Proper
Tales Press and Stuart Ross
I met Stuart Ross and Lillian Necakov together
in a class on James Joyce in University. Not long after, Stuart introduced me
to Marc Laba. Right away I thought they were wonderful people and I was totally
enthralled with their writing, publishing and self-distribution project.
I had seen Stuart before on the street selling
his books, along with Crad Kilodney, who I used to stop and chat with from time
to time, and who’s books I always purchased. And when I put it together that he
was the guy I was chatting with in class, I was intrigued.
This was the era when Do It Yourself was an
exciting prospect, particularly because of the available resources and capacity
to make something happen was at the time great. Punk Rock did a lot to inject
this spirit generally into the arts, and as a result, unique artistic
expression in a number of mediums flourished. Not all of it was brilliant - but
some of it truly was. Video, music, theatre, film, performance, poetry and
literature all were democratized in relation to access, to production,
distribution and presentation. This was quite notable in Toronto at the time.
I was excited by many examples of this DIY
spirit, and I was already participant as a member of music group called The
Points. But I also was experimenting with super-8 film making and dreaming
about short and long form writing projects, both literary and philosophical. As
a high-school dropout, I entered University as a mature student, and it was
partly for the sake of meeting people with a shared taste for creative
diversity and experimentation. Stuart, Lillian and Marc – all Proper Tales
Press authors, all distinctive, unique, stimulating writers and performers — I found
to be precisely that.
Stuart was so open and generous. He showed a
genuine interest in my work. Invited me to contribute to the press. I wrote Hit By A Rock, which he published and
did the drawings for. I became one of those people standing on the street with
a sign around my neck. I loved the different tag lines that everybody used. One
of mine was “Weirdo Writer”. It was quite the thing to face the public in this
way. To feel the mixture of bemused and amused curiosity as well as the
derisive contempt for this approach was very interesting — unsettling and yet
also empowering. This specific aspect of Proper Tales Press work is something
worth reflecting on at length elsewhere at some other time. But one thing it
definitely did for me was raise my estimation and admiration for Stuart’s
tenacity.
Proper Tales Press is as remarkable to me now as
it was then. The breadth of writing styles is truly inspiring. I love that the
writers with this press present work that is at once experimental, enthralling
and entertaining. I’ve always found Stuart’s work to be precisely that. He
manages to produce in me a feeling of familiarity in the midst of great
whimsical and yet also sometimes tragic strangeness. It is a testament to what
a great editor and curator of talent he is that he manages to, through Proper
Tales Press, and so many other of his projects, continue to surprise, delight,
and provoke readers with writing that is at once accessible and challenging.
Proper Tales Press at forty has a nearly
unparalleled history of consistently great publishing, and it is still doing
so. Amazing, simply amazing.
Michael Boyce
is a writer of poetry, fiction and philosophy. He has been published by Proper Tales
Press and Pedlar Press. He is also a member of the experimental music group The
Killer Apps.
He is the author of the Proper Tales Press title Hit By a Rock (1982).
No comments:
Post a Comment