Editor’s Notes

Bywords is hopping with the onset of autumn. September still feels like the start of a new year to me, a perpetual student. I’ve been talking to many members of the literary community as we go into a heightened season of literary events. Some of the upcoming highlights will be the Ottawa International Writers Festival and the Spoken WordLimpics, both in October at the National Library.

Here’s a special invitation to attend Bywords’ launch of “Moments, Not Monuments: Remembering John Newlove” at the Library and Archives Canada on October 2 at 2:00 pm as part of the Writers Festival. We will have 9 readers and Mélissa Laveaux will serenade us with her beautiful voice and guitar. And the admission is free!

Then on October 17, we will launch our fall issue of the Bywords Quarterly Journal at Chapters downtown at 2:00 pm. Our musical guests for the afternoon will be The Platonics. Check out their mind expanding melodies at www.platonics.ca.

Don’t forget to attend the Small Press Book Fair at the Jack Purcell Centre on October 16. You’ll be able to buy copies of the BQJ plus the latest Friday Circle chapbook from last year’s University of Ottawa creative writing class.

This month’s issue features three women: Marianne Bluger, Heather Cardin and Mary Margert Zielinski who invoke the spell of absence, death and remembrance in their spell binding poems. This month’s poets remind us that fall is a season for reflection and often for mourning.

Thank you to September’s selection committee: Joe Goski, Stéphanie Lafleur, Sarah Ruffolo, Betty Warrington-Kearsley, and Christine Zadorozny.

I’m looking forward to meeting you all at fall readings around town. If you have any comments, questions, kudos or donations, please email me at editor@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl