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Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.
The only place where a church full of people comfortably packed together behind rows of tightly jammed primary school cafeteria tables can evoke a feeling of calm, jubilation, and enlightenment is at the bi-annual Toronto Small Press Book Fair.
Now don't let a pathetic, blown-out-of-proportion argument scare you away—even if the 'fight' was taken to the Facebook front, now harbouring two distinct factions, the Toronto Small Press Book Fair group, and the Friends of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair group. Filled with all kinds of interesting and book-savvy individuals, the fair is a great place to find an array of quality (sometimes hand-crafted) books, chapbooks, zines, journals, poems in pots, trinkets, and countless other wonderfully unique items.
From micro presses to medium sized presses, to those who have ventured into self-publishing, the fair represents only a fragment of Toronto's small press community, but it is a natural place for the aspiring writer to flock to in order to gain insight on how to etch their way into the publishing world. Continuing to unite Toronto's literary community, the fair reminds us about the heart of the craft.
Photo from the Toronto Small Press Book Fair website.
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i think the SPBF is fantastic as well, but i need to make the point that the ongoing debate that followed this fall's fair is not pathetic or overblown. it goes to the heart of what it means to be a publicly-funded, community-based and independent-culture-serving organization. if you're interested to know more, or want to at least learn what the debate is all about, please join the "Friends of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair" facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5708489932 - this is where you'll find most of the information regarding what's happened and also have the opportunity to join a lively debate about one of our city's most important lit events.
torontoist especially shouldn't downplay a serious debate in the organization and the lit community by linking to someone else whose article only downplays the problem as well. go to the source, people.
On behalf of the small press, writers, performers and vendors who have attended the Toronto Small Press Book Fairs in the past, a great big thank you to the Torontoist for their wonderful post. As an ever growing community we need to get the word out to everyone letting everyone know how amazing we all are. Every little bit counts!!!
To stay up to date on upcoming Small Press events and what the Toronto Small Press Fair is up to please check the following links on a regular basis.
Toronto Small Press Fair Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19674885184
Also stay tuned for a revamped Toronto Small Press Book Fair website. Keep checking we will have a new tspbf site by the end of the month! www.torontosmallpressbookfair.org
I read that stuff. It was extremely pathetic and overblown. What an inflated sense of entitlement!
Go Small Press Fair! Your real friends love you!
I too think that Lor's writing off the debate as "pathetic" and "blown-out-of-proportion" is signally unhelpful. Relevant and pressing issues were discussed and, frankly, the coordinators' handling of Ross's blunt but constructive (and, yes, public) criticism leaves me considering the fair an institution to be concerned about rather than a hero or a villain.
I hope that, once the stress has subsided, Wallin and Villegas find more appropriate ways to engage their constituents (some of whom may not be their "real friends"). I'm sure they will.
I agree with one thing that awb said - I think the SPBF is fantastic as well! It is well deserving of “Hero” status!
The “debate”, if you would call it that, IS pathetic and overblown. What part of "small press" do these "debaters" not understand? We are talking about hand stapled chapbooks and similar things. This is a "small" thing, it certainly is not a business (breaking even is about the best a publisher can do), but is an opportunity, once every 6 months, for the people who have tables to buy each others work. It is about Small Press. Any debate about small press, even between two monkeys for five minutes, is overblown.
If you are interested in going to the source, people, I would recommend going to the “Toronto Small Press Fair” Facebook site, http://yorku.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19674885184 - and/or the Web site for the Toronto Small Press Book Fair. http://www.torontosmallpressbookfair.org/ These are the sites that are run by the fair coordinators, Halli Villegas and Myna Wallin. It is also where the Board that oversees the fair resides. As the actual site for the SPBF, you can give input to the people that actually run the fair and can actually do something with your input! Strange concept!
As coordinators Halli and Myna decide a lot of things, like when the fair is going to take place, where the fair is going to take place, whether there would be readings at the fair, whether there would be an instant anthology, how the fair is promoted, how it is run, the grant proposals, and all the work (and there is a lot of work) that goes on leading up to the fair and the day of the fair. If you want to make positive suggestions, go to their sites!
As coordinators, Halli and Myna have charge of the fair, so they have final say on how the fair is run (which is somehow lost on some people). They have responded to the concerns expressed by concerned individuals by creating a board to oversee the fair, by meeting with the funding bodies, and by developing a marketing plan.
What I don't get, is why someone would go to the "Friends" (as if) site? They aren't the ones that decide how the fair is run! What is the point? Sure, join the other site and submit a suggestion, see what they can do with it (which is nothing). Waste your time - it's your time to waste, anyway, do with it what you want - it's a free world!
The debate does not “go to the heart of what it means to be a publicly-funded, community-based and independent-culture-serving organization.” It is about one man who can't let go. It is about a man who in one breath talks about being censored when the same man, years earlier (I heard, second hand), ran a woman out of the community using bullying tactics because she referred to his work as "shtick" in a review. A man who has burned more bridges than anyone I know. As Daniel F. Bradley so succinctly and aptly put it in his blog posted December 19: “it's time to pack it in and let go Stu, give it up and do something else with your time for your "community."
The “debate”, if you would call it that, IS pathetic and overblown. What part of "small press" do these "debaters" not understand? We are talking about hand stapled chapbooks and similar things. This is a "small" thing, it certainly is not a business (breaking even is about the best a publisher can do), but is an opportunity, once every 6 months, for the people who have tables to buy each others work. It is about Small Press. Any debate about small press, even between two monkeys for five minutes, is overblown.
Wow. Your illogic is breathtaking (by virtue of being an opportunity and not a business, the small press fair is insignificant and therefore not worth debating?), as is, if I'm to take your conclusion seriously, the low esteem in which you apparently hold the small press.
Furthermore, the debate may have begun between Ross and the coordinators, but it certainly came to involve others (who had legitimate concerns of their own and who articulated them quite sensibly).
After another moment's reflection: apologies for the harshness with which I put the above (especially the beginning). The import of my response, however, stands.
Seems the best David Clink can offer is an unrelated fiction he "heard second hand," by way of personal attack against me. He obviously has no understanding of the Fair as a collectively run organization (one that is funded as such by the TAC and OAC), and has no experience running the Fair.
As for my "Friends of the Small Press Book Fair" Facebook site, I created it because there was a need for a useful and audience-friendly Small Press Book Fair site. It has a lot of historical information about the fair, and actual discussion of small press! It's at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5708489932, if anyone wants to judge for themselves.
And while Prathna Lor might think it's sexy journalism to say that the two Facebook sites are "two distinct factions," it's actually bad journalism: there are scores of people who are members of both groups. Hell, I'd be a member of both groups, too, but the coordinators of the Fair have blocked me from the group, along with a few other members of the community who asked questions and made suggestions.
Now, whether the uproar over the Fair is "pathetic" and "blown-out-of-proportion" — half a dozen former fair coordinators, at least as many participating publishers, and far more fairgoers have expressed serious concern about what's happening to the fair and how the coordinators have handled criticism. You might have read a lot of that on the fair's "official" Facebook page, but the administrators there keep cleansing it of anything but little cheerleadery squibs.
So there's a very serious issue at hand, one that goes beyond my initial concerns about the lack of publicity for the fair (http://bloggamooga.blogspot.com/2007/11/small-press-book-fair-needs-public-and.html): can people who censor and squelch debate run a fair that is dedicated to independent voices, disenfranchised voices, and alternative literature?
If the Fair is a hero, that's the result of two decades of work by coordinators and volunteers, two decades of participation and collective action by hundreds of small press publishers, and two decades of attendance by thousands of literary enthusiasts.
Stuart Ross
Co-founder of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair
Co-coordinator, 1987-89
Participating publisher, 1987-2007
Oh, one other thing.
Clink says the Fair is "an opportunity, once every 6 months, for the people who have tables to buy each others work."
That's pretty telling of Clink's distinct lack of understanding of the Fair.
While it's nice when one small press publisher buys something from another, small-press publishers come to the Fair hoping for many hundreds of members of the reading public to stream through the doors and buy their work.
Stuart
Stuart Ross may have started the fair but he doesn't run it any more. He can't seem to understand that. His reaction to this whole thing is WAY out of proportion. The so called small press "community" should ask itself this: If this is the kind of bullying fair coordinators are going to have to endure when they don't bow to Ross' every wish, who in their right mind is going to want the position?
I vote for Stuart Ross: Villain!
Well, anonymous sausage, let's talk about proportion.
In response to a single sentence by me on Facebook — "I'm curious to hear about the advertising campaign" (that's all my post consisted of, in addition to a two-sentence quote from a Quill & Quire article the coordinators posted) — one of the coordinators raised the spectre of legal action three times and repeatedly smeared me publicly with personal attacks, as their surrogates are doing here.
So whose response was out of proportion and who was doing the bullying?
Stuart
P.S. - I notice the link to my FB group above doesn't work. I'll try again:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5708489932
The above comment by David Clink is clearly libelous and goes against the Torontoist comment policy -- editors, take note.
And if one wants to quote the "succinct" Daniel Bradley (I could think of some other adjectives), then why not quote the rest of that same blog entry out of context:
Nice how David Clink left out that part, above...
As for the article itself: Torontoist, get your facts straight. The off-handed description of the dialogue as being a "pathetic, blown-out-of-proportion argument" shows a clear lack of engagement and understanding of what's going on.
How about a real article that investigates the topic intelligently?
SuperVilain: bad journalism.
"In response to a single sentence by me on Facebook — "I'm curious to hear about the advertising campaign" (that's all my post consisted of, in addition to a two-sentence quote from a Quill & Quire article the coordinators posted) — one of the coordinators raised the spectre of legal action three times and repeatedly smeared me publicly with personal attacks, as their surrogates are doing here."
Ross appears to have forgotten about the lengthy post on his own blog that started all this, in which he criticized the fair coordinators publicly before giving them an adequate chance to respond to his concerns privately.
Undoubtedly, this will elicit a pedantic response that claims "it" all started with poor fair management. Well, maybe the fair was managed poorly, maybe not. But it could also be argued that Ross' handling of his own reaction has been just as questionable. "Look at me! Listen to me! I'm important!" Ross was snubbed...or rather he seems to think he was snubbed at the fair because he tried to bring up his concerns with the coordinators in the middle of the busy day, in the middle of the busy fair. Wrong place. Wrong time. Unprofessional. Since then, attack seems to be the m.o.
One has to question how much he is motivated by love of the fair, and how much by a bruised ego.
Just what is the goal here?
ROSS: "In response to a single sentence by me on Facebook — "I'm curious to hear about the advertising campaign" (that's all my post consisted of, in addition to a two-sentence quote from a Quill & Quire article the coordinators posted) — one of the coordinators raised the spectre of legal action three times and repeatedly smeared me publicly with personal attacks, as their surrogates are doing here."
He appears to have forgotten about the lengthy post on his own blog that started all this, in which he criticized the fair coordinators publicly before giving them an adequate chance to respond to his concerns privately.
Undoubtedly, this will elicit a pedantic response which claims "it" all started with poor fair management. Well, maybe the fair was managed poorly, maybe not. But it could also be argued that Ross' handling of his own reaction has been highly questionable.
One has to question how much he is motivated by love of the fair, and how much by a bruised ego.
Just what is the goal here? Attention?
Well, anonymous sausage,
I am motivated by my love of the Fair, an event I've been attending for twenty years, and one that is an extremely important part of my business as a writer. I hope to find new readers at the Fair, and to make some of my living there. Potentially, it is the best opportunity for a micropress publisher to distribute books. So if only a hundred or so people turn out in the course of the entire day, that's lousy for me — and for any writers and publishers hoping to expand their audiences. This isn't a hobby for me. It's my profession.
Why would my ego be bruised? Because one of the coordinators brushed me off when I offered to put up posters for the next Fair (there were *no* posters for the fall Fair)?
As I said in my blog entry, which was not a personal attack, but criticism of the organization of the fair —
http://bloggamooga.blogspot.com/2007/11/small-press-book-fair-needs-public-and.html
— I had a good time at the Fair. I just would have liked a much bigger audience to introduce my work to.
Unlike you, I don't hide behind a name intended for minced and reformed pigs' asses — I try to raise topics I think need to be raised, and I take responsibility for my own words. But like the coordinators of the Fair, you avoid the issues on the table and personally attack the messenger.
The coordinators of the Fair have a responsibility to deal with comments and complaints — all the past organizers agree that's part of the job. We all dealt with complaints. I once had to deal with a physical threat by a disgruntled publisher. Any manager of anything knows that dealing with complaints is part of the job.
As for those three suggestions of legal action, they were in direct response to my one sentence quoted above: because the coordinator, bewilderingly — and blowing things out of proportion — interpreted that sentence as an accusation of misappropriation of government funds.
Again, this is all history. To me, now, the issue is that two people who have censored, blocked, and attacked dissenters are running a fair dedicated to literature — and, by extension, freedom of speech.
Stuart
God he has a lot of time. Santa must have brought a big grant this year.
The thing is, anonymous sausage, I'm Jewish: Santa doesn't bring me anything.
But the "You've got a lot of time on your hands" response is the last resort of someone who wants to shut debate because s/he has nothing substantive to say and can't actually engage the points that have been made.
Stuart
Anonymous Sausage's comment, above, also shows a distinct lack of understanding of the life and working process of artists and writers -- so it begs the question of what connection "Sausage" has to the realm of writing and publishing, other than as a "Sock Puppet" or "Meat Puppet" for, perhaps, one of the Coordinators.
Processed, smoked and cured food for thought.
Since this discussion started, the membership of the Friends of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair FB group has grown by nearly 40, and the membership of the "official" group has grown by 1.
I haven't done anything special to make this happen. It's just happened.
Pretty interesting.
Stuart
If this argument is to be described as blown out of proportion, how could anyone knowledgeable about recent events attribute it to one man? I've been following this from the start and I'm disgusted by the personal attacks on Stuart. No one seems to realize that this now concerns all who are involved in the Fair. Stuart is a convenient scapegoat, but he represents many people who share his frustrations with the current administrators.
Give the guy a break.