Some think the University of Regina Press is 1,000 miles from nowhere, but au contraire, we’re smack dab in the center of things. We’ve published seven national bestsellers since launching in 2013, and we have sold Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and U.K. rights. Two books were in the New York Times this year and two in 2017. Clearing the Plains, the bestselling academic book published in Canada this century, has rewritten Canadian history. Publishers Weekly has called the press “more than a little house on the prairie,” while the Chronicle of Higher Education Review said we are “the little house that could.”
“A voice for many peoples” is our motto. We publish work by trans kids, settler folk, 90-year-olds, Kurds, poets, Mennonites, and others. Our series of First Nations Language Readers include Cree, Woods Cree, Blackfoot, Sauteaux, Gros Ventre, and Lillooet. An open-access audiobook/textbook/workbook for those who want to learn Cree will be released in days, and we are working with First Nations University of Canada to establish a publishing program there starting in 2019.
New York University Press recently asked to partner with us, and in January our titles will be in their U.S. catalogue. American Refugees: Looking to Canada for Freedom comes next spring, as does Black Writing Matters. Our first book from Africa, Die Walking: Journeys Through Genocide, is on the way, and Florence of America: Standing Up to McCarthyism will appear in fall 2019.
As we blow out the candles on our fifth anniversary, we wish to publish enduring literature and make a difference.
Bruce Walsh is the director of the University of Regina Press.
