Loch Baillie book launch "River Running" with special guests

Loch will be joined by special guests Kirby, Cassidy McFadzean, and Amanda Merpaw, as well as host Jim Johnstone.

Come and enjoy a fantastic evening of poetry, conversation, and fun. This event is free and open to the public.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

In his highly anticipated, breathtakingly intimate debut, Loch Baillie pens an unfiltered queer Bildungsroman that traces both a geographical and emotional journey from his birthplace in New England to where he comes to settle in Quebec.
Raw and confessional, River Running dives gracefully into the intangible concept of home, be it person or place. “No more metaphors tonight,” writes Baillie, “I come to tell you nothing / but the truth.” This collection probes at memory and love, identity and grief, with achingly gentle hands, sifting through the fragments one both leaves behind and becomes.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, Loch Baillie (he/il) is a queer writer and editor now based in Quebec City. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, ice, dove, parachute (Cactus Press) and Citronella (Anstruther Press), as well as the collection River Running (icehouse poetry/Goose Lane Editions, 2026). Loch’s writing has appeared in magazines such as Maclean’s, yolk literary, and Ahoy. He is an associate poetry editor at Plenitude Magazine and a board director for the Quebec Writers’ Federation. An alumnus of Bishop’s University, Loch is currently continuing his English literature studies at the graduate level at Université Laval. Find him everywhere @lochbaillie.

KIRBY is the author of She, Poetry is Queer, This Is Where I Get Off, featured columnist at Send My Love to Anyone and publisher at knife | fork | book. Their latest, Fairy, arrives this fall from Palimpsest Press. They can be found at kirbyfairy.ca

Cassidy McFadzean is a Toronto-based author of three books of poetry, most recently Crying Dress (House of Anansi, 2024). Her poetry has appeared in magazines across Canada and the US, and her fiction has appeared in Joyland, Hazlitt, and Dead Writers (Invisible Publishing, 2025). Cassidy is the 2025-2026 Poet-in-Residence at Arc Poetry Magazine.

Amanda Merpaw is the author of the poetry collection Most of All the Wanting and the chapbook Put the Ghosts Down Between Us. She has been a finalist for the Montreal Fiction Prize, The Fiddlehead Fiction Contest, and the Poem of the Year contest. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in various literary magazines, including The Capilano Review, The Fiddlehead, CV2, Grain, Prairie Fire, and more. Amanda is a contributing editor at Plenitude Magazine and a member of the editorial board at Anstruther Press.

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