Another stupid book trailer, plus Snowball, Mansfield, Queen's

OK, so I did some book trailers in the fall. A couple of them ended up on Huffington Post, which was pretty thrilling. In one case, my number of "views" went from about 150 to about 3,700.

Here's my new trailer.



Meanwhile, looking at the final final final pages for Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew, due out this spring with ECW Press. Don't know what will happen with this book, but I'm curious to find out.

Also working on the new spring titles for Mansfield, both under my "a stuart ross book" imprint: Campfire Radio Rhapsody, the second poetry collection by Robert Earl Stewart of Windsor, and Mongrel, a first novel by Marko Sijan, also of Windsor, though he now lives in Montreal. The two books create a pretty dark image for Detroit's neighbour. And, although I know I'm biased, they are both brilliant books.

My next task is to convince Mansfield publisher Denis De Klerck to put my imprint logo on the back of the book instead of just the copyright page. Right?

Last week, I sent in the stats on my Queen's residency. I had 85 appointments with about 30 different people; presented seven readings; conducted about eight workshops; produced six publications; gave about six readings. I produced three short stories, about a dozen poems, and one personal essay; did the final edits on my novel, too.

I made a lot of very good friends, too.

Over and out.

THE TENT: My New Year Poem

THE TENT

I waited for the next year
to be invented. I took a number.
I passed the time creating
brief theatrical productions
in my head. My head hurt.
I dreamed I was a popular blue
soft drink, a gangly dog cartoon,
a sneaky “u” in American labour.
I dreamed I lived in a big city.

You wake up and you are
in a small town. A building
rings bells, and the lake
is just three minutes away;
the bits touching shore
are covered in ice. Are those ducks
frozen in the lake? No,
they are rocks that look like ducks.
Phew. The relieved townspeople
cluster by Town Hall, squeeze hard,
and the “s” pops out. They are
townpeople now. It is only
one town. It is in Canada.
Twenty Eleven kicks the “s”
down the street, whistling a song
my father liked.

My father never met Twenty Eleven.
My father liked Nelson Eddy, who he also
never met. The song was “Dardanella.”
My father and I build a tent
by the water. The water is solid.
We wait. The year is invented.
He teaches me what it can do.


Stuart Ross
1 January 2011