NeWest Press

NeWest Press is a Canadian publishing company. Established in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1977,[1] the company grew out of a literary magazine, NeWest Review, which had been launched in 1975.[1] Early members of the collective that established the company included writer Rudy Wiebe and University of Alberta academics Douglas Barbour, George Melnyk, and Diane Bessai.[2]

NeWest Press
Founded1977
Country of originCanada
Headquarters locationEdmonton, Alberta
Fiction genresfiction, non-fiction, poetry
ImprintsNeWest, Nunatak

The first title published by the company was Getting Here, an anthology of short stories by students in Barbour's and Wiebe's creative writing classes at the University of Alberta, which included Aritha Van Herk, Myrna Kostash, Candas Jane Dorsey, Caterina Edwards, and Helen Rosta.[2]

The company publishes literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, mystery novels, and drama, with a particular but not exclusive interest in books by authors from Western Canada.[3] The company also publishes a separate line, Nunatak, devoted to work by first-time authors.[2] Its Writer as Critic series is devoted to non-fiction essays of literary and cultural criticism by noted Canadian writers,[2] while its Prairie Play series is one of Canada's oldest surviving lines of drama publishing.[4] Sharon Pollock's play Blood Relations remains one of the company's all-time bestselling titles.[4]

The company's board of directors includes Douglas Barbour (president),[3] Anne Nothof (vice-president), Don Kerr (treasurer), Jenna Butler (secretary), Diane Bessai (honorary member), Merrill Distad, Kit Dobson, Paul Hjartarson, Smaro Kamboureli, Nicole Markotic, Suzette Mayr, Michael Phair, Linda Quirk, Eva Radford, and Leslie Vermeer.[3]

Writers

Authors who have been published by the company include:

References
  1. George Melnyk, The Literary History of Alberta Volume Two: From the End of the War to the End of the Century. University of Alberta Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0888643247. p. 173.
  2. "A voice of the West turns 25". The Globe and Mail, April 4, 2002.
  3. "Diving into the slush pile; NeWest president, fellow board member tackle arduous task". Edmonton Journal, August 22, 2014.
  4. "NeWest Press cooked up in kitchen; Diane Bessai a driving force for 35 years". Edmonton Journal, May 27, 2012.


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