Cumulus Press: Navigating Customs

Montréal launch photos (coming after May 25th launch)

Karishma Boroowa is a second-year Political Science student at the University of Ottawa. She began writing fiction in English in Grade Nine, encouraged by her mother Archana Medhi and also by her teacher, Ms. Anahita Lee. Karishma is multilingual, and loves art, travelling, fencing, thinking, and eating Tandoori prawns.

Stacey Bowman is a novice traveller, a life-long writer and currently an editorial assistant at Corporate Knights magazine in Toronto. She will begin pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph-Humber in September, 2007.

Amy Klassen grew up in various cities within British Columbia, Canada. During the summer after her high-school graduation she volunteered in Guyana, South America, with Youth Challenge International. Amy now attends Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, double majoring in English and Human Rights.

Alex Leslie has worked as a journalist, including a stint as National Features Bureau Chief for Canadian University Press. She will begin her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC in the fall, focusing on short fiction. Her travels have taken her to Spain and Morocco, all over coastal BC, and recently to St. Petersburg, Russia, to participate in writing workshops with the Summer Literary Seminars program.

Born and raised in Montréal, Talia Weisz is wrapping up her B.A. double major in Creative Writing and Anthropology at Concordia University. Her hobbies include singing in the shower, eating toast with almond butter, and fiddling with words. She is deeply grateful to her family for their support, encouragement, and love.

	NAVIGATING CUSTOMS new travel stories by twelve writers <25 edited by Dana Bath & Taien Ng-Chan featuring the Medicine Woman of Butaritari, A Trestle Chapbook travel story of by Cleo Paskal 168 pages ISBN 978-0-9733499-8-6 quality paperback with flaps $14 Tendril Anthology Series - book 3
These young authors explore a wide range of travel and genre: from an autobiographical tale about chasing news stories in Nicaragua, to short fiction about a young woman who has run away from her home in Gimli, Manitoba, to a long poem about Great Barrier Island in the South Pacific. Even if we’ve been to the places described, we haven’t been there as these writers have. We haven’t gone deaf in Guyana in the same way, nor questioned visiting Ground Zero in the same way, though our unease with ourselves there may be similar. And even if we’ve been to Locon, France, we didn’t meet the same people, though we might wish we had. The writing here is fresh, unique, and takes us on journeys that are unlike any others.	MONTRÉAL LAUNCH Friday - May 25 La Cagibi -- 5490 boul St-Laurent (corner St-Viateur. 8:00 pm

FEATURING thirteen writers <25: Amy Attas, Karishma Boroowa, Raffy Boudjikanian, Stacey Bowman, christine estima, Amy Klassen, Sarah-Jean Krahn, Alex Leslie, Zarmina Rafi, Fenn Stewart, Gillian Sze, Talia Weisz.	Montréal launch photos (coming after May 25th launch)
Editors: Dana Bath & Taien Ng-Chan	Dana Bath has published two collections of short stories—what might have been rain (conundrum press) and Universal Recipients (Arsenal Pulp)—and one novel, Plenty of Harm in God (DC Books). She has won a number of literary awards. Bath is originally from Corner Brook, Newfoundland, and now teaches English Language and Literature at Vanier College in Montréal. She used to travel a lot, and one day will again.
Editors: Dana Bath & Taien Ng-Chan	Taien Ng-Chan has seen small parts of Australia, Canada, China, India, Nepal, Northern Europe, and the United States but her strangest and most recent journey was on a Dutch cruise ship across the Atlantic Ocean. She is author of Maps of Our Bodies; anthology editor of Ribsauce; reviews editor at Matrix Magazine. Her projects can be viewed here.
A Trestle Chapbook : The Medicine Woman of Butaritari The tendril anthology series places the apprenticeship of new young writers—24 years and under—on page one of Cumulus’ publishing program. The anthology series—whose innovative book design includes a distinct but inseparable trestle chapbook by award-winning author Cleo Paskal—embodies its raison d’être: to provide a device for the mentorship of emerging writers. Cleo Paskal’s travel story is set aside within the French flap of the front cover in a format commonly used by the novice writer. The series attempts to eliminate the distinction between emergence and establishment because the latter is not possible without the former.	by Cleo Paskal Cleo Paskal’s varied print, radio, television and film assignments have taken her from Timbuktu to the Largest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. In the past six years, Paskal has won fourteen major writing awards, including Grand Prize (best entry overall) from the North American Travel Journalist’s Association (twice).

	If Amy Miriam Sturton Attas wasn’t such a laid-back baby, she would have been named Anna. Instead, she was best friends with her. Amy considers the tiny wilderness town of Pinawa, Manitoba, her home, but she’s currently studying English and Creative Writing at York University in the endless concrete of Toronto. She has traveled Canada coast to coast and seen Greece, Costa Rica, Kenya, England (for eight hours, between flights), Germany and Nicaragua. She dreams of biking from Alaska to Chile on the Pan-American highway and sauntering to the North Pole with nothing but a pair of snowshoes and a pen. She’s planted over 100,000 trees, played over one hundred University hockey games, torn one ACL and lost her passport twice.
Karishma Boroowa is a second-year Political Science student at the University of Ottawa. She began writing fiction in English in Grade Nine, encouraged by her mother Archana Medhi and also by her teacher, Ms. Anahita Lee. Karishma is multilingual, and loves art, travelling, fencing, thinking, and eating Tandoori prawns.
	Raffy Boudjikanian is a finishing journalism and political science student at Concordia University. He has grown up in Canada though he is of Armenian descent from Lebanon. He hopes to build a successful career in journalism and long-form fiction and non-fiction writing. He lives in Montréal with his family. Raffy enjoys traveling and has seen much of Western Europe and Armenia. Last summer he combined his love for trips with his journalistic curiosity for a stay in Nicaragua. Catching Waves is the story of how he almost never returned.
Stacey Bowman is a novice traveller, a life-long writer and currently an editorial assistant at Corporate Knights magazine in Toronto. She will begin pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph-Humber in September, 2007.
	christine estima is a playwright, novelist, actress, and arts journalist sleeping in some forgotten corner of a European railway station. Her writing has appeared in The Malahat Review, The Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Matrix Magazine, TheGate.ca, NOW Magazine. Her short story “Nylon-Encased Flesh” was included in the literary anthology ToK: Writing the New Toronto (2006). Playwrighting credits include, "Vignettes In The Dark" (2004, Toronto Fringe Festival) and "The Spadina Monologues" (2005, The New Ideas Festival, Alumnae Theatre; Theatre Passe Muraille backspace). christine holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from York University. Having traveled across the Middle East, Europe, christine is now living in the UK, but you’ll still find her, most likely, in the fridge at 4 am.
Amy Klassen grew up in various cities within British Columbia, Canada. During the summer after her high-school graduation she volunteered in Guyana, South America, with Youth Challenge International. Amy now attends Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, double majoring in English and Human Rights.
	Sarah-Jean Krahn is currently finishing a Bachelor’s degree in Honours English at the University of Calgary. Next year, she will be heading to McMaster to do a Master’s in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory. She hopes to continue pursuing revisions to post-colonial theory and expansions to the definition of a text. Creative non-fiction is one awesome arena for these things to be done. She thanks to Clara Joseph for helping her get this far. [Splendid]…[!]”
Alex Leslie has worked as a journalist, including a stint as National Features Bureau Chief for Canadian University Press. She will begin her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC in the fall, focusing on short fiction. Her travels have taken her to Spain and Morocco, all over coastal BC, and recently to St. Petersburg, Russia, to participate in writing workshops with the Summer Literary Seminars program.
	Zarmina Rafi is a graduate student at Concordia University, Montréal. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories.
Born in 1985, Fenn Elan Stewart writes where she lives—with Pearl and often Anton, upstairs, in a small house and a fine chaos in Vancouver, British Columbia.
	Gillian Sze was raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has been published in The University of Winnipeg Creative Writing Journal, Juice, as well as Concordia’s Headlight Anthology. In 2004, she received the University of Winnipeg Writers’ Circle Prize. Her first chapbook, This is the Colour I Love You Best, was published by Withwords Press in 2007. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Creative Writing and resides in Montréal.
Born and raised in Montréal, Talia Weisz is wrapping up her B.A. double major in Creative Writing and Anthropology at Concordia University. Her hobbies include singing in the shower, eating toast with almond butter, and fiddling with words. She is deeply grateful to her family for their support, encouragement, and love.
2007 -	Cumulus Press