Doris and Ghost Pine ON TOUR

A few months ago my old pen pal Cindy Crabb sent me an e-mail asking if I’d like to read with her on the Canadian leg of her tour promoting The Encyclopedia of Doris, the second collection of her long-running zine Doris. Doris is one of the best and most influential zines of the last twenty years. I’ve been reading it regularly since 1996 and I am very excited for these events! Come on out!

Doris and Ghost Pine on tour:

Thursday, September 29: Montreal @ Le Cagibi, 7pm FREE

Saturday, October 1: Ottawa @ Venus Envy, 8pm FREE w. Jennifer Whiteford (Matilda zine)

Sunday, October 2: Guelph @ The Dragon, 7pm  $5 PWYC w. Maranda Elizabeth (Telegram Ma’am zine) and Adriana Blake * I won’t be reading at this one *

Monday, October 3: Toronto @ TRANZAC (Tiki Room), 7pm $5 PWYC (no one turned away for lack of funds) w. Tara Michelle Ziniuk, and Laura Mac

SappyTimes

Have you read SappyTimes? For the past three SappyFests my pal Sean Michaels of noted mp3 blog Said the Gramophone burns the midnight oil, madly tapping on his laptop into the wee hours in order to file his daily newspaper sometime before dawn. The result is a double sided 8.5 x 11 sheet filled with keen-eyed reporting on the previous day’s music and good feelings, distributed throughout downtown Sackville, NB. It’s a fun read.

Sean Michaels reading both fact and fiction at the Sackville Legion Hall as part of the Sappy zine fair

This year Sean asked me to contribute a 150 word column every night of the festival with a 3 AM deadline and what resulted was “Jeff’s Weather Report.” Instead of predicting the weather I reported about it after the fact because no one writes about the weather after it happens unless someone dies because of it. You can read my columns here, where Sean has conveniently archived all three numbers of this year’s run of the newspaper.

Yours truly looking dorky with Motivist editors Al Barbour and Sarah Evans at the Sackville Legion

 

Friends in the East

Here’s a picture of me reading at SappyFest last year. It was a tonne of fun. I’ve been asked to read again this year, sharing a bill with heavy hitters Ian Roy, Sean Michaels, Jenner Berger and Jesse Dangerously. It starts at 3pm Saturday July 30 at Branch #26 of the Royal Canadian Legion, 15 Lorne Street Sackville, NB.

I’ll also be selling copies of Ghost Pine and select zines from my distro at the Legion from noon to 5pm as part of the amazing SappyFest zine fair. Drop by and say hi!

Eganville Alert!

 

I will be giving a talk and reading from Ghost Pine in Eganville this Saturday, June 11!  It starts at 7 PM at the Bonnechere Union Public Library, 74 Maple St. See you there! I love libraries and I love the Ottawa Valley.

Best of Montreal!

Thanks to everyone who voted me into the “Best Local Living Author” category in the Mirror‘s Best of Montreal poll! I’m in some pretty rarefied company here.

April Update

Ghost Pine: All Stories True won the Expozine Alternative Press Award for best English book!
Here’s how the judge described it: “The life and times of a young–and, by the end, not so young–politically engaged turn-of-the-millennium Canadian is captured in a collection that works equally well as stand-alone vignettes and as de facto autobiography.” Aw shucks.

I don’t think I’ve ever won anything before, let alone an award from the best zine fair in Canada! Pretty sweet, thanks to all involved. You can read about it at the Quill & Quire or on the Dep Le Pick Up blog.

Speaking of the mighty Dépanneur Le Pick Up, I will be hosting a zine reading there on Tuesday April 19 at 7PM (7032 Waverly, Metro De Castelneau). Here’s the info:

JULIAN EVANS returns to Montreal to launch the seventh issue of his long-running and awesome One Way Ticket zine, featuring stories of a year long sojourn in Pittsburgh that are both bittersweet and triumphant. A former resident of St. Henri, Julian currently lives in Guelph, where he operates a letterpress shop.

Current St. Henri denizen JONAH CAMPBELL, creator of low-budget food blog “Still Crapulent After all These Years” makes his reading debut at Depanneur Le Pick Up. Equal parts food critic and punk rocker, Jonah’s best work will be collected in the book Food and Trembling, forthcoming from Invisible Publishing in Fall 2011.

Also, one last thing before I forget. I was interviewed by genius Brendan Reed for his latest art project “Black Light Times.” Described on its website as “Interviews filmed under blacklight, with sound effects on the microphone, ” that’s pretty much what you get. Watch my hoodie shimmer!

Zine Rack

I just re-stocked the zine rack I run at the amazing Depanneur le Pick Up (7032 Waverly, in Montreal). I’ve been running this thing for nearly two years now and the response has been really great. Montreal loves zines!

zine rack!

Some of the international titles on the rack right now include: the new Cometbus, Doris, Slice Harvester, Xtra Tuf, Mostly True, Henry & Glenn Forever, Greenzine, Kiss Off, About My Disappearance, and lots more.

Local titles include: Ghost Pine, Querencia, Culture Slut, Soul Gazers, and more on the way.

If you’re in Montreal come north and take a peek (Metro de Castelnau); just make sure you stay for a Veggie Pulled Pork or one of the other delicious hot sandwiches on the menu.

MMX Redux

Before 2010 recedes into oblivion I’d like to thank everyone who made it such an amazing year for me. Big thanks to everyone who set up readings,  toured with me, came out to see me in their town, bought a book, interviewed or reviewed me, gave me a ride, let me sleep on their floor, recommended the book to a friend, wrote articles about me, etc., etc. Seriously, I can’t even list all the ways people I do and do not know helped me out in 2010. Thanks so much everybody!

In November I published a new issue of Ghost Pine featuring five stories about being lost in translation in Japan, traveling the back roads of Nova Scotia in search of a ghost, and working at a Little Italy depanneur here in Montreal. There are also reviews of a Jeff Wall photograph and two of Truro’s finest purveyors of fish ‘n’ chips. Ghost Pine #12: Water is available now at Depanneur le Pick Up in Montreal, the Anchor Archive in Halifax and soon at Book Thug Nation in Brooklyn. If you’re not near any of those places you can order a copy for $3 post paid from PO Box 42017 / RPO Roy / Montreal, QC. / H2W 1Y1 / CANADA. I accept well hidden cash as well as cheques made out to “Jeffrey Miller.” Back issues are also available.

I added the latest reviews of the book to the press page, including one which favourably compares me to my hero, Alice Munro, who has an unlikely cameo in the new issue of Ghost Pine. I also put up an interview my tour-mate Erick Lyle and I conducted in a West Philly park this summer. You can check it out in its original form (with pictures!) at Toward Freedom. There is also an interview with me my other summer tour mate Dave Roche in the Fall edition of the Toronto Zine Library Resource Zine.

Happy New Year!

The Ghost (Pine) of Xmas Present!

Recently people have been asking me where they can get Ghost Pine: All Stories True to give as a gift (it’s an excellent stocking stuffer!). Here’s a list of bookstores that I know have copies. It’s also likely available elsewhere as well.

Montreal, QC: Librairie Drawn & Quarterly (211 Bernard O.), Concordia Co-op Bookstore (2150 Bishop), Paragraphe Bookstore (2220 McGill College), Depanneur Le Pick Up (7032 Waverly)

Ottawa, ON: Collected Works (1242 Wellington), Octopus Books (116 Third)

Toronto, ON: Ben McNally, Book City, Nicholas Hoare

Across Canada:

Nova Scotia:

Halifax: Bookmark II, Lost and Found; Bridgewater: Sagors R & C Bookstore; Wolfville: Box of Delights

PEI:

Charlottetown: Bookmark I

Ontario:

Kingston: Novel Idea; Guelph: The Bookshelf; Hamilton: Bryan Prince Booksellers, Mixed Media; Bolton: Forster’s Book Garden

Winnipeg, Manitoba and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: McNally Robinson

Alberta:

Calgary: Shelf Life; Edmonton: Greenwood’s Bookshoppe

British Columbia:

Vancouver: Blackberry Books, Favourite Gifts

Northwest Territories:

Fort Smith: North of 60

And in the United States of America:

Providence, RI: Armageddon Record Shop; New York, NY: Bluestockings; Philadelphia, PA: Wooden Shoe Books; Baltimore, MD: Red Emma’s Bookstore

If you can’t make it out to any of these fine stores, it is also available online from Invisible and Microcosm.

Thanks so much to all the independent bookstores that carry Ghost Pine: All Stories True and hosted me at events this year! Happy Holidays to everyone!

Ottawa and Expozine

Thanks to Steve at the Ottawa Public Library and everyone who came out to my talk on Thursday!

While in Ottawa I recorded an interview with Alan Neal, the host of CBC Ottawa’s great afternoon program All in a Day. Alan met me in front of legendary punk house 5 Arlington (now a print shop) where I was first initiated into zines and punk rock. After some reminiscing I read an excerpt from my story “The Non Competitive League” on the street. In the recording you can hear Bank Street traffic in the background. You can listen to it here.

I will be tabling at Montreal’s Expozine November 13 and Sunday, November 14, 2010, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at 5035 St-Dominique (Église Saint-Enfant Jésus, Laurier Métro). Free admission. Come out to say ‘hi’ and check out Canada’s biggest and best zine fair!

Leading up to the big weekend Amber Forrester of Culture Slut zine has organized a  reading Friday, November 12 at the 2110 Centre (2110 Mackay, 5 PM start) featuring, among other amazing zinesters,  Kate Pinchdog (Riot Wife) and my old friend Sarah Evans  (Root, The Motivist). Snacks and drinks will be provided!