Barry Grills is former Chair of the Book and Periodical Council of Canada. His memoir, Every Wolf's Howl will be available from Freehand Books this fall.
Minister's subjectivity replaces jury selection.
by Barry Grills
Small book publishers, their authors, and staff connected to the small press publishing organization Literary Press Group (LPG) are celebrating the reinstatement last week of a sustaining grant of approximately $270,000 that had been cut a couple of weeks earlier by the Harper Government. But their jubilation should be tempered by the implications of the initial cutting of the grant and the way the grant was restored.
In fact, a closer look at what happened should trouble all of us deeply.
The LPG is one of Canada's three book publishing associations. It serves 47 of Canada's smaller book presses, by acting as their collective voice and by collectively distributing the books they produce to a wider market. While larger book publishers in Canada publish bigger name authors, the smaller presses (generally speaking) discover the newer Canadian writing voices and help them find a receptive audience.