“The Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.” – Mark Twain

When I was 10, my Mum and Dad gave me the best Christmas present ever. You might think it was that magnificent Toronto Maple Leaf sweater I wore until it was in threads. It wasn’t. The gift to top all gifts was a brilliant yellow typewriter!  As a child I wrote many fantastical tales for my teacher, Mrs. Milburn, in various multi-coloured Hilroy notebooks but somehow this typewriter signalled a Gutenberg-esque sea change. I soon wrote and illustrated my first official publication, “Peter Puck’s Hockey Skills Manual.” I still remember working out just how much space to leave for illustrations, how easy it was to draw Peter Puck and skates and pylons, and how hard it was to get all the NHL logos correct on the cover (the then New York Islanders logo was particularly vexing). This feat of self publishing was later followed up in high school with a hand-drawn and written children’s book for a Grade 13 assignment in Mr. Burke’s English Lit class: “Life on the Farm With Farmer Jack” penned by our talented farm cat Stewie. It seems I was destined for a life in publishing!

This walk down memory lane was prompted by an article written in Canadian Business this past week called “It’s Alive: Outlook for Canadian Book Publishing Stirs” and a timely visit Friday to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at The University of Toronto for an exhibit called “A Death Greatly Exaggerated: Canada’s Thriving Small and Fine Press.” As my regular readers know, I have had a wonderfully diverse career in Canadian publishing so far. I have worked for large, multi-national companies as well as most recently with a smaller, independently owned and operated Canadian company. While each of these companies has publishing thoughtful, creative works as their common denominator, the major differentiator is realized in the driving purpose behind the act of publishing. Words such as bottom line, profit, double-digit growth and share-holders just do not exist in the lexicon of our Canadian independent publishers. Jason’s McBride’s inside look at Canadian book publishing in the must-read Canadian Business article brings this home better than any piece I have read recently on our local publishing industry. McBride clearly spent time both researching the often fascinating historical context of Canadian publishing and interviewing publishers at such presses as ECW Press, House of Anansi, the former Douglas and McIntyre, and Harbour Publishing to better understand the current status of independent publishing in Canada. Unlike many reports of late, this is not an industry driven to the brink by digital disruption. It is an industry that is evolving while keeping its eye on the prize: “publishing meaningfully”:

“While publishing is…certainly a business, business success is better measured not in terms of profit, but whether a company is publishing meaningfully. ‘If you look at any Canadian publishers’ list,” Anansi VP Matt Williams says, ‘there are an awful lot of books there that would never make financial sense. You can grind P&L’s, you can cut costs, but it’s never going to make sense to publish a book of poetry. That’s not why we are doing it. We’re all in it for the cultural reasons.’”

Indeed, after spending the past year with a gutsy, brave and scrappy local Canadian independent publisher, I can attest to Matt’s statement about purpose. It was a shift that was, after 18 years thriving with various “multi-nationals,” refreshing. My visit to The Thomas Fisher exhibit on Friday further illustrated this purposeful focus on the art of publishing. I am grateful to the staff at The Fisher for allowing me to take pictures of the books and manuscripts on exhibit. You can see a number of them in my photo collage above.  The exhibit featured a large number of works by Canada’s independent publishers, showcasing works that highlight the craft of book making, binding, and illustration. You can see two pieces by George A. Walker, one of Canada’s most celebrated wood engravers, in “The Mysterious Death of Tom Tom Thomson: A Wordless Narrative Told by 109 Wood Engravings”, printed and bound by Erin Ontario’s Porcupine’s Quill. The pages are stark, wonderfully thick and brilliant! As a visual learner, I was fascinated by the idea that Tom Thomson’s story could be appropriately told through wood cut engraving. I also appreciated the 20 poem Emily Dickinson collection called “Emily: Opposites Attract” published by 14-year-old (!) Polly Elsted of Horse Whisper Press. Polly is a girl-publisher after my own heart! The daughter of Crispin and Jan Elsted of British Columbia’s Barbarian Press, Polly established her own imprint at the tender age of 14 and published several books, the book of Dickinson’s poems her second. The book is beautifully illustrated with full-page wood engravings by the likes of Simon Brett, Andy English, Peter Lazarov, Barry Moser, and Richard Wagener. You can read more about Polly’s fantastic story here and learn more about the just completed exhibit at U of T here.

As you can see, the Canadian independent publishing scene is far from dead. In fact, one could argue that it is more culturally relevant and creative than ever. Please do read Jason McBride’s thoughtful article and take some time on this lovely Sunday to visit one of your local Canadian publishers. You can find a comprehensive list here. You might be surprised by what you find in your own back yard! For those who live in the Guelph area, I would also suggest you give the Eden Mills Writer’s Festival a try next weekend. You are likely to find a local author ready and willing to tell you first hand what it is like to immortalize words between the carefully crafted covers of a book. You might see me there too!