Coach House Books

Considered one of the leading small press publishers in Canada for its
finely-crafted books, the Coach House Press was founded in 1965 by
printer, Stan Bevington,
 and editor, Wayne Clifford (who was later succeeded by Victor Coleman, et al). The press publishes innovative and experimental poetry, fiction,
drama, and non-fiction. Primarily, Coach House Press is interested in
publishing literature that pushes at the boundaries of convention.

http://chbooks.com/

## **Notes**

In its formative years (1965 to 1975), Coach House was
 a cohesive printing and publishing unit, publishing innovative and
activist open-form writers from the United States and Canada in a style
characterized by hand-set type and multi-coloured offset printing. In
February 1965, Bevington and colleague Dennis Reid published Wayne
Clifford’s Man in a Window, the
 first official Coach House book. From the outset, Coach House supported
 and welcomed work by local poets, artists, and
photographers. Furthermore, many of the presses' early titles were
combinations of poetic and graphic imagery.

In 1974 the single editor of Coach House Press was
replaced by an editorial board comprised of Stan Bevington; writers
bpNichol, Michael Ondaatje, Frank Davey, David Young; graphic artist
Rick/Simon; and writers' agent, Linda McCartney. At various other times
in the 1970s and 1980s the editorial board  also included Victor Coleman
 and Sarah Sheard. Also in 1974, Coach House expanded its scope to
publish established writers, like Louis Dudek, George Bowering, Steve
McCaffery, David McFadden, Eli Mandel, Dorothy Livesay, Robert Kroetsch,
 Phyllis Webb, as well as, emerging writers.

Also in the 1970s, Coach House ventured into the realm
 of digital typestting and printing. In 1972, Bevington met Professor
Ron Baecker, who ran the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of
Toronto, and along with Baecker's grad student David Tillbrook,
programmer David Slocombe, and typesetter Ed Hale began exploring the
state of the art of computer-driven typsetting amd desktop publishing.
Eventually, this group would also form their own software company,
SoftQuad and develop their own industry-leading UNIX-based software.

In 1991, Coach House was split into two separate
companies: the printing house Coach House Printing, headed by Bevington,
 and the book publisher Coach House Press, headed by Margaret
McClintock. During this time, the press published books by Andre Alexis,
 Ann-Marie MacDonald, and Anne Michaels.

In 1996, there were significant cuts to government
funding which decimated Coach House Press and forced the press into
bankrupty. It was revived in 1997 by Bevington and renamed Coach House
Books. It was during this revamp of the press that Coach House began
publishing on the web, a move that alarmed the literary establishment in
 Canada at the time, but which proved that Coach House was decades ahead
 of its time. Coach House published texts online in their entirety, as
well as digital ephemera and other projects which presented a digital
spin on the Coach House tradition.

Today, Coach House Press represents the most
significant outpost of the Canadian literary avant-garde. The reputation
 of the new Coach House Books has been growing steadily since its
rebirth in 1997, and the press continues to publish works by poets and
authors at the frontiers of their trades, such as Christian Bök, Claudia
 Dey, Guy Maddin, Maggie Helwig, and Darren O’Donnell.

The company is located in several former coach houses on bpNichol Lane, near Spadina and Bloor in Toronto, Ontario.

[Source: http://arccarleton.wix.com/modernpoetry#!toronto-ontario/c219b]