The TSPG Spring Fair headliners

Kildare Dobbs and Goran Simić Headline the 23rd Toronto Small Press Book Fair

NEW - On June 13, 2009, from 9 to 5 p.m., up to 80 small- to medium-sized presses from the Greater Toronto Area—and a number from as far afield as Montreal, Calgary, and even Vancouver—will gather in the atrium of the Toronto Reference Library to sell their books, chapbooks, graphic novels, audio-books, magazines and comics, and a wide array of high-quality arts & crafts.

Kildare Dobbs is a veteran writer and poet, born Irish in India, raised in Ireland, educated in Dublin, Cambridge and London. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II and in East Africa, before migrating to Canada in 1952. There he earned a living in journalism and publishing, wrote Running to Paradise (1962), an ‘autobiography honoured as fiction’ that won a Governor-General’s Award, concocted The Great Fur Opera (1970), a subversive vision of Canadian history, with the artist Ronald Searle, and broadcast regularly on CBC radio and television. The Eleventh Hour (1997) was his first volume of poetry. He is recipient of the Canadian National Magazine Award and in 2000 was invested with the Order of Ontario, and made Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto in 2002. A memoir, Running the Rapids, was published in Ireland and Canada in 2005.

Kildare lives and writes in Toronto.

Goran Simić was born in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1952. While living there he published short stories, plays, radio plays, and edited several literary magazines. His poetry, essays and reviews appeared in all the prominent journals of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia, as well as in such publications as The Times Literary Supplement and The Paris Review. He immigrated to Toronto in 1996 under the auspices of PEN Canada. He has been a Senior Resident of Massey College, University of Toronto, and Writer-in-Exile at the Banff Centre for the Arts as well as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Guelph. His poems have also appeared in anthologies of world poetry, including Banned Poetry (Index of Censorship, 1997) and Scanning the Century (Penguin, 2002), and in numerous anthologies in Canada and the former Yugoslavia, and have been translated into twelve languages. In Canada, Simić has published From Sarajevo, with Sorrow and Yesterday’s People (Biblioasis, 2005) and Immigrant Blues (Brick Books, 2003).

Free public readings will be hosted in the Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium:

This year we have taken the unprecedented step of adding an international component to the fair: our inaugural international guest author and independent small press publisher will be award-winning Irish author Kieran Furey. Kieran will be crossing the Atlantic for the Canadian launch of The History House, a collection of poems based on the Great Irish Famine.

This fair, in addition to headliners Kildare Dobbs and Goran Simić, we have a stellar line-up of emerging, mid-career and established (mainly) Greater Toronto-based authors: Jim Bartley, Colin Carberry, Glenn Downie, Edward Brown, Desi Di Nardo, Richard Greene, Lynn Harrigan, Maureen Harris, Joshua Martyr, Rene Meshake, Fereshteh Molavi, Natasha Ashtan, Fraser Sutherland and Ruowen Wang.

Books available to be signed by the authors.

TORONTO SMALL PRESS FAIR AD IN What's On (Toronto Public Library News, Programs and Services), April to June 2009 Issue, page 28. (PRINT RUN: 80,000 copies)

THE SPRING 2009 TORONTO SMALL PRESS BOOK FAIR AT THE TORONTO REFERENCE LIBRARY

Finally, after two months of patience and quiet diplomacy, and for the first time in our 22-year history, the TORONTO REFERENCE LIBRARY have agreed to host the 2009 Toronto Small Press Book Fair! It was no easy feat, and there were moments when we thought it was just plain wishful thinking, but we told you that we would work to the very best of our ability to serve you, and here is the evidence.

DATE: Saturday, June 13th. (Readers and performers, TBA)

TIME: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (presses should be on-site at 8:30)

ADDRESS: 789 Yonge St. (Toronto, ON, M4W 2G8)
(Directions: Closest major intersection: Yonge Street and Bloor Street. Located one block north of Bloor Street on the east side of Yonge Street.
Parking: Paid - parking lots on Cumberland Avenue, Asquith Ave and Church St.
Public Transit: TTC subway station: Yonge. Walk to library north on Yonge Street

(Facilities for people with disabilities)

***Please note that this is a full regular book fair. Registration is on a first-come-first-serve basis, so please hurry, as spaces at the nerve centre of the planet's largest library system are not likely to last long!!!

DOWNLOAD THE REGISTRATION FORM (pdf)

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Can you spare an hour of your time on the big day? We need as many volunteers as we can find for the following positions:

-greeter
-raffle ticket distributor
-press/info table
-collecting donations
-morning set-up
-evening clean-up

please send us an e-mail if you are interested.

Wishing you all a Wonderful and Safe Holiday Season

Dear small press participants, writers, performers, and TSPF volunteers,

Wishing you all a wonderful and safe Holiday Season and New Year!

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Halli and Myna for entrusting this position to us. It was not a decision we took lightly, and we intend to serve the Toronto small press/literary community to the very best of our ability.

Please check again in the New Year for details on the 2009 Spring Fair.

We very much look forward to meeting you all!

Warmest regards,
Veronica Garza Flores and Colin Carberry

Photo by: Linda Kooluris Dobbs