Editor’s Notes

Greetings Readers,

We have a rich issue of Bywords.ca for you this month, featuring poems by three local poets and two reviews. rob mclennan reviews Handfuls of Bone by Monica Kidd and Rob MacLeod's offers his review of Henry Beissel's latest poetry collection, Coming to Terms with a Child. I hope you enjoy the issue.

On September 15 the day this issue goes live, Bywords will be participating in AIDS Walk for Life in order to raise awareness and money to help organizations that support people in our community living with AIDS/HIV. Thanks to the generous support of people from both Ottawa and elsewhere, I am pleased to say that we have reached our fundraising goal of $500. Thanks to all who helped. You're good people.

The next event on the Bywords roster is our annual John Newlove Poetry Reading and Awards Ceremony on October 26. Once again the Ottawa International Writers Festival is kind enough to include us in their program. At the John Newlove Award Reading, we will launch Miss Canada (international), the chapbook of rob mclennan, who was the recipient of last year's award. We will have readings from the winner and honourable mentions of the 2012 award. Our judge this year was the prolific and multi-talented Gary Barwin.

Every year I invite one of the musicians who has performed at our Bywords Quarterly Journal launches for an encore at the John Newlove Poetry Award. I'm very pleased that this year's performer will be the talented and skilled musician, singer-songwriter Neil Gerster. It's an event not to be missed. And it's free! Check the festival schedule and the Bywords.ca calendar for all the great readings, interviews, musical performances, talks and even a radio play at this fall's festival. www.writersfestival.org.

This is a busy time of year for Bywords. Following our John Newlove Poetry Award reading will be our fall Bywords Quarterly Journal launch in early November. We will also be one of the vendors at the ottawa small press book fair taking place at the end of November. We'll have chapbooks and issues of the Bywords Quarterly Journal for sale.

I hope to see you at one of these events soon.

Thanks to our selection committee:

Janie Beriault
Gwen Guth
Pamela Mosher
Carol A. Stephen
JC Sulzenko

And a big thank you to the City of Ottawa for funding us once again this year. It is because of the City and the community and you that we are able to do what we do.

If you have comments, suggestions, questions or a sparkly white tutu to offer, please contact me at amanda@bywords.ca

For regular event updates, please follow us on Twitter or join our FaceBook fan page.

Sincerely,

Amanda Earl