Join Cameron Anstee, David Ly, and Kirby for the Palimpsest Press Fall 2026 launch! Hosted by poet and editor Jim Johnstone.About this Event
In Footnotes: Case Studies in Canadian Small Press Book Making, Cameron Anstee takes a deep dive to look at small press book makers in Canada from the 1960s onwards. His essays are a tribute to the people who have found ways to make books—and to persist in making books—celebrating work that is all too often un- or underacknowledged. Footnotes is an act of recovery, of bibliographic recuperation; it makes the case for looking at how small press books are constructed as objects and as ideas, and at how readers are asked to engage with these book objects in a constantly shifting cultural landscape.
Cameron Anstee is the author of two books of poetry, Sheets: Typewriter Works (Invisible Publishing, 2022) and Book of Annotations (Invisible Publishing, 2018), and the editor of The Collected Poems of William Hawkins (Chaudiere Books, 2015). He posts photos of small press books in his collection on Instagram (@smallpress_bookshelf) and his third book of poetry is forthcoming from Knife Fork Book in 2027. He is the editor and publisher of Apt. 9 Press and holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Ottawa. Footnotes is his first book of essays.
Ritual, Interrupted is a poetic grimoire that looks to imagined worlds for self-discovery. Drawing on experiences with invisible illnesses like depressive disorder and anxiety, David Ly blurs the line between the real and the surreal, inviting readers into poems where the coping rituals of daily life are disrupted by mental health crises. A product of lived experience, Ritual, Interrupted reveals how vulnerability and imagination are radical acts of resistance that are necessary in a compassionate life and ultimately, for human survival.
David Ly is the author of Mythical Man (Anstruther Books, 2020) and Dream of Me as Water (Anstruther Books, 2022), both shortlisted for the ReLit Award for Poetry. David is also the author of the fantasy novel Not All Dragons (Poplar Press, 2026). He co-edited, with Daniel Zomparelli, Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022). David’s poems have appeared in publications such as Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, PRISM International and Ex-Puritan, where he won the inaugural Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence for Poetry. He is the poetry editor at This Magazine.
In Fairy, Kirby continues to mine their riches and fan the flames lit in their instant classic, Poetry is Queer. Their essays are an act of liberation the call “tending to each other’s freedom,” and are written with signature Kirby directness and panache, from early AIDS-activist monologues, to launching a counter city-wide “safe-sex” campaign that includes the public depiction of an affectionate gay couple, to leaving the States in a love that made them “the most beautiful boy in the world,” to becoming a Canadian queer poetry icon. Like countless fairies before them, Kirby scouts desire paths beyond mere survival for new queer voices to continue to amaze, flourish, and thrive. Or as Fairy says, “This way >>>
Kirby is the author of She (KFB, 2025), Poetry is Queer (Palimpsest Press, 2021), This Is Where I Get Off (Permanent Sleep Press, 2019), featured columnist at Send My Love to Anyone and publisher at Knife | Fork | Book. kirbyfairy.ca
Jim Johnstone is a Toronto-based poet, editor, and critic. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The King of Terrors (Coach House Books, 2023). His work has appeared internationally in magazines like POETRY, The New York Review of Books, Poetry London, PN Review, The Kenyon Review, and Poetry Northwest, and he has won several prizes including the National Magazine Award Gold Medal for Poetry, the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, the Bliss Carman Award, the Robin Blaser Award, and a CBC Poetry Award.
Event venue
Another Story Bookshop, 315 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, Canada
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