ECW Press in Toronto celebrates its golden anniversary this year. From its beginnings in 1974, when Jack David and Robert Lecker launched the scholarly journal Essays on Canadian Writing, ECW has grown into an independent press and certified B corporation, publishing 40–50 commercial and literary titles per year. ECW is distributed by Jaguar in Canada and by Simon & Schuster Distribution in the U.S. and internationally. David still operates it, with copublisher David Caron.
In 2020, ECW diversified its list with a five-year plan to acquire majority ownership of children’s publisher Annick Press, founded in 1975 by Rick Wilks and Anne Millyard. The partner presses, employing 20 staffers apiece, share an office.
“Back in the 1980s and early ’90s, ECW was focused on Canadian authors, biographies, and bibliographies” with an academic bent, Caron says. “At some point, Jack said, ‘We could do a book on Canadian artists we like,’ ” and acquired biographies of singer k.d. lang and actor David Duchovny. “I want ECW to be a place where our editors can excel, and that doesn’t limit us in terms of genre.”
By saying yes to passion projects, ECWs editorial team cultivates a broad audience. “We’ve picked up lots of books where another publisher can’t come to a consensus,” David says. “At ECW, it’s one person saying, ‘I love this book! Let’s do it.’ ”
For the fall, ECW’s lead titles are Christopher Lebold’s biography Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall and Suzan Palumbo’s queer sci-fi novella Countess. David also cites Hope, by late Canadian athlete and amputee Terry Fox, edited by Barbara Adhiya, about Fox’s 1980 run across Canada, known as the Marathon of Hope; ECW’s backlist on professional wrestling, edited by Michael Holmes; and ECW’s Pop Classics series, pocket-size appraisals of popular culture edited by Jen Sookfong Lee. Forthcoming Pop Classics assess the 1994 movie The Crow and TV’s Gilmore Girls. Next up is Clever Girl: Jurassic Park (Oct.), by Simon Fraser University director of publishing Hannah McGregor.
Audiobooks are another niche bringing Canadian authors to the fore, Caron says. ECW creates audio editions of its own titles, including Anishinaabe author Waubgeshig Rice’s postapocalyptic thriller Moon of the Crusted Snow, read by Cree actor Billy Merasty, and Pamela Mulloy’s nonfiction title Off the Tracks: A Meditation on Train Journeys in a Time of No Travel, read by screen actor Jennifer Wigmore. It also licenses Canadian books for its Bespeak Audio Editions imprint and has put out Ivan Coyote’s Rebent Sinner, Frances Ekwuyasi’s Butter Honey Pig Bread, and Jamie Chai Yun Liew’s Dandelion.
“We have amazing writers and a music industry that’s been built up by astute policies of the federal government, like the mandate that the radio had to play Canadian music,” Caron says. “As a result, we’ve got great studios and—because there’s a lot of film production—excellent voice actors. We’ve been able to capitalize on the talent that exists here” for creating audiobooks.
Temporary federal funding for accessible publishing also boosted audiobook production, Caron adds. “That funding is gone now,” but ECW’s production continues, notably in a creative approach to playwright Christina Wong and illustrator Daniel Innes’s graphic narrative Denison Avenue, a 2024 Canada Reads selection that documents Toronto’s waning Chinatown neighborhood through detailed architectural illustrations and spare text.
At first, “we made the decision not to do the audiobook, because what do you do with the wordless part?” Caron says. But the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the Center for Equitable Library Access offered their expertise. “They said, ‘No, you really should do this book, and we should work with you.’ ” ECW, CNIB, and CELA collaborated with Innes and Wong, producing an audio script that describes the illustrations to complement the print version. Wong narrates the audio edition.
“The beautiful thing about publishing is that sometimes you put something out there in the hopes that you’ll find an audience,” Caron says. “And then you get surprised along the way about which directions it can turn.”
