Like most writers I enter more contests that I’ll normally admit in public. Either through incompetence, bad luck, or sending the wrong stuff, I don’t usually win anything.

Had a good time recently doing this email exchange, published on the Maisonneuve web site, with Jonathan Ball on Carmine Starnino’s new essay on bpNichol.

I’m very pleased to announce a new project, an on-line magazine that focuses on reviews of Canadian fiction, published by Enfield & Wizenty & edited by yours truly– check out the beta version of issue # 1!

One of the frustrating things about being Canadian is that we do not have the same level of choice as the American consumer, particularly in the realm of snack foods. I was delighted this summer to discover FlipSides, a Keebler cracker that tastes like a pretzel on one side and a cracker on the other.

Last summer I spent about a week in John Berryman’s archives in Minneapolis. I wrote an essay about the experience for CV2’s last open issue, which you can read an excerpt from here.

Canadian Notes and Queries just came out with issue 78, and a review of Fear Not appears there under the smart-ass and amusing title, Yea, Though I Read Through an Ocean of Cheesy Sub-headings, I Will Fear No Evil. Here’s part of what reviewer Adam Sol says:

As writer in residence at the Winnipeg Public Library, I invited Vancouver poet Elise Partridge to Winnipeg for a couple of events in spring 2010. Elise is the author of two wonderful collections of poetry that everyone should read, Fielder’s Choice (Signal) and Chameleon Hours (Anansi).

Fear Not has won the 9th annual ReLit Award in the poetry category; the winner in short fiction is Lisa Foad for The Night is a Mouth, and the winner for the novel is Michael Blouin for Chase and Haven. I will appear at the ReLit Award Celebration in Ottawa on October 25th to receive […]

You can read a new on-line interview of me talking about Canadian poetry and publishing with Jonathan Ball, posted on his blog here.

I’m happy to announce that I’ve been named as the Winnipeg Public Library’s Writer-in-Residence for 2009-10, succeeding playwright Bruce McManus. My term will begin on Oct. 1, 2009, and continue through the end of June, 2010. I’ll be available for consultation two days per week at the Millennium Library. See the library’s announcement here.