Meet the Presses is a new, all-volunteer collective devoted to promoting micro, small and independent literary presses within the Greater Toronto Area. This new collective has come together in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses event begun in Toronto in the mid-80s by Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross.
Members of the new Meet the Presses organize a variety of curated public events that interest them, and all the events focus on independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction.
Meet the Presses’ flagship event is a literary market focused on sales of literary books, chapbooks, magazines, and recordings. Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market is a curated event – that is, the participating publishers are chosen by the Meet the Presses collective. The Indie Literary Market gives the public an opportunity to meet local literary presses and directly purchase publications that may not be readily available (or available at all!) in bookstores and other commercial outlets.
This new incarnation of Meet the Presses – an unfunded and non-profit collective – was founded by five former coordinators of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair and four local writers and small pressers.
The collective consists of Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Maria Erskine, Ally Fleming, Beth Follett, Maggie Helwig, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power, and Stuart Ross.
