Trouble stirring at the Toronto Small Press Book Fair

The mags and books may be small but the controversy is certainly getting fierce surrounding the Toronto Small Press Book Fair. The fair featured a number of small magazine presses.

According to Quillblog, one of the fair's exhibitors, Stuart Ross, who is also a co-founder of the fair, has made his displeasure with the fair's organization and organizers known on his blog and the organizers, Halli Villegas and Myna Wallin, have fired back on the fair's Facebook. Ross says the organizers did a poor job of promoting the event; the organizers say they did a lot and they wish he'd talked to them before going public.

If you think this sounds like it’s getting personal, well, you’re probably right. Angry wall posts have been flying on the Facebook page, and Ross says Villegas and Wallin have been censoring his comments. Now another Facebook page, “Friends of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair,” has been created, and comments are flying there, too.

And Ross has even taken his grievances to his personal Facebook page’s “status update,” which as of this writing reads, “Stuart Ross thinks the Toronto Small Press Book Fair coordinators are using the tactics of dictators and repressive regimes. Censorship, exclusion, disinformation.”