During the 2023 Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose, Andrew Steeves invited authors Jim Johnstone, Christopher Patton, and Klara du Plessis to discuss the state of contemporary literary criticism and curation. This book presents an edited transcript of their illuminating conversation. Its publication also marks the final Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose held in Kentville, Nova Scotia, with a brief account of 24-year’s-worth of speakers, readers, and guest artists who participated in this unique cultural event.

Jim Johnstone is a Canadian writer, editor, and physiologist. He is the author of four books of poetry: Dog Ear (Véhicule Press, 2014), Sunday, the Locusts (Tightrope Books, 2011), Patternicity (Nightwood Editions, 2010) and The Velocity of Escape (Guernica Editions, 2008), as well as the subject of the critical monograph Proofs & Equational Love: The Poetry of Jim Johnstone by Shane Neilson and Jason Guriel. He has won several awards including a CBC Literary Award, Matrix Magazine?s LitPop Award, The Fiddlehead?s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and This Magazine?s Great Canadian Literary Hunt. Currently, Johnstone is the Poetry Editor at Palimpsest Press, and an Associate Editor at Representative Poetry Online.

Jim Johnstone's profile page

Christopher Patton is a Canadian poet living in the United States, where he teaches courses on ecopoetics and visual poetry at Western Washington University. His asemic visual poetry has been shown at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Whatcom Museum. Patton’s books include Ox, whose first section won the Paris Review’s long poem prize, and Curious Masonry, an earlier volume of Old English translations. He blogs at theartofcompost.com.

Christopher Patton's profile page

Klara du Plessis is a South African Canadian poet residing in Montreal. Her debut collection Ekke?winner of the 2019 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award?was released from Palimpsest Press; and her Anstruther chapbook, Wax Lyrical,was shortlisted for the 2016 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Klara is a PhD English Literature student at Concordia University, and currently expanding her curatorial practice to include experimental Deep Curation poetry reading events.

Klara du Plessis' profile page

Lisa Fishman has published seven poetry collections, including Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (Wave Books, 2020). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and has appeared in such journals as Granta, VOLT, jubilat, Touch the Donkey, Denver Quarterly, and American Letters & Commentary. With roots in both Montreal and Michigan, she now lives on a farm in Wisconsin and teaches at Columbia College Chicago.

Lisa Fishman's profile page