So long, I.V. Lounge

The I.V. Lounge on Dundas Street (seen here in a manipulated image created by Steve Venright for the cover the anthology The I.V. Lounge Reader) is closing its doors for good starting tomorrow. As many people know, this is the place where I started, with the help of Peter Darbyshire, the I.V. Lounge Reading Series in 1998. I ran the series for five years, and Alex Boyd has been running the series since 2003. Now, the reading series is kaput, though I guess we can be proud of a strong ten-year run.

Alex has written a farewell message on his blog, but he also lets us know that there's still one more celebration to be had at the I.V. Lounge:

...there’s one more opportunity to have a drink at the I.V. Lounge, say thanks to Kevin and chill out there, and that will be Sunday night, Aug 24 anytime after 3pm. After that, the bar is closed. It also happens to be Kevin’s birthday, so feel free to wish him a happy one, aside from wishing him luck. I suspect I’ll be there sometime after 8pm, and hope to see a few of you.

For the rest of Alex's message, click here.

For a few memories of the old days when I ran the series, Google Books has some pages from the The I.V. Lounge Reader available to view online. The selection includes my introduction to the anthology, poems by David McGimspey, George Bowering, Jennifer LoveGrove, and A.F. Moritz, and fiction by Derek McCormack, Tamas Dobozy, and an otherwise unpublished short story by Andrew Pyper in which he coins the word "sockfarty" which is probably one of my all time favourite Canadian neologisms. You can read it all by clicking here.