We are excited to announce 4 new book – works forthcoming from Ice Floe Press this summer through autumn 2025. In this period of downsizing, slicing and dicing and rollbacks, access to new groundbreaking writing and art from micro and indie presses are being stymied by social and economic uncertainties. We are forging ahead — presenting 4 new long-in-the-works creations by four of our favorite writers:
BOLA OPALEKE, who’s 1st chapbook Skeleton of a Ruined Song began our flurry of new production in 2019, and subsequently sold out. His new chapbook, AUTHOBIOGRAPHY OF WATER, is a dense, brilliant work on mothers, life in the Diaspora, language and history. We are also honored to announce the new work will have a singular cover by the late Canadian artist Cathy Daley who created the art for this book in the year before her death in 2022.
I’m totally honored as the EIC and fervent believer in collaboration projects to announce 3 new upcoming books of poetry and visual poetry by 3 of my favorite writers, each with unique and original voices and complex bodies of work:
First up will be IN THE BLUEPRINT OF HER IRIS a book of poems, prose poems by VIKKI C. with art by Robert Frede Kenter.
Next up: a still un-titled new collection of poems and intersecting art works by Canadian writer CATHERINE GRAHAM & artworks by Robert Frede Kenter
Finally, excited to announce a forthcoming hybrid book with texts by formidable JACLYN PIUDIK and art pieces by Robert Frede Kenter.
These works form a trio of explorations of work and image, a groundwork of the kinds of projects we aim to continue to publish, feature and present both in print editions and in web and e-formats.
Moira J. Saucer and I thank everyone for their continued support of Ice Floe Press in these stressful times. We truly believe art and writing are bedrocks of community and social change, and increasingly necessary engagements in the face of the unspeakable unsustainable chaos and violence against life and the planet itself in times we must both meditate and remain strong and vigilant in resistance. Blessings and wonder, Robert and Moira.
Author Photos and Bios of Upcoming Authors:
Bola Opaleke is the author of Skeleton of a Ruined Song. Winner of 2020 Thomas Morton Prize in Poetry. A few of his poems have been published in journals like Prairie Fire, Frontier Poetry, Rattle, CBC Books, The Nottingham Review, The Puritan, Literary Review of Canada, Sierra Nevada Review, The Indianapolis Review, Canadian Literature, Ice Floe Press and many more. He holds a degree in City Planning and lives in Winnipeg MB. Bola is currently Arts Community Director with Winnipeg Arts Council Board of Directors.
Vikki C. is a British-born writer and musician whose written works have earned nominations for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Orison Best Spiritual Literature. Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in over 80 venues across US, Canada, UK and Europe. Recent and forthcoming venues include The Ilanot Review, EcoTheo Review, Grain Magazine, The Inflectionist Review, The Blue Mountain Review, Poetry Online, Sweet Literary, Emerge Literary Journal, Harpy Hybrid Review, Barren Magazine, Cable Street, Psaltery & Lyre, Ice Floe Press, Amethyst Review, One Art, Sontag Mag, Black Bough Poetry, Feral, The Winged Moon, Dust Poetry and Ballast Journal, among others. She is the author of the collection Where Sands Run Finest (DarkWinter Press, 2024) and the chapbook The Art of Glass Houses (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). Vikki was a winner of the Black Bough Poetry 2024 Poetry Collection Contest (UK) and was shortlisted in the DarkWinter Lit 2nd Anniversary Contest, judged by Kim Fahner (Canada). She currently serves as contributing editor at The Winged Moon Magazine. Linktree: linktr.ee/vikki_c._author
(photo by Marion Voysey)
Catherine Graham is a poet, novelist and creative writing instructor. Her eighth book, Æther: An Out-of-Body Lyric,was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award, Toronto Book Award, and won the Fred Kerner Book Award. Her sixth poetry collection, The Celery Forest, was named a CBC Best Book of the Year. She is the author of two novels; her award-winning debut Quarry and The Most Cunning Heart.Published internationally, her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, broadcast on CBC Radio, anthologized in The White Page / An Bhileag Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets and The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol IV & V and have appeared in Best Canadian Poetry. A past judge for the CBC Poetry Prize, she teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto SCS where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award. She also leads the TIFA book club and co-hosts The Hummingbird Podcast, part of the WNED PBS Amplify app. Put Flowers Around Us and Pretend We’re Dead: New and Selected Poems is her latest book. Visit her online: www.catherinegraham.com
Photo by Paul Edward Costa
Jaclyn Piudik is the author/translator of Paul Celan: The Dark Oar (Beautiful Outlaw 2024), the author of To Suture What Frays (Kelsay Books 2017) and co-author of Seduction: Out of Eden (Kelsay Books 2022) as well as three chapbooks, and three chapbooks, the corpus undone in the blizzard (Espresso Chapbooks 2019), Of Gazelles Unheard (Beautiful Outlaw 2013) and The Tao of Loathliness (fooliar press 2005/8). Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including New American Writing, Columbia Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Ice Floe Press and Burning House. She received a New York Times Fellowship for Creative Writing, the Alice M. Sellers Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the 2022 Very Small Verse Prize from the League of Canadian Poets. Piudik holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the City College of New York, as well as a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto. Currently, Piudik teaches writing at the University of Toronto, works as an editor and translator of poetry and academic monographs and has a private mentoring practice. https://www.jaclynpiudik.com/.
Robert Frede Kenter is a poet, fiction writer, performer, visual artist and EIC of Ice Floe Press, living with ME/FM whose work explore themes of family, illness, eco-disaster, nightmares, and social history. Over the past three decades, writing and visual works have appeared widely in journals and anthologies including American Book Review, Anthropocene, Storms Journal, Visual Verse, ballast, cable street, harpy hybrid, Otoliths, Grain, ARC, Watch Your Head, and Speaking in Tongues (Steel Incisors, UK), among others. Robert is a three-time Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net nominee, and has been shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize and the Dark Winter Lit Poetry Contest. Robert is also a recipient of multiple grants supporting both individual and collaborative projects. Robert studied performance and visual art at Antioch College and worked in experimental theatre with Wooster Group, Talking Band, Intersection, Red Mole and other companies. Books include FATHER TECTONIC https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/father-tectonic-by-robert-frede-kenter, Audacity of Form (Ice Floe Press), and EDEN (Floodlight Editions).
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