Editor’s Notes

Happy almost spring dear readers,

Hope you've adjusted to the American time change. What better way than to read poetry right here? Our March issue features the work of three current residents: Andrew, cb and Christian.

I am pleased to note that we continue to receive a large quantity of submissions from current and former Ottawans. The spring marks an increase in literary activity here in Ottawa. The Bywords quarterly reading will be held at Chapters downtown on Sunday, April 1 at 2:00 pm to launch the spring issue of the Bywords Quarterly Journal and celebrate the start of the BQJ's fifth year of publication.

Following that will be the spring edition of the Ottawa International Writers Festival. Stay tuned for more details on the festival as we receive them. Let's hope there's lots of poetry.

The Bywords editing team, along with 2006 Newlove Poetry Award winner Roland Prevost, is busy working on the manuscript for his chapbook, which we will launch at the fall writers festival.

Our own editors are being published in other publications or are working on new publications as editors such as the Ottawa Arts Review and Brown Bag Lunch. Check the links page for these publications.

Lots of local on line and print publications have calls for submission out. Support your local writing community by submitting poems and prose to the publications.

There are workshops in both fiction and poetry to be taken this spring. Check the news section for more information.

With visions of tulips dancing in our heads, we are all preparing to finally bid adieu to the cold winter. This month's issue will help you do that with poems about politicians leaping out of surprising places, semiotics and Al Purdy.

Thanks to this month’s selection committee:

Kelly Clarke, Marcus McCann, Megan McGrath, Kemisha Newman, Melissa Upfold, Victoria Vernell, and Betty Warrington-Kearsley.

If you have comments, bouquets of tulips or songs to serenade me with, please e-mail me at editor@bywords.ca or see me at a reading.

Amanda Earl