Editor’s Notes

Happy February,

A bunch of groundhogs were consulted over pancakes and coffee and they all had different opinions about when winter will end. I hope this issue brings you a small dose of spring.

Our big news is that the judge for the 2008 John Newlove Poetry Award will be George Bowering. So send us your poems. All poems published on bywords.ca between September, 2007 and August, 2008 will be eligible for consideration for the award.

This month we feature poems by University of Ottawa student Joe Hickey and Canterbury Arts student Sami Alwani. I'm always pleased to see both the quantity and quality of submissions we receive from students.

In addition to the poetry, you can also check out the Local Scene where you'll find Catharine Carroll's report on our reading in January: Bywords Warms the Night V. Our next reading will take place in April.

Speaking of spring, I'm gearing up for the exciting literary season. We haven't heard yet about the line-up for the Ottawa International Writers Festival, but knowing the organizers, it's going to be great. And here's something you might not have heard about....in early May, Robert Kroetsch, Dennis Cooley, Frank Davey, Christian Bök, Louis Cabri, Stephen Cain and other luminaries of the postmodern literary world will be gathering in Ottawa as part of the Canadian Literature Symposium at the University of Ottawa: Re: Reading the Postmodern (May 9-11). Check out the news section for a link to information. The spring line-up for the A B Series, the Dusty Owl, Tree and Sasquatch reading series also looks very promising with poets like John Newlove Poetry Award winner Sean Moreland, Stephen Brockwell, Stan Dragland and more. And of course, check out the Bywords literary calendar for more events and more information.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Andrew Faulkner, Stéphanie Lafleur, Marcus McCann, Kemisha Newman, Megan Rennie, and Victoria Vernell.

Thanks also to our contributors and to those of you who submitted work this month. Without your submissions, we are nothing. Keep them coming!

If you have comments or left-over chocolate valentines to send my way, feel free to e-mail me at editor@bywords.ca or stop by and say hi at a reading.

Amanda