NeWest Press is a Canadian publishing company. Established in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, in 1977,

George Melnyk George Roman Melnyk (born 1946) is a Canadian cultural historian. Melnyk is Professor Emeritus of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Manitoba, a Maste ...

, ''The Literary History of Alberta Volume Two: From the End of the War to the End of the Century''.

University of Alberta Press University of Alberta Press (UAlberta Press) is a publishing house and a division of the University of Alberta that engages in academic publishing. Overview UAlberta Press is situated in the Rutherford Library on the University of Alberta campu ...

, 1999. . p. 173. the company grew out of a literary magazine, ''NeWest Review'', which had been launched in 1975. Early members of the collective that established the company included writer

Rudy Wiebe Rudy Henry Wiebe (born 4 October 1934) is a Canadian author and professor emeritus in the department of English at the University of Alberta since 1992.

and

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...

academics Douglas Barbour,

, and Diane Bessai."A voice of the West turns 25". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', April 4, 2002. The first title published by the company was ''Getting Here'', an anthology of short stories by students in Barbour's and Wiebe's creative writing classes at the University of Alberta, which included Aritha Van Herk, Myrna Kostash,

Candas Jane Dorsey Candas Jane Dorsey (born November 16, 1952) is a Canadian poet and science fiction novelist who resides in her hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. Dorsey became a writer from an early age and works across genre boundaries, writing poetry, fiction, mai ...

Caterina Edwards Caterina Edwards LoVerso (born 1948) is a Canadian writer and teacher. Edwards was born in Earls Barton, England. Her mother was born in Lussino, Istria, and her father is from a Welsh and English family. Edwards eventually moved to Calgary ...

, and Helen Rosta. The company publishes literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, mystery novels, and drama, with a particular but not exclusive interest in books by authors from

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

."Diving into the slush pile; NeWest president, fellow board member tackle arduous task". '' Edmonton Journal'', August 22, 2014. The company also publishes a separate line, Nunatak, devoted to work by first-time authors. Its Writer as Critic series is devoted to non-fiction essays of literary and cultural criticism by noted Canadian writers, while its Prairie Play series is one of Canada's oldest surviving lines of drama publishing."NeWest Press cooked up in kitchen; Diane Bessai a driving force for 35 years". '' Edmonton Journal'', May 27, 2012.

Sharon Pollock Sharon Pollock, (19 April 1936 – 22 April 2021) was a Canadian playwright, actor, and director. She was Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary (1984), Theatre New Brunswick (1988–1990) and Performance Kitchen & The Garry Theatre, the latter ...

's play '' Blood Relations'' remains one of the company's all-time bestselling titles. The company's board of directors includes Douglas Barbour (president), Anne Nothof (vice-president), Don Kerr (treasurer), Jenna Butler (secretary), Diane Bessai (honorary member), Merrill Distad, Kit Dobson, Paul Hjartarson, Smaro Kamboureli,

Nicole Markotic Nicole Markotić is a Canadian poet and novelist who lives in Windsor, Ontario. She teaches creative writing at the University of Windsor. Markotic specializes in the subjects of Canadian literature, poetry, children's literature, disability in ...

, Suzette Mayr, Michael Phair, Linda Quirk, Eva Radford, and Leslie Vermeer.

Writers

Authors who have been published by the company include:

References

External links

NeWest Press
Book publishing companies of Canada 1977 establishments in Alberta Companies based in Edmonton Publishing companies established in 1977 {{Canada-media-company-stub