Editor’s Notes

Greetings readers and welcome to our June issue. I hope spring has been treating you well and you are geared up for a wonderful summer of reading poetry and attending the numerous literary events that Ottawa has to offer.

Our issue this month features poems by current Ottawa residents Luminita Suse and Steven Artelle. Steven is responsible for the wonderful line art of Ottawa you see on the cover of the Bywords Quarterly Journal, not to mention being part of the former Bywords monthly team and a great help in getting Bywords.ca off the ground by offering advice to us on the site at its early stages. I seem to remember sending out e-mails to people over Christmas, 2002, and Steven, thankfully answering our requests for feedback. He is on the Bywords team as one of our advisors, along with Heather Ferguson, one of the founders of the Bywords monthly magazine in 1990.

On May 28, 2011, we held our Cornerstone Fundraiser at the Manx Pub and it was a wonderful success. The generous patrons and audience members helped us to raise $420. Thanks to the readers, our musical performer, Jesse Cole and David O'Meara, Manx stalwart for letting us have our reading at the Manx and being there to make things run smoothly. Our next reading will be on Sunday, July 17 at 2pm at Collected Works Bookstore in its newly renovated colossal book-filled space, perfect for poetry readings.

Bywords will be at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair on Saturday, June 25, 2011, along with numerous other small presses and writers. Be sure to attend. If you have any interest in small magazines, chapbooks, small and independent publishing, this is the place to be. You'll pick up some great buys and wonderful finds as well. I always do. And for those of you who get to the Bywords table early enough, we'll have a small gift for you, a token of appreciation for your ongoing support and interest…while supplies last.

Thanks to this month's selection committee:

Janie Beriault
Megan McGrath
Christine McNair
Kemisha Newman
Claudia Coutu Radmore
Sarah-Grace Ross
Carol A. Stephen
JC Sulzenko

And thanks to those who have submitted poems this month.

If you have questions, suggestions, comments or baked goods, please e-mail me at amanda@bywords.ca

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Amanda Earl