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CAA-NCR What’s Up in Lit in Ottawa, April 25 to May 8, 2016

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CAA LOGOhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parliament_Ottawa_Canada.jpg

NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION BRANCH (OTTAWA)

BIWEEKLY NOTICES FOR TWO WEEKS:  April 25 TO May 8, 2016

 Need more information on CAA-NCR?  Visit us at http://canadianauthors.org/nationalcapitalregion/

 TO ALL READERS: Please send all submissions & event notices in the body of an email; (the text needs to permit copy and paste. Exceptions: Accompanying images such as photos and book cover) to Carol Stephen at cstephen0@gmail.com

 

MEETINGS AND EVENTS

 CAA-NCR MAY MEETING: NATIONAL CAPITAL WRITING CONTEST (NCWC) AWARDS NIGHT

 DATE: Monday, May 9, 2016  (NOTE DAY CHANGE FOR THIS MEETING ONLY)
TIME: 7:00 – 9:00 pm
LOCATION:  Ottawa Public Library, Main Branch, 120 Metcalfe at Laurier, in the auditorium (downstairs)

CAA-NCR will present awards to the winning entries in the 2016 National Capital Writing Contest.

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in the Poetry and Short Story categories will read their winning entries, selected from among some of the finest writers in Ontario and Quebec.

We encourage everyone to attend, meet and mix with welcoming, friendly, compassionate, understanding writers of all genres and styles, and enjoy the refreshments.

Come and spend a fun two hours with us.


CANADIAN AUTHORS ASSOCIATION NEWS FROM NATIONAL

 Canadian Authors Emerging Writer Award  DEADLINE: April 30, 2016

Reminder: This award is for a Canadian writer under 30 deemed to show exceptional promise in the field of literary creation.  For guidelines and entry form, go to Submit for an Award

, where you’ll see info about all our literary awards. (Remember to scroll down to access the Emerging Writer Award details, guidelines and entry form.)

 

CANADIAN WRITERS’ SUMMIT 2016 June 15–19, 2016

 REGISTER NOW!

 What’s better than a writers’ conference organized by a writing organization? How about a writers’ superconference organized by over a dozen writing industry groups?

The Canadian Writers’ Summit will be a four-day event encompassing professional development seminars, panels, keynote presentations, policy discussions, public lectures, networking opportunities and social gatherings – in short, something for everyone. It will also include a day of programming from the annual Book Summit, which focuses on the publishing side of our sector.

 Key Facts about CWS 2016

Location

The Summit will take place at Harbourfront Centre, right on Toronto’s beautiful waterfront, with events being held both indoors and in tents outdoors.

Conference Rates

Member* Pricing:
Full Conference (3 full days of programming including Book Summit): $300 +HST
Friday & Saturday only (2-Day package): $200 +HST
Single Day: $125 +HST
Just the Book Summit (Thursday, June 16): $150 +HST
Ticketed Keynotes: $20 +HST

For more information and a list of member organizations visit here: http://canadianauthors.org/national/canadian-writers-summit-2016/

 

WORKSHOPS

 

WRITESCAPE AT THE ONTARIO WRITERS CONFERENCE UPCOMING:  MAY 1, 2016

Watch Your Language AND From Inspiration to Publication

May 1. Gwynn Scheltema and Ruth E. Walker are at the Ontario Writers’ Conference.

Gwynn is offering an advanced class: Watch Your Language. Dialect, foreign languages, accents and other linguistic touches provide diversity and authenticity to dialogue. Gwynn will help participants avoid character stereotypes so that what is being said is not overshadowed by how it’s being said. Gwynn’s popular workshops at the OWC are consistently highly rated and fully booked.

Ruth’s beginner workshop From Inspiration to Publication invites new writers to play with words through hands-on exercises and fun activities. Participants will risk a little and try on different forms of creative writing. Useful handouts offer tips on submitting material to the right market. Ruth will also serve as a Blue Pencil Mentor, offering helpful feedback in one-on-one discussions with writers about their manuscripts.  Gwynn and Ruth have been at the OWC since it launched, facilitating workshops, mentoring writers and enjoying the many speakers and learning opportunities that a comprehensive conference like this has to offer. To register, visit the Ontario Writers’ Conference.

 Upcoming 2016 Workshops

 

  • Write to Win: Techniques & Tips for First Place May 28, 2016. Learn how to make your entry stand out from the crowd. Whether you’re entering writing contests or submitting to agents and publishers, it’s all a contest. And many entries never make it past the first reader. Write to Win is all contest, all day, with exercises, surprises and prizes. Saturday, May 28, 2016, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Trent University Oshawa campus, 55 Thornton Road S., Oshawa REGISTER ONLINE. Registration includes all taxes, handouts/resource materials and light refreshments. Lunch is not included.
  • Offered On Demand Scrivener for Writers: The Basics Two evenings in an intimate class setting to get started in the ultimate writers’ toolkit. Scrivener’s all-in-one writing software has a learning curve that, once mastered, can fire up your manuscripts, organize your research, and reveal cool tricks for creative minds. Heather O’Connor (a.k.a. Dr. Scrivener) will show you how. Location: Private residence in Whitby area.

 

For more information on Writescape and to register for a retreat or workshop, visit: http://writescape.ca/site/

 

OTTAWA SUBMISSION CALLS AND OPPORTUNITIES

 

CITY OF OTTAWA YOUTH IN CULTURE PILOT PROGRAM

 The Youth in Culture Pilot Program provides direct funding to eligible individuals to support their development in becoming arts, culture and heritage professionals.

 

Youth in Culture Pilot Program

Program Objectives To support cultural development of youth aged 18-30 towards professional careers in arts, culture, and heritage. To empower youth to identify needs and gaps in their career development, and to support initiatives that lead to or benefit the applicant’s career in culture. To support activities that address the priorities identified in the Renewed Action Plan for Arts, Heritage, and Culture in Ottawa (2013 – 2018).

This program is intended to help cover living expenses and/or project expenses relating to:

Arts, culture, and heritage creation, production, and presentation projects. Arts, culture, and heritage festival and agricultural fair administration and/or management training opportunities

Training and mentorship opportunities for youth to work with established cultural workers and professionals within the arts, heritage, festivals and fairs sectors

 2016 Deadline Dates: Monday, May 2, 2016 at 4pm, Monday, August 8, 2016 at 4pm, Monday, September 26, 2016 at 4pm  MORE INFORMATION & APPLICATION AT: http://ottawa.ca/en/liveculture/youth-in-culture


BYWORDS.CA SUBMISSION CALL

             

DEADLINE:  The 15th of every month for the following month’s issue

Bywords.ca considers previously unpublished poetry from emerging and established poets for our online monthly magazine. We consider work by current and former residents, students and workers of Ottawa. We also publish poems by contributors to our predecessor, the Bywords Monthly Magazine.  FOR SUBMISSION INFORMATION VISIT www.bywords.ca  and click on Guidelines.  Amanda Earl, Managing Editor.  Bywords.ca’s literary events calendar here: http://www.bywords.ca/calendar/index.php with up-to-date info on NCR readings, book signings, writers’ circles, literary festivals, spoken word showcases & slams. Event submissions can be sent to events@bywords.ca

 

SUBMISSION OPPORTUNITIES 

 

 

  • CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! ACCEPTING: POETRY, REVIEWS, ESSAYS, AND INTERVIEWS for Vallum’s forthcoming issue, 13:2 “THE WILD” ! The wild is both outside us and inside us. The wild can take many forms. It is the unknown, the feared. It can be a landscape, or even the wild of the mind. It can be celebrated, or thought of in terms of a taboo, or a trap. How do you interpret “The Wild,” what does it bring out in you? What forms are still wild? Send us your “wildest” poems! DEADLINE: May 15, 2016 (postmarked) Please visit our website for submission guidelines: http://www.vallummag.com/submission.html

 

  • Ink Bottle Press & The Ontario Poetry Society Present: Memory and Loss ~ a Canadian Anthology of Poetry, Dedicated to the victims of Alzheimer’s. Editor & Compiler I.B. Iskov. Open to all poets living in Canada. Poems wanted on the themes of Dementia and Alzheimer’s.  This is not blind judging and this is not a contest. Submission fee $15. to help cover the cost of printing & postage. All profits from this project will be donated to The Alzheimer Society of Canada. Deadline June 15, 2016, postmark date. Send your submission, complete with cheque or money order payable to Mark Clement,  & mail to Attn: I.B. Iskov, Anthology Editor, #710 – 65 Spring Garden Ave., Toronto, Ont. M2N 6H9. Full details:  http://www.theontariopoetrysociety.ca/Anthology_Memory%20&%20Loss.htm

 

  • Antigonish Review Announces Two Writing Contests! GREAT BLUE HERON POETRY CONTEST & SHELDON CURRIE FICTION PRIZE $2,400 in Prizes! Deadlines: Fiction entries must be postmarked by June 1, 2016, Poetry must be postmarked by June 30, 2016 Guidelines: Previously published works, works accepted for publication or simultaneous submissions are ineligible. No electronic submissions, please. Fiction entries must be typed, double-spaced, one side of page only – poetry must be single-spaced. Please include a separate cover sheet containing your identifying information as well as the titles of all entries. Past winners may not enter. INFO: http://www.antigonishreview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=62

 

  • The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2016 is now open for entries, presenting an opportunity for emerging and established writers and poets to showcase their work and further their involvement in the literary world. Now in its ninth year, the award is an internationally renowned prize presented by Aesthetica Magazine and judged by literary experts. Prizes include: £500 each (Poetry Winner and Short Fiction Winner)/Publication in the Aesthetica Creative Writing/Annual One year subscription to Granta/Selection of books courtesy of Bloodaxe and Vintage/Consultation with Redhammer Management (Short Fiction Winner)/Full Membership to The Poetry Society (Poetry Winner). Short Fiction entries should be no more than 2,000 words. Poetry entries should be no more than 40 lines. Deadline 31 August 2016. To enter, visit aestheticamagazine.com/creativewriting

 

OUT AND ABOUT IN TOWN

 

MEETINGS, BOOK LAUNCHES AND POETRY READINGS ABOUT TOWN

 

COMING EVENTS:

 JUNE 4 PROSE IN THE PARK:  prose in park

Ottawa’s favourite open-air literary festival and book fair, Prose in the Park, will take place on June 4, 2016, 11 am – 6 pm in the Parkdale Park. And it is absolutely free. Everyone is welcome!  Prose in the Park (Prose des vents en français) is a blingual festival devoted to bringing together both established and emerging authors from across Canada. We are pleased to have some of the best authors of Montreal joining the upcoming festival. For more information on the event and featured authors, check out the 2016 program on our website at www.proseinthepark.com 

SMALL PRESS BOOK FAIR JUNE 18, 2016

 span-o (the small press action network – ottawa) presents: the Ottawa small press book fair

spring 2016 edition on Saturday, June 18, 2016 in room 203 of the Jack Purcell Community Centre (on Elgin, at 320 Jack Purcell Lane).

 General info:

noon to 5pm (opens at 11:00 for exhibitors)  admission free to the public.

$20 for exhibitors, full tables $10 for half-tables (payable to rob mclennan, c/o 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9; paypal options also available

To be included in the exhibitor catalog: please include name of press, address, email, web address, contact person, type of publications, list of publications (with price), if submissions are being considered and any other pertinent info, including upcoming ottawa-area events (if any). Be sure to send by June 10th if you would like to appear in the exhibitor catalogue. FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://smallpressbookfair.blogspot.ca/2016/01/the-ottawa-small-press-fair-spring-2016.html

NaPoWriMo 2016 FPR Impromptu #24 For the Ones at Shady Valley Residence

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Today’s FPR prompt Day 24 comes from Craig Dworki, quoted here:

I am most often interested in seeing what language can do that it didn’t know it could do — in finding the imaginary solutions to questions we never thought to ask. Rather than seek le mot juste — the right word to convey some meaning — I am usually more inclined to see what meanings might arise from materially structured language (“where once one sought a vocabulary for ideas, now one seeks ideas for vocabularies,” as Lyn Hejinian put it). What, I try to ask, does language itself want to convey when given the chance? The hardest part of the task is being quiet enough to listening closely.

Take an erasure poem (FPR is full of them) and then add words to fill in the empty spaces in order to create a new text that flows naturally and coherently. Words should fit exactly — to the letter — so that the result appears to be perfectly justified prose. Don’t cheat by kerning.

You can see the full post and other poems here: http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/impromptu-24-craig-dworkin/

For my source document I chose an erasure poem that I created during PoMoSco, last April’s FPR challenge (well, while not strictly erased, it was cut out, which to me is effectively the same. It was done last April, and I did not go back to the original source document to make sure I was not simply filling in what was there before. It actually reads like a poem still, so I decided to leave in the line breaks rather than create a “perfectly justified prose” text as specified.  The added text is in bold italics. Below today’s piece is the poem I used for this prompt.

Heliotrope flowers

Heliotrope flowers (Wikipedia)

 

For the ones at Shady Valley Residence

 

Look first at the lonely people who line the corridors every morning
silent    through choice or the effects of illness

the frail ones whose cares are internal and entrap them
in lives that are small and gray
they just bide their time in the slow slide downhill

Methuselahs the nurses wash
and dress, no longer able to care for themselves
this one has drunk her medicine derived from  the poppy
She      drowses in the common room. Her clothing    
carries the scent of Heliotrope, an old woman smell.  

On a table vases hold masses of flowers – wrap
the urine-and-antiseptic air in a mask of roses and carnations.

The clock proves        it is morning;
in the garden   the bees dance.
but inside not one old woman is listening
from her shell of silence.

The last hour has been filled with rounds, doctors
and nurses, pills and therapy for stiff limbs
and rusty voices.

Visitors sit with family outside, one man blows ash
from his trousers, then coughs           through a haze of smoke.
Not all the residents have guests today. You can tell who,
because they sit surrounded in
So much silence.

Carol A. Stephen
April 24, 2016

 

My original cut-up poem shown below is titled Time Methuselahs

EPSON MFP image

EPSON MFP image

 

NaPoWriMo 2016 FPR Impromptu 23 For the Field Stone Poets

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Today’s prompt goes back once again to the Found Poetry Review’s blog, and the post by Daniel Levin Becker, who is a member of the French Oulipo group of writers and mathematicians. He gives us his variation on an Oulipo form, the petit récapitul portatif.  It’s a rather lengthy set of instructions, but actually quite straightforward as you begin to work with it. Time constraints today (income tax deadline approaching!)  meant I went with the first things that each random article suggested to me but this method definitely will be one I revisit.  You can view the full post and links to other poems here

1. The poem consists of 10 lines total, in a 3-3-3-1 stanza distribution.
2. Each line is 9 syllables long. No meter is required.
3. The lines do not rhyme.
4. After each three-line stanza comes a list, in parentheses, of three words taken from one of each of the lines in the preceding stanza.
5. The poem is dated and addressed to a specific person (someone you know or someone you don’t).

Here’s how we’ll use it:
6. This link will direct you to a Wikipedia article in English, chosen at random. (You can also click on the fifth link down on the lefthand toolbar of any article.)
7. The first line in your poem will correspond to the first random article you see, the second to the second, and so on for all ten lines.
7a. You may replace up to two of your random articles with either a new random article or an article one click away from the original.
8. You may interpret “correspond to” however you choose. You can quote the article, paraphrase it, comment on it, take impressionistic inspiration from it, or what have you.
9. You may open ten random articles at once and plan out the content of your PRP, though still observing the order in which you opened them; you may also complete each line of the poem before allowing yourself to open the next article.
10. If you so choose, hyperlink each line—or the list word taken from it—to the corresponding article.

I was surprised at how the articles for the first few searches were about people and places so close to home, starting with a French school in Ottawa. In selecting articles I did make two substitutions where they were really short stubs and going far afield from where I was going with the poem. (Croatian nobility from the 1200’s for instance).  Starting then, with Ottawa, I considered each article for how they might tie in some way to the city.  Rather than dedicate to a single person, this piece is addressed to my Ottawa poetry group, The Field Stone Poets, Sylvia Adams, Gill Foss, Glenn Kletke, (sometimes Karen Massey) and Margaret Zielinski.  (The group is led by Sylvia Adams.)

April 23, 2016

for The Field Stone Poets

 

Thirty minutes northeast, Ottawa    parliament hill ottawa
still chugs along behind the times
a government town all suits and ties

(Ottawa, times, suits)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parliament_Ottawa_Canada.jpg

Betrayed by their Scots-Irish patter
or, crossing the bridge, Joual patois,
locals love to hate those from away

(Scots, bridge, hate)

The Japanese Embassy shares films
white-frosted haiku beneath bonsai
smart phones set aside for an hour

(Japanese, white-frosted, smart)

Missed information spreading world-wide.

 

Carol A. Stephen
April 23, 2016

My First Driving Lesson Was Almost My Last, poem by Carol A. Stephen (LEARNING TO DRIVE Poetry and Prose Series)

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My poem up today on Silver Birch Press shares the story of my first driving lesson, way way back. I swear, it’s true!

silverbirchpress's avatarSilver Birch Press

police carMy First Driving Lesson Was Almost My Last
by Carol A. Stephen

Sixteen, and legal, my dad agreed to teach me
Sunday morning early. My brother tagged along.
Safe enough, that large empty parking lot, plenty of
room for error.

I slid beneath the wheel of the Ford wagon, knees
not yet quivering, too new to know or fear horsepower.
Too new to scan the lot for lurking hazards, yet in the shade
a single parked car I didn’t see.

Give ‘er some gas, my father said. And I did.
To the floor. Never heard his voice crack before,
’til he hollered out brake— BRAKE!!! BRAKE!!!
On the third brake, I hit the gas again.

As we accelerated across the lot, one yellow car
loomed large beyond the windshield. Dad’s foot
came down heavy as an anchor as it found the right pedal.
We stopped, an inch shy of the…

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