Palimpsest Press was founded in January 2000 and for the first four years it published a literary journal, Kaleidoscope: An International Journal of Poetry, with the intent of learning about publishing and design. After its planned four year run Kaleidoscope was ended. In 2004 the first trade poetry collection was published, Anne F. Walker’s The Exit Show. This was followed by rob mcleannan’s stone, book one. At that time Palimpsest Press’ titles were distributed by Marginal Books. In an attempt to diversify the program we began to offer chapbooks. In 2005 we published Marty Gervais’ Taking My Blood in two different editions. Then came Aidan Thompson’s So Earnest a Green Point and Steven Heighton’s Paper Lanterns. In 2006 the Palimpsest Press website was launched. In 2007 we published two chapbooks, Valerie Stetson’s The House Poems and Christian Bök’s Triptych and two trade book poetry collections, Andrea MacPherson’s Natural Disasters and Diane Tucker’s Bright Scarves of Hours. At the beginning of 2007 we joined The Literary Press Group and LitDistCo distributed our titles through an agent agreement with Biblioasis.

In 2008 we continued to adapt and diversify our publishing program, looking for the right combination of marketability and literary merit. We published our first children’s book, Jordan Troutt’s The Naming Book of Rascally Rhymes, and our first nonfiction title, Shawna Lemay’s Calm Things. We also published Valerie Stetson’s Living in Gravity and Ariel Gordon’s The Navel Gaze. We also ended our agent agreement with Biblioasis, and now Palimpsest is distributed independently through LitDistCo. Twice Palimpsest titles were longlisted for a ReLit Award and Calm Things was nominated for the Wilfred Eggleston Award. In 2009 we published our second children’s book,Eanie Meanie Hate Zucchini by local poet Arnot McCallum, poetry collections such as John Barger’s Pain-proof Men and Kate Braid’sTurning Left to the Ladies, and a nonfiction collection of essays by Aislinn Hunter entitled A Peepshow with Views of the Interior: Paratexts. 2010 marks our ten-year anniversary. Publications include Ariel Gordon’s poetry collection Hump and Alessandro Porco’s Population Me: Essays on David McGimpsey, which gather together, for the first time, essays that serve to highlight and explicate the scope and complexity of McGimpsey’s poetic practice.

Palimpsest is committed to discovering and fostering new talent, supporting established writers, and ensuring our trade books are well-distributed and kept in print. We publish original poetry, along with literary nonfiction and criticism. We also publish collectible limited editions, which give authors the opportunity to create something unique and to reach a different market. We intend to be national in scope and not limit ourselves to one style of writing or one genre. We look for writers who have something interesting to put forward, and who come at a topic with a fresh perspective. By publishing in a wide variety of formats, and in beautiful editions, Palimpsest has attracted many of the best writers in Canada. Our authors’ list includes critically acclaimed and award-winning authors such as Kate Braid, Christian Bök, Steven Heighton, Aislinn Hunter and Shawna Lemay. It is our belief that a vital role of small presses is to build and support literary communities and to create audiences. Please help support the continuation of small presses by buying their books. You can purchase Palimpsest Press books at national retail chains and independents or through our online bookstore.

As one can imagine, the costs of this type of endeavor cannot be recuperated through sales alone. To offset some of the costs we now sell design, letterpress and bookbinding services. If you need press releases, cover or interior text design, invitations, catalogues or business cards please email us at info(at)palimpsestpress.ca for a quote. Small presses hiring for design work will get a discount.