sewn paper
e-mail the Publisher
Literary Anthology
1996
224 pages
ISBN 0-88984-183-7
$16.95a
The Porcupine's Quill Reader
edited by John Metcalfand Tim Inkster
The Porcupine's Quill has been described in The Toronto Star
as `one of Canada's best small presses'. But for Tim and Elke Inkster
and for me there is nothing `small' about the press at all. We
publish writers from coast to coast and our single criterion for
acceptance is excellence. We think of ourselves as a national rather
than regional press and as of national importance.
When I drifted into editing for Tim and Elke I wanted to favour
the short story as a genre and I wanted to publish prose which was
stylistically innovative. I was looking for excitement. I was looking
for energy. I was looking for language that could strut and flaunt. I
was looking for elegance and sophistication. I wanted to draw together
into one place as many talented writers as I could find so that
together we could assert relentlessly literature's importance and burn
like a beacon in the gloom of Canada's uncertainties.
The Porcupine's Quill Reader offers sips and snippets of
the often dazzling writing we've been publishing over the last few years.
It is the vastly entertaining record of a press that has become
something of a movement. The movement doesn't embrace any particular
`ism' but all our writers share an aesthetic approach to writing
and many of our writers propose new writers to me. In that way
we all share in the shape and progress of the press.
The Reader also offers an array of informal photographs of
our authors at readings and launches. These events have become
almost legendary. Never before in Canada has a book documented the
lighter moments of the literary life - dinners at the BamBoo and
readings in the Taddle Creek Series at the Rivoli on Queen Street West,
readings in Ottawa at Magnum Books and at the Globe on Elgin Street,
celebrations at Eden Mills Writers' Festival, high jinks at the
press itself in Erin.
The Reader offers a feast of language. This is writing to
savour. Whether you're reading the breathless comedy of Terry Griggs
or the precise wit of Ray Smith, the slow quiet music of Mary Borsky or
the Waugh-like clarity of Russell Smith, you are plugged into writing
at high voltage. This is some of the most exciting writing Canada
has ever produced.
The Reader offers other pleasures. Paragraph Magazine
wrote: `Publisher-printer Tim Inkster is something of a legend in the
world of Canadian letters.... The books his Porcupine's Quill produces
are in themselves works of art; imaginatively designed, they're
printed and bound in ways which pay homage to the craft of bookmaking.'
The Reader, like all the books of the Porcupine's Quill, is
handsome as a physical object, a pleasure to hold and a delight to read.
`The Porcupine's Quill Reader celebrates and promotes the work of a
small publishing house in the village of Erin, Ontario. The
fact that authors published here have had four Governor General
Award nominations in four years suggest that editor John Metcalf and
publisher Tim Inkster must be doing something right. The Reader
contains 20 short stories and assorted gossipy anecdotes and
photographs of the authors giving readings and socializing. (And
yes, this creates a feeling of being the voyeur at the family
picnic, and yes, you might wonder why you would want to be a voyeur
there of all places.) Inkster has long been known for quality book
design and treats readers to brief arcane chats about typeface
selection and paper size. Interesting if you like knowing why some
books look and feel so much better than others, easy to skip if you
don't.'
-- Harry Vandervlist, Calgary FFWD
