Touch the Donkey : Amanda Earl interview,

Chaudiere author Amanda Earl was interviewed recently over at Touch the Donkey.

Christine McNair interviewed over at Touch the Donkey

Ottawa poet and Chaudiere Books co-publisher Christine McNair is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey around her work-in-progress second poetry manuscript, "Charm."

Chris Turnbull interviewed at Touch the Donkey

Fall 2015 author Chris Turnbull is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

Roland Prevost interviewed over at Touch the Donkey

A new interview with Chaudiere Books author Roland Prevost posted this week over at Touch the Donkey.

Pearl Pirie interviewed over at Touch the Donkey

There's a new interview with Chaudiere Books author Pearl Pirie over at the Touch the Donkey blog, concerning her poems in the second issue.

Calgary launch of Ground Rules: a report,

We had an amazing launch last night at Calgary’s Shelf Life Books last night for Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press, 2003-2013 (2013), with readings by Julia Williams, Natalie Simpson and newly-announced Calgary poet laureate derek beaulieu, lovingly hosted by Chaudiere Books editor and co-publisher rob mclennan. The generous folk at Shelf Life Books (who have also posted photos from last night here and here) ordered a mound of copies of the anthology, and even had a healthy selection of books by all the readers, including Julia Williams' The Sink House (Coach House Books, 2004), derek beaulieu's Please, No More Poetry (WLU, 2013), rob mclennan's Glengarry (Talonbooks, 2011) and Natalie Simpson's brand-new Thrum (Talonbooks, 2014). The collected audience in attendance included writers such as Christian Bök, Paul William Zits, Monica Kidd and Colin Martin (all pictured, above), among others.

mclennan also provided a stack of various above/ground press backlist (including copies of the first issue of Touch the Donkey) for free distribution (publications by ryan fitzpatrick, rob mclennan, Hugh Thomas, Rae Armantrout, Sarah Rosenthal, N.W. Lea, Camille Martin, Carrie Olivia Adams, Hailey Higdon and plenty of others) that the crowd hungrily devoured, alongside a wine and cheese spread.

After a stretch of too many years, it was a great pleasure to hear Williams read again, especially given her almost complete publishing silence over the decade since the appearance of her trade book and above/ground press chapbook. Where has she been? Children and copy-editing, and quietly writing, it would appear. She even read from something new, slowly forming into a shape. Natalie Simpson gave a stellar reading of material from the anthology as well as from her new second trade collection. beaulieu [pictured, as Williams and Simpson watch on] read a single prose-piece working through translation, fiction and movie-making that was rather intriguing, something I would very much like to see more of, to see where the piece might possibly go.

rob mclennan [pictured] ended the event reading his single poem in the collection, as well as a selection of stories from his new title, The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014), a book we're launching tomorrow afternoon in Ottawa at The Manx Pub. All in all, it was a magnificent event. Over the next few months, watch for details on our Chaudiere Books Podcast, where the full audio of last night's event (as well as last fall's Ottawa launch) will be available. Thanks very much to Shelf Life Books, the readers and all who came out to help celebrate both press and the anthology.