East and West Coast Wrap-up

It was an intense summer, but the hardest part of the Taddle Creek Travelling Series of Happenings is over, with all of the east and west coat dates completed. The magazine is now working on booking the final planned stops of Montreal and New York before its triumphant return to Toronto for the combined tour wrap party and Christmas launch.

Aside from Saint John and Portland (the only city Taddle Creek hadn’t visited before), the magazine unfortunately didn’t get to spend much time in its tour cities. But every city was lovely and everyone Taddle Creek met was friendly and welcoming. Speaking of friends, so many people helped out along the way that Taddle Creek simply must thank them by name, and apologize if anyone has been left out.

Thanks to all the talent: John Barger, Nicole Dixon, Peter Norman, Ryan Turner, Jesse Patrick Ferguson, Rebecca Geleyn, Mark Jarman, Jason Kieffer, Robert Moore, Ian MacEachern (who attended through his photos, if not in person), Michael Christie, Christine Delea, Catherine McGuire, Peter Darbyshire, and Marguerite Pigeon. Thanks also to those who were supposed to read but couldn’t make it in the end. The magazine hopes to see you soon.

A big thank you to the venues and their owners, staff, and managers: Mary Ann and the Company House, Janet and Micah and Westminster Books, Peter and the Happinez Wine Bar, Alex and the staff of the White Eagle (sorry again), and Leo and the Brickhouse.

And the rest, thanks for the help, advice, and support: Bethany Horne, Shannon Merrifield, Cliff Turner, Peter Josselyn, Laura Tobias, Ken Tobias, Alpine, Julius Pizza, Amy Jones, Melanie Redman, Jo Prescott, the PT Cruiser, and the Taddle Creek GPS-enabled iPhone.

And an extra big thanks to all those who came out to listen, buy magazines, and subscribe. Even the person in Vancouver who picked up a magazine without paying, read it during the readings, and left it on the coffee table.

Taddle Creek also got an insane amount of press for this venture. Thanks to the Coast, Here, the Georgia Straight, the Canadian Magazines blog, Masthead, CBC Books, Open Book Toronto, the always-awesome Things I Like, the super-generous Glass Coin, and, of course, the Telegraph-Journal.

The Telegraph-Journal wrote a short piece about the Saint John event, but also wrote a review of the summer issue in its Saturday edition. Taddle Creek has no problem at all with bad press or bad reviews, but this particular piece was so ignorant and factually inaccurate that the magazine needs to correct a few things for those who read it. The reviewer, Kate Wallace, who did not seem to have examined the issue very closely, claimed that nearly half of the contributors were from Toronto or the metro area. The Out-of-Towner issue contained work by twenty contributors, not including the regular staff who do the designing and editing and interning, who of course are all from Toronto. Three of those contributors were from Toronto. Of those three: David Ross was purposely the token Torontonian. Mark Medley is from Toronto, but he wrote a profile of Lee Henderson, who is from Vancouver, which was really more the point. Tony Tobias is from Toronto and Ian MacEachern is from London, Ontario, but their collaborative story was about Saint John, New Brunswick, where both lived in the past, so they seemed well-suited to write the piece. Again, the content was very much out-of-town. Of the others, Elana Wolff is from Thornhill, Ontario, which, yes, is close to Toronto. David Collier is from Hamilton, which, last time Taddle Creek checked, is one of the largest cities in Canada. It is not Toronto. No one else was from anywhere near Toronto. Taddle Creek stands by the summer issue’s Out-of-Townerness. As for the bizarre criticism that the magazine lists the neighbourhood of residence for its Toronto contributors, Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods. Each one is unique. It’s the variety of neighbourhoods that make Toronto an interesting and livable place. It’s something the city is proud of. Cities that have such diversity generally count themselves lucky. Taddle Creek isn’t sure what the problem is with that. Thanks for making the editor feel welcome in his hometown, Kate. Get the chip off your shoulder.

The Taddle Creek tour blog, much to the magazine’s chagrin, will return soon with fall dates. Stay tuned.