For a small town in rural Nova Scotia, Lunenburg has an impressively robust and diverse ecosystem of writers and artists. It seems like natural evolution that a creative hyper-local community-building micropress would emerge from this rich soil.
The seeds for the Little Books Collective were planted when I had the good fortune to meet Berdene Owen at Spot of Poetry, a gathering for word lovers that she and her friend Logan Kennedy were hosting weekly at the Lunenburg Library.
We
continued to cross paths through Ben Gallagher’s workshop series where we read
and wrote poetry together. The idea of creating our own poetry chapbooks
emerged from conversations at Ben’s workshop.
Berdene is a graphic designer. I have an instructional design background and developed educational resources in my previous career. Between the two of us, we knew just enough about bookmaking to be dangerous.
Armed with a grant from the South Shore Awesome Foundation, we invited ten other writers to join us. We used Spot of Poetry’s website as a platform and billed ourselves as an off-shoot or imprint. Now, in our third season, we are ready to leave the nest, invest in a dedicated website, and rebrand the micropress as The Little Books Collective, independent of, but forever grateful to, Spot of Poetry.
In those first two years it was important to me that workshops and other activities to strengthen writing practice be at the heart of our collaborative approach to publishing. The first year we tapped into the expertise of local poets Alice Burdick and Ben Gallagher, as well as writing teacher, Tricia Snell. In the second year, award-winning Nova Scotia poet Annick MacAskill facilitated a workshop on the art and craft of editing and kick-started our collaborative editing process.
I
believe it’s the supportive community of practice we create that sets us apart
from other presses. We also have a unique learn-as-you-go process where all
writers are involved in all aspects of book development from creating early
drafts through to design and distribution. While writers fund their own print
costs, we have a collaborative marketing plan in place to help recoup this
investment.
Rather than having a formal submission process, our current process is to extend invitations to local writers who have a promising manuscript in the works. Since collaboration is a key component of our collective, each writer also commits to supporting the success of other writers. We create structured opportunities for peer feedback throughout the development cycle. Several members also have the expertise to take on the role of editors and proofreaders. As art director, Berdene takes on the book design, typesetting, and print coordination. Writers collaborate on the design of their own chapbook and also fold, assemble and hand bind their books.
In June 2023 we launched twelve chapbooks and over a hundred people came to our event. Our initial press run was a modest 25 copies per book. In our second-year writers opted for larger press runs and we organized a series of three readings at a local bookstore. We had standing-room crowds and sold more than 100 books. Individual members continue to participate in readings, and offer workshops. Several authors have their books for sale in local bookstores and are selling through their websites.
Most of our publications are poetry but we’ve also published short stories, family history, and a series of micro-memoirs.
This spring we’re having a series of lively discussions about governance, membership, funding models and future scope and goals. Stay tuned! If all goes to plan, the new cycle will begin fall 2025, and by June 2026 the Little Books Collective will launch twelve-ish new chapbooks into the world.
Catherine Walker is a writer/editor and reviewer living on the South Shore of Miꞌkmaꞌki (Nova Scotia). A founding member of the Little Books Collective, a community-building micropress in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Catherine is the author of two chapbooks: Short Takes: My seven-week career in the film biz (2024) and the call of many sorrows: fourteen poems (2023).