The Ottawa Arts Review (OAR) is the official English Arts Journal of the University of Ottawa. It is a not-for-profit publication produced twice per year on average. The OAR is staffed by student and alumni volunteers who wish to encourage the appreciation of both literary and visual arts within Ottawa.
Publishing verse, short prose, visual art, and short plays, the OAR gives an equal voice to local, Canadian, and international artists, cultivating a vibrant and positive setting that facilitates creative exchange between emerging and established artists alike.
By participating in various literary and artistic events around the University of Ottawa campus and the city itself – including the Writers' Festival and Small Press Book Fairs, as well as our issue launch parties and the UESA wine and cheese – OAR reaches out beyond its pages and seeks to form community with and gain exposure for local and visiting artists.
The publication is available for sale at the U of O Undergraduate English Students' Association (UESA, 3rd floor Arts Building), on our website, and at other fine establishments around Ottawa.
If you would like to submit to the review, the guidelines can be found on our website.
Please limit your submissions to a maximum of six works and send them to [email protected].
We can always use more help! To become a volunteer, please contact the Undergraduate English Students' Association at [email protected].
Friday Circle
Friday Circle was initiated in 1992 as a series of Friday noon hour gatherings to which students and faculty were invited to read their new work for discussion and response. The weekly meetings took place in Simard Hall, usually with ten to fifteen persons sitting in a circle, hence Friday Circle.
Subsequently, annual anthologies of writing, a broadside and chapbook series became ongoing activities of Friday Circle. While the reading circle ceased to meet, a full publication program ensued with the collaboration of faculty, students and alumni of the Department of English.
Today, Friday Circle's mandate is to foster creativity and to help sustain the Ottawa literary community by disseminating the work of new writers from the University community.
English Debating Society
The English Debating Society, the oldest continuing student society of the University, draws its members from all faculties and schools but has long been sponsored by the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Department of English. It holds public weekly debates on campus during term and organizes special events such as debating workshops, and two annual debating tournaments, one for high-school students and one for university students. The Society's intercollegiate activities include the reception of visiting teams and the sending of its own teams to debates in Canada and abroad.
