Taddle Creek’s fifteenth anniversary celebrations continue, with two special events—the launch of its thirtieth issue and a special art show retrospective. 

Taddle Creek No. 30 launches Friday, June 14, at the Jet Fuel Coffee Shop, 519 Parliament Street, in beautiful downtown Cabbagetown. As is now the tradition, there will be a barbeque for meat eaters and non–meat eaters alike, and free beer, courtesy of the Good Beer Folks at Steam Whistle. As is also tradition, there will be readings, this time by the Good Literature Folks of Michael Lista, Andrew MacDonald, and the one-and-only Michelle Winters. Doors are at 8:30 p.m.; magazines are five dollars (cheap!). 

The month of June also will see the Jet Fuel host the Second Taddle Creek Art Show: Cover Star, a retrospective of original cover photos from Taddle Creek’s first decade (1997–2007) in their original context, uncropped, uncoloured, un-type-ified, blown up really big. The show will run from June 1–30, with the launch party doubling as the show’s opening. 

But back to that thirtieth issue: It’s jam-packed with new fiction and poetry by Dani Couture, Jim Johnstone, James Lindsay, Michael Lista, Andrew MacDonald, Emily Pohl-Weary, David Ross, Nick Thran, and Michelle Winters. Plus: Lorenz Peter’s ironically black-and-white comic about rainbows, Clive Thompson looks back at a hundred and thirty-five years of Acta Victoriana covers, Jay Somerset investigates the fate of the Toronto Reference Library’s film collection, Juliet Waters talks to Saleema Nawaz, and Dave Lapp makes you uncomfortable with the latest installment of People Around Here. With a cover by the Doug Wright Award–winning Nina Bunjevac!

How could you even think of missing such an awesome night? (If you don’t show up, how will you complain that the free beer and food aren’t to your liking?) Taddle Creek so hopes to see you on June 14th.

Taddle Creek loves meeting its public, and is happy it gets the chance to do so often, if not at its semi-annual launch parties, then at various press fairs, such as Canzine, Word on the Street, and the like. Taddle Creek has noticed, however, that it gets asked many of the same questions year after year. This can get a bit redundant. And so, in the interest of freeing up time for the discussion of more interesting topics, the magazine presents the Taddle Creek List of Frequently Asked Questions—actual queries from current, future, and lost readers. Please do read them before asking the magazine if it is aware there’s a creek named after it. Taddle Creek hates that one.

Regular readers know that Taddle Creek takes the art of accuracy very seriously. The magazine goes to great lengths to ensure everything that is meant to be real-world factual in its fiction and poetry is so (to the dismay of many of its contributors), and goes to even greater lengths—if that’s possible—to make sure its non-fiction pieces end up error-free. Taddle Creek’s high standards in this area are both a matter of pride and a matter of trust between magazine and reader.

While the magazine’s track record in the accuracy game is strong, even a magazine with such a crack fact-checking department as Taddle Creek makes mistakes. It’s not something the magazine is proud of, but facts show that it is impossible for a publication to be error-free one hundred per cent of the time, so Taddle Creek must trust its own research, however much it hurts.

But there is one area of accuracy in which Taddle Creek has been remiss: corrections. The magazine is happy to report that, to its knowledge, it has never published a major error—but it has committed many small ones. Some would argue small errors don’t matter that much but, taking things to extremes, as Taddle Creek is wont to do, the magazine disagrees. Maintaining the gold standard of literary-magazine fact-checking means fessing up to even the smallest of mistakes. And so, beginning immediately, the magazine will make note of and correct any erroneous information it discovers in its pages, regardless of its perceived importance. Errors will be listed in the magazine and on the magazine’s Web site. On-line corrections will be appended to pieces originally containing the error, and also can be found at www.taddlecreekmag.com/corrections. For the sake of public record, the on-line corrections page also lists every error that has come to the magazine’s attention since its first issue. And just to prove Taddle Creek is serious about owning up to its mistakes, any reader pointing out an error in an issue of the magazine will receive a free two-year subscription. (Taddle Creek reserves the right to decide for itself if it is in error.) Once again, Taddle Creek leads where other literary magazines fear to tread. You’re welcome.

Very well. You browbeat Taddle Creek, you called it names, and you’ve won. Taddle Creek has become social. Next time it’s raining outside, you’ve read all your books, and there’s nothing good on TV (or if you’re just at work), surf on over to The Taddle Creek Facebook Page on the Facebook and/or The Taddle Creek Twitter Feed of Tweets and become the magazine's fan and/or follower. Taddle Creek so cherishes the special connection with its readers that only Facebook and Twitter can provide.

If you’re still into that whole E-mail thing, don’t worry: just scroll down to the bottom of any page on the Taddle Creek Web site and sign up for The Taddle Creek Mailing List of Current Information. It’s sent infrequently, and the magazine will never give your address to third parties.

Finally, both the Taddle Creek home page and the Taddle Creek Weblogs can be followed via The Taddle Creek Really Simple Syndication Feeds (RSS).

Now you don’t have to wait six months for a dose of the fun and wit for which Taddle Creek is so famous. Oh, the times that are sure to be had now that both you and Taddle Creek are social on-line!