news | Wednesday September 14, 2016

Talonbooks is British Columbia’s Publisher of the Year!

We are honoured to announce that the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia has awarded Talonbooks the Jim Douglas Publisher of the Year Award for 2016. The award was presented in Vancouver last evening, Tuesday, September 13, at the annual awards dinner.

The Jim Douglas Publisher of the Year Award was established in 2001 to recognize the contribution made to the publishing industry in British Columbia by publisher, editor, and consultant James Jardine Douglas. The award is presented to an active BC book publishing company that has earned the respect and applause of the community of publishers for a specific publishing project, an extraordinary contribution to the BC publishing community, and/or its extended commitment to excellence in publishing. Read more about this year’s awards on the BC Books website.


Above: Talon publisher Kevin Williams gives a record-breakingly short speech (just 16 minutes!)

Talon was first established as a poetry magazine with an editorial collective based at Magee High School in Vancouver in 1963, which moved to UBC in 1965. By 1967, the magazine had published so many young writers, Talon decided to become a book publisher for its authors, and it built an impressive list of poetry, plays, fiction, and non-fiction over the next number of decades. (Impressively, an original issue of the Talon magazine was shown to the awards dinner audience by Howard White, who presented the award to Talon.)

Talon’s mandate is to publish work of the highest literary merit by world class authors from the mainstream and the margins of Canada’s three founding nations, as well as from both visible and invisible minorities within Canada’s cultural mosaic. We are Canada’s largest independent publisher of drama; do more translations from Québec than anyone else; and publish more Native voices than any other Canadian publisher with the exception of First Nations publisher Theytus Books. We have more than 500 titles in print, which have received well over 300 awards. We have built and continue to keep in print one of the finest and most diverse literary lists in Canada.

And we are very proud to receive this year’s Jim Douglas Award! Many thanks to our readers and supporters from everyone at Talon: publisher and co-owner Kevin Williams, submissions editor and co-owner Vicki Williams, managing editor Ann-Marie, designer and tech guru Les, production co-ordinator Chloë, poetry editor Shazia, Spencer in sales and marketing, and Mocha the office pup. We’ll do our best to keep making great books!