… not a book
The smallest unit of narrative is… the sound of one page turning

He’s more than just pretty and skilled folks. But we knew that.
We’re both in OpenBookToronto the same week. I did the Proust Questionnaire. Here’s a sampler if you haven’t clicked.

What is your principal fault?
Please don’t ask someone else. Or, distractabi—
What is your greatest extravagance?
Time dawdling, but it’s rewarding.
What faults in others are you most tolerant of?
The things that are my strengths.
What do you value most about your friends?
The varied perspectives and the hugs. (Likewise, if I have to choose between two books, the perfect solution is getting them both.)
What characteristic do you dislike most in others?
Argyle, but mercifully the fashion is progressing its way to the department store’s baby girl aisle, which means it won’t be back for 30 more years.

Words are such fun toys, ain’t they?

You are invited to a poetry reading featuring Anne Le Dressay and Mary Lee Bragg on Saturday, November 6, at 7:00 p.m. at Bridgehead, 1277 Wellington St. Ottawa. [That’s the big one near Collected Works.]
Anne Le Dressay has been publishing poetry since the 1970’s. She has published two books, Old Winter (2007) and Sleep Is a Country (1997), as well as two chapbooks, “Woman Dreams” (1998) and “This Body That I Live In” (1979). She has worked as a professor of English Literature and creative writing. She now works for the government and is looking forward to retirement.
Mary Lee Bragg has published short stories in Canadian and American literary journals since the early 1990’s, and won the Ottawa Citizen short story contest in 1992. Her novel, Shooting Angels, was published in 2004. Since retiring from the federal public service in 2006, she has begun writing poetry — “now that I have time to concentrate.” She published a chapbook of poetry titled “How Women Work” in 2010.
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This is the second in a new monthly series of coffeehouse events called the SLOWest Coffee House @ Bridgehead. This event is organized by Sustainable Living Ottawa West (“SLOWest”) in collaboration with our neighbourhood Bridgehead coffeeshop. Admission will be “pay what you can.”
In a modest way, we’re hoping that the launch of SLOWest’s Bridgehead coffeehouse series (first Saturday of every month) will help our local community rediscover and reinvent the tradition of the coffeehouse as a place of community and connection, and a fertile ground for interesting conversations that matter.
The idea is to have a regular, predictable time and place for community members to come together in a relaxed way, be entertained with some music, stories or poetry, and enter into conversations about the things that matter to them.

Woo! A first. My poetry collection reviewed by Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston,

Pearl Pirie’s first collection of poetry, Been Shed Bore, is a dance with language
There is room in this world for the serious poetry built out of timber and stone. And there is also room in this world for poetry that gathers in clouds and flutters, that is fun and fresh. Pearl Pirie’s first trade collection of poetry, Been Shed Bore, is most definitely the latter.
It plays with you, its strongest poems coming on gusts of words that sort of travel allusively around each other.

Read the full review in the XPress.
Neato.

Two workshops with Ronnie R. Brown remain in the drop-in-series on poetic craft with the Tree reading series. She has been publishing poems for decades and is an experienced workshop leader with years of teaching poetry in classrooms.
Her Nov. 9th workshop will be on “a winning title — finding the best title to lure a reader in”. Participants are invited to bring some of their favorite titles.
On Dec 14th the topic then will be “Taking a chance — preparing your work and yourself for presentation to an audience. Be it an open set “quickie” or a full reading, preparation can make all the difference.”
We are then on Christmas break. The new season starts January 11th, January 25, February 8th and February 22nd. I’ll be facilitating those workshops on fine-tuning, editing and revision, among other things.
It runs year-round the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month with the Tree readings beginning at 8 p.m.
Come by 6:45 to 7:45 for the workshops in the same room at the Arts Court, Library Room, Floor 2A on 2 Daly Avenue just East of Rideau Center.