Metonymy Press

CHICAGO LAUNCH: EL GHOURABAA
2024-07-30 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | QC
Pilsen Community Books: 1102 W 18th St, Chicago, IL
Join us for our Chicago launch of El Ghourabaa: A queer and trans collection of oddities, featuring readings from Eman Abdelhadi, George Abraham, and Bazeed. Event starts at 7pm CDT.

Seeking uncanny, fun, experimental, creepy, sarcastic, playful, vulgar, inventive, sexual, weird, sweet, and evocative works, editors Samia Marshy and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch set out to collect Arab and Arabophone queer writing. The result is an anthology brimming with gems by emerging and established writers and an homage to the lineages and complexities of queer Arab life. Multi-genre, multi-generational, and global, El Ghourabaa is an enigma, a delight, and a contribution to an ongoing conversation and creative outpouring.
Eman Abdelhadi is an academic, activist and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics. She is an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago and co-author of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, a sci-fi novel published in 2022 with Common Notions Press.

George Abraham (they/he/هو) is a Palestinian American poet, performance artist, and writer from Jacksonville, FL. Their debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) won the Arab American Book Award and the Big Other Book Award in Poetry, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. He is also the author of the chapbooks al youm (The Atlas Review, 2017), and the specimen’s apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019). He is a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), a recipient of fellowships from The Arab American National Museum, The Boston Foundation, the National Performance Network, and the Map Fund, and more. Their writing has appeared in The Nation, The American Poetry Review, The Baffler, The Paris Review, Mizna, and many other journals and anthologies.

Bazeed is a multi–award winning Egyptian immigrant, poet, playwright, performance artist, actor, editor, translator, curator, massage therapist, and cook, living in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and pantry lists, their work across genres has been published by Poetry; Palette; Driftwood Press; Mizna; The Margins; and The Evergreen Review, among others. Their first play, peace camp org, an autobiographical queer anti-Zionist musical(ish) comedy about summer camp, is published by Oberon Books, and won the Dramatists Guild’s Lanford Wilson Award for creative promise. Other works in prose and plays has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Sundance Institute, Arab American National Museum, AAWW, the Center for Fiction, Cafe Royal, Lambda Literary, Queer Art Mentorship, and Trans Lab, among others.

El Ghourabaa online launch
2024-07-06 13:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | online
Join us on July 6th at 1pm ET for our virtual launch of El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Collection of Oddities, edited by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch and Samia Marshy!
REGISTER HERE: https://www.crowdcast.io/c/el-ghourabaa-launch

Featuring readings and discussion with:

Bazeed

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

Sherine Elbanhawy

Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán

Micaela Kaibni Raen

Naja Kassir
Sarah O’Neal

Leila Marshy
Samia Marshy

Trish Salah

Seif Siddiq

Nour Symon

++ maybe some surprise guest appearances!

Metonymy Press is delighted to publish its first-ever anthology!

Seeking uncanny, fun, experimental, creepy, sarcastic, playful, vulgar, inventive, sexual, weird, sweet, and evocative works, editors Samia Marshy and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch set out to collect Arab and Arabophone queer writing. The result is an anthology brimming with gems by emerging and established writers and an homage to the lineages and complexities of queer Arab life. Multi-genre, multi-generational, and global, El Ghourabaa is an enigma, a delight, and a contribution to an ongoing conversation and creative outpouring.

Toronto launch: El Ghourabaa
2024-06-19 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Workers’ Action Centre, 720 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, ON, Canada
Join us for the Toronto launch of El Ghourabaa: A queer and trans collection of oddities
Metonymy Press is delighted to publish its first-ever anthology!
Seeking uncanny, fun, experimental, creepy, sarcastic, playful, vulgar, inventive, sexual, weird, sweet, and evocative works, editors Samia Marshy and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch set out to collect Arab and Arabophone queer writing. The result is an anthology brimming with gems by emerging and established writers and an homage to the lineages and complexities of queer Arab life. Multi-genre, multi-generational, and global, El Ghourabaa is an enigma, a delight, and a contribution to an ongoing conversation and creative outpouring.
The Toronto launch will feature readings and discussion from El Bechelany-Lynch and Trish Salah.
This is a free event. Books will be available for sale on site from Another Story Bookshop.
Please pre-register!
The Workers’ Action Centre is located at 720 Spadina Avenue, one block south of Bloor. There is street parking closeby. The building is accessible via an e-door, and there is an elevator to the 2nd floor. There is a wheelchair accessible bathroom on the 2nd floor.

Montreal launch: El Ghourabaa
2024-06-15 18:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Brique par brique, 633 ave. Beaumont, Montreal, QC, Canada
Join us for the hometown launch of El Ghourabaa: A queer and trans collection of oddities
Metonymy Press is delighted to publish its first-ever anthology!
Seeking uncanny, fun, experimental, creepy, sarcastic, playful, vulgar, inventive, sexual, weird, sweet, and evocative works, editors Samia Marshy and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch set out to collect Arab and Arabophone queer writing. The result is an anthology brimming with gems by emerging and established writers and an homage to the lineages and complexities of queer Arab life. Multi-genre, multi-generational, and global, El Ghourabaa is an enigma, a delight, and a contribution to an ongoing conversation and creative outpouring.
In addition to Marshy and El Bechelany-Lynch, the Montreal launch will feature Sherine Elbanhawy, Naja Kassir, Leila Marshy, Nofel, and Olivia Tapiero.
Brique par brique is wheelchair accessible. This event is free and open to everyone. Books will be available for sale on site. Food and drinks will be served and we will be collecting donations for a Palestinian trans woman in crisis.

The Rage Letters: a 5 à 7 get-together and bilingual reading
2024-06-14 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Librairie L’Euguelionne, 1426 rue Beaudry, Montreal, QC, Canada
Join us for a casual 5 à 7, bilingual reading, and brief conversation between author Valérie Bah and translator Kama La Mackerel.
The Rage Letters is a nominee for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction!
About the book:
An exhausted security guard dreams of home. A sculptor and a pothead have great sex — in the shadow of wax ex-lovers. A diversity workshop devolves into a familiar nightmare.
Throughout this deadpan collection, determined, damned, and triumphant characters appear and reappear, and their links become clear over the course of the fragmented narrative. The author playfully traces the portrait of the intertwined lives of a group of Black queer and trans friends as they navigate the social violence, traumas, and contradictions of their circumstances.
Originally published in French in 2021 by les Éditions du remue-ménage, as part of the Martiales collection, the stories in Bah’s The Rage Letters — set in Montreal and beyond — are sometimes brief, often conversational, and always generative of possibilities through the characters’ desire, rage, and acts of rebellion.
About the artists:
Valérie Bah is a Tiohtià:ke-based filmmaker and writer whose work explores intergenerational trauma & healing, as well as mundane/radical acts of survival. Couched in magical realism, Val’s narratives are driven by Black feminist thought and lived experience.
Kama La Mackerel is an educator, visual artist, performer, writer and translator who works between and across English, French and Mauritian Kreol. They are the author of the award-winning poetry collection ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press) and have translated works by Canadian writers Vivek Shraya and Kai Cheng Thom. They have lectured, performed and exhibited their work internationally. Find them on social media @kamalamackerel
Copies of the book will be available for sale. Please contact Librairie l’Euguélionne for any space questions.

BOOK LAUNCH: THE RAGE LETTERS BY VALÉRIE BAH
2023-11-17 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Articule, 6282 Rue St-Hubert, Montreal, Quebec, H2S 2M2, Canada
Join us as we celebrate the launch of The Rage Letters, written by Valérie Bah and translated by Kama La Mackerel!

This event will take place at Articule from 6pm – 9pm. Snacks and drinks provided.

***More details forthcoming.***

Valérie Bah

Valérie Bah is a Tiohtià:ke-based filmmaker and writer whose work explores intergenerational trauma & healing, as well as mundane/radical acts of survival. Couched in magical realism, Val’s narratives are driven by Black feminist thought and lived experience.

Kama La Mackerel

Kama La Mackerel is an educator, visual artist, performer, writer and translator who works between and across English, French and Mauritian Kreol. They are the author of the award-winning poetry collection ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press) and have translated works by Canadian writers Vivek Shraya and Kai Cheng Thom. They have lectured, performed and exhibited their work internationally. Find them on social media @kamalamackerel

Fall tour: The Haunting of Adrian Yates
2023-10-21 15:00 - 2023-11-18 21:00 (America/New_York) | QC
Join us for the fall 2023 tour of The Haunting of Adrian Yates
Oct 21: Toronto @ Glad Day Bookshop at 3pm, with special guest Myriad Augustine *also on IG live
Oct 28: Montreal @ Maisonnette des parents at 1:30pm, with special guest H Felix Chau Bradley *also on IG live
Nov 16: Kingston @ Novel Idea Books at 7pm
Nov 18: Winnipeg @ McNally Robinson Booksellers at 7 pm (CT), with special guest S.M. Beiko *also streamed online
More possible dates to come!
—
Adrian’s best friend and his boyfriend don’t get along. Oh, and his boyfriend is a ghost.
Adrian Yates expected his summer would involve sharing Slurpees with his best friend Zoomer and pretending not to hear his dads’ whispered fighting. And that’s exactly how it was going, until the night Sorel appeared in the graveyard by Adrian’s apartment. Sorel gets Adrian in ways no one else has; the fact that he’s not technically alive only makes things exciting. But Sorel can’t always control his otherworldly behaviour, and Zoomer’s worried he might be hiding something. On stormy summer nights behind the cemetery’s iron gates, Adrian and Sorel meet in secret and the pair begin to experiment with consensual possession. Despite the warning signs, Adrian is certain he has everything under control—until suddenly he finds himself fighting for his life.
Markus Harwood-Jones (he/they) is a proudly queer and trans space-case who has been writing since he can remember. Markus specializes in writing young-adult fiction and has a soft spot for sappy love stories. He lives in downtown Toronto with his husband, their platonic co-parent, and their extra-cute kiddo. Markus is an aspiring TikTokker and can be found on social media under the handle @MarkusBones.

Montreal Review of Books summer 2023 launch
2023-07-05 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Wills Bar, 6729 Esplanade Ave, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
The Montreal Review of Books launches its Summer 2023 issue Wednesday, July 5th, at Wills Bar (6729 Esplanade Ave). Join us for readings by Valérie Bah with translator Kama La Mackerel (The Rage Letters, Metonomy), Maxime Aurélien and Ted Rutland (Out To Defend Ourselves, Fernwood), and John Reibetanz (New Songs for Orpheus, McGill-Queen’s University Press).
Doors open at 6:00 p.m., with readings beginning at 7:00 pm. The authors will be available to sign books after the readings. Admission is free; please RSVP on the Facebook event.
For those unable to attend in person, readings will be live-streamed on our YouTube page.
We thank you for your continued support of the mRb, and look forward to seeing you there!
Valérie Bah is a Tiohtià:ke-based filmmaker and writer whose work explores intergenerational trauma & healing, as well as mundane/radical acts of survival. Couched in magical realism, Val’s narratives are driven by Black feminist thought and lived experience.
Kama La Mackerel is an educator, visual artist, performer, writer and translator who works between and across English, French and Mauritian Kreol. They are the author of the award-winning poetry collection ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press) and have translated works by Canadian writers Vivek Shraya and Kai Cheng Thom. They have lectured, performed and exhibited their work internationally.
Maxime Aurélien is the former leader of les Bélangers, Montreal’s first Haitian street gang. He is the owner of Cash Content, a pawn shop and barbershop in Montreal’s east end.
Ted Rutland is a professor at Concordia University. His research and activism focuses on the racial politics of urban planning and policing in Canadian cities. He is the author of Displacing Blackness: Planning, Power, and Race in Twentieth-Century Halifax.
John Reibetanz is an award-winning poet, fellow of Victoria College, and senior fellow at Massey College, Toronto. He has published fourteen full collections and two chapbooks, been shortlisted for the national ReLit Poetry Award, and won First Prize in the international Petra Kenney Poetry Competition.
Les versions originales en français de The Rage Letters (Les enragé.es, Éditions du remue-ménage, 2021) et Out to Defend Ourselves (Il fallait se défendre, Mémoire d’encrier, 2023) seront également à vendre sur place!

Dear Black Girl Magic
2023-02-15 19:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | Ausgang Plaza, 6524 rue St Hubert, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
The DEAR BLACK GIRLS book turns 2 this February and creators Shanice Nicole and Kezna Dalz invite you to celebrate with them!
~~Ausgang Plaza (6524 rue St Huber), 7-10 pm February 15
MC Kama La Mackerel
++ performances par Shanice Nicole, Mbissine & Kama
++DJ GLOWZI
$5 suggested donation
~~Books, merch, and drinks for sale!
~~ Food provided by Boom J’s
~~ Original paintings from the book will be on display in the gallery.
~~ A chance to browse Librairie Racines after hours.
We encourage guests to wear masks, and we’ll make some available at the door.
The entrance to Ausgang Plaza is step-free.
The venue is 18+

Jeanne, Eli, Felix, and River read and launch books in NYC
2023-01-19 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | bgsqd, 208 West 13th Street, New York, NY, United States
Four acclaimed trans authors based in Canada and New York read from their latest works: H. Felix Chau Bradley reads from Personal Attention Roleplay; River Halen reads from Dream Rooms; Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch reads from The Good Arabs; Jeanne Thornton reads from Summer Fun and/or new work. Personal Attention Roleplay is praised by Casey Plett as “a perfect album of stories”; Dream Rooms is described by Gail Scott as “a marvelous confection of the author’s definition of ‘revolution’”; and The Good Arabs as “bold and deeply necessary” by Liz Howard. Summer Fun won the 2022 Lambda Award for transgender fiction.
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.
All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @bgsqd.
H Felix Chau Bradley is the author of Personal Attention Roleplay, which was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Kobo Rakuten Emerging Writer Prize, as well as the poetry chapbook Automatic Object Lessons. They are the fiction editor for This Magazine and the host of Strange Futures, a speculative fiction book club. They live in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal).
River Halen is an award-winning, transgender writer of Catalan and Danish descent living in Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Their poems and essays dealing with relation, ecology, transformation, and sexuality have been published widely in Canada, as well as in the U.S., Australia, and in translation in Japan. Their first book, Match, was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and their most recent book, Dream Rooms, a collection of essays and poems, is praised by the Bay Area Reporter as “unique and mesmerizing.”
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a writer living in Tio’tia:ke. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. Their book, knot body (2020), published by Metatron Press, was shortlisted for the QWF Concordia First Book Award, and their second book, The Good Arabs, was published by Metonymy Press in September 2021, and received the honorary mention for the Arab American Book Award for Poetry. They are the non-fiction editor at The Puritan. They are also an acquisitions editor at Metonymy Press. They are currently translating Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay’s La fille d’elle-même from the French, forthcoming Fall 2023. With co-editor Samia Marshy, they are editing El Ghourabaa, an anthology of weird and experimental queer and trans writing by Arab and Arabophone writers.
Jeanne Thornton is the author of Summer Fun (Soho 2021), The Black Emerald (Instar 2014), and The Dream of Doctor Bantam (OR 2012). She is the copublisher of Instar Books and the editor, with Tara Madison Avery, of the Ignatz Award-winning We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology. Her fiction has appeared in n+1, WIRED, The Evergreen Review, and more.

Richler Writer-in-Residence Event Series
2023-01-01 12:00 - 2023-03-29 18:30 (America/New_York) | McGill University, McCall MacBain Arts Building, Room 160, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Metonymy Press co-founders Ashley Fortier and Oliver Fugler will be in residence January through March, 2023. Metonymy Press is based in Tio’tia:ke (Montreal), unceded Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) territory. They publish literary fiction and nonfiction by emerging writers in the hope of reducing barriers to publishing for authors whose perspectives are underrepresented. They produce quality materials relevant to queer, feminist, and social justice communities.
Throughout the season, Metonymy authors and editors will be holding events on small press publishing, the Canadian literary scene and more, and they will showcase their own work through readings and events. They will also hold office hours to engage in conversations on publishing, writing and more. Everyone is welcome!

Event schedule:
January 18
Roundtable on small press publishing in Canada featuring Oliver Fugler and Ashley Fortier of Metonymy Press, David Bradford of House House Press, Eloisa Aquino of B&D Press, and Ashley Opheim of Metatron Press. Moderated by English PhD student Jay Ritchie. The event will be live streamed and live captioned.
When and Where: January 18, Arts 160, 12-1:30 pm

January 24
In conversation between Felix Chau Bradley and Metonymy author Markus Harwood-Jones about editorial relationships. Felix is currently editing Markus’s forthcoming YA novel, The Haunting of Adrian Yates. The event will be live streamed and live captioned.
When and where: January 24, Arts 160, 5-6 pm
Register to the Jan. 24 Zoom event

February 6
Metonymy author showcase and cabaret, hosted by Erin Hurley (English). This event features readings from writer-in-residence H. Felix Chau Bradley, Kama La Mackerel, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, and Valérie Bah, and participation of Metonymy authors Addie Tsai, Shanice Nicole, and more. The readings will be followed by a wine and cheese reception. The event will be live streamed and live captioned.
When and where: February 6, Leacock 232, 5-7 pm
Register to the Feb. 6 Zoom event

February 20
A translation conversation between Valérie Bah, Kama La Mackerel, and Stéphane Martelly, moderated by Alanna Thain (English) and Catherine Leclerc (Département des littératures de langue française, de traduction et de creation) about translation in the context of Bah’s novel Les Enrag.é.es / The Rage Letters. The conversation will focus on translating within and across queer, trans, Black, multilingual and diaspora communities. Co-sponsored by Département des littératures de langue française, de traduction et de creation and Centre de recherches interdisciplinaires en études montréalaises. The event will be live streamed and live captioned.
When and where: February 20, Leacock 232, 6-8 pm
Register to the Feb. 20 Zoom event

March 29
A discussion featuring co-editors of the upcoming queer and trans Arab anthology El Ghourabaa — Eli Tareq and Samia Marshy — and El Ghourabaa contributor Leila Marshy. El Bechelany-Lynch and S. Marshy will discuss the process of choosing pieces for the anthology, working with so many authors at once, and their vision for this anthology. L. Marshy will join them to discuss the collaborative editorial experience. The discussion will be moderated by Sabrina Attar.
When and where: March 29, Arts Building, Room 160, 4-5 pm

Double Detroit Book Launch
2022-11-11 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | 27th Letter Books, 3546 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, United States
Please join Metonymy Press authors H. Felix Chau Bradley and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch for the double launch of their latest books. The two will be joined by guest readers Pwaangulongii Dauod & George Abraham.
PERSONAL ATTENTION ROLEPLAY
A young gymnast crushes on an older, more talented teammate while contending with her overworked mother. A newly queer twenty-something juggles two intimate relationships—with a slippery anarchist lover and an idiosyncratic meals-on-wheels recipient. A queer metal band’s summer tour unravels amid the sticky heat of the Northeastern US. A codependent listicle writer becomes obsessed with a Japanese ASMR channel.
The stories in Personal Attention Roleplay are propelled by queer loneliness, mixed-race confusion, late capitalist despondency, and the pitfalls of intimacy. Taking place in Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere, they feature young Asian misfits struggling with the desire to see themselves reflected—in their surroundings, in others, online. Chau Bradley’s precise language and investigation of our more troubling motivations stand out in this wryly funny debut, through stories that hint at the uncanny while remaining grounded in the everyday.
*Shortlisted for the 2021 TWUC Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the eighth annual Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.*
THE GOOD ARABS
This collection of poetry swings from post-explosion Beirut to a Parc-Extension balcony in summer–with verse and prose poems that ground the reader in place, language, and the body. Peeling and rinsing radishes. Dancing as a pre-teen to Nancy Ajram. Being drenched in stares on the city bus. The collection is an interlocking and rich offering of the speaker’s communities, geographical surroundings both expansive and precise, and family both biological and chosen.
The Good Arabs gifts the reader with insight into cycles and repetition in ourselves and our broken nations. This genre-defying collection maps Arab and trans identity through the immensity of experience felt in one body, the sorrow of citizens let down by their countries, and the garbage crisis in Lebanon. Ultimately, it shows how we might love amid dismay, adore the pungent and the ugly, and exist in our multiplicity across spaces.
**Honorable Mention for the 2022 Arab American Book Award and Jury Selection for the Grand Prix du livre de Montreal**
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
H. Felix Chau Bradley is a writer and musician living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). They are the author of Automatic Object Lessons, a poetry chapbook, the Fiction Editor for This Magazine, and the host of Strange Futures, a speculative fiction book club. Personal Attention Roleplay is their first book. They are also an acquisitions editor at Metonymy Press.
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a writer living in Tiohtià:ke. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. Their book, knot body (2020), published by Metatron Press, was shortlisted for the QWF Concordia First Book Award, and their second book, The Good Arabs, was published by Metonymy Press in September 2021. They are the non-fiction editor at The Puritan. They are also an acquisitions editor at Metonymy Press.
ABOUT THE GUEST READERS:
George Abraham (they/هو) is a Palestinian American poet. Their debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) won the Arab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers, and a recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, The Arab American National Museum, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, National Performance Network, and more. They are currently co-editing a Palestinian global anglophone poetry anthology with Noor Hindi (Haymarket Books, 2024) and are a Litowitz MFA+MA student at Northwestern University.
Pwaangulongii Dauod is a Nigerian writer whose essay, “Africa’s Future Has No Space for Stupid Black Men” (Granta), sparked a national conversation about queer issues in Nigeria and led to threats to his life. He is an Artist Protection Fund Fellow in residence at Wayne State University’s Department of English and City of Asylum/Detroit. His writing has appeared in Granta, LitHub, Johannesburg Review of Books, and elsewhere. He studied with celebrated authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Binyavanga Wainaina and holds an MFA from University of Virginia. He is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, an O’Brien Fellowship at the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, and a Gerald Kraak Award. He was a finalist for the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Manuscript Prize and Woke Africa Magazine named him One of the Best African Writers of the New Generation.
**
27th Letter Books is located at 3546 Michigan Avenue in Detroit. For more info about the venue, visit 27thletterbooks.com. Attendees are asked to wear masks at the event.

Collective Vancouver book launch
2022-10-28 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Massy Arts Gallery, 23 East Pender Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
On Friday, October 28 at 6pm, join Massy Arts Society, Massy Books and Metonymy Press for a celebration of authors and their latest works including: H. Felix Chau Bradley and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch. Exploring new queer intimacy (and anarchy!) and mapping trans identity through the immensity of experience felt in one body, these readings offer a riot within us that both affirms and uncovers. The two are joined by guest reader, Amber Dawn.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
Registration is free, open to all and required for entrance. Masks are mandatory. The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site.
Covid Protocols: Attendees must wear a mask (N95 masks are encouraged and recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
The Books
Personal Attention Roleplay by H. Felix Chau Bradley follows a young gymnast who crushes on an older, more talented teammate while contending with her overworked mother. A newly queer twenty-something juggles two intimate relationships—with a slippery anarchist lover and an idiosyncratic meals-on-wheels recipient. A queer metal band’s summer tour unravels amid the sticky heat of the Northeastern US. A codependent listicle writer becomes obsessed with a Japanese ASMR channel.
The stories in Personal Attention Roleplay are propelled by queer loneliness, mixed-race confusion, late capitalist despondency, and the pitfalls of intimacy. Taking place in Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere, they feature young Asian misfits struggling with the desire to see themselves reflected—in their surroundings, in others, online. Chau Bradley’s precise language and investigation of our more troubling motivations stand out in this wryly funny debut, through stories that hint at the uncanny while remaining grounded in the everyday.
Shortlisted for the 2021 TWUC Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the eighth annual Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.
The Good Arabs by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch swings from post-explosion Beirut to a Parc-Extension balcony in summer–with verse and prose poems that ground the reader in place, language, and the body. Peeling and rinsing radishes. Dancing as a pre-teen to Nancy Ajram. Being drenched in stares on the city bus. The collection is an interlocking and rich offering of the speaker’s communities, geographical surroundings both expansive and precise, and family both biological and chosen.
The Good Arabs gifts the reader with insight into cycles and repetition in ourselves and our broken nations. This genre-defying collection maps Arab and trans identity through the immensity of experience felt in one body, the sorrow of citizens let down by their countries, and the garbage crisis in Lebanon. Ultimately, it shows how we might love amid dismay, adore the pungent and the ugly, and exist in our multiplicity across spaces.
Honourable Mention for the 2022 Arab American Book Award and Jury Selection for the 2022 Grand Prix du livre de Montreal
With Guest Reader
Amber Dawn is a writer and creative facilitator living on unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver, Canada). Her debut novel Sub Rosa (2010) won the Lambda Literary Award for Debut Lesbian Fiction and the Writers’ Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize. Her memoir How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir (2013) won the Vancouver Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her poetry collection Where the words end and my body begins (2015) was a finalist for BC Book Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her sophomore novel Sodom Road Exit (2018) was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the BC Book Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and a Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her collection of long poems My Art Is Killing Me and Other Poems (2020) was a finalist for the Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes.
She is the editor of three anthologies With A Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (co-ed. Trish Kelly, 2005), Fist of the Spider Women: Fear and Queer Desire (2009) and Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry (co-ed. Justin Ducharme, 2019).
All of her books are published with Arsenal Pulp Press.
Donating to Massy Arts Society
Massy Arts Society is primarily funded by Massy Books, an Indigenous woman-owned and operated bookstore on the unceded territories of XwMuthkwium (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. To date we haven’t received any operating funds from any grants and are now providing the option for folks to contribute to keeping our events accessible and doors open. All proceeds from your donation will go towards operation costs of our community hub while we focus on supporting the practices of Indigenous and over-excluded artists. Consider donating when you register for your next event.

POSTPONED: Storytime with Kezna and Shanice
2022-10-15 13:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Parc Georges-St-Pierre, 999 ave. Oxford, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
This event has been postponed due to COVID. Please stay tuned for updates. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Join Shanice Nicole and Kezna Dalz, the creators of DEAR BLACK GIRLS, for an afternoon of reading, storytelling, snacks, and other fun family activities.
Parc Georges-St-Pierre
999 ave. Oxford
Saturday, October 15, 1 – 3 PM
(rain date October 16)
This is a free event. There will be copies of the children’s book Dear Black Girls for sale from Saga Bookstore.
DEAR BLACK GIRLS is a letter to all Black girls. Every single day poet and educator Shanice Nicole is reminded of how special Black girls are and of how lucky she is to be one. Illustrations by Kezna Dalz support the book’s message that no two Black girls are the same but they are all special—that to be a Black girl is a true gift. In this celebratory poem, Kezna and Shanice remind young readers that despite differences, they all deserve to be loved just the way they are.
Let’s keep each other safe! We strongly encourage adults in attendance to wear masks.
**This event is co-sponsored by Saga Bookstore and Women on the Rise**
//
Rejoignez Shanice Nicole et Kezna Dalz, les créatrices de DEAR BLACK GIRLS, pour un après-midi de lecture, de contes, de collations et d’autres activités familiales amusantes.
Parc Georges-St-Pierre
999 ave. Oxford
Le samedi 15 octobre de 13 à 15 h (en cas de pluie, l’événement aura lieu le lendemain à la même heure)
Cet événement est gratuit. Des exemplaires du livre pour enfants DEAR BLACK GIRLS, courtoisie de la Librairie Saga, seront en vente sur place.
DEAR BLACK GIRLS est une lettre d’amour adressée à toutes les filles noires. Chaque jour, la poétesse et éducatrice Shanice Nicole se rappelle combien les filles noires sont spéciales et combien elle a de la chance d’être l’une d’elles. Les illustrations de Kezna Dalz renvoient au message du livre, à savoir qu’il n’y a pas deux filles noires identiques, mais qu’elles sont toutes spéciales et qu’être une fille noire est un véritable don. Dans ce poème de célébration, Kezna et Shanice rappellent aux jeunes lecteur·rice·s.
Protégeons-nous les un·e·s les autres! Nous encourageons les adultes sur place à porter des masques.
**Cet événement est co-sponsorisé par la Librairie Saga et L’envol de femmes**

Book launch: LOTE by Shola von Reinhold, with special guests Marlowe Granados and H. Felix Chau Bradley
2022-06-18 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Casa del Popolo, 4873 Boulevard Saint-Laurent, Montreal, Quebec, H2T1R6, Canada
Metonymy Press and the Suoni Per Il Popolo festival CANNOT WAIT to host Glasgow-based author Shola von Reinhold for the launch of the “Canadian” edition of LOTE.
Von Reinhold’s lavish debut novel lays bare, through ornate, layered prose, the gaps and fault lines in the archive. Through obsessive research on an overlooked Black modernist poet, the narrator buckles under the vacuousness of the art world and curates a queer historical scene, breaking it open and revelling in it. Published in the UK by Jacaranda Books Art Music Ltd. as part of the Twenty in 2020 Black British writers series, the book won both the James Tait Black Prize and The Republic of Consciousness Prize in 2021.
Marlowe Granados calls LOTE “a marvelous investigation into who is allowed to lead a glamorous, decadent life.” And as luck would have it, Granados will join von Reinhold on stage for this event.
Granados is the author of Happy Hour, a novel the New York Times called “confident, charismatic and alive to the pleasure of observation.” She is a writer and filmmaker based in Toronto.
Local Metonymy author H Felix Chau Bradley (Personal Attention Roleplay) will also be reading.
NEW LOCATION: Casa del Popolo at 4873 Blvd St Laurent – please bring your mask!

Book launch: Horrible Dance by Avery Lake
2022-06-02 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Marché des possibles, 5635 St Dominique, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Please join Brick Books and Metonymy Press in celebrating the launch of Horrible Dance by Avery Lake!

DATE: Thursday June 2, 6pm
LOCATION: Outdoors in Marché des Possibles park at the corner of Bernard and St Dominique (5635 rue St Dominique)
In case of rain: Saturday June 4 at 2 PM ET
With special guests Assiyah Jamilla Touré, author of Autowar (Brick Book 2021), Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, author of The Good Arabs (Metonymy, 2021), and Helen Chau Bradley, author of Personal Attention Roleplay (Metonymy, 2021).

ABOUT HORRIBLE DANCE: https://www.brickbooks.ca/shop/horrible-dance-by-avery-lake/

AVERY LAKE is a worker and writer living in occupied Tiohtià:ke. She attended Concordia University and is not in the scene.

ASSIYAH JAMILLA TOURÉ is a multidisciplinary artist of West African descent. They were born and raised on Skwxwú7mesh land and lived for many years in Kanien’kehà:ka territory (Montreal) and are now based on the lands of the Mississaugas of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Wendat (Toronto). In 2018 their chapbook feral was published by House House Press. Autowar is their first full-length collection.

ELI TAREQ EL BECHELANY-LYNCH is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, Carte Blanche, the Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. You can find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq. Their first book, knot body, was published by Metatron Press in 2020, and their second book, The Good Arabs, was published by Metonymy Press in September 2021.

HELEN CHAU BRADLEY is a writer and musician living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). Their writing has appeared in carte blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, Maisonneuve Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and elsewhere. They are the author of Automatic Object Lessons, a poetry chapbook. They are the Fiction Editor for This Magazine, and the host of Strange Futures, a speculative fiction book club. Personal Attention Roleplay is their first book.

Metonymy Press at the Marché de la poésie 2022
2022-06-02 16:00 - 2022-06-05 17:00 (America/New_York) | Entrepot 77, Corner of Bernard and St Dominique, facing the tracks, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Join us and countless other indie publishers of poetry at the Marché de la poésie 2022. We will be tabling with our books as well as select titles from Metatron Press and Brick Books. Details en français below:
Enfin de retour en présentiel, cet événement phare du FPM propose un Marché de la poésie où s’arrêter, bouquiner et échanger avec une soixantaine d’éditeur·ices et revuistes. Pour une première fois, le milieu du livre de poésie et son public se retrouveront sous le toit dégagé de l’Entrepôt 77. Entouré de verdure, cet espace urbain à aire ouverte, niché le long de la piste cyclable des Carrières, permettra de dénicher de nouveaux recueils tout en profitant du beau temps.
❥ ENTRÉE LIBRE
🌿
𝗠𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗱’𝗲́𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘀 :
Arcmtl – Expozine
Bouc Productions
Brick Books
Centre québécois du P.E.N.
international
Cercle des solidarités
francophones Québec
Del Busso éditeur
Écrits des Forges
Éditions Fond’tonne
Éditions Hannenorak
Éditions du Noroît
Éditions du tanka
francophone
Éditions Triptyque
Éditions Omri
La courte échelle
La Mèche
La Peuplade
Les éditions de la Bagnole
Les éditions de la Maison
en feu
Les éditions Rodrigol
Les éditions Sémaphore
Les éditions de Ta Mère
les éditions du passage
Les Herbes rouges
L’Hexagone
Le Quartanier
Lézard amoureux
L’Oie de Cravan
Mémoire d’encrier
Metatron Press
Metonymy Press
Moult Éditions
Poètes de brousse
Productions Rhizome
Revue Estuaire
Revue Moebius
SODEP – Société de développement des
périodiques québécois
Vallum Magazine
𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗲́𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗼-𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘀 (𝗥𝗘𝗙𝗖) :
Éditions David
Éditions Perce-Neige
Éditions Prise de Parole
Éditions Terre d’Accueil
Les Éditions du Blé
𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗴𝗲 𝗱’𝗲́𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 :
Bleu d’Encre
Éditions du Taille Pré
Éditions du Vide
Éditions Le Coudrier
Éditions L’Herbe qui tremble
Éditions Tétras Lyre
Éditions maelstrÖm
Éléments de langage
Éranthis Éditions
Espace Nord
La Lettre volée
L’Arbre à paroles
L’Arbre de Diane
Le Cormier
Les Impressions Nouvelles
M.E.O. Éditions

LOTE author Shola von Reinhold in conversation with Sruti Islam
2022-05-05 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | online
Metonymy Press is proud to be publishing the Canadian edition of Shola von Reinhold’s award-winning debut novel LOTE. Join the Glasgow-based author for a reading followed by a conversation with Montreal bookseller, writer, and Weird Era podcast co-host Sruti Islam.
This lavish work lays bare, through ornate, layered prose, the gaps and faultlines in the archive. Through obsessive research on an overlooked Black modernist poet, the narrator buckles under the vacuousness of the art world and also curates a queer historical scene, breaking it open and reveling in it.
As Sruti writes for the Montreal Review of Books, “Shola von Reinhold celebrates embellishment, extravagance, and not only ‘feeling seen’ but being placed centre stage—demanding to be perceived despite a social insistence to remain hidden.”
This event is a co-presentation with Blue Metropolis Festival and the Weird Era Podcast.

SMOL Fair (online)
2022-03-19 - 2022-03-26 | online
SMOL Fair is an alternative book fair which will be ‘live’ from March 19 to 26, 2022. In addition to featuring small presses, they will be organizing readings and opportunities for readers to connect with authors and publishers.

Personal Attention Roleplay Winnipeg virtual launch with guests Jenny Heijun Wills & Anna Leventhal
2022-02-09 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | QC
Please join Helen Chau Bradley, in conversation with Jenny Heijun Wills and Anna Leventhal, to celebrate the launch of their debut collection, Personal Attention Roleplay. This event presented by McNally Robinson Booksellers in association with Metonymy Press and The Winnipeg Public Library.
February 9 at 7 p.m. Central time (8 p.m. EST)
Registration is required to directly participate in the Zoom webinar. It will be simultaneously streamed on YouTube and available for viewing thereafter.
Praised as “A perfect album of stories” by Casey Plett, this collection is propelled by queer loneliness, mixed-race confusion, late capitalist despondency, and the pitfalls of intimacy. The stories feature young Asian misfits struggling with the desire to see themselves reflected in the world around them.
Helen Chau Bradley is a writer and musician living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). They are the Fiction Editor for This Magazine, and the host of Strange Futures, a speculative fiction book club. Personal Attention Roleplay is their first book.
Anna Leventhal is the author of the short story collection Sweet Affliction (Invisible Publishing). She’s an MFA candidate at the UBC School of Creative Writing and teaches English at the University of Winnipeg. Leventhal is the 2021-22 Writer-in-Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library, having returned to Treaty 1 territory after 20-odd years in Tio’tia:ke/Montréal.
Jenny Heijun Wills (she/her) is the author of Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related (McClelland & Stewart). She is Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, where she is also the 2020-2023 Chancellor’s Research Chair and Director of the Critical Race Network. She is currently writing two novels.

Double Toronto book launch: THE GOOD ARABS and PERSONAL ATTENTION ROLEPLAY
2022-01-27 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | QC
REGISTER FOR THIS ONLINE EVENT HERE
Once upon a time the brilliant Metonymy Press authors Helen Chau Bradley and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch imagined launching their new books in Toronto at the iconic Buddies In Bad Times Theatre. Alas, while an event at Buddies would have more ambiance, right now the covid ambiance would overshadow it.
Instead, join them online on JANUARY 27 to talk about their books THE GOOD ARABS and PERSONAL ATTENTION ROLEPLAY. They’ll be in conversation with CASON SHARPE and JIAQING WILSON-YANG, and the event will be co-hosted by the inimitable Another Story Bookshop.
The stories in PERSONAL ATTENTION ROLEPLAY are propelled by queer loneliness, mixed-race confusion, late capitalist despondency, and the pitfalls of intimacy. Taking place in Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere, they feature young Asian misfits struggling with the desire to see themselves reflected—in their surroundings, in others, online. Casey Plett calls the collection “A perfect album of stories.”
Swinging from post-explosion Beirut to a Parc-Extension balcony in summer, the verse and prose poems in THE GOOD ARABS ground the reader in place, language, and the body. Peeling and rinsing radishes. Dancing as a pre-teen to Nancy Ajram. Being drenched in stares on the city bus. The collection is an interlocking and rich offering of the speaker’s communities, geographical surroundings both expansive and precise, and family both biological and chosen. Zeyn Joukhadar says, “Even at its heaviest, this is a collection that insists on joy and on embodiment.”
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HELEN CHAU BRADLEY is a writer and musician living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). Their writing has appeared in carte blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, Maisonneuve Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and elsewhere. They are the author of Automatic Object Lessons, a poetry chapbook. They are the Fiction Editor for This Magazine, and the host of Strange Futures, a speculative fiction book club. Personal Attention Roleplay is their first book.
ELI TAREQ EL BECHELANY-LYNCH is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, Carte Blanche, the Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. You can find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq. Their book knot body was published by Metatron Press September 2020. The Good Arabs is their second poetry collection.
CASON SHARPE is a writer based in Toronto. His work has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, Public Journal, and Brick, among others. Named a Queer Writer to Watch by THIS Magazine, Cason has presented work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Book Fair, the Prairie Art Book Fair, and the Hamilton Film Festival. His first collection of stories, Our Lady of Perpetual Realness, was published by Metatron Press in 2017.
JIAQING WILSON-YANG is a mixed race trans writer living in Toronto. She writes fiction and poetry. Her work as appeared in Room Magazine, Bound to Struggle, and Letters Lived: Radical Reflections, Revolutionary Paths (Ed. Sheila Sampath). Her first novel, Small Beauty (Metonymy Press, 2016) received a Dayne Olgivie Honour of Distinction for Emerging LGBTQ Writers from the Writers Trust of Canada. She is working on upcoming works of short fiction and a second novel.

Where to find Metonymy authors this fall
2021-11-16 19:00 - 2021-12-05 19:00 (America/New_York) | QC
Metonymy authors are busy busy in these final weeks of 2021. Check out upcoming events, both in-person and online, featuring Helen Chau Bradley (Personal Attention Roleplay), Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch (The Good Arabs), and Kama La Mackerel (ZOM-FAM):
Montreal Review of Books fall 2021 launch: Tuesday, November 16 at 7pm, with Helen and Eli
Expozine 20/Dial-a-poem reading: Friday, November 19 at 7pm, with Eli
Rapid-Fire Readings, Ricochet Writing: Finalists for the 2021 QWF Awards Read and Write Before Your Very Eyes: Saturday, November 20 at 2pm, with Eli
Les voix actuelles de l’imaginaire/Current Voices in Speculative Fiction (Saga Bookstore & Salon du Livre Montreal): Saturday, November 20 at 5pm, with Kama (author of ZOM-FAM and French translator for Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars)
New Reads Book Club (Drawn and Quarterly): Tuesday, November 23 at 8pm, featuring Personal Attention Roleplay
Maskerade 2021 Quebec Writers’ Federation Awards Gala: Wednesday, November 24 at 7pm online, featuring Eli and Helen
Living Hyphen Book Club: Tuesday, November 30 at 7pm, featuring Personal Attention Roleplay
Ottawa launch of Personal Attention Roleplay and The Good Arabs: Friday, December 3 at 6pm, with special guests Natalie Hanna and Ellen Chang-Richardson – in collaboration with Venus Envy Ottawa and Happy Goat Coffee (35 Laurel)
Salon du livre 2LGBTQIA de Fierté littéraire: Saturday, December 4, Kama in conversation with Denis-Martin Chabot
Violet Hour, in collaboration with Salon du livre 2LGBTQIA de Fierté littéraire: Sunday, December 5 at 4pm, featuring Helen and Eli

Book Launch - Personal Attention Roleplay by Helen Chau Bradley
2021-10-21 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Co-op Le Cagibi, 5490 Blvd. St Laurent, Montreal, Quebec, H2Y1S1, Canada
Please join us for the hometown soft launch of Helen Chau Bradley’s debut fiction: Personal Attention Roleplay

Coop Le Cagibi, 6596 St-Laurent
Free event
7-9 pm
October 21, 2021
with special guests David Bradford, River Halen Guri, and Sruti Islam

Gods and Heroes mocktails, Hekate cocktails, and more. Come learn what all the fuss is about.

Limited capacity, limited edition first printing books for sale! If you pre-ordered, you can pick up your copy here or wait for the first full printing.

Vaccine passports will be required; food and drink will be available for purchase, but we strongly encourage you to keep your masks on during the readings!

This will be our first indoor pandemic launch, and space is limited. Arrive on time or early, and check insta live if you can’t be there. Also, we’ll share outdoor post-launch party details closer to the time, weather dependent. Please know that Helen will be doing online events as well.

The stories in PERSONAL ATTENTION ROLEPLAY are propelled by queer loneliness, mixed-race confusion, late capitalist despondency, and the pitfalls of intimacy. Taking place in Montreal, Toronto, and elsewhere, they feature young Asian misfits struggling with the desire to see themselves reflected—in their surroundings, in others, online. Chau Bradley’s precise language and investigation of our more troubling motivations stand out in this wryly funny debut, through stories that hint at the uncanny while remaining grounded in the everyday. Casey Plett calls the collection “A perfect album of stories.”

HELEN CHAU BRADLEY is a writer and musician living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). Their writing has appeared in carte blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, Maisonneuve Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and elsewhere. They are the author of Automatic Object Lessons, a poetry chapbook. They are the Fiction Editor for This Magazine and the host of Strange Futures, a speculative fiction book club. Personal Attention Roleplay is their first book.

RIVER HALEN GURI is queer trans writer of Catalan and Danish descent living on unceded Indigenous land in Tio’tia:ke. Their poems and essays dealing with relation, ecology, transformation, and sexuality have been published widely in Canada, as well as in the U.S., Australia, and in translation in Japan. They are the author of Match (Coach House, 2011), which was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and the forthcoming collection Dream Rooms (Bookhug, 2022). Chapbooks include Microphone Lessons for Poets (Bookhug, 2015), Some Animals and Their Housing Situations (The Elephants, 2018), and I looked for the exit, found a sleeve (Skyebound Press, 2019).

DAVID BRADFORD is the author of Dream of No One but Myself (Brick Books, 2021) and several chapbooks, including Nell Zink is Damn Free (Blank Cheque Press, 2017) and The Plot (House House Press, 2018). His work has appeared in The Capilano Review, The Tiny, filling Station, The Fiddlehead, Carte Blanche, and elsewhere. Bradford lives in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), on the unceded territory of the Kanien:keha’ka Nation.

SRUTI ISLAM is a reader, and sometimes writer. She has over five years of experience working in publishing—formerly a book publicist for Drawn and Quarterly, Anteism, and Metatron Press. She founded Weird Era, a literary space, in 2019. Since partnering with Librairie Saint-Henri Books, Weird Era has developed into LSHB’s Weird Era, a literary podcast, as well as a literary arts journal: Weird Era, exclusively available for sale via Librairie Saint-Henri Books. She is a libra.

**Accessibility info** Beyond COVID protocols in place for restaurants and the masking request above, there are two steps to get inside Le Co-op Cagibi, but a portable ramp will be installed the night of this event. The venue is on the 55 St-Laurent bus route. The front door is three feet wide. There are two gender-neutral washrooms, one of which is built to accessibility code. Part of the restaurant’s serving counter is three feet high. The main part of the venue is all one level.

Please contact the Co-op Cagibi or Metonymy with specific accessibility queries or requests.

À noter que l’événement se déroulera en anglais.

The Good Arabs: Montreal launch
2021-09-26 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Champs des possibles
Save the date! Sunday, September 26 at 2pm. ***and save a RAIN DATE too*** if we’re rained out Sunday afternoon we’ll do a 5 a 7 Monday evening, and we’ll update you here.

Join Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch for an outdoor celebration of the publication of their second poetry collection.

Champs des possibles in Mile End (detailed directions to come!)

with special guests:
T Liem, Avery Lake, and Marcela Huerta

THE GOOD ARABS grounds the reader in place, language, and the body. Peeling and rinsing radishes. Dancing as a pre-teen to Nancy Ajram. Being drenched in stares on the city bus. The collection is an interlocking and rich offering of the speaker’s communities, geographical surroundings both expansive and precise, and family both biological and chosen.

ELI TAREQ EL BECHELANY-LYNCH is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, Carte Blanche, the Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. You can find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq. Their book knot body was published by Metatron Press September 2020. The Good Arabs is their second poetry collection.

AVERY LAKE is a worker and writer living in occupied Tiohtià:ke. She attended Concordia University and is not in the scene.

MARCELA HUERTA is the author of Tropico, a collection of poetry and creative nonfiction published by Metatron Press in 2017. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Peach Mag, Leste, Bad Nudes, Rat Chat Magazine, and more. She is the Poetry Editor at carte blanche magazine.

T. LIEM is the author of OBITS. (Coach House 2018), which was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, and won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award as well as the the A.M. Klein Prize. Her writing has been published in Apogee, Plenitude, Room Magazine, The Boston Review, Grain, and elsewhere. She lives in Montreal, Tiohtià:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territories.

Tilting of the Earth: A Metonymy Press Solstice Showcase
2021-06-20 15:00 - 2021-06-30 20:00 (America/New_York) | QC
After a long dark solitary winter and tentative spring, four writers emerge gloriously at the onset of summer: Kama La Mackerel, Helen Chau Bradley, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch and Callum Angus are brimming with pent-up words to soothe and destroy you — in any case you’ll want to experience their effects.

Blue Metropolis is proud to co-present this Metonymy Press event as part of its 2021 Festival’s NEXT program.

Join us online* for this outdoor solstice showcase:
3 pm, Sunday, June 20, on Instagram Live
7pm, Wednesday, June 30, on the Blue Metropolis Facebook page and YouTube channel
*If public health restrictions shift, this backyard event may also welcome a small number of in-person (masked, distanced) attendees on the 20th.

Kama La Mackerel is a Montreal-based Mauritian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, educator, writer, community-arts facilitator and literary translator who works within and across performance, photography, installations, textiles, digital art and literature.

Kama’s work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality, hybridity, cosmopolitanism and self- and collective-empowerment. They believe that aesthetic practices have the power to build resilience and act as resistance to the status quo, thereby enacting an anticolonial praxis through cultural production.

Kama has exhibited and performed their work internationally and their writing in English, French and Kreol has appeared in publications both online and in print. ZOM-FAM, their debut poetry collection published by Metonymy Press was named a CBC Best Poetry Book, a Globe and Mail Best Debut, and was longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and shortlisted for the QWF Concordia University First Book Award.

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a queer Arab poet living in Tio’tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, carte blanche, the Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. Find them on Instagram and Twitter @theonlyelitareq. Their first book, knot body, was published by Metatron Press in September 2020 and their second poetry collection, The Good Arabs, is forthcoming from Metonymy Press in September 2021.

Helen Chau Bradley is a writer, musician, and arts administrator living in Tio’tia:ke / Montreal. They are the author of Automatic Object Lessons (House House Press, 2020). Their stories and essays have appeared in carte blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, Entropy Magazine, Maisonneuve Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and elsewhere. Their debut short story collection, Personal Attention Roleplay, is forthcoming from Metonymy in October 2021.

Callum Angus is a trans writer and editor currently based in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in Nat. Brut, West Branch, LA Review of Books, Catapult, The Common, Seventh Wave Magazine and elsewhere. He has received support from Lambda Literary and Signal Fire Foundation for the Arts, and he holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the founding editor of the journal smoke and mold. His debut short story collection, A Natural History of Transition, was released by Metonymy Press in April 2021.

Unruly Writers Club
2021-05-06 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | QC
Montreal and area writers, join THE UNRULY WRITERS CLUB.
***A space to create our work, grounded in disability justice***
What to expect: Hands-on exercises, mutual support, the opportunity for sharing and feedback in a supportive setting. And — dedicated time to write!
When: 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month, 12-1:30 pm.
Workshops will be offered every second session on: world-building, poetry, writing with the senses, writing habits, and getting published.
Stay tuned for upcoming session dates and themes.
Join us to get down to writing the stories you needed as a kid and the stories you want to write for future generations
Email unrulywriters@metonymypress.com to get log in information!
–ASL/LSQ interpretation available–
Please let us know about interpretation soon so we may book!
!!
Priority for disabled and d/Deaf, chronically ill people, QTBIPOC folks, queer and trans people, people with mental health diagnoses, undiagnosed people… people with unruly bodies.
We’re committed to anti-racism in the space and in the exercises we will do together. This group draws inspiration from writers like Lee Maracle and adrienne maree brown, who provide leadership through their books and their transformational writing practices for groups.
Unruly Writers Club is the loving result of a collaboration between your local gay publisher, Metonymy Press,
writer and facilitator Aimee Louw, and community supporter QPIRG McGill.
Join us to write words that dance towards liberation, exhilaration, and transformation!!
Please email unrulywriters@metonymypress.com with any questions or to get log in information
[Image description: text in dark blue rectangles over dripping, multicoloured rainbow paint backdrop. Text reads: UNRULY WRITERS CLUB; A free online space to write towards liberation, exhilaration, and transformation!]

A Natural History of Transition - Spring 2021 events
2021-04-30 20:00 - 2021-05-13 22:30 (America/New_York) | QC
A Natural History of Transition is a collection of short stories that disrupts the notion that trans people can only have one transformation. Like the landscape studied over eons, change does not have an expiration date for these trans characters, who grow as tall as buildings, turn into mountains, unravel hometown mysteries, and give birth to cocoons. Portland-based author Callum Angus infuses his work with a mix of alternative history, horror, and a reality heavily dosed with magic.
Join us online for one of many upcoming events featuring Cal alongside other great writers!
Further registration links and other details coming soon!
April 13: Paned o Gê hosts Callum Angus in conversation with Zeyn Joukhadar, co-contributor to KINK
April 14: Get Lit! Festival – Callum Angus in conversation with R.O. Kwon, Vanessa Clark and Larissa Phamas part of a panel of authors of KINK
April 27 at 7pm EST: Glad Day Bookshop and Blue Metropolis present a special edition of THE VIOLET HOUR – Callum Angus will join MP Boisvert, Jane Byers, Gabriel Cholette, Marie Darsigny and Monica Meneghetti for an evening of short readings by LGBTQ writers (en français et en anglais).
More details and registration info: https://www.facebook.com/events/d41d8cd9/the-violet-hour/942145616559040/
April 30 at 8pm EST: Blue Metropolis Festival – Callum Angus in conversation with Helen Chau Bradley for the Canadian launch of A Natural History of Transition
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/151487484143
May 4 at 6pm EST: Odyssey Bookshop – Callum Angus in conversation with Andrew Lawlor for the US launch of A Natural History of Transition
Register here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/callumangusattheodysseybookshop/register
May 6 at 7:30pm PST: Pacific MFA in Writing hosts Callum Angus in conversation with Torrey Peters
Register here: https://pacificu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WFbjH3hcS5exilXP5oT4og

May 13 at 6:30pm PST: Massy Arts Society hosts Callum Angus in conversation with Hazel Jane Plante and Corinne Manning
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/151497518155

Dear Black Girls launch events (multiple)
2021-02-06 15:00 - 2021-03-10 20:30 (America/New_York) | QC
Join us as we welcome DEAR BLACK GIRLS, the new picture book by Shanice Nicole and Kezna Dalz, into the world. See below for four upcoming virtual launch events:
Saturday, February 6, in collaboration with la Petite Drawn and Quarterly (Montreal)
Missed this event? Watch recordings of the presentations and Q&A.
Monday, February 22, in collaboration with a Different Booklist (Toronto), with special guest Rania El Mugammar
Missed this event? Watch it here.
Sunday, February 28, in collaboration with Knowledge Bookstore (Brampton), with special guest Kofi Sankofa
Missed this event? Watch it here.
Wednesday, March 10, in collaboration with Librairie Racines (Montreal), with special guests Nantali Indongo and Maguy Métellus
Missed this event? Watch it here.
Thank you for supporting independent bookstores and publishers.
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DEAR BLACK GIRLS is a letter to all Black girls. Every single day poet and educator Shanice Nicole is reminded of how special Black girls are and of how lucky she is to be one. Illustrations by Kezna Dalz support the book’s message that no two Black girls are the same but they are all special—that to be a Black girl is a true gift. In this celebratory poem, Kezna and Shanice remind young readers that despite differences, they all deserve to be loved just the way they are.
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SHANICE NICOLE is a Black feminist educator, facilitator, writer, and (out)spoken word artist. She believes that everyone has the power to make change and dreams of a freer world for us all. Learn more about her work at shanicenicole.com.
KEZNA DALZ is a multidisciplinary Black artist from Montreal. She cares about representation, and portrays the beauty of womanhood, teenadult angst, and the worst of pop culture using vibrant colours. You can find more of her work at teenadultt.com.
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My Body is the Ocean: ZOM-FAM coast to coast virtual tour
2020-11-16 18:00 - 2020-12-02 21:00 (America/New_York) | Multiple (online)
Join Kama La Mackerel, the poet behind the debut lyric poetry collection ZOM-FAM, for their virtual cross-continental book tour!

Closed captioning will be included for most events. Please support the local bookseller hosts by getting a copy of the book through them. Please contact Metonymy Press with any accessibility requests or questions about events.

ABOUT ZOM-FAM:
In their debut poetry collection, Kama La Mackerel mythologizes a queer/trans narrative of and for their home island, Mauritius. Composed of expansive lyric poems, ZOM-FAM (meaning “man-woman” or “transgender” in Mauritian Kreol) is a voyage into the coming-of-age of a gender-creative child growing up in the 80s and 90s on the plantation island, as they seek vocabularies for loving and honouring their queer/trans self amidst the legacy of colonial silences.
Multiply-voiced and imbued with complex storytelling, ZOM-FAM showcases a fluid narrative that summons ancestral voices, femme tongues, broken colonial languages and a tender queer subjectivity, all of which grapple with the legacy of plantation servitude.

KAMA LA MACKEREL is a Montreal-based Mauritian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, educator, writer, community-arts facilitator and literary translator who works within and across performance, photography, installations, textiles, digital art and literature. Kama’s work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality, hybridity, cosmopolitanism and self- and collective-empowerment. Kama has exhibited and performed their work internationally and their writing in English, French and Kreol has appeared in publications both online and in print. ZOM-FAM, their debut poetry collection is published by Metonymy Press.
lamackerel.net
@KamaLaMackerel

TOUR STOPS:

HALIFAX
Monday, November 16
7 pm AST
Venus Envy Bookstore with Francesca Ekwuyasi on Zoom and Facebook live
RSVP here
Event info here

MONTREAL
Tuesday, November 17
7 pm EST
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly on Zoom and Instagram and Facebook livestreams
RSVP here
Event info here

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Thursday, November 19
6 pm EST
Spectrum Center, Student Life
Keynote Speaker for Transgender Awareness Week on Zoom
RSVP here
Event info here

TORONTO
Friday, November 20
7 pm EST
Another Story Bookshop
with jes sachse and Kai Cheng Thom
on Zoom and YouTube livestream
RSVP here
Event info here

OTTAWA
Wednesday, November 25
7 pm EST
Carleton University Art Gallery & Venus Envy with Cara Tierney on Zoom and Facebook live
RSVP here
Event info here

CALGARY & EDMONTON
Thursday, November 26
7 pm MST
Shelf Life Books & Glass Bookshop
with Vivek Shraya on Zoom
RSVP here
Event info here
VANCOUVER
Thursday, December 1
7 pm PST
Massy Books & Massy Arts Foundation
with Jillian Christmas on Zoom
RSVP here
Event info here

WINNIPEG
Wednesday, December 2
7 pm CST
McNally Robinson Booksellers with Jenny Heijun Wills
RSVP here
Event info here

Poetry for the Summer Soul
2020-06-18 17:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | QC
POETRY FOR THE SUMMER SOUL is a poetry evening co-organized by Metonymy Press and l’Euguélionne featuring Montreal-based poets Shanice Nicole, Powetik and Kama La Mackerel. Together these three poets will share some pieces and talk about how poetry nurtures their souls.

Each of these remarkable and thoughtful poets will do a reading of their work, prompting discussions about the power of art and creativity and poetry to influence the world we live in for the better.

Thursday, June 18
5:30 to 7:30 pm
on Facebook Live (Metonymy’s page) and Zoom
Readings, discussion, book giveaway +++

Please to RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/poetry-for-the-summer-soul-tickets-108754102448 for the Zoom link, or email metonymypress@gmail.com.

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Shanice Nicole is a Black feminist educator, facilitator, writer, and (out)spoken word artist. Her writing and work intimately explores race, health, sexuality, oppression, and freedom, all of which form the many layers of her Black womanhood. She is the curator of free community resources such as Jobs & Things, the BFCN Scholarship Directory, and All Black Everything in Montreal and her debut children’s book Dear Black Girls published by Metonymy Press will be released in February 2021. Shanice Nicole believes that everyone has the power to make change and the words of her favourite poet Maya Angelou always resonate deeply, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Instagram: instagram.com/ShaniceNicoleSpeaks
Facebook: facebook.com/ShaniceNicoleSpeaks

Powetik is the artist persona of Kathleen Charles, a queer Haitian writer, poet, spoken word performer and singer in Montreal. She’s currently pursuing a career as a therapist to work on healing immigrants and QTBIPOC fems from intergenerational trauma using community-based group therapy, drama therapy with story telling and cognitive behavioural therapy to restore the mental health of these populations. Her poetry explores the trials of immigration as a woman of color, queerness within communities of color, anti-racism rhetoric, black girl magic, mental health and self-actualization. Her poetic performance is made to heal, to validate, to inspire and to tell the stories of the voiceless…or at least the voiceless for now.
www.powetik.com
Instagram: instagram.com/powetikartistry

Kama La Mackerel is multi-disciplinary artist, educator, writer, cultural mediator and literary translator who hails from Mauritius and now lives in Montréal. Their work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality, and self- and collective-empowerment. Kama’s artistic practice spans across textile, visual, digital, poetic and performative work, and is at once narrative and theoretical, at once personal and political. A firm believer that aesthetic practices have the power to build resilience, to heal, and to act as forms of resistance to the status quo, Kama articulates an anticolonial praxis through cultural production.
lamackerel.net
@KamaLaMackerel

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This event is part of National Poetry Month (which is in April but we re-scheduled the event because of COVID-19, but really, every month should be poetry month!).

The event is sponsored in part by the League of Canadian Poets, and hosted by Tio’tia:ke-based feminist bookstore L’Euguelionne and queer and feminist publisher Metonymy Press.

The reading is free, and we encourage participants to donate to mtl-based organizations Hoodstock or Black Theatre Workshop in the spirit of opposing anti-Black violence, promoting the health of Black communities, and supporting Black artists.
