Coach House Presents Books of Summer

Welcome to the summer! We've got our hair slicked back and our Wayfarers on, baby. And this June mailbot has more signs of summer than the average episode of Baywatch. Not only are we celebrating Pride month and the Trillium Book Awards, but we've got author picnics and canoe trips. So check us out this June; we're determined to be more than just a summer fling. Coach House's love for you will still be strong after the books of summer have gone.

Maxi-Trillium Overdrive

Coach House is pleased to announce its three-peat performance among this year's Trillium Book Awards. Both recently published Mat(t)hews -Mathew Henderson (The Lease) and Matthew Tierney (Probably Inevitable) - are two of three finalists for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, while Tamara Faith Berger's Maidenhead is one of six finalists for the Trillium Book Award.

Since 1987, the Trillium Book Awards have recognized excellence in literature by Ontario authors. This year's other English nominees include Steven Heighton, Thomas King, Alice Munro, Sandy Pool, Emily Schultz and Linda Spalding. The finalists will read at a public event on June 17 at the Bram and Bluma Appel Salonat the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street), then the winners are announced at a special ceremony in the same location the following night.

To celebrate the good times, we're offering a free one-year subscription to The Walrus to the first five people who order a Trillium finalist from our website. If you'd like to receive just one issue of The Walrus for free, you can sign up for that, too!)

Marriage Equality Sale recognizes Pride Month

June is LGBTQ Pride Month, and you know Coach House (unlike some mayors) is keen to celebrate that fact. Coach House has published some of Canada's finest queer writers for decades, but our June Marriage Equality Sale is a little bit different. Instead of focusing on our gay and lesbian writers, we're celebrating marriage equality.

How? Well, if you buy two books by male authors from the Coach House site this June, or two books by female authors, or even a book by a male and female author, you save 25%. We'll reward you for your same-sex author love! You stick to the traditional route and marry one male author to a female one, or you can make your own CanLit slash fiction: pair up Rob Benvie and Jon Paul Fiorentino, make Karen Hines andHelen Guri companions! No matter what the authors, any gender-match author pairing will knock 25% off your website purchases. Sale ends June 30, so try(sexual) something new and start your same-sex experimentationtoday!

Paddles and Picnics

There's nothing more summery than canoe trips and picnics, so it's no surprise that Coach House has authors participating in both this June.

Every year, the Fish Quill Poetry Boat Tour brings together a bunch of poets and a musician who canoe from town to town along the Grand River in southwestern Ontario for ten days in the summer. Five poets, including Coach House's own Leigh Kotsilidis (Hypotheticals) andDavid Seymour (For Display Purposes Only), will canoe the Grand River from Elora to Chiefswood National Historic Site, stopping to give readings in cafes, arts centres and a covered bridge along the way. The canoe tour kicks off with a dry (ha) launch in Toronto on June 13, and the actual canoeing begins onJune 15 in Elora! The tour also hits stops in West Montrose, Waterloo, Cambridge, Paris, Brantford and the Six Nations Grand River Territory. Visit the Fish Quill Poetry Boat site for all the event details. And if you'd like to help out the tour, you can donate to their Indiegogo campaign. (It's worth visiting the site for the video alone!) Get outdoorsy with our poets!

Then, on Sunday, June 22, the annual Luminato Festival is inviting you and all your favourite authors to a picnic - and you don't even have to bring the potato salad! Canadian authors will take over Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto for the afternoon. On the theme of 'Beginnings,' over 60 authors will take to three stages to share selections from their work and offer insight into where a story begins, and how writers confront the blank page. Those authors include Coach Housers Tamara Faith Berger (Maidenhead), Heather Birrell(Mad Hope), Kyle Buckley (The Laundromat Essay), Andrew Faulkner (Need Machine), Spencer Gordon (Cosmo), Mathew Henderson (The Lease),Andrew Kaufman (All My Friends Are Superheroes), Edward Keenan (Some Great Idea), Matthew Tierney (Probably Inevitable) and Jessica Westhead(Pulpy and Midge) and dozens of other excellent scribes. Many of those participating authors will also be setting up their own picnic blankets in the park for one-on-one exchanges with the public throughout the day. For more details, visit the Luminato Festival website.

Celebrate bpNichol this Thursday

The old Coach House is located on a laneway named for poet bpNichol. Nichol was a much beloved and influential poet, who practised works that fell within the 'borderblur' of concrete poetry, memoir, fiction, sound poetry and comics. In addition to his canonical nine-part The Martyrologyand his work writing for such children's shows asFraggle Rock, Nichol wrote dozens of poetic works. This spring, Coach House has collected three of his more ephemeral works - love, zygal and art facts- into one collection (overseen by editor Stephen Voyce) called a book of variations.

In Toronto, on Thursday, June 6, we celebrate the publication of a book of variations at No One Writes to the Colonel (460 College Street). The night, hosted by Stephen Voyce, will feature Nichol homage in a few formats:

• we'll have readings from a book of variations by Nichol aficionadoMargaret Christakos (What Stirs, Multitudes) and fellow HorsemanPaul Dutton.
• we'll show an excerpt from a film based on the writing of bpNichol by filmmaker Justin Stephenson.
• and we'll have ongoing Twitter Nichol 'gibberings' led by a.rawlings, where writers will compose Nichol-influenced poetry live, in collaboration, via Twitter (which is then projected in the venue) - follow #bpNichol. Even if you're not in Toronto, you can follow along!

We hope you can join us to celebrate bpNichol and a book of variations! RSVP on Facebook.

Take Us To Your Librarians

Keep your voices down and pay off your overdue fines: Coach House will be at the American Library Association's Annual Conference for the first time ever. The 2013 ALA Conference, which takes place in Chicago, is a trade conference and show for thousands of librarians across the United States. This year's guests will include such Dewey-Decimal-worthy folks asOliver Stone, Alice Walker, Khaled Hosseini and Ann Patchett, among others.

The ALA Conference will be held at Chicago's McCormick Place (2301 S. Martin Luther King Drive) from June 27 to July 2. Your friends (we hope) at Coach House Books and fellow publisher Arsenal Pulp Press will be at Booth # 2637 for the duration. Please drop by the booth to preview the fall titles and pick up the fancy gold-embossed Coach House notepads we've made for the show. See you in the 741.5's! (Librarian joke.)

Other Events

TORONTO

5 June - Andrew Faulkner and David Seymour at the Pivot Reading Series

Pivot Reading Series
featuring Andrew Faulkner (Need Machine), David Seymour (For Display Purposes Only), Chris Eaton and Shannon Maguire
The Press Club, 850 Dundas Street West
8 p.m., pay-what-you-can
pivotreadings.ca for more information

6 June - Book Launch for bpNichol's a book of variations

Celebration of bpNichol's a book of variations
readings by Margaret Christakos (What Stirs, Multitudes) and Paul Dutton (Aurealities)
a film by Justin Stephenson and 'gibberings' by a.rawlings
hosted by Stephen Voyce
No One Writes to the Colonel, 460 College Street
7 p.m., free
RSVP on Facebook page

13 June - Fish Quill Poetry Boat Tour launches in Toronto

The Fish Quill Poetry Boat Tour: Toronto Launch
featuring Leigh Kotsilidis (Hypotheticals), David Seymour (For Display Purposes Only), Linda Besner, Stewart Cole, Gillian Savigny
with special guests Jack Marks, Robert Priest and Tanis Rideout
TRANZAC Club, 292 Brunswick Avenue
8 p.m., free
RSVP on Facebook page

15 June - Andrew Faulkner and Matthew Tierney at the launch of The house is still standing

Toronto Launch for Adrienne Barrett's The house is still standing
readings by Andrew Faulkner (Need Machine), Adrienne Barrett, Stevie Howell
music by Jamie Hofman and Brian Nelles
hosted by Matthew Tierney (Probably Inevitable)
The Victory Cafe, 581 Markham Street
2 p.m., free
RSVP on Facebook page

21 June - Christian Bok and Caroline Bergvall at The Power Plant

Postscript Reading:
Readings by Christian Bok (Eunoia) and Caroline Bergvall
The Power Plant, 231 Queens Quay West
8 p.m., free
thepowerplant.org for more information

22 June - Luminato's Literary Picnic

The Luminato Literary Picnic
readings and talks by Tamara Faith Berger, Heather Birrell, Kyle Buckley, Andrew Faulkner, Spencer Gordon, Mathew Henderson, Andrew Kaufman, Edward Keenan, David Seymour, Matthew Tierney, Jessica Westhead and dozens more
Trinity Bellwoods Park, 155 Crawford Street
12 to 4 p.m., free
luminatofestival.com for more information

25 June - In Conversation: Kenneth Goldsmith with Christian Bok
Authors at Harbourfront Centre

Kenneth Goldsmith (Fidget) and Christian Bok (Eunoia) talk conceptual writing in conjunction with the Power Plant show Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art
co-presented with The Power Plant
Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West
Studio Room
7:30 p.m., $15
readings.org for more information

CHARLOTTETOWN

5 June - Mathew Henderson at the University of PEI

Charlottetown Launch of The Lease
a reading by Mathew Henderson
University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue
Faculty Lounge, Main Building
7:30 p.m., free
BUZZon.com for more information

MONTREAL

4 June - Cordelia Strube at FictionKNITstas Montreal

FictionKNITstas: Montreal Tour Stop
featuring Cordelia Strube (Milosz), Dede Crane, Christine Eddie, Mary Hagey and Stella Harvey
hosted by Nicole Dixon
Blizzarts, 3956A boul. Saint-Laurent
6 p.m., free
RSVP on Facebook page

CALGARY

6 June - Calgary Launch of The Devil and the Detective

Book Launch for The Devil and the Detective
featuring a reading by John Goldbach
with special guest Bradley Somer
Pages Books on Kensington, 1135 Kensington Road NW
7 p.m., free
RSVP on Facebook page

Recently Reviewed

Need Machine

'If you're one of those people who claims to just "not get" poetry, I dare you to read this book. This is a frighteningly sharp dispatch from the modern mid-20s intellectual condition, and it's worth reading just for its crisp imagery ... These kinds of images could convert even the most obstinate narrative-junkie to the world of poetry.' - CultMTL

Little Cat

'Little Cat will draw immediate comparison to postmodern experimentalist Kathy Acker, but where Acker's work often feels repetitive, Berger's writing proceeds with a frightening momentum and beautifully executed inventiveness ... Treading a line between sublime experimentation and unsettling honesty, Little Cat rides a wave of female sexual energy.' - Quill & Quire

For Display Purposes Only

'For Display Purposes Only is fighting trim, and poem after poem is a knockout blow ... Seymour navigates this complicated dialectic through a tour-de-force reimagining of the formal repertoire.' - National Post

The Fine Print

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