MAY NEWSLETTER (click here to see in your browser)
Valerie Bah’s Subterrane is shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award!
Amazon Canada and The Walrus have announced that Valérie Bah’s novel, Subterrane, has been chosen as one of the six finalists for the 2025 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Subterrane is published under the Esplanade Books fiction imprint, edited by Dimitri Nasrallah. The winner will be announced on June 5 in Toronto.
Thursday, May 15, Curtis John McRae launches his exceptional debut short story collection, Quietly, Loving Everyone. Join us for an evening of readings and conversation with Esplanade Books’ editor Dimitri Nasrallah at Cardinal Tea Room on May 15 at 7 p.m.
Poet Bridget Huh celebrates the launch of her poetry collection, Fugue Body, next Wednesday, May 21 at Librairie Paragraphe. The event will feature readings by Bridget and special guests Sarah Burgoyne and Domenica Martinello—come join us in marking this skillful, luminous debut.
Join us for the launch of Why Fish Piss Matters: On the Last Authentic Bohemia on May 22 at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly! Andy Brown’s latest work offers a deep dive into the history and legacy of Fish Piss, a landmark Montreal zine that bridged comics, literature, and DIY 1990s publishing. Hosted by Howard Chackowicz, Andy will be joined in conversation by Billy Mavreas, Louis Rastelli and Heather O’Neill.
Couldn’t make the Montreal launch? Bridget Huh will be launching Fugue Body at Toronto’s Flying Books on May 22! Hosted by Derek Webster, author of National Animal, the evening will feature readings and conversation in celebration of Huh’s remarkable debut.
Congratulations to Rhea Tregebov, whose poetry collection Talking to Strangers was shortlisted for the Betty Averbach Foundation Prize for Poetry! You can listen to Rhea discuss the book on The Artisanal Writer podcast here (free to listen, but registration required).
For the last two decades, Lorna Goodison has reimagined Dante’s cantos, setting the original poem in her native Jamaica and employing Jamaican expressions and sayings. Read Shazia Hafiz’s starred review of The Inferno in Quill & Quire: “Goodison’s vision, like Dante’s, merges the divine and the earthly with uncanny beauty and wit…[her] retelling of Dante’s Inferno is a celestial reckoning of epic proportions.”
DECEMBER NEWSLETTER (click here to see in your browser)
VÉHICULE PRESS AT THE READ QUEBEC BOOK FAIR!
Join us on December 7-8 from 12-7 PM at the annual English-language publishers’ book fair, now at the beautiful Art-Deco Casa d’Italia at 505 rue Jean-Talon est, right across from Jean-Talon metro. We’ll have new releases and backlist titles by local and national writers, including fiction, poetry, non-fiction, hard-boiled vintage noir paperbacks, and more! To mention a few items you may want for the bibliophile on your holiday list…
MONTREAL STANDARD TIME by Mavis Gallant
Montreal Standard Time: The Early Journalism of Mavis Gallant collects, for the first time, the journalism of this literary icon, before her fiction made her an international star. The book was recently listed as one of the 100 best books of 2024 by The Globe and Mail. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Gallant, Montreal history, and sharp writing.
SUBTERRANE by Valérie Bah
Subterrane is the first novel by Montreal writer Valérie Bah and it will be featured at the Read Quebec Book Fair’s Violet Hour book club event on Saturday December 7 from 3-4:30pm, led by Christopher DiRaddo. We’ll have copies for sale at the Véhicule Press table!
NATIONAL ANIMAL by Derek Webster
Derek Webster’s new collection of poems National Animal just won the A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry, and would make a great gift for any reader on your list. Uncompromising and substantial, National Animal explores our “civic moment” where “birds sing oblivion / estranged from all things,” and meditates, in a final image-rich sequence, on our place in a science-based cosmos.
SUGAR-PUSS ON DORCHESTER STREET by Al Palmer
We’ll also have titles on sale from our vintage noir Ricochet Books series, including Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street, which features a recently updated cover from the 1950 edition.
These books make great gifts, and great holiday reads!
NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER (click here to see in your browser)
MONTREAL LAUNCH OF SUBTERRANE!
Join us on Friday, November 22 at 7 p.m. at Librairie Saint-Henri Books (4622 Notre-Dame O.), when Valérie Bah will launch their novel Subterrane with host Dimitri Nasrallah and special guests Leïka Narcisse and Esi Callender. The event is free, but space is limited! Reserve your ticket here.
AN EVENING WITH ERIK LINDNER
Hear Dutch poet Erik Lindner (author of Words are the Worst read at Librairie Bertrand (430 rue Saint-Pierre) on Thursday November 28! Joined by special guests Derek Webster and Sarah Wolfson, this promises to be a delightful evening of poetry.
CONGRATULATIONS DEREK WEBSTER!
His latest collection of poems, National Animal, won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry at the Quebec Writers’ Federation Gala on November 12.
REVIEWS
– Montreal Standard Time: The Early Journalism of Mavis Gallant was featured in the fall edition of the Montreal Review of Books
– Mary Dalton’s new collection of poems Interrobang is featured in the latest issue of The Walrus
– Ricardo Sternberg’s One River: New and Selected Poems was reviewed in both New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry and The Woodlot.
OCTOBER NEWSLETTER (click here to see in your browser)
HAPPY PUBLICATION MONTH TO SUBTERRANE!
Valérie Bah’s speculative comedy, a carousel of Black and Queer voices being pushed further underground by urban prosperity, is now available!
TORONTO LAUNCH OF MONTREAL STANDARD TIME
Join us in Toronto on Wednesday, November 6 at 6:30 at Flying Books for the Toronto launch of Montreal Standard Time: The Early Journalism of Mavis Gallant with Associate Publisher Carmine Starnino and co-editor Neil Besner.
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WRITERS!
Derek Webster’s latest collection of poems, National Animal, is among the finalists for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. The winner will be announced at the Quebec Writers’ Federation Gala on November 12. And Rhea Tregebov’s book of poems Talking to Strangers won a Canadian Jewish Literary Award.