about greenboathouse books

Greenboathouse Books is a small literary press now located back in its home town of Vernon, BC, where we're continuing to focus on new and innovative writing from across Canada. Our goal is to promote and publish poetry, fiction and mixed-form work by emerging and established writers from across the country. Although we started out focusing on Western Canadian writing — more because of our location in BC than anything else — we are primarily interested in writing that is formally innovative, and writers who are concerned and intrigued by contemporary writing and the theory surrounding it - i.e. we are interested in writers who read.

Many of our authors have gone on to publish trade collections which include the material first showcased in our chapbooks, including Shane Rhodes (NeWest Press) and Sina Queyras (Coach House Books) and others moved on from Greenboathouse to their first trade collections, including Laisha Rosnau, Matt Rader (both Nightwood Editions), Andy Weaver (NeWest Press), and Sean Dixon (Coach House Books).

Each project is a collaborative process involving the writer, the editors, and the book designer (occassionally also with a specific visual artist), in which the physical design and production of the book is considered with as much attention to detail as the material within it. To paraphrase Frederic Jameson, there is not only the content of a work to consider, but also the content of its form, and we believe that design and layout are integral components of form. This attention to design has been rewarded by 4 consecutive national awards.

Our chapbooks are handmade and therefore print runs are relatively small (usually 100 numbered and signed copies); what this means is that our mandate isn't all that concerned with producing a huge number of product units, but is instead focused on putting together an aesthetically interesting and attractive chapbook showcasing innovative and important writing from across Canada.

On site you'll find plenty of information on what we're up to these days, including recent chapbook releases, our summer reading series, and our on-line poetry archive, as well as last year's thriving Variant project.

If you're interested in submitting either a chapbook manuscript or a poem for the poetry page, please read our submission guidelines first.

On our links page you'll find links to other small presses from across Canada, as well as links to larger publishing houses, Canadian poetry organizations, and other resources covering today's Canadian literary scene.

After you've taken a look, and let us know what you think. Have your say, contribute, and help make the gbh site a place to visit and revisit.

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