Letter to TAC 2008

February 16, 2008

Dear Lorraine Filyer,

This is a letter to the Ontario Arts Council, on behalf of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair board members:

David Chilton is a Toronto freelance journalist, editor and writer. He has been published in numerous major newspapers and magazines, is the author of published short fiction and belongs to the Moosemeat Writers Group. He has a personal as well as an academic interest in expatriate small presses.

He is an 18-year marketing, advertising and media reporter, and as the member of the TSPBF board responsible for publicity and promotion, he has recruited a professional creative media planner from a major advertising agency to work for the fair pro bono, developed promotional and publicity plans to elicit greater media coverage, and pushed for greater organizational efficiency, including each member of the board taking responsibility for specific tasks month to month. Long term, he would like to see the fair become a destination event with a far higher public profile.

At board meetings he has found co-coordinators Halli Villegas and Myna Wallin focused and prepared, and knows they are spending increasing amounts of time on fair-related matters such as venues, budgets, greater exhibitor breadth, and readers and so on. Board members Carolina Smart and Luciano Iacobelli are also working hard on their respective tasks, including web design and development, and outreach.

Since last October, David Chilton has been extremely disappointed and utterly dismayed by the contention, recrimination, puerility and outright falsehoods that have made the rounds of the small press community. He has tried, and continues to try, to find some understanding, some working arrangement, among all parties in dispute, for the good of the fair and the well-being of the presses.

-David Chilton

Bio: Luciano Iacobelli
Poet, playwright, publisher and visual artist, Luciano Iacobelli is the author of one full length book of poetry, The Angel Notebook (Seraphim Press, 2007), and seven chapbooks. A partner in Quattro Books, and one of the organizers of the Toronto Wordstage reading series, he is also the editor, publisher, and bookbinder of a micropress called Lyricalmyrical Press.

As a member of Toronto's literary community, my goal has always been to expose new writers, and to allow writers from various sectors within the community to collaborate with each other. My purpose in becoming a board member for the Toronto Small Press Book Fair was to continue that effort, to welcome new presses and publishers into the small press fold, and to encourage young writers and publishers to participate in the fair.

The Toronto Small Press Book Fair is an important Toronto tradition; it is one of the few times the Toronto literary underground is allowed to surface and celebrate itself, one of the rare times Torontonians get to buy and read the new and cutting edge material that is bountifully produced by our city's emerging writers. Halli Villegas and Myna Wallin, as the key organizers of the fair, have not only preserved the tradition, but extended it by including new participants. In order to democratize proceedings, they were the first organizers to actually set up a committee that participates in decision making. They have also tirelessly promoted the fair, introducing new features, like an on-site reading to draw more people to the venue. They have also changed the venue from the stuffy venue of St Paul's Trinity Church to the bright, spacious gymnasium of the Jewish Community Centre. They have been inexhaustible when it comes to fundraising. Myna Wallin in particular, deputed in front of City Council for extra funding. As a result of all this hard work and enthusiasm from Myna and Halli, the fair has never been more financially stable.

I have complete faith in the way the fair is being run and in the key organizers, and I'm very honoured to be a board member.

Luciano Iacobelli

Bio: Carolina Smart
Carolina Smart is originally from Wiarton, Ontario, Canada, and needing to escape the shadow of Wiarton Willie, she ran away to Toronto and has lived here ever since. Carolina is also the creator of Shebytches.com and always biting off more than she can chew, she is in the middle of writing her first book of ‘Dark Tales' as well as a book of short stories with Anna Fletcher and Viki Ackland and a vegan cookbook and blog with Viki Ackland. But if writing and running Shebytches weren't enough, she is also co-editor of a Toronto-based indie review website called Lipstikindie.com and is creating a line of products based on her alter ego lizzie violet (lizzieviolet.com), and writes her daily blog @ shebytches.blogspot.com

Carolina is also working on a book of poetry and short stories entitled ‘The Melancholy of Me.' This book will contain poetry and short stories about the things that really go on in her head.

Duties as board member:

I am the volunteers' co-ordinator. My duties as the volunteers' co-ordinator are to arrange for volunteers to help prepare and run the Toronto Small Press Book Fair on the day of the fair. There are many individual jobs, such as the pre and post set-up, assisting with the running of the fair during the day, flyer handout and postering, and various other adhoc duties. Due to my website experience, I am also the liason with our website developer. A new site was launched in February 2008 at www.torontosmallpressbookfair.org

Myna Wallin and Halli Villegas have been doing an outstanding job as the Toronto Small Press Book Fair co-coordinators. With their motivational outlook and amazing organizational and grant writing skills (successfully having grant amounts raised), these two women are a positive benefit to the fair. Since the last fair they have organized a board of directors, put into play plans to reorganize and redevelop the website, and let's not forget to mention, Myna's successful depute with the Toronto City Hall.

June 7, 2008, will be my second as the Volunteers' Co-coordinator and my 8th as a vendor. As always, I look forward to these fairs and am very excited to continue working with Myna, Halli and the rest of the board.

Carolina Smart

Halli Villegas is a Chicana publisher and writer originally from Detroit. She has lived in Canada for twenty years. She worked for Guernica Editions for four years as an assistant editor, then left to start her own press, Tightrope Books, in 2005. Tightrope Books will be publishing the yearly anthology The Best of Canadian Poetry in English in 2007 with Stephanie Bolster as guest editor and Molly Peacock as advisory editor. To date she has published ten titles and close to fifty Canadian authors. In 2007 she completed the SFU intensive publishing course and received a three month internship award with Simon & Shuster Canada.

With her own writing she has published two books of poetry and a chapbook. She has received an OAC works-in-progress grant for her prose and a TAC professional writer grant for her poetry. She has presented workshops to high schools and universities on writing and publishing and has spoken on writing and publishing to Humber College. She is also a member of the Kiss Machine board of directors and the administrative director of the Rowers Pub Reading series.

I am very excited about working with the TSPBF board on the spring small press fair. Carolina, David, and Luciano have brought lots of experience and enthusiasm to the job, suggesting and implementing exciting new changes to the fair which will result in a higher profile and greater attendance. They are all dedicated individuals with a long history in the small press community who have already given hours of volunteer time to making the small press fair better than ever. I am also happy to be once again working with co-coordinator Myna Wallin whose commitment of time and energy to the fair has been astonishing.

With a marketing plan, a new website, an action plan for outreach into non-traditional writing communities, among other initiatives, the Spring 08 fair promises to be a memorable event!

Halli Villegas

Bio: Myna Wallin
Co-organizer of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, Myna is a poet, a prose writer, an editor and a radio host. After publishing three poetry chapbooks with her imprint believe your own press (a chapbook press she ran for 5 years with David Clink), she had A Thousand Profane Pieces, published by Tightrope Books in 2006. For several years she has been the host of "In Other Words" on CKLN 88.1 FM, where she interviews authors from across Canada. In January 2007 she took over as Poetry Editor at Tightrope Books and has edited and co-edited several books already for the press. Myna is on the board of the Art Bar Poetry Reading Series. She's also working on a novella, Confessions of a Reluctant Cougar, when she can find a spare minute.

I am thrilled to be working alongside Halli Villegas, who is a force to be reckoned with!

She is skilled at organizing large events, after all her experience in putting together launches for Tightrope Books. She is capable of taking care of the Toronto Small Press Fair finances, carefully creating Excel spreadsheets that account for every penny that either goes into or out of the TSPBF. She's got a vision for the fair that will take it beyond the musty yesteryears of church halls with the same old presses, and bring it forward into an inclusive selection of presses from all sorts of writing communities. We are looking forward to the pro-bono tables that will include writers from outerlying communities.

Halli and I are incredibly lucky to be joined by David Chilton, Carolina Smart and Luciano Iacobelli, who are all working extensively to make the small press fair into a going concern for Spring 08. They each have their specialty and they have attended meetings, exchanged countless e-mails and are working hard, without complaint, to make the TSPBF something we can all be excited about and proud of. Carolina's work on the new website speaks for itself; David is making inroads on securing a new venue, and has enlisted the support of a well-known publicist. Luciano has some fantastic ideas about bringing new communities into the fair and has been supportive through all the senseless criticism Halli and I have endured over the past three months.

As to the conflict and acrimony we have experienced over these past few months, we are very disheartened by it, to say the least. We want only the best for the whole writing community and all its participants. We have worked tirelessly, and continue to do so, to make the small press fair an exciting and invigorating place to sell our wares and meet other writers.

I'd also like to add that I went to the City Hall, to speak in front of the Budget Committee, to depute for more funds for the TSPBF on February 5, 2008. Hopefully the City of Toronto Budget Councilors will agree that our vision of the Small Press Fair is an important and vital part of the Toronto Arts Community.

Sincerely,
The Board Members of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair