Wonderful things happened in the press in this last decade of our journey. Authors like JonArno Lawson and Catherine Graham joined us, and long-time friends of the press, such as Richard Harrison, stayed with us. JonArno Lawson’s Enjoy It While It Hurts and Ken Howe’s The Civic-mindedness of Trees, thoughtful and witty collections looking at nature in different ways, were both acquired by Noelle Allen, but Catherine brought her wonderful collection Her Red Hair Rises on the Wings of Insects to the press because Paul Vermeersch came on board as senior editor in 2012. Two years later, in ..read more

  The years from 2003 to 2012 were a time of change for the press. I joined in 2002 as the publisher’s assistant to Marja Jacobs, and soon became the assistant publisher. In 2006 the press moved from Toronto to Hamilton, and that same year I became publisher as Maria Jacobs retired from the day-to-day running of the press, though she continued to acquire and edit poetry until 2008. We started to experiment a bit more with style and form, including full-colour paintings in Stan Rogal’s ( sub rosa ) and including a book within a book and visual poetry in Oana Avasilichioaei’s award-winning ..read more

  The second decade of publishing for the press saw some wonderful growth and changes. We won our second Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry with Robert Hilles’ lovely collection Cantos from a Small Room. Marja told me once of a fellow publisher getting a bit huffy with her at this second award, saying, “Why are you winning all the awards now?” But both Marja and Heather were deeply involved in the literary community at that time and as a result many talented authors found a home at the press. A.F. Moritz, Betsy Struthers and Maureen Hynes all had wonderful collections. Young aut ..read more

  On December 17, 1982, Heather Cadsby and Marja Jacobs incorporated Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd. When she told me about this Marja said they’d decided to incorporate first thing so that the press would be real. She added with a smile that when the lawyer who incorporated them realized they wanted to publish books he widened their scope on paper to also include stationery – “In case we wanted to make money.” But unsurprisingly, the press has never sold stationery. Ever since that date, W&W has been publishing books. Brilliant, often award-winning books. And for the first twenty-fou ..read more

 What does a production coordinator do? Like Ashley said in her post, Wolsak & Wynn is small, so I do a little bit of everything. Because I started here as an intern, I handle a lot of administrative stuff like writing the newsletters, packing up orders, managing the website and recording and responding to the hundreds of submissions we receive every year. I do a lot of the interior design for our books and the occasional cover as well as the seasonal catalogue. I convert all of our fiction and non-fiction to ebooks. I’m also the person who usually sets up and runs our online events ..read more

 What does a Managing Editor do? Since Wolsak & Wynn is a small publisher, I do a little bit of a lot of things as managing editor. After a book is signed, I collect information from the author and acquiring editor to create the bibliodata information that is sent to bookstores and libraries so that people can order our books. I also apply for cataloguing-in-publication from Archives Canada so that our books are properly catalogued in Canadian and American libraries. I do a lot of copy-editing and proofreading, and I coordinate with designers to get print files to the printers. I pack ..read more

  This summer I realized that it’s been fifteen years since I became the publisher at Wolsak and Wynn. It’s been an interesting journey, to say the least. When I pitched the idea of my purchasing the press to the founder, Marja Jacobs, I had no money and only a few years of experience in the industry. I also quickly discovered I was pregnant with my first child. But Marja felt I had the potential to be a good publisher and was willing to work out a creative payment option for me to purchase the company from her. I learned much from her about publishing (and about life) and will be forever ..read more

  It’s February and that means that we are about halfway through our annual submission period. But don’t worry! You still have until the end of March to send us your query letters and samples. It’s time to put the finishing touches on your manuscript, type up that letter and stick those stamps on a self-addressed envelope. As the person who reads and records every submission that comes through our office, I have seen it all! Now, I’m here to provide you with some tips on what we like to see in a submission, so check out the list of four dos and four don’ts of submitting to Wolsak and Wynn ..read more

  April is National Poetry Month and as a press, Wolsak and Wynn has always been a home for poets. The two women who started the press, back in 1982, were poets themselves, and they created the press to publish poetry. In fact, Marja Jacobs and Heather Cadsby paid for their first publication in a very poetic way: they used funds from the sales of their own chapbooks. Heather and Marja were determined to fill what they felt was a huge hole in publishing in Canada. There were incredible poets that they knew who could not find publishers. So they started a company and published them, quickly ..read more

  Just last week I was talking to a class of students at a local university about the press, what I do as a publisher and how publishing itself is pretty invisible. If you talk to a reader most of them can’t name a publishing company – but they know their favourite authors. How many of us know that Stephen King is published by Simon & Schuster? I didn’t, until I read in an article that Stephen King’s books were part of the Simon & Schuster backlist. If you’re in publishing, or looking at it, you’ll come across the idea of the publishing list. Often, if you’re an author submitting ..read more