It’s a Sunday in September, and as an act of revenge against all the construction companies snarling Toronto traffic with their new condo builds, books take to the streets. Pavilions go up all around Queen’s Park Crescent diverting traffic east to Bay & Yonge and west to Huron & Spadina. Concrete trucks may rumble the ground and cranes may block the sun, but books will have their day. It’s Word On The Street, a celebration of all things literary. There are presses small and large. Authors reading and signing and mugging and pontificating. Newspapers editorializing and informing. Children’s books. First Nations books. Comic books. Vanity presses. Religious tracts. Tents for prizes. Freebies. Roast corn.
By natural inclination, I drift towards the indie presses, local voices, lone figures crying out in the wilderness. Here’s a small sampling of what/who I meet:
Quattro Books
Starting at the south end, I completely ignore the Scotiabank Giller Prize Bestsellers Stage and start with a visit to Quattro Books instead, a local publisher of poetry and novellas that describes itself as “post-national” and celebrates those experimenting with new forms and those “underrepresented because of linguistic, stylistic and cultural obstacles.” They’ve opened Q Space at 382 College Street, a venue for selling their books and coffee (which, along with single-malt whiskey, seems mysteriously necessary to all literary experience). Q Space also has a gallery, and space for holding workshops.
Mansfield Press
Editor, Stuart Ross, is working the booth, hawking Mansfield titles alongside his own books of poetry and short stories. What draws me to the booth is a stack of George Bowering’s latest (101st) book, How I Wrote Certain of My Books. Rumour has it that Mansfield Press will be publishing Bowering’s next book of poetry later this year.
Tightrope Books
Another local small press, I’ve encountered Tightrope before. See my review of Sean Stanley’s Etcetera & Otherwise. Tightrope publishes an annual edition, The Best Canadian Poetry In English. The 2012 issue is edited by Carmine Starnino. I’m not sure how you can call it the 2012 edition when 2012 isn’t over yet, but that’s not my problem. On October 15th, you can catch 5 years of Best Canadian Poetry – live readings at the Revival Bar – 783 College St.
ECW Press
Yet another local small press I’ve encountered before. See my review of Joey Comeau’s Overqualified. ECW is selling two of Comeau’s other books: One Bloody Thing After Another, and The Complete Lockpick Pornography. The girl at the booth raves about the former, saying it’s the reason she wanted to work at ECW Press. Naturally, I buy both books. Expect reviews shortly.
Wooden Rocket Press
WRP is the creation of Dave Proctor. Check out the web site which includes blogged fiction and an online store to buy their current offerings. These include Blank Slate, a series of postapocalyptic novellas set in Toronto after the great Condo crash when the city’s core is abandoned to artists. Or so I surmise. I’ll report more accurately once I’ve read them. So far there are two installments with a third soon to be released.
Pamela Williams
I’m surprised at the number of individuals who have rented space at WOTS. Pamela Williams, for example, a photographer selling several collections of photographs of cemetery sculpture. Having spent an afternoon last week photographing Glasgow’s necropolis, I feel an affinity for Williams’ work. I buy a copy of her photos from cemeteries in Paris, Milan and Rome. She’s offering a slide lecture “Photographs of European Cemetery Sculpture” from Buenos Aires, Milan, Genoa & Paris, October 21, 2012 – www.interlog.com/~romantic
David G. Hallman
David is hanging out at the Author Solutions booth, a service he has used to publish two books. The first is the memoir, August Farewell, which I reviewed here. The second is a novel, Searching For Gilead (expect a review soon). David is working on a collection of interconnected short stories that tumbles him further down the fiction rabbit hole. We speak about the tightrope fiction writers face, seeking to represent experience authentically without turning the writing into disguised autobiography. We also speak about the self-publishing conundrum: we aspire to authentic self-expression but are forced to engage in shameless self-promotion. David seems to have struck a healthy balance in his efforts to engage potential readers without being cheesy or self-indulgent. Follow him on twitter. I think he’s struck the right tone. It’s something to emulate.