Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundaries of convention.

History

The company was founded as Coach House Press in 1965 by artist

Stan Bevington Stan Bevington is a Canadian book publisher who founded Coach House Books. Life and work In 1965, Stan Bevington, a typesetter, newly transplanted to Toronto from Edmonton, rented an old coach house and installed an antique Challenge Gordon pla ...

. It is known for publishing early works by writers such as

Fred Wah Frederick James Wah, OC, (born January 23, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, scholar and former Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Life Wah was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, but grew up in the interior (West Kootenay) of British Col ...

, Daphne Marlatt,

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...

Michael Ondaatje Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist. Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry in 1967, publishing ''The Dainty Monsters'', and then in 1970 the critically a ...

Ann-Marie MacDonald Ann-Marie MacDonald (born October 29, 1958) is a Canadian playwright, author, actress, and broadcast host who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Life and career MacDonald is the daughter of a member of Canada's military; she was born at an air force ...

George Bowering George Harry Bowering, (born December 1, 1935) is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Life and career Bowering was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and rai ...

, Nicole Brossard, Gwendolyn MacEwen,

Christopher Dewdney Christopher Dewdney (born May 9, 1951) is a prize-winning Canadian poet and essayist. His poetry reflects his interest in natural history. His book '' Acquainted with the Night, an investigation into darkness'' was nominated for both the Charles T ...

bpNichol Barrie Phillip Nichol (30 September 1944 – 25 September 1988), known as bpNichol, was a Canadian poet, writer, sound poet, editor, creative writing teacher at York University in Toronto and grOnk/Ganglia Press publisher. His body of work ...

and

Anne Michaels Anne Michaels (born 15 April 1958) is a Canadian poet and novelist whose work has been translated and published in over 45 countries. Her books have garnered dozens of international awards including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, ...

Darren O'Donnell Darren O'Donnell (born 1965) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, performance artist, playwright, director, actor and urban planner. He is the artistic director of the Mammalian Diving Reflex theatre company, has written many plays including ''A Sui ...

, Sean Dixon, Greg MacArthur,

Matthew Heiti Matthew Heiti is a Canadian actor, screenwriter, novelist and playwright. As cowriter with Ryan Ward of the film '' Son of the Sunshine'', he was a Genie Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay at the 32nd Genie Awards in 2012. Born and r ...

, and Amiel Gladstone. Coach House was at the centre of a number of innovations in the use of digital technology in publishing and printing, from computerized phototypesetting to desktop publishing. Notably, the pioneering SGML/XML company,

SoftQuad SoftQuad Software, Ltd., was a Canadian software company best known for HoTMetaL, the first commercial HTML editor. It is also known for Author/Editor, the first specialized SGML editor, and Panorama, the first browser plugin for SGML. Panorama d ...

, was founded by Coach House's Stan Bevington and colleagues Yuri Rubinsky and David Slocombe. In 1991, Coach House was split into two separate companies: the printing house Coach House Printing, headed by Bevington, and the book publisher Coach House Press, headed by Margaret McClintock. Bevington subsequently tried, unsuccessfully, to reacquire the publishing company. Ultimately, the book publisher declared bankruptcy in 1996, and later the same year Bevington moved the printing company back into book publishing. The company is located in several former coach houses on bpNichol Lane, near Spadina and Bloor, which were rented from Campus Co-operative Residence Incorporated. In 2004, controversy arose when the media reported that the cooperative would be demolishing the coach house buildings, and politicians and public interest groups campaigned to have the buildings declared a heritage site. In 2009, the company directly acquired the buildings for the first time in its history.

Operations

Coach House is one of the few Canadian publishing companies that prints its own titles; the printing operations also print books for several other small Canadian publishers and literary magazines, including ''

Acta Victoriana ''Acta Victoriana'' is the biannual literary journal of Victoria College, Toronto at the University of Toronto. It was founded in May 1878 and is the oldest continuous university publication in Canada; its 146th volume was published in 2022. ''Ac ...

'' and the ''

Hart House Review The ''Hart House Review'' is an annual Canadian literary magazine published by Hart House, a student life centre at the University of Toronto, and printed at Coach House Press Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company locate ...

''. The reputation of the new Coach House has been growing steadily since its rebirth in 1997, but it skyrocketed with the publication of

Christian Bök Christian Bök, FRSC (; born August 10, 1966, in Toronto, Canada) is a Canadian poet known for his experimental works. He is the author of ''Eunoia'', which won the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize. Life and work He was born "Christian Book", but ...

's ''Eunoia''. This work of experimental poetry won the Canadian

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, two separate awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. I ...

in 2002 and has sold over 19,000 copies. Coach House books have been the recipients of dozens of other awards and nominations, including the

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

, the

City of Toronto Book Award The Toronto Book Awards are Canadian literary awards, presented annually by the City of Toronto government The municipal government of Toronto ( incorporated as the City of Toronto) is the local government responsible for administering the cit ...

, the

Commonwealth Writers' Prize Commonwealth Foundation has presented a number of prizes since 1987. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best First ...

, the

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary Foundation, Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ+ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ+ literatur ...

, the Books in Canada/Amazon.ca First Novel Award and the

Trillium Book Award The Trillium Book Award ( or ''Prix Trillium'') is an annual literary award presented to writers in Ontario, Canada. It is administered by Ontario Creates, a Crown agency (Ontario), Crown agency of the Government of Ontario, which is overseen by ...

. Its most recent successes have been a series of books of collected essays by Toronto writers on various aspects of their city. The first, ''uTOpia'' (2005), about various writers' notions of a perfectible Toronto, was a surprise hit and was followed by ''The State of the Arts'' (2006), ''GreenTOpia'' (2007) and ''HtO'' (2008) about water in the city. Frequent contributors to the volumes include John Lorinc, Shawn Micallef, Derek McCormack, Dylan Reid,

Bert Archer Bert Archer is a Canadian author, journalist, travel writer, essayist, critic, and former editor in chief of the Montreal Gazette. Archer was born in Montreal and lived in Calgary and Vancouver. He attended St. Michael's University School in Vic ...

, Stéphanie Verge, Chris Hardwicke, Mark Fram, Liz Forsberg, Dale Duncan and

. Also recently published in 2020 was ''Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis,'' edited by Kathryn Mockler, among others. In 2008, Coach House was awarded the

Province of Ontario Ontario is the southernmost province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it is home to 38.5% of the country's population, and is the second-largest province by ...

's "Arts Organization Award" as part of the "Premier's Award for Excellence in the Arts".

References

External links

Coach House Books

An interview with Editorial Director Alana Wilcox
on ''Notebook on Cities and Culture'' * Archives of Coach House Books [founded as Coach House Press
(Coach House Press fonds, R124444)
are held at Library and Archives Canada {{Authority control Book publishing companies of Canada Small press publishing companies Companies based in Toronto Publishing companies established in 1965