Co-Editor of The Small Walker Press together with Derek Knight, Catherine Parayre is the Director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture and its Research Centre in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Culture at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University, Niagara Region.
1 – When did The Small Walker Press first start?
How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at
all? And what have you learned through the process?
The SWP’s first publications -two books on the
theme of environmental degradation- appeared in April 2019. I remember
distinctly that all started during a conversation with my colleague and
co-editor Derek Knight, faculty member in Visual Arts at Brock University. We
were overworked and, out of exhaustion, suddenly decided to start something we
would love doing and feel happy about. As we both have curatorial and editing
experience and are quite fascinated by the book as object, we started the SWP.
With our authors and artists, we have learned that networks of kindness and
rigorous work are what we strive on.
2 – What first brought you to publishing?
My first work experience, in France, was working as
editorial assistant to a journalist and a photographer who were experts in…
fishing (and underwater photography). Both were highly respected in their
‘field’ and traveled around the world to remote places. They were tough and
wonderful. Working with them was incredibly fun and I got to meet other fishing
journalists, most of them fantastic writers. And yes, authors of fiction do
write about fishing. In Canada, I am the editor of Voix plurielles,
peer-reviewed academic journal of the Association des professeur.es de français
des universités et collèges
canadiens. Editing is a pleasant way to find one’s peace of mind.
3 – What do you consider the role and
responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?
In my opinion, the main role of small publishing is
to save us from boredom and uniformity. Small publishing is not adverse to
unusual creativity, new voices, and experimental projects.
4 – What do you see your press doing that no one
else is?
I would never think that the SWP does things that
no other small press is doing. We do what we like: each year we choose a theme,
contact authors and artists who, in our opinion, would respond to it, introduce
them to one another, and task them to send us high-quality contributions a few
months later. We privilege teamwork and consider book design and the texture of
the paper to be as important as content. Mostly, we like to have books
published in pairs (two books on one theme); contrary to our authors and
artists, Derek and I are aware at all stages how each project develops, which
is not just fun for the two of us, but also allows us to play with the design
of the books so that in the end, each book speaks to the other one.
5 – What do you see as the most effective way to
get new books out into the world?
We will welcome any advice on this. The SWP is very
young and counts as research for Derek and myself -we have all sorts of other
duties in our jobs that we cannot neglect. This said, we have a few distributors
in Canada and we partner with another small press, the Salon für
Kunstbuch, Vienna, Austria with its own distribution network in Europe. In
fact, our printed books are co-published with the Salon.
6 – How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep
into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?
As we consider book making to be a collective
performance or a curatorial project, we are quite involved as editors. We give
a lot of thought to who we would associate with whom. As our books come in
pairs, we make sure that each works well or contrasts with the other. We will
edit line by line, several times, and we work closely with the book designer. We
love to spend 45 minutes on each comma.
7 – How do your books and broadsides get
distributed? What are your usual print runs?
Our usual print run is 300 (150 for distribution in
Canada; 150 for distribution in Europe).
8 – How many other people are involved with editing
or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you
find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?
Derek and I do all the editing and we check each
other’s copies several times before completion. We are in frequent contact with
our book designer at the Salon; this includes day-long sessions on skype. I am
typically responsible for the logistics. We are a team. Respect and
appreciation are key words for us.
9 – How has being an editor/publisher changed the
way you think about your own writing?
Well, I first worked with editors before I started
writing myself. I have never thought of writing in the absence of editing. To
me, writing is about placing words together on a page or in a paragraph; and it
is a visual activity that reminds me of artworks I like to scrutinize.
10 – How do you approach the idea of publishing
your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant,
refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their
tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What
do you think of the arguments for or against, or
do you see the whole question as irrelevant?
The belief that the author should be at arm’s
length from the publisher is a very academic one. One lasting beauty of small
presses is that they are not academic.
11 – How do you see The Small Walker Press
evolving?
We would like to continue focusing on our thematic
approach with two books a year for a while and build a collection.
12 – What, as a publisher, are you most proud of
accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your
publications? What is your biggest frustration?
We only publish what we like, and our collective
approach is the source of many enjoyable moments. The joy of sharing is both
intellectual and artistic. Frustration, yes: every time we need to apply for
funding and hope it will be successful, as well as all the logistics. But it’s
ok, it has to be done. On a personal note, I am grateful to be able to work in
a language I do not master. English is my third language -my fourth if taking
into account the amount of English I use everyday. The gratefulness is quite
genuine, as I do not like to own and often find that mistakes are an art with
system.
Clearly, artists books and creatively designed publications by art galleries. We owe a lot to the fine publications of the Rodman Hall Art Centre in St. Catharines and the Salon für Kunstbuch in Vienna.
14 – How does The Small Walker Press work to engage
with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals
or presses do you see The Small Walker Press in dialogue with? How important do
you see those dialogues, those conversations?|
We read, speak with colleagues, visit art
exhibitions, attend artists’ talks, share long conversations between the two of
us. We welcome constant exchange. This is the stuff of books. We are always
willing to network. We would like more of this.
15 – Do you hold regular or occasional readings or
launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?
We receive very little funding, but we are
committed to organizing at least one public lecture and a general book launch
with a guest speaker each year.
16 – How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to
further your goals?
Skype is our best friend! The SWP website is
maintained by the Marilyn I. Waler School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock.
17 – Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t
you looking for?
The SWP does not take submissions, but authors of
creative writing and artists are most welcome to contact us to share their work
with us. The themes we select are directly connected with what we have read and
seen the previous year.
18 – Tell me about three of your most recent
titles, and why they’re special.
So
far I have only written about SWP books that we print. We also publish
occasional books online. The books with a printed version are quite special to
us, as we can touch them, smell the paper, remove the book jacket, look at the
binding, see the shadows made by the pages as they are turned. Also, only these
books work in pairs. As the SWP is very young, there are four of them right now
(not three, sorry): The Quarry
(Adam
Dickinson and Lorène Bourgeois); Inland (Shawn Serfas,
Richard Fausset, and Derek Knight); Built
to Ruin: Between
Invisibility and Suburbia (Alejandro Cartagena,
Tim Conley, and Nicholas Hauck); and The
Dark Redacted (Donna Szőke and Gary Barwin).
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