Author Saleema Nawaz

Calgary book lovers have had it rough for awhile now, between the closure of McNally Robinson, federal arts cuts and the ongoing financial doom and gloom of the Canadian literary industry. Fear not, intrepid readers, there’s a ray of hope: Calgary is the home of Canada’s newest literary press, and it’s hitting the ground running.

Broadview Press has been a strong presence on the publishing scene since 1985, when it emerged as an independent academic publisher. Having established itself in the intervening years as a high-quality, socially engaged press, the fine folks at Broadview decided it was time to expand into a literary imprint. Freehand Books started operations in June 2007.

Melanie Little, the editor of Freehand Books, came to Calgary in 2005 as the Markin-Flanagan writer-in-residence at the University of Calgary. When her tenure ended, she decided to stay in the city. Best known for her two books, Confidence, a collection of short stories, and The Apprentice’s Masterpiece, a novel in verse, Little plunged into the publishing industry headfirst with Freehand. “I’m involved in every aspect of the books: acquisition, editing, design, production and promotion,” she says. “As a writer, I thought books just magically appeared on the shelves. I’m finding out that’s really not the case.”

For Little, the transition from writer to publisher has been a humbling experience. “It’s very easy to be frustrated with publishers,” she says. “When I used to hear that a writer friend’s manuscript was turned down, I would be incensed on their behalf. Talented writers are a national treasure, and need to be supported! But there are so few spots for books in Canada now, and every time a book ends up on a shelf, it’s a triumph.”

Freehand’s mandate is simple: to publish excellent Canadian writing. “It’s a fairly ephemeral mandate,” Little laughs. “We have an editorial board that consists of myself and three other Calgary writers, and we choose four books per year out of about 500 submissions. We absolutely stand behind the quality of every book we select.” Freehand’s first four books were released last week: Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott, It’s Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems by Jeanette Lynes, Pathologies: A Life in Essays by Susan Olding, and Mother Superior by Saleema Nawaz. “It’s a nice representation of what we’ll be publishing as a press,” says Little. “A novel, a book of poetry, a book of essays, and a short story collection.”

Mother Superior is the first book by Montreal-based author Nawaz, who was initially hesitant about submitting to a fledgling press. “It was an unknown quantity,” she says. “Broadview had a really good reputation, but what was this press going to be like? Then I saw Melanie’s name, and knew that she had a short story collection, so I thought she might be sympathetic to my work.”

Nawaz’s book consists of seven short stories and two novellas, many of which she wrote at the Writers’ Studio at The Banff Centre. The stories range widely in content, from a prostitute who finds shelter with a group of young anarchists, to a missing woman who mails encoded postcards from around the globe, to a woman who lusts after her pregnant roommate. “I was sending all these stories to different literary journals, but when I reached a certain tipping point, I realized they all had similar themes running through them,” says Nawaz. “Family, family secrets, motherhood, sisterhood — it happened really organically.”

Little and Nawaz worked in close collaboration to make her debut book as perfect as possible, and the product of their labour hit shelves in the first week of September. “It was totally surreal when I got my first copies,” says Nawaz. “But I think even more exciting than holding the book in my hand was putting it on the shelf next to my favourite books by my favourite authors.” For the record, Mother Superior is comfortably nestled on Nawaz’s shelf between One Last Good Look by Michael Winter and Play the Monster Blind by Lynn Coady.

The Calgary launch of Mother Superior takes place Friday, September 12, 7 p.m., at Pages Books on Kensington (1135 Kensington Rd. N.W.). Nawaz will be joined by fellow Freehand author Marina Endicott and editorial member Barbara Scott for a discussion of the fiction-writing process, and there will be wine, cheese and prizes.

While this is Nawaz’s first visit to Calgary, she knows us by reputation — from a particularly literary context. “I love that book by Aritha van Herk, Restlessness, which is like ‘The Calgary Novel,’” she laughs. “While I’m there, I’m going to do the Restlessness tour of Calgary.”