Call for submissions to the 2024 bpNichol Chapbook Award

❡ Call for submissions to the 2024 bpNichol Chapbook Award ❡

The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. The author receives $4,000 and the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.

Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2023), and the poet(s) must be Canadian.

Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of eligible chapbooks. Translations into English from other languages are eligible, as long as the translator is Canadian or a permanent resident of Canada. Chapbooks by two or more poets who are Canadian or permanent residents of Canada are also eligible.

Please include the Submission Form with your entry.

Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a completed submission form or accurate facsimile, a brief CV of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, email address, and telephone number) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

The opening date for receipt of submissions is January 17, 2024, and they will be accepted until May 31, 2024. If submission confirmation has not been received by email by June 30, 2024, please send a query to Gary Barwin at himself@garybarwin.com.

Please send submissions to:
Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
c/o 180 Dufferin St. Hamilton ON L8S 3N7

The cash prize to the author has been generously donated by an anonymous donor. The prize to the publisher has been generously donated by writers Karl Jirgens and Michael Dean. All chapbooks submitted are archived at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award, but member-publishers forgo the prize money.

Congratulations to Jason Christie and above/ground press, winners of the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook Award

A hearty congrats to the winner of the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook award: glass / language / untitled / exaltation by Jason Christie from above/ground press! Thank you to our anonymous donor for providing the chapbook prize, and to Michael Dean and Karl Jirgens for supplying the publisher’s prize!

Thank you as well to our four finalists:

Light Years — Laboni Islam — baseline press

The Lake – James Lindsay – knife/fork/book

Third State of Being — Cassidy McFadzean — Gaspereau Press

I Need Not Be Good — kitchen mckeown — Rahila’s Ghost Press

And finally, thank you to everyone who came out to the Indie Lit Market yesterday, and to all the volunteers and organizers of The &nd Festival who helped to make the market such a success!

Congrats to the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook Award Finalists

Meet the Presses is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2023 bpNichol Chapboook Award. Please join us in celebrating the following chapbooks and supporting the authors and presses that made them happen! In not particular order:

Light Years — Laboni Islam — baseline press
https://www.baselinepress.ca/light-years-laboni-islam-2022

The Lake – James Lindsay – knife/fork/book
http://www.knifeforkbook.shop/store/p159/JAMES_LINDSAY_THE_LAKE.html

glass / language / untitled / exaltation – Jason Christie – above/ground press
https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2022/10/new-from-aboveground-press-glass.html

Third State of Being — Cassidy McFadzean — Gaspereau Press
http://www.gaspereau.com/bookInfo.php?AID=0&AISBN=9781554472345

I Need Not Be Good — kitchen mckeown — Rahila’s Ghost Press
https://rahilasghostpress.com/portfolio/i-need-not-be-good-by-kitchen-mckeown/

if you missed the evening, you can watch on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/live/H3HRWgxa1C0

As well, we’ve broken out the individual readers into their own videos! You can find the playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB1r-RFDaUw&list=PLGsRQFPjyxRBBQkUyGd2IUgS6YwQApIZ1

Thank you so much to the two judges for this year’s award, Alice Burdick and Betsy Warland for their care and generosity with this year’s slate!

You can find out the winner at our Literary Indie Market, taking place as part of the Ampersand Literary Festival. The Eventbrite (which includes the schedule) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-nd-festival-and-indie-lit-market-tickets-686326429827?aff=oddtdtcreator . You can also get more information through Facebook: https://fb.me/e/1bPyEPHSp .

Register for H of a Night – Oct. 3rd at 7:00

Streaming starting at 7:00 on our YouTube page!

We are thrilled to announce that Meet the Presses will be hosting our annual H of a Night which includes the announcement of the finalists for the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook Award. The event will be hosted by Eugénie Szwalek & Madeline Rossell and will feature guest speakers Gillian Dunks, Eric Schmaltz, as well as the 5 finalists for the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook award judged by Betsy Warland & Alice Burdick. Please register at our Eventbrite.

The Indie Literary Market – November 4, 2023

Meet the Presses is excited to announce the return of the in-person Indie Literary Market on November 4, 2023! We also have an exciting new addition: The &nd Festival in collaboration with The Ampersand Review

This year we are partnering with The Ampersand Review and the Creative Writing & Publishing Program at Sheridan College in order to bring together the indie literary community in Canada.

The Eventbrite (which includes the schedule) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-nd-festival-and-indie-lit-market-tickets-686326429827?aff=oddtdtcreator . You can also get more information through Facebook: https://fb.me/e/1bPyEPHSp .

Mark November 4 on your calendars, and we hope to see you there! More details to come soon.

Call for submissions to the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook Award

❡ Call for submissions to the 2023 bpNichol Chapbook Award ❡

The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. The author receives $4,000 and the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.

Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2022), and the poet(s) must be Canadian.

Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of eligible chapbooks. Translations into English from other languages are eligible, as long as the translator is Canadian or a permanent resident of Canada. Chapbooks by two or more poets who are Canadian or permanent residents of Canada are also eligible.

Please include the Submission Form with your entry.

Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a completed submission form or accurate facsimile, a brief CV of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, email address, and telephone number) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

The opening date for receipt of submissions is January 17, 2023, and they will be accepted until May 31, 2023. If submission confirmation has not been received by email by June 30, 2023, please send a query to Gary Barwin at himself@garybarwin.com.

Please send submissions to:
Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
c/o 180 Dufferin St. Hamilton ON L8S 3N7

The cash prize to the author has been generously donated by an anonymous donor. The prize to the publisher has been generously donated by writers Karl Jirgens and Michael Dean. All chapbooks submitted are archived at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award, but member-publishers forgo the prize money.

Congratulations to Arleen Paré and Baseline Press

Congratulations to Arleen Paré and Baseline Press for winning the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Paré’s chapbook Last was chosen by this year’s judges Alice Burdick and Greg Santos who had the following to say:

Last is a lovingly crafted hand-sewn chapbook from baseline press, which memorialises Arleen Paré’s cherished friend, Pat Hurdle, who makes the decision to use MAiD, Medical-Assistance in Dying. Written during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is a deeply touching monument to a devastating time in our collective consciousness. We were moved by the clear, persistent beauty of Last. Paré has braided the strands of life, death, memory, grief and joy into a memorable, surprising narrative. The lines build and collect, a congregation of illuminated moments. The clear, intensely descriptive lines gain momentum immediately and sustain throughout the book-length poem. Paré’s writing resonated with us strongly and we hope that others experience the same sense of beauty and awe that we did when finishing the book for the first time. Last’s lines last in the reader’s mind long after the reading. 

If you missed the announcement you can find the video on our YouTube page:

We had an incredible shortlist that included:

what we call home – Terrence Abrahams & Cleopatria Peterson – Collusion Books

machine dreams – Liam Burke & Natalie Hanna – Collusion Books

Safe Vehicles for a Dying Planet – Dave Hickey – Baseline Press

Merienda – Steffi Tad-y – Rahila’s Ghost Press

Please make sure you check out all of the chapbooks, and support your local small presses!

Thank you to our shortlisted authors and presses and to everyone who submitted their chapbooks this year.

2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award Announcement

Please join us on our Facebook feed November 24 2022 to learn who won the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award!

The 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist is:

what we call home – Terrence Abrahams & Cleopatria Peterson – Collusion Books

machine dreams – Liam Burke & Natalie Hanna – Collusion Books

Safe Vehicles for a Dying Planet – Dave Hickey – Baseline Press

Last – Arleen Paré – Baseline Press

Merienda – Steffi Tad-y – Rahila’s Ghost Press

Congratulations to the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award Shortlist Nominees

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend the event announcing the bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist last night on Facebook Live. If you go to our Facebook group page, you can find a recording of the event. Please excuse the multiple technical difficulties. We will be upload a clean, uninterrupted version of the video to our Youtube page as well. We had terrific readings from Steven Ross Smith and Lisa Robertson as well as a performance from Sonnet L’Abbé. Thanks so much to the performers!

The 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist is:

what we call home – Terrence Abrahams & Cleopatria Peterson – Collusion Books

machine dreams – Liam Burke & Natalie Hanna – Collusion Books

Safe Vehicles for a Dying Planet – Dave Hickey – Baseline Press

Last – Arleen Paré – Baseline Press

Merienda – Steffi Tad-y – Rahila’s Ghost Press

Thanks again to this year’s judges Alice Burdick and Greg Santos! We’ll be announcing the winner Nov. 24 at 7:30 EST so please return to this space and/or our social media to find out more.

Call for submissions to the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award

❡ N.B.: New mailing address (see below) ❡

❡ Call for submissions to the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award ❡

The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. The author receives $4,000 and the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.

Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2021), and the poet(s) must be Canadian.

Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of eligible chapbooks. Translations into English from other languages are eligible, as long as the translator is Canadian or a permanent resident of Canada. Chapbooks by two or more poets who are Canadian or permanent residents of Canada are also eligible.

Please include the Submission Form with your entry.

Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a completed submission form or accurate facsimile, a brief CV of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, email address, and telephone number) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

The opening date for receipt of submissions is February 17, 2022, and they will be accepted until May 31, 2022. If submission confirmation has not been received by email by June 30, 2022, please send a query to Gary Barwin at himself@garybarwin.com.

Please send submissions to:
Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
c/o 180 Dufferin St. Hamilton ON L8S 3N7

The cash prize to the author has been generously donated by an anonymous donor. The prize to the publisher has been generously donated by writers Karl Jirgens and Michael Dean. All chapbooks submitted are archived at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award, but member-publishers forgo the prize money.

Matthew James Weigel’s It Was Treaty/It Was Me wins the 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award

Congratulations to Matthew James Weigel’s It Was Treaty / It Was Me, published by Vallum Chapbooks, for winning the 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award! Meet the Presses is thrilled with this selection and encourage everyone to jump online and order your own copy, if you don’t have one already!

Congrats and thanks as well to the shortlisted authors:

Terese Mason Pierre, Manifest, published by Gap Riot Press

MA|DE, A Trip to the Zzoo , published by Collusion Books

Manahil Bandukwala and Conyer Clayton, Sprawl, published by Collusion Books

.Further gratitude to this year’s judges Jennifer Lovegrove and Jordan Abel, Michael Dean and Karl Jirgen’s for contributing the publisher prize, to the anonymous donor who provides the funds for the bpNichol Chapbook Award.

We will be posting the recordings of the announcement and the other Meet the Presses events from the weekend, so keeping coming back for more details!

The 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award Shortlist

We are thrilled to announce the four books that have been shortlisted for the 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award!

Terese Mason Pierre, Manifest, published by Gap Riot Press

MA|DE, A Trip to the Zzoo , published by Collusion Books

Manahil Bandukwala and Conyer Clayton, Sprawl, published by Collusion Books

Matthew James Weigel, It Was Treaty / It Was Me, published by Vallum Chapbooks

We will be announcing the winner on November 25th at 7PM EST

The following day, November 26th 7PM EST, we’ll be hosting Press Clips, screening of a collection of short videos from small presses across Canada.

And on Saturday, we’ll be having a Small Press Silent Reading Group hosted by Vicki Ziegler at 2PM EST.

Register for all three of our Virtual Meet the Presses Events at: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/virtual-meet-the-presses-2021-tickets-205044542747

H of a Night – October 28th 8:00 PM EDT

Please come join us for an H of a Night for an H of a Year! We’ll be announcing the bpNichol Chapbook Award shortlist with readings and conversation with friends and the nominated authors themselves! Stay tuned at https://fb.me/e/RrhXeVvV and register at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/h-of-a-night-for-an-h-of-a-year-tickets-187662713227!

Meet the Presses (MTP) is seeking Statements of Interest

Meet the Presses (MTP) is seeking Statements of Interest from individuals who would like to join the MTP collective. Our annual Indie Literary Market is an invitational event for independent literary publishers—presses, micropresses, zines, and journals—as selected by two curators within the collective. In addition to conducting the annual market, Meet the Presses administers the annual bpNichol Chapbook Award, which recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. Other events, such as the 2020 Indie Literary Online Symposium, are planned on an ad hoc basis.

While past Indie Literary Markets have taken place in Toronto, Meet the Presses will be holding our events and meetings virtually for the next year; however, our hope is to return to a Toronto Indie Literary Market in 2022. In the past, members of the collective have typically been Toronto-based, as we usually meet in Toronto once every six to eight weeks, but meeting and participating virtually is a potential option.

Being nonprofit and unfunded, we have limited resources, thus at present all members, curators and Chapbook Award judges perform the MTP work on a completely volunteer basis.

Meet the Presses has made the commitment to do all we can to ensure that our activities are conducted in safe, inclusive, anti-racist spaces, especially for LGBTQQIP2SAA*, Indigenous, Black, and people of colour. We are committed to including in our membership historically marginalized writers, poets, publishers, and friends of the collective. We welcome all expressions of interest. Please send these to either Beth Follett (feralgrl@interlog.com) or Aaron Tucker (aarontucker82@gmail.com)

2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

❡ N.B.: New mailing address (see below) ❡

❡ Call for submissions to the 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award ❡

The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. The author receives $4,000 and the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.

Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2020), and the poet must be Canadian or a permanent resident of Canada (minimum 3 years).

Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of eligible chapbooks. Translations into English from other languages are eligible; reissues of chapbooks are ineligible.

Please include the Submission Form with your entry.

Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a completed submission form or accurate facsimile, a brief C.V. of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, email address, and telephone contact) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

The opening date for receipt of submissions is February 17, 2021, and they will be accepted until May 31, 2021. If submission confirmation has not been received by email by June 30, 2021, please send a query to Gary Barwin at himself@garybarwin.com.

Please send submissions to:
                        Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
                        c/o 180 Dufferin St. Hamilton ON L8S 3N7

The cash prize to the author has been generously donated by an anonymous donor. The prize to the publisher has been generously donated by writers Karl Jirgens and Michael Dean. All chapbooks submitted are archived at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award, but member-publishers forgo the prize money.

Nisa Malli wins the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award!

The Meet the Presses Collective is thrilled to announce that Nisa Malli’s Remitting has won the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award. We are immensely grateful to the anonymous donor who provided the $4000 prize. Thanks to generous annual donations from Michael Dean and Karl Jirgens, the publisher of the winning work, Baseline Press, will receive a $500 prize as well. Nisa Malli is a writer and researcher, born in Winnipeg and currently living in Toronto. She holds a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria and has completed residencies at the Banff Centre and Artscape Gibraltar Point.

Judges’ citation: Remitting delicately weaves contemporary lyric with the precise registers of medical and conversational speech. Nisa Malli…is an assured and singular voice with an “unwillingness/to be bent like a bird’s wing.”

In response, Nisa writes “I am beyond honoured to have been shortlisted alongside such exciting writers; thankful to the judges and the Meet the Presses collective for creating an excellent celebration of small presses, this year and all years; always moved by the care and precision Karen Schindler brings to Baseline’s chapbooks; and, so pleased to have Kristina Corre’s work gracing the cover.”

Baseline publisher Karen added “I couldn’t be more grateful that Baseline had the opportunity to publish Nisa Malli’s Remitting. When I received Nisa’s manuscript – a collection of intimate, haunting poems which focus on chronic illness and pain – I was completely drawn in by the way she placed the gorgeous beside the dark, and the work that these poems did. Many thanks to Nisa for entrusting Baseline to share them with the world. Ongoing thanks to the Meet The Presses collective, for giving the small press community a space to gather and connect, and to this year’s contest judges, Canisia Lubrin and Souvankham Thammavongsa.”

Judges Canisia Lubrin and Souvankham Thammavongsa chose the winner from submissions from across the country. This year’s other shortlisted poets are:
Oubah Osman, Hereditary Blue (Anstruther Press)
Emily Lu, Night Leaves Nothing New (Baseline Press) baselinepress.ca
Tolu Oloruntoba, Manubrium (Anstruther Press) anstrutherpress.com

Don’t forget to attend the other events over the weekend gathering presses from across Canada! Register at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/indie-literary-online-symposium-tickets-128153906785 . Please also visit our YouTube channel for introductions to some of the participating presses: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGsRQFPjyxRBcD1DH89QDpWNGVeafTTeS

Michael Dennis Receives the Meet the Presses’ Special Recognition Award for Commitment and Devotion to Small Press

The Meet the Presses Collective is pleased to announce that Michael Dennis is the first recipient of the Special Recognition Award for Commitment and Devotion to Small Press. Born in London, Ontario, in 1956, Michael Dennis published his first poems in the early ’70s. His working life has included everything from stints in car plants and copper mines to installing artworks in galleries and doing time as a short-order cook and a dishwasher in a strip club; he ran a small botique hotel in the ’80s, was Santa at the Kmart in Charlottetown one year, and opened a non-profit ESL school in Jablonec nad Nisou, Czechoslovakia, immediately following the Velvet Revolution. Michael has driven a taxi and a truck and had a brief stint as a private chauffeur. He wrote the popular blog Today’s book of poetry bringing a larger audience to over 800 books of small press poetry from Canada, the US and beyond.