News

Coach House will, as of February 14, offer free digital downloads with the purchase of any print edition (provided, of course, the book currently exists in e-format). You buy one of our print books, the electronic book is yours for the taking.

Sounds great, but how does it work? One of two ways:

Coach House founder and master printer Stan Bevington is this year’s recipient of the Robert R. Reid lifetime achievement award for excellence in book art. The award is given annually by the Alcuin Society, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and celebrating Canadian contributions to print culture.

Previous Robert R. Reid recipients include former Coach House typesetter and designer Glenn Goluska.

Congratulations, Stan. Beautifully done!

In a two-part interview with Coach House founder and master printer Stan Bevington, Nigel Beale, from the Biblio File podcast, delves into the intriguing combination of factors that inspired Bevington's passion for print culture and took Coach House to the forefront of Canadian book design.

The interview is both a journey through the history of technologies and typefaces, as well as an advice manual for collectors seeking rare pieces of Canadiana.

Coach House is proud to congratulate Ratna Omidvar, president of Maytree Canada and co-editor of recent Coach House title Five Good Ideas: Practical Strategies for Non-Profit Success, on her appointment to the Order of Canada!

At the end of 2011, the new members of the Order of Canada were announced, and Ratna Omidvar joined her fellow editor Alan Broadbent, in recognition for her years of social service.

On December 31, the National Post's poetry reviewer Michael Lista made his selection for the best poetry books of 2011. Coach House was thrilled to have published two among his shortlist of seven titles: Gabe Foreman's A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People and David McGimpsey's Li'l Bastard.

On December 19, Coach House announced that our beloved Kevin Connolly will step down as our official Poetry Editor. Kevin would like to spend less time writing marketing tipsheets and more time writing poetry (given he is a Griffin-nominated and highly acclaimed poet), so that seems pretty reasonable to us.

Gail Scott's The Obituary is one of five finalists - selected from a list of roughly 200 candidates - for the 2011 Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Scott's book combines elements of the whodunnit and the ghost story into a work that is wildly experimental, sweeping in scope and incisive in its political and social commentary.

Quill and Quire review editor Steven Beattie listed David McGimpsey's Li'l Bastard as one of his five favourite Canadian books of 2011. Beattie admires McGimpsey for his masterful switch-ups between high and low culture, irreverence and sensitivity, formal elegance and raucous hilarity:

Audio excerpts from our fall 2011 literary titles are now streamable online for the low low price of free. Click on the links below to hear them.

Fiction:

Rob Benvie reads from Maintenance
Sina Queyras reads from Autobiography of Childhood
Tristan Hughes reads from Eye Lake

Poetry:

Do you love the new novel Maintenance, by author and musician Rob Benvie, but need something to listen to while you read it? You're in luck!

Benvie, formerly of Thrush Hermit, currently of The Dears, has created a 'soundtrack' or 'audio companion' to his novel Maintenance, and Coach House is making the download available for free!

We're moving! This June, Coach House switches U.S. sales and distribution. Formerly sold to retailers in the United States by Northwestern University Press, Coach House titles will now be represented by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

On February 19, Coach House launched its free Coach House Coffee Room app, designed to make it easier to keep up with our press and our authors, wherever you might find yourself.

Use it to take a virtual tour of the Coach House, to find out when our new titles are coming out and which of our authors are on tour and what people are saying about our books. You'll also be able browse our photo galleries, book trailers, author interviews and audio content. You can even buy books using the iPhone app!

We've added a book clubs section to our website, to help you and your book club sort through Coach House novels for possible book club selections. When you select a Coach House title, you'll not only be reading compelling, Canadian-authored books, you'll also be able to discuss how the book was made, as Coach House is one of only three Canadian publishers to print its books in house!

Coffee Room

Editor and filmmaker Sarah Hipworth recently completed a video tour of the Coach House Press. Check it out here.

Well folks, we're taking over the airways - or the, err, inter-waves - with a brand new instalment of the Coach House podcast. And we're streaming it on our website for the low low price of free.

Join the Coach House C.H.I.P. (Coach House Important Person) program. Become a loyal supporter of one of Canada's finest literary presses for a low fee of just $10 a month!

Events

Poet Gary Barwin (author of The Porcupinity of the Stars) will be performing new work at the February instalment of the Lit Live Reading Series in Hamilton.

The bill offers an eclectic mix of fiction (Rebecca Rosenblum, Russell Smith), poetry (Barwin, Laura Lush) and things in between (Adam Sol). Also Maria Meindl will be reading from her new biography of writer Mona Gould.

Catch up-and-coming poet Sarah Pinder at the Feb. 8th instalment of the Pivot reading series. If you like what you hear, be sure to check out her debut Coach House collection in fall 2012.

Pinder will be joined by Meira Cook and Dani Couture, author of the recent novel Algoma.

Admission is on a pay-what-you-can basis. For more information on the series, click here.

On February 10th, the Alberta Theatre Projects will launch Drama, the latest work by acclaimed local playwright Karen Hines. Drama is an absurdist, noir-inspired romp about a female ex-forensic psychiatrist confronting an epidemic of soullessness in the midst of a frenzied Western boomtown.

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