The official language of Quebec is French, so it should come as no surprise that most English-language publishers in Canada are based outside the province—primarily in Ontario. The Association of English Language Publishers of Quebec (AELAQ) boasts 26 members, the majority of which are headquartered in Montreal. While many of these presses acknowledge that they face challenges publishing in a Francophone province, most say the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
As Kathleen Fraser, an AELAQ board member who is managing editor of 64-
year-old McGill-Queen’s University Press, Quebec’s largest English-language publisher, puts it, “Minority-language arts communities often give rise to a lot of creativity and solidarity, out of necessity, and that’s certainly proved true by the Francophone literary scene, its own island in majority-Anglophone Canada, and by the Anglo scene here within Francophone Quebec.” Quebec’s Anglophone publishers are able to “delve into this cultural and linguistic intersection that has done so much to shape our provincial and national identities.”
Rebecca West, AELAQ’s executive director, maintains that its members deal with the same issues as other indie publishers in Canada: the challenges posed by AI, flaws in Canada’s copyright framework, and maintaining visibility in a competitive market dominated by the conglomerates in Toronto. The organization does what it can to promote its members. Three times a year it publishes the Montreal Review of Books, which has a circulation of 36,000 throughout Canada; it sponsors the annual Read Quebec Book Fair; and last month, it encouraged members to participate in the primarily Francophone Quebec Book Day on August 12. “Despite the linguistic and cultural differences between the Anglophone and Francophone publishers here, we have more in common than differences,” West points out, noting that AELAQ regularly partners on initiatives with the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres (the National Association of Book Editors, or ANEL), which represents 110 French-language publishers.
But English-language publishers in the province have to confront some unique obstacles. Ryan Van Huijstee, interim director of Concordia University Press, which has been publishing books in both English and French since 2016, notes, “The infrastructure for book sales is divided by language for distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, as well as for media coverage. If publishers produce books in both English and French, it is necessary to do everything twice, maintaining two separate networks of connections.” But, he insists, “no other province in this country values arts and culture as much as Quebec,” and both the provincial and federal governments offer financial support for “official language-minority publishers.”
Vehicule Press, one of Quebec’s oldest publishers of English-language books for the trade, was founded in 1973 as a worker-owned printing and publishing company. After the cooperative was dissolved in 1981, husband-and-wife team Simon Dardick and Nancy Marrelli became its co-owners.
Since literature in translation is a significant component of Vehicule’s list, “it makes sense to be situated where we can interact with our Francophone colleagues on a daily basis,” Dardick says. “They buy rights from us, and we buy rights from them. It’s a perfect relationship.” He reports that while the primary market for its fiction releases is Canada, the U.S. accounts for much of its nonfiction sales. Its current bestseller, Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah, a novel about a Lebanese immigrant’s experiences in 1980s Montreal, was longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize and has sold 11,000 copies in Canada, according to the publisher. La Peuplade, in Chicoutimi, published the French-language edition of Hotline and Other Press published the U.S. edition in August.
Secret Mountain, an English-language publisher of children’s books that is celebrating its 25th anniversary next year, also publishes French-language books under its Montagne Secrète imprint. “It’s only natural that we would be based in Montreal, the most bilingual city in Canada,” says founding publisher Roland Stringer, noting that Quebec’s government is committed to preserving the language and culture of its French Canadian population. The provincial government also “favors the creative industries,” Stringer points out, with generous support provided by its cultural funding department.
Quebec’s schools and libraries have been required since 1981 to purchase books exclusively through accredited distributors and bookstores, and, Stringer says, “as a result, we have close to 400 bookstores in Quebec that can count on those sales to stay afloat. I’m told that in some cases institutional sales represent up to 40% of their total. This move has certainly been a game changer.”
Of course, Stringer says, there are challenges to his company’s English-language publishing program. Not only are there only a handful of English-language bookstores in Quebec but “local Anglo media is very limited. It is extremely difficult to get the attention and exposure smaller publishers generally obtain on their home turf.” Reaching into foreign markets is “imperative” to Secret Mountain’s sustainability. The U.S. market accounts for 80% of sales of its English-language titles, and the U.K. accounts for 5%.
Noting that Montreal is more affordable than Toronto or Vancouver, Drawn & Quarterly publisher Peggy Burns says it’s a good base for a company with tight profit margins. “Living and working in a French milieu that appreciates literature, bande dessinée, and bookstores,” she says, “makes the day-to-day seem not so hopeless as it may in New York City or Toronto.” But, she adds, there are challenges that arise from the very same provincial government that Stringer praised for its attention to preserving the Québécois language and culture. “With the language issues of Bill 96 [the controversial 2022 law limiting the use of English in the public domain], life can be stressful.” The 35-year-old comics and graphic novels publisher has also encountered problems in hiring staff fluent in English with expertise in comics and the larger book publishing industry.
Metatron Press, which has published experimental fiction, poetry, and hybrid texts by emerging voices for the past decade, intends to remain in Quebec, though founding publisher Ashley Obscura says there is very little benefit in doing so. “We have never been supported by local grants,” she says, “and doing business here is becoming more difficult with increases in the cost of living and the advancement of more French-language laws restricting access to governmental information and services.” Despite this, she adds, “I’m quite firmly socially situated here and invested in the vision Montreal has for itself.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the co-owners of Vehicule Press.
