Szilvassy stepping down as Brick publisher; Graham takes over

At the end of this month, Nadia Szilvassy is stepping down as publisher of Brick, the international literary journal, turning over her responsibilities to poet and editor Laurie D. Graham.

Szilvassy has been with Brick since January 2007, first as managing editor and then, in 2011, taking over the role of publisher from Michael Redhill. As Brick editor Michael Helm said at the launch of the new issue at the Lucky Shrike Bar on June 6, 2016,

"Brick has grown nationally and internationally under Nadia's guidance and great judgment…. The unbroken rhythm of working at a literary magazine can be pleasurable one day and feel like a dangerous pressure vortex the next. Nadia has danced us beautifully through these vortices."

In the announcement in her publisher's note in the new issue, Szilvassy said

"It's been over nine years since I first arrived at Brick. No spring chicken, but nonetheless a fledgling in the field of publishing, I found myself all of a sudden swept up into the midst of countless passionate conversations about writing, art, and life that reached from our Toronto hub out and around and across the world. My head still spins."

Graham has been an editor on Brick's masthead since issue 93 (Summer 2014) and who previously held the role of circulation manager and assistant editor from 2010 to 2014. Graham is the author of two books of poetry, Rove (Hagios Press, 2013) and Settler Education (McClelland & Stewart, 2016), and has taught writing at Humber and Fanshawe Colleges and the University of Guelph.