The Toronto Small Press Book Fair is upon us. Since you enquire it's Saturday June 19 from 11: 00 am to 5:00 pm at The Great Hall, 1087 Queen Street West. So far so good. After all, the TSPBF (an acronym that could double as a writer's sobriety test) has been around for years and will, I'm guessing, see off its imitators and detractors. But...but I can't shake the notion that some aspects of the Fair could be better. It needs a permanent home. Traipsing from the JCC to the Tranzac Club to the Reference Library to The Great Hall is no way to build its reputation among the yet-to-be-converted. I know circumstances - cost, availability, pointless G-8 summit meetings - will necessitate the occasional change of venue, but with such long lead times disruptions can be worked around.

And since the summer event is the more anticipated of the two TSPBFs (the other is in the fall) and its timing dovetails with Luminato, which has gone from 0 to 60 in no time flat, why not attach the Fair someway somehow to what has become a splashy arts affair. The profile and the media coverage of the TSPBF would soar - OK, go up some - and small presses may well discover another stream of new, enthusiastic readers which is, surely, the point of the Fair. I realize some elderly hippies will object to the vulgarity of such an idea, but so what? Let them read their work to each other and remain pure. Oh, and since we're being heretical, here's something else to ponder: it's time to dump arts & crafts and anything else at the Fair that's not strictly literary.

Small Press Book Fair a Big Deal

As I write this the wrap-up parties are getting louder and more boisterous. So who can say if today's Toronto Small Press Book Fair at the Gladstone Hotel was a success or not. We'll only know in a week or so when the organizers have picked over receipts, attendance estimates, sales figures and the rest. So, let's say this: It certainly seemed like a success. Exhibitors were jammed together on the main floor and still more could be found one floor above them.

I couldn't stay for all the readings, nor alas, an interview with Austin Clarke, but I did hear old journalism school pal Sheree-Lee Olson read from her well-received first novel Sailor Girl, from The Porcupine's Quill.

The Fair is a little gem for those who like to stray from the mainstream with their reading. Long may it continue.