Editor’s Notes

Greetings dear readers,

I am pleased to announce that the City of Ottawa has awarded Bywords.ca project funding for 2018. We are very grateful to the City for funding us once again.

July's edition features Susan McMaster's review of Henry Beissel's haiku and tanka collection, What If Zen Gardens…, put out by Guernica Editions last year, and poems about family, heritage, self-esteem, self-improvement and birds. I hope you enjoy the issue.

How are you faring this summer? Are you taking advantage of the slower pace of things in the city to read more, to write more? Don't forget to send your poems to Bywords.ca. Take a look at the News section of the site to find out about other calls for submission, contests, workshops and retreats. Ottawa's poet laureate, Jamaal Jackson Rogers is hosting and organizing an intensive five-day retreat in August. More details will appear shortly in the News about this exciting opportunity for spoken word poets.

We are busy preparing for this year's John Newlove Award celebration at the Ottawa International Writers Festival in October. It will include the launch of the chapbook of Doris Fiszer, last year's winner, the music of local troubadour, Subrhaj Singh, the announcement of this year's winner and honourable mentions, and readings. Stay tuned for more details.

It was a pleasure to see many of you at the spring edition of the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair last month, both emerging and established writers. Remember, if you have any questions about submitting your work to Bywords.ca, please feel free to e-mail me or chat with me on FaceBook or on Twitter. I encourage you to read submission guidelines on the site. And if you don't write, but enjoy reading poetry, I hope you take the time to read the poems in this and previous issues and check out our links section to extend your reading.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Wes Babcock
Robert Martin Evans
Jason Lamantia
Margo Lapierre
Tanya Mead
Kemisha Newman
Catina Noble
Jade Riordan
Carol A. Stephen
JC Sulzenko
Ben Toner
Rob Thomas

If you have comments, questions, suggestions, or bad puns to offer, please contact me at amanda@bywords.ca.

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