'Something we may never see the likes of again here': how a small N.S. publisher made its mark

When Andrew Steeves, co-founder of the small literary publisher Gaspereau Press, talks about its approach to bookmaking, he compares it to the practicality of hanging a door. 

"Its first job is to open and close without you noticing it," he said. "If it can't do those fundamentals, it doesn't matter what colour you paint it." 

And when you make good and useful things, that often coincidentally ends up making beautiful things, Steeves said.

"The foundation here with making books is to make books that are robust and are proper vehicles for the text … that are entrusted to their pages." 

For more than two decades, Gaspereau Press has been making waves from Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.

It has published books that have won literary awards like the prestigious Giller Prize in 2010 — something that caused a bit of a stir at the time.

The publisher and printer was established in 1997 in Wolfville, N.S., by Steeves and co-founder Gary Dunfield. 

Since then, it's become known for the design and quality of the books it makes, with writers saying it has developed an international reputation. 

"Every poet in English Canada wants to have a book published by Gaspereau Press … because of the fact that they know it's going to be treated with tender loving care," said decorated poet and University of Toronto professor George Elliott Clarke, who's from Windsor, N.S.

Unlike most publishers, Gaspereau does its own manufacturing, Steeves said. Everything from editing and design to printing and binding is done in-house.

"When I start typesetting the book, I already know that book intimately," he said. "I've usually got a hunch about a typeface, a scale, a size … an approach."

Today, Gaspereau resides in Kentville, N.S., where it's been for most of its life. Three people work there at the moment. 

Writer and editor Clare Goulet, who grew up in Halifax, said Gaspereau Press was radically unusual in choosing to put itself in a rural part of the Maritimes.

"It did not go to Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver or even Halifax," she said. "So this already was breaking a mould."

But for Steeves, who grew up in New Brunswick, it simply made sense that he would set up shop where he and his family lived. 

"This notion that you have to go to someplace special to be yourself … to build a community, to make things, is just silly."

Having a literary publisher in a place like Kentville shows people that some things don't only happen in far-away "important" places, Steeves said.

"When you grow up in a rural place … it seems like culture is somebody else's business and your business is not there."

Steeves also believes that culture is stronger when it's diversified, including geographically.

"I think that some of the characteristics of what we've been able to do have been influenced by the fact that we're not sitting in an office tower," he said.

But at the end of 2025, the way Gaspereau operates will likely change dramatically.

Steeves and co-founder Dunfield announced in June that they will be leaving the press after 28 years as printers and publishers, effectively ending its offset printing and bookbinding operations.

The Gaspereau Press name, its backlist and its trade publishing will be passed on to Keagan Hawthorne, the owner of a micro-press in Sackville, N.B., called the Hardscrabble Press. 

Dunfield wants to retire and while Steeves considered buying out his business partner's stake in Gaspereau and continuing on, he said the idea of having to hire more staff and shift back to a managerial role did not appeal to him.

"It seemed like an opportunity to hand it along to the next generation."

For Steeves, though, retirement is a long way away. He intends to keep a lot of Gaspereau's equipment so that he can make specialty letterpress books and do freelance book design.

Writers say Gaspereau has made an impact beyond just the books it makes.

"This press has brought a lot of pride to the region," said Halifax-based poet Annick MacAskill, pointing to the many local authors it has published. 

MacAskill's poetry collection Shadow Blight — published by Gaspereau — was about pregnancy loss and won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.

She said Gaspereau brought writers and other people together in Nova Scotia, notably through its annual Wayzgoose festival to teach the public about bookmaking.

Printers, publishers and writers are also invited and typically there are readings by authors who have been published with Gaspereau that year.

The last Wayzgoose that Gaspereau Press will host — at least from Kentville — will be on Oct. 26, with MacAskill and Goulet participating as guest authors. 

Letterpress printers from other parts of the world, including Francesca Colonia of Italy and Dan Wood from the United States, will also be giving talks. Gaspereau has been holding the festivals since 2000. 

For Gaspereau to have broken traditional rules, survived for decades and grown is "something we may never see the likes of again here," said Goulet, whose poetry book Graphis scripta / writing lichen was published by the press this year.

At the same time, she said there's relief that Hawthorne — who has had a poetry book made by Gaspereau — will be taking over. "It will be in good, thoughtful, caring hands," Goulet said.

"Will that change Nova Scotia? Yeah, it will. And I don't think we will feel fully the effect of that space until that absence is there."