“A Certain Level of Quality”

The founding members of the Rower's Pub Reading Series. Who gets to be coxswain?The Eleventh in a Series on Toronto Literary Readings.“Poets Ned Hagerman and Ian Burgham had an idea in the beginning of presenting relatively high quality readers in a nice, intimate environment and that [the readers] would be paid,” Heather Wood told me about the origins of The Rower’s Pub Reading Series’ philosophy. Unlike several other series we’ve profiled this year, which are run by only one or two volunteers, The Rower’s Pub Reading Series is an incorporated non-profit governed by a board, of which Wood is the current artistic director.“[Ned and Ian] used to drink at the Rower’s Pub, and they wanted to start a reading series. [Ned] recruited David Clink – who was involved in a number of reading series, including one at York and later he was the artistic director at Art Bar – to be artistic director and help run the series. So they convinced the Rower’s Pub, where they drank, to let them run a reading series. They brought on two other people at the time, Catherine Graham and Halli Villegas to be on their board,” Wood explained. The series incorporated almost right away in 2007, with the goal of getting funding to pay their more established readers. At the beginning of the series, they relied on private backers to keep their readers paid since a reading series needs to be self-sustaining for two years before qualifying for funding.Wood joined the board after the series had been running for a couple of years and “needed help with a lot of administrative things.” Wood expanded on her first role at Rower’s: “I came on to help them update the website, take care of flyers, email lists, send out emails, basically do all the things that no one else wanted to do. I quite liked it, and I’m a writer myself, so it’s nice to be involved.” David Clink eventually stepped down as artistic director, and Wood now fills that role.A board-governed series produces a curatorial process significantly different than that followed by a sole curator. “Because we are an incorporated non-profit, we had to have a board. Catherine Graham’s the only remaining person from the original board. So we have Catherine Graham as our marketing coordinator. Kate Dawson is our administrative coordinator, and she is a signing officer. She’s also secretary of the corporation. Megan Swaine is our treasurer, and we have Sue Bowness as the web coordinator. It helps because most of the work I do is the hosting. I do all the invitations and communicating with the writers. The board meets a lot heading up to grant season. Usually I get them to help me while I’m putting them together.”The board makes decisions on which writers to book together, even though as artistic director, Wood has the final say in the booking process. “I really encourage the board if there’s someone you really want [you should voice your opinion]... so people often suggest people I’ve never heard of or I don’t know. I think it’s good because if it was just me picking all the time, it’d be a little boring. We do try to pre-approve several of the people we’re interested in having, so we’re all happy as a group.”While the presence of the board may make a new writer who wants to get involved feel a little shy about trying to participate in Rower’s as a volunteer, Wood encourages people to come out to the shows and form a connection with Rower’s. “Two of the members of the board—Kate and Megan—we asked them to be a part of the board just because they came out. They used to be members of the audience. They came regularly, so we asked them to join when we needed new board members. Come out, talk to us, eventually we’re going to need new people on the board. We’re always happy to meet new people.”One of the primary focuses of the series has always been to present, in Wood’s words, “a certain level of quality.” Wood explained that the series was both for writers in the later stages of their careers and “also newer writers who are writing at a high level. The series doesn’t have an open mic, so it wasn’t necessarily a series for beginning writers. But it was supposed to be a place for people who have made a mark at least in some fashion. So we do mix, some very big, big names, as big as we can get, with long backgrounds and a lot of books as well as people who are new on the scene but have sort of made a mark. At the minimum, people do have to have published a book, so we are a little different than some reading series.”The reliance of the Rower's Pub Reading Series on granting bodies to fund the series also puts some restrictions on who gets booked. “For Canada Arts Council, you have to book certain people, and it’s a very specific process. Like these are the people we want, they said they would do it if we can get the money. So, The Ontario Arts Council, they don’t care who the people are, but they want a general idea of what the line-up is.”Out of town writers are also harder to bring in, especially if they are from outside of Canada. Due to this, Wood relies on collaborations with other series in Ontario, such as Lit Live in Hamilton, Brockton Writers in Toronto, The Art Bar in Toronto, and Poetry London in London. “That seems to work out well, especially with Canada Council, because if you get enough from each of those sections, you can get enough money to cover travel. This is our first year hooking up with Brockton. I partially approached Farzana about that because I wanted another option for fiction writers that we could collaborate with.” With several series working together, it’s much easier for writers outside of Toronto to set up a book tour. Rather than the series competing against each other, this strategy focuses on community building and a pragmatic approach to supporting writers financially and socially.In terms of Heather Wood’s own personal performance preferences, her biggest concern is the professionalism of the writer reading. In particular, Wood mentioned that being aware of time restrictions is key to her enjoyment as an audience member. “I generally don’t like it when people grandstand and let people read for too long. [As a host,] you don’t want to interrupt the writer and you want to give everyone the chance to express themselves in a different way. But I really don’t like it when people go over time. It’s not respectful, and I really think it’s to the detriment of the performer.” If Wood notices a reader consistently goes over time at other reading series, she will “make a mental note.” Wood went on to tell me, “If I’m there, and I’m taking a mental note, your chances are not good. It’s a judgment call too, like, Should I honour this person by having them read even if I know they’ll go over time? But on the whole, I pay attention.”The Rower’s Pub Reading Series returns on Monday, December 2^nd at 6:30 with a special show for Tightrope Books’ Best Canadian Poetry 2013. Featured readers are Best Canadian Poets Jacob McArthur Mooney, Jan Conn, Jason Guriel, and Jessica Hiemstra. The venue has been moved to Measure at 296 Brunswick Ave, just south of Bloor.If you’ve published a book and feel like Rower’s Reading Series is the right series for you, email Heather Wood at rowerspubreadingseries [at] gmail [dot] com.