Book Launches at Rock/Paper/Scissors
Sunday, Feb 22 at 1 pm
Art Gallery of Guelph – Lecture room, second floor
Rock Paper Scissors book + print fair | Free
We’re so excited to launch two new PS Guelph books at Rock Paper Scissors!
Rayya Liebich (chapbook) A Litany of Words I Cannot Read
– Poetry on language, social media, and genocide in Palestine
Ellie Anglin (graphic memoir) Death, Birth, & the Turkey Baster Method
– Queering parenting, death, and reproduction
Rayya Liebich’s newest chapbook, A Litany of Words I Cannot Read (PS Guelph 2026), follows the linguistic traces that echo from the genocide in Palestine through the horrors of clips and reels as the conflict is broadcast through social media. Through a month-to-month record, Liebich reflects the distance from land and language that aches within stories of transnational migration and diaspora. The poetry grapples with how Arabic phrases she recognizes resonate simultaneously in both the comforting sound of her mother’s native language and in the agony emanating from Gaza. A Litany of Words contains poems in English as well as a blend of Arabic, English and French, and is designed by Steph Yates and handmade in Guelph.
Rayya Liebich is a writer, educator, and activist, of Lebanese and Polish descent. She is the author of the award-winning chapbook Tell Me Everything (Ontario Poetry Society), the poetry collection Min Hayati (Inanna Publications), and a hybrid memoir entitled Milk Teeth (forthcoming with Pownal Street Press). The last two years, she has channelled her rage and grief over the horrors in Palestine into this collection and published two other chapbooks Khalas/Enough (Gridlock Lit) and Word Games for Times of Genocide (Pinhole Poetry). Winner of The International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir and Briarpatch’s Writing in the Margins Contest, her poetry and prose can be found in The Rumpus, Geist, Room, Protean Magazine, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. She believes in the power of words to change minds and hearts, and in the responsibility of artists to be truth-tellers.
Reproduction: Death, Birth, & The Turkey Baster Method is a graphic memoir and practical guide by Ellie Anglin that traces one queer family’s pursuit of parenthood in the shadow of profound loss. Ellie charts her first attempts to conceive as she and her wife navigate the fertility industry — a quest that’s interrupted by the loss of both of her parents within just over a year, and the psychic disorientation that follows death. Their journey ultimately leads them toward the time-honoured lesbian tradition of at-home insemination, affectionately known as “the Turkey Baster Method.
Part memoir, part ritual, part how-to guide, Reproduction is a hopeful, darkly funny, and deeply personal exploration of creation in all its forms. The story is told through poignant illustrations and full-colour collages assembled from Open Access image collections.
Ellie Anglin (she/they) is a multimedia visual artist and creative writer working in Kitchener, Ontario. She works primarily in collage, illustration, and creative nonfiction, and has self-published 34 zines. Themes in her work include gender, queerness, pop-culture, and magic. She was the 2024 Artist in Residence for the City of Kitchener, for which she created Ribbon Zine. Reproduction: Death, Birth, & The Turkey Baster Method, published by PS Guelph, is Ellie’s first graphic memoir.
Publication Studio Guelph is a micro-publisher that makes handmade books in Guelph, Ontario. We are part of a network of studios worldwide that share production and distribution of our titles. https://www.publicationstudio.biz/
Rayya will be giving a workshop on collective grief on Saturday, February 21st, in Guelph as part of the Rock Paper Scissors book + zine fair weekend. Facebook Event page