Editor’s Notes

Happy Holidays, dear readers.

Please enjoy the five poems in the issue and a review by rob mclennan on Stuart Ross' "You Exist, Details Follow" (Anvil Press, 2012).

With the holidays coming, I invite you to stop by the Bywords.ca store to pick up poetry chapbooks from the winners of the John Newlove Poetry Award.

In 2013, we had a successful fundraiser for the Cornerstone Women's Shelter and raised money through Ottawa's AIDS Walk for Life. We published the final issue of the Bywords Quarterly Journal, twelve months of poetry and a year's worth of literary and spoken word events. We provided you with information about contests, calls for submission, workshops, festivals and the activities of local writers, publishers and literary associations. Thank you to the City of Ottawa for funding us in 2013. And thanks to you, dear readers, poets, event organizers, publishers, book store owners, managers, and all those who have participated in all our shenanigans this year.

Thanks to the Bywords.ca team, including Charles Earl, who keeps the site running, has a firm hand on the budget and produces gorgeous chapbooks, our advisory editors, Steven Artelle and Heather Ferguson and our 2013 selection committee, which included Janie Beriault, Gwen Guth, Beth Ann Hubbert, Fiona Mitchell, Pamela Mosher, Kemisha Newman, Catina Noble, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Sarah-Grace Ross, Carol A. Stephen, and JC Sulzenko.

Finally a thanks to this month's selectors for choosing the poems published in the December issue of Bywords.ca:

Janie Beriault
Beth Ann Hubbert
Fiona Mitchell
Pamela Mosher
Kemisha Newman
Catina Noble
Claudia Coutu Radmore
Sarah-Grace Ross
Carol A. Stephen
JC Sulzenko

If you have comments, suggestions or a bowl of coconut gelato to share, please contact me at amanda@bywords.ca

On behalf of Bywords.ca, I wish you happy holidays and a happy new year. May 2014 be full of love, joy and poetry!

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Thanks for reading!

Amanda Earl