Anstruther Community Testimonial • by Shane Neilson • 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters     When the idea of this chapbook-focused issue of Hamilton Arts & Letters first came to me a couple of years ago, I knew I wanted Jim Johnstone as my partner. On reflecting on this desire, I realized the reasons were numerous and as it happens all of them, save for one, are attested to by the poets below. The one that I will mention – the one that doesn’t appear – is that my trajectory in chapbook-publishing at Frog Hollow (2004-present) largely overlaps chronologically with Jim’s at Cactus Press (2007-2012) and Anstruther Press (2013-present). In other words, because my own publishing efforts track with his and because we’ve spent so much time together, I’ve come to learn that:         1. a community testimonial about Anstruther Press would never be instigated by Jim;         2. perhaps the only opportunity to make a start on one would be this issue; and         3. the consequent necessity of celebrating and honouring that which is essential to a community couldn’t be clearer to me and, I suspect, to the people reading these words now. Finally – and best of all! –         4. I’d have the supreme pleasure of embarrassing Jim’s habitual humility when the surprise was ultimately published in Hamilton Arts & Letters.    [  >>>>>   FORWARD ]   + [Distillate © HA&L + Shane Neilson {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]