Stuart Ross
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Stuart Ross is a Canadian fiction writer, poet, editor, and creative-writing instructor.
Ross was born in Toronto's north end in 1959 and grew up in the Borough of North York. He began writing at a very young age and was first published at age 16 by Books by Kids (now Annick Press). This book, The Thing in Exile, also contained work by teen writers Steven Feldman and Mark Laba. Stuart went on to self-publish dozens of books and chapbooks through his Proper Tales Press imprint, selling 7,000 copies of these on the streets of Toronto during the 1980s.[citation needed] As his books began to emerge from larger literary publishing houses, he has continued his Proper Tales Press project.
Ross has been active in the Toronto literary scene since the mid-1970s. He is co-founder, with Nicholas Power, of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, an underground literary institution since 1987. This fair, the first of its kind in Canada, has inspired similar events in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Hamilton.
He was the 2002 "Writer in Residence" for the [[Writers’ Circle of Durham Region], the 2003 "Poet in Residence" for the Ottawa International Writers’ Festival, and the 2005 Electronic Writer in Residence for Toronto Public Library's RAMP website for teens. Stuart has been the fiction and poetry editor for This Magazine since 2004.
His own magazines have included Mondo Hunkamooga: A Journal of Small Press Reviews (later subtitled A Journal of Small Press Stuff), Peter O'Toole (a magazine of one-line poems), Dwarf Puppets on Parade (a magazine of writing with restrictions), Who Torched Rancho Diablo? (poetry and fiction), and the current project, Syd & Shirley, a magazine of Canadian and American poetry.
Ross has taught poetry workshops to both adults and children across Canada, as well as in Chile. He has given hundreds of literary readings in Canada, the U.S., the UK, Chile, and Nicaragua. Festival appearances include the Vancouver Jewish Book Fair, the Ottawa International Writers Festival, the Banff/Calgary WordFest, Poetry on the Rocks (Kimberley, BC), Lucerne School Writers Festival (New Denver, BC), the Toronto Mini-Festival of Sound Poetry, and the Ashkenaz Festival of Yiddish Culture (Toronto).
Although primarily known as a poet, Ross has also published fiction and personal essays. His column "Hunkamooga" appeared in Word: Toronto's Literary Calendar from 2001 to 2005, and moved to the Vancouver-based literary magazine sub-Terrain in 2006.
As an editor, Ross's major project has been the anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence. In 2003, he issued the chapbook anthology My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush.
[edit] Selected bibliography
I Cut My Finger, Anvil Press, 2007 (forthcoming)
Robots at Night, Proper Tales Press, 2005
Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer, Anvil Press, 2005
Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence, editor, The Mercury Press, 2004
Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New & Selected, ECW Press, 2003
Razovsky at Peace, ECW Press, 2001
Farmer Gloomy’s New Hybrid, ECW Press, 1999
Henry Kafka & Other Stories, The Mercury Press, 1997
The Inspiration Cha-Cha, ECW Press, 1996
The Mud Game (w/ Gary Barwin), The Mercury Press, 1995
The Pig Sleeps (w/ Mark Laba), Contra Mundo Books, 1991
[edit] External links
Complete bibliography:
