Pivot Readings at the Press Club

The excitement continues at Pivot as we welcome Robert Dayton (The Canadian Romantic), Andrew Faulkner (half of The Emergency Response Unit), and Andrew McEwan (the repeater). Come repeat some emergency romance with us at the Press Club!

Robert Dayton is a multidisciplinary writer, entertainer, and artist from BC who resides for the moment in Toronto. His work has appeared in Hunter and Cook, Carousel, The Toronto Onion, Roctober, Cinema Sewer, Paper Rodeo, Bananafish, as well as the book Lost In the Grooves and elsewhere. He originally came from a zine background in the early 90s, wrote a weekly newspaper column of ephemera that soon bordered on experimental fiction and non-fiction, and was a co-creator of the short-lived but well loved newspaper The Drippy Gazette. He is known for being in such curious musical acts as Wet Dirt, Canned Hamm and July Fourth Toilet, as well as acting in the films Male Fantasy, Ivory Tower, and Leslie My Name Is Evil. Robert’s most recent project is his series of videos and performances as the persona of The Canadian Romantic, a melodramatic figure of faded glamour who tries to bridge and explore the gap between Canada and romance with somewhat dubious results. This has now resulted in a  doll as well as an art book of pen-and-ink drawings and writings published by PITT studio/Publication Projects.

Andrew Faulkner lives in Toronto, where he curates The Emergency Response Unit, a chapbook press, with Leigh Nash. He also collects sky metaphors and their ilk at thebigceiling.tumblr.com and is a partner in the editorial services firm Re:word Communications.

Andrew McEwan is the author of repeater, forthcoming in the spring of 2012 from BookThug, and the chapbook Input / Output from Cactus Press. His writing was awarded the E.J. Pratt Poetry Medal. He is currently finishing his undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto, where he has been the Editor-in-Chief at the Acta Victoriana Literary Journal and Poetry Editor at The Hart House Review. repeater is his first book.

Pivot Readings at the Press Club
Featuring Robert Dayton, Andrew Faulkner, and Andrew McEwan
Wednesday, January 25
The Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
8 PM
PWYC

Hello, 2012! Come ring in the end of the world with A Very Special Pivot. Featuring Paul Vermeersch, Trillium nominee for last year’s The Reinvention of the Human Hand;  Michael Lista, author of Bloom; and, fresh from two seasons off in the world, the return of poet-and-blogger extraordinaire Jacob McArthur Mooney, author of Folk. Come raise your glass, or your eyebrows, or whatever else needs raising, and join us in celebrating these three gentlemen and the baby New Year.

Michael Lista is the author of Bloom. He is also the Poetry Editor of The Walrus, and he writes a popular monthly column, On Poetry, for the National Post.

Jacob McArthur Mooney moved back to Toronto last week after three months as the Pierre Berton Fellow in Dawson City, Yukon and three months drinking mulled wine in various cities around Europe. His second poetry collection, Folk, was released this year by McClelland & Stewart. Folk was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas International Prize and named a Globe & Mail Top 100 Book of 2011.

Paul Vermeersch‘s latest collection of poems, The Reinvention of the Human Hand, was published by McClelland & Stewart in March 2010 and was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award. He is also the author of the poetry collections Burn (ECW Press, 2000), a finalist for the 2001 Gerald Lampert Award, The Fat Kid (ECW Press, 2002), and Between the Walls (McClelland & Stewart, 2005). He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph, and his poems have been translated into Polish, German and French.  He lives in Toronto where he currently teaches at Sheridan College.

Pivot Readings at the Press Club
Featuring Michael Lista, Jacob McArthur Mooney, and Paul Vermeersch.
Wednesday, January 11
8 PM
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC
Hosted by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

See you later, 2011! It’s the last Pivot of the year, and it’s going to a big one. Carey Toane, former Pivot host and author of the Mansfield Press collection The Crystal Palace, will be joining us from London. Another Mansfield Presser (and Coach House buson), Leigh Nash, reads from Goodbye, Ukelele. And in from Montreal will be the inimitable David McGimpsey, with his new and remarkable Coach House poetry collection, Li’l Bastard, in hand. It’s going to be a fantastic evening, and we hope to see you there. (Don’t worry – we’ll be back in January with more Pivoty goodness!)

David McGimpsey was born and raised in Montreal. Li’l Bastard, his latest collection, was named a book of the year by the Quill & Quire. He is the author of four acclaimed collections of poetry, including Lardcake and Sitcom (now in its second printing), which was a finalist for both the A.M. Klein Prize and the ReLit Award. David is also the author of the award-winning study Imagining Baseball: America’s Pastime and Popular Culture. McGimpsey writes a regular humour column for Montreal’s Matrix Magazine and the ‘Sandwich of the Month’ column as a contributing editor for EnRoute. David lives in the Mile-End district of Montreal and teaches creative writing and literature at Concordia University.

Leigh Nash is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and administrator. A graduate of the University of Guelph’s MFA in Creative Writing program, she is a partner in the editing firm Re:word Communications, a co-founder of The Emergency Response Unit, and the Coach House Books publishing assistant. Her work has appeared in various print and online journals, and Goodbye, Ukelele is her first book.

Carey Toane is a journalist and poet. Her poems and translations have appeared in Canadian journals, chapbooks, and anthologies. She is the co-founder of the mechanical journal Toronto Poetry Vendors and the original host of Toronto reading series Pivot at the Press Club. Originally from Alberta, she has also lived in Finland, the Middle East and New York City. She is currently studying library science at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. The Crystal Palace is her first book.

Pivot Readings at the Press Club
Featuring David McGimpsey, Leigh Nash and Carey Toane
Wednesday, December 14
8 PM
850 Dundas Street West
PWYC
Hosted by Elisabeth de Mariaffi