I just finished reading The Kappa Child by Calgary novelist Hiromi Goto. It was pure pleasure -- gritty, irreverent, impudent, a wonderful flight of the imagination.
The book is published by Red Deer Press, connected with the University of Calgary. Alberta Lotteries, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council all helped with the finances of this 278-page paperback. There's no other way it could have been published.
Goto is 35 years old, young for an accomplished writer. She was born in Japan but immigrated to Alberta when she was three years' old. This is her second novel; her first, Chorus of Mushrooms, won two major prizes. You sense that this gifted writer will soon join the ranks of the Wrights, Atwoods, Shields, Urquharts. In other words she will become, like other famous writers, an engine that drives Canada's multi-million-dollar publishing business. That her work is subsidized for a time is simply an investment in the future.
It's examples like Gotto that make the recent bankruptcy proceedings of General Publishing Company so unsettling.
At the end of April, General Publishing, which owes various parties some $45 million, gained court protection from its creditors under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. This was to give the company time to re-organize and come up with a restructuring plan. Since then, there has been some nasty business going on which has left the financial future of the country's literary presses very dark.
So far, the company's poetry press, House of Anansi, has been rescued by businessman/cultural hero Scott Griffin, who paid $400,000 for it and, miracle of miracles, even volunteered to cough up monies owed to writers. Other buyers are interested in Irwin Publishing, Stoddart Kids and Boston Mills.
In most cases authors must give their approval for their contracts to be transferred, a technicality which may put a damper on prospective deals. And the future does not look bright for the venerable Soddart Publishing House itself. Prospective buyers are not exactly lining up, which is a shame because over the years many good Canadian books have emerged from that house.
Absolutely no one wanted to buy General Distribution Services (GDS) and it is now in the process of winding down. This was the company that looked after the selling and shipping to bookstores for some 200 companies, including many of this country's literary publishers. Couteau Books based in Regina, Thistledown in Saskatoon and Touchstone Books in Winnipeg are examples. For well over a year, General has not paid these companies. Couteau, for example, is owed about $60,000, a lot of money for a small press. And the spring list is in shambles; there has been no way to get the books to booksellers.
The presses were furious because General refused to release them from their distribution contacts -- never mind that GDS itself has been in default by not coughing up money owed. This meant that Coteau, Touchstone and many others could not sign with new distributors, and there are only so many books that can be sold by phone or through the Internet.
Then there was the question of who owed how much money. The presses claimed that General negligently allowed the bookstores and chains to return millions of dollars in damaged books, and were insisting that the small publishers pay the price. And then there was the important question of receivables. The presses insisted that they not only owned the books in General's warehouse, but also those on the shelves in the bookstores. GDS claimed that books already in the stores were theirs, and an important part of their assets.
The presses filed a lawsuit to get their books back and release from their contractors. It was this unwanted publicity, according to Jack Stoddart, chairman and president of General, that forced him to dissolve the distribution arm. This means that the literary houses will get their books back, but not the monies owed them by GDS.
Nik Burton, the managing editor of Coteau Books, believes the federal government should make forgivable loans or outright grants immediately available to the literary publishers to compensate them for money owed and money lost by GDS.
"Not another another government handout," many people would scream. But perhaps we should ponder what Darren Wershler-Henry, editor at Coach House Books wrote: "If we ignore the plight of the Canadian grassroots presses, we'll get exactly the national literature we deserve -- bland corporate monoculture from coast to coast."
Hiromi Goto, who is anything but bland, must be given her chance.
Maggie Siggins is an author and filmmaker in Regina.
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