Local authors gathered for the Small Press Book Fair at the Jack Purcell Community Centre last month.
From the tallest office buildings on Slater Street, to the most run-down housing on Cooper, to the haunting gargoyles on Parliament Hill, Centretown is inspiring.
At least that’s what one Ottawa writer is saying.
“Everything I see here inspires me one way or another,” says Adam Thomlinson. “The Centretown neighbourhood is especially inspiring, because it’s mine.”
Thomlinson showed his love for Centretown at the Small Press Book Fair, which took place at the Jack Purcell Community Centre in late November.
He sold chapbooks with covers made from photographic contact sheets.
“All of my photos are of Centretown and the areas around it,” he says. Thomlinson says Ottawa’s downtown core isn’t recognized by locals and even other artists as the vibrant community it is.
“Downtowns are inspiring everywhere. There’s variety in architecture that there isn’t anywhere else,” he says. “Ottawa’s downtown doesn’t get enough credit for that.”
The Small Press Book Fair played host to other writers with a love for the city.
Centretown resident Susan McMaster published a book of forty short stories about living as a writer in Ottawa. She says that in the past, the local writing community was incredibly small and tight-knit.
“When I was in my 20s and 30s, Ottawa poets were such a tight group – we met at events and we went to each other’s things all the time,” she says. “We called ourselves the ‘Roughwriters.’”
Since then, she says, Ottawa’s writing community has grown, but that tight-knit feeling remains.
“It’s still small enough and warm enough and close enough that everything interweaves and intermingles,” she says.
McMaster says events such as the Small Press Book Fair help inspired writers come together and strengthen their community.
A writer and founder of the Small Press Book Fair, rob mclennan, says in its 14 years, the event has not grown substantially. This makes it easier for local writers to stay connected, he says.
“You don’t want something to grow too big too fast – it becomes unwieldy,” he says. “Part of what gets accomplished is us seeing each other and saying, ‘Oh neat! That’s what you’ve been doing for the past six months,’ or, ‘Oh cool! You have a new thing out.’”
Downtown Ottawa is the best location for an event like this because it’s home to so many of Ottawa’s writers, he says.
McMaster agrees. “Downtown has always been central to a lot of what goes on,” she says. “This is [the writers’] chance to show off what they’ve got where people can see it.”
Thomlinson has been selling his works at the Small Press Book Fair for many years. He says the writers who exhibit there are the ones who are “crazy about this city,” like he is.
“There are tons and tons of artists and writers from here, but most of them leave,” he says. “It’s a matter of if they’re in love enough with the city to stick it out here.”
Above all else, writers and artists need to become inspired by the bustling downtown around them, he says.
“The further you get from downtown, the slower life is,” he says. “Homogeneity doesn’t inspire; variety does.”