November Notes
The latest news and notes from those inky fellows at Gaspereau Press, with sundry accounts of their authors’ exploits and their books’ reception out in the wide world.
Governor General’s Literary Award
Annick MacAskill’s spring 2022 collection, Shadow Blight, has been named as a finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award in the poetry category. The recipient of the award will be announced on Nov. 16.
Fall Titles
This fall saw the release of several new titles from the press, including:
Tender by Sylvia Hamilton, which chronicles the experiences of Black people, especially of Black women, in their quest for self- determination and their desire to live full, complex, unencumbered lives. Employing her skills as a documentary filmmaker, Hamilton combines reclaimed historical accounts, memories, and stories to engage subjects such as intergenerational trauma, racial violence, the silencing of girls and women, and the loss of children. Running throughout her work is a yearning for genuine equality and freedom, and an understanding that a better future begins with engaging honestly with our past.
Monoculture by Sue Goyette, which imagines that Nova Scotia’s last surviving stand of intact forest has been preserved for the enjoyment of the public—a premise that seems more like an inevitability than a speculation. Framing the text as visitors’ comments posted on the forest’s official website, Goyette speaks through a chorus of voices to explore the long consumptive, anthropocentric attitude that permeates our relationship with the natural world—from destructive harvesting practices to our expectations about outdoor recreation and leisure. This unique work takes its cue both from the incessant chatter of social media and from the long slog of a mapless hike, showing how a little scrap of wilderness can still unsettle and disorient us, humble and astonish us, and open its truths to us.
Trinity: Tribute Sequences, for Robert Graves by Sean Howard, which uses experimental techniques such as collage, cut-up, erasure, and the (re)mixing of texts to explore three landmark works by the poet, novelist, and iconoclastic scholar Robert Graves: The White Goddess, The Greek Myths, and the famous Great War memoir Goodbye to All That. Inspired by Graves’s commitment to working with the “broken images” of a shattered world, Howard’s interlocking, dreamscape sequences pay creative tribute to the fierce, questing faith at the heart of the texts: a defiant fidelity to the deep, magical logic and restorative power of poetry and myth, even in an age of mass destruction, war on nature and perverted ‘progress.’
Reviews
Atlantic Books Today reviewed Shadow Blight by Annick MacAskill, noting the poems provide “a delicate but tangible path through the haunting expressions of loss.”
Literary Review of Canada reviewed Naturalism, an Annotated Bibliography by Michael Goodfellow, noting the poems “almost always return to frost and soil.”
The New York Times mentioned Lindsay Bird’s collection Boom Time in a discussion of Kate Beaton’s latest book.
Foxy Foxenberg visited the press’s Wood Type Exhibit at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.
Readings/Events
Annick MacAskill will read in Union Square, Nova Scotia, November 19 at 7 p.m.
Antler Poetry recently posted a recording of the spring 2022 reading they hosted with shalan joudry.
A Note from the Publisher About our 25th Wayzgoose
Like most folks, we here at the press are heading into the winter months wondering whether the pandemic will continue to complicate life or whether we’ve entered a post-pandemic period where the return of some elements of normality will continue. But even tempered expectations cannot diminish the delight and reassurance that we have felt these past few months as we have started to organize public events for authors again, and to host people here in our printshop. We’ve missed that contact with the community.
The chief example of this gradual social un-distancing was the resumption of our annual Wayzgoose and open house in October after a two-year break. The event featured three guest printers (Scott Vile, Keagan Hawthorne, and Richard Kegler) and six guest authors (Michael Goodfellow, Bren Simmers, Katie Fewster-Yan, Sue Goyette, Sylvia Hamilton, and Annick MacAskill), and was attended by an impressive cross-section of our community. I personally enjoyed seeing children in the printshop again and visiting with many of the Wayzgoose ‘regulars’ who travel here each year to hang around with fellow printers and authors. It also reminded me how much I’ve missed hearing our authors read from their new works, and how an affirming that moment always is for me as an editor and publisher.
While awards have never been the constellation by which we navigate here at the press, I want to note how delighted Gary and I were to see Annick MacAskill recognized with a Governor General’s Literary Award nomination for her poetry collection Shadow Blight. For an author, it’s always reassuring to have the excellence of your work recognized by a jury of your peers (and, if you win, the prize money never hurts either). Hopefully Annick’s nomination will help introduce new readers to the excellent body of work that she has been publishing with us over the last number of years. Congratulations, Annick!
Normally, the weeks post-Wayzgoose are the closest thing we have to a slack period here at the press, when we are able to step back and take a breath before leaping into the work on next season’s projects. But not so this year! The pandemic’s lingering impact and manufacturing and supply chain issues scuttled much of the 2022 publication schedule, and so we head into November with four more trade books to get through the press and bindery before the end of the year, including Leesa Dean’s novella in verse The Filling Station, Lisa Fishman’s short story collection World Naked Bike Ride, Ray Cronin’s survey of the artist Alan Syliboy’s career, and Sue Fisher and Margot Stafford’s Beaver Books for a Dime: A Bibliographic History of the Children’s Books of Brunswick Press. On top of all the normal work, I am about to start printing a letterpress limited edition book about the Kentucky printer Gray Zeitz of Larkspur Press. This 40-page, quarto-format book will be printed from metal type on dampened handmade paper, so it’s slow and careful work. I expect things will stay as busy as Santa’s workshop around here right into December.
Thanks as always for your interest in the work of the press.
Andrew Steeves
Co-publisher