Dear Thirsty Readers and Biblioasis-o-philes,
As many or most of you know, we’re quickly approaching our tenth anniversary at Biblioasis, with events kicking off this Sunday in Eden Mills. It’s a time to take stock, to both celebrate and rethink things a bit. I’m quite proud of the tremendous range of books we’ve published over the last ten years, and I feel quite lucky and honoured to have been able to work with so many wonderfully talented writers and artists, both within and outside of the press. I’m also grateful for the reception we’ve received, the support which bookstores and newspapers and bloggers and editors and readers and teachers and other publishers and authors – among many others – have provided. Looking back, there are some things I’d do differently now, but the last ten years have been the best in my life, and I’m quite thankful for all of it.
One of the things about this industry, however, which has always bothered me, is the continual focus on what is new to the exclusion of almost everything else. We’re trying to re-dress this a bit this year with our soon-to-be-re-launched reprint series, but it’s an uphill battle, and this does nothing for the wonderful books already on our list. The shelf life of a book can be sadly measured in weeks or months, when the best books might reasonably take years to find their proper audience. So it’s important to me that we take advantage of this anniversary to shine a spotlight on some of our essential and excellent backlist, and it is with this that I’m hoping you’ll lend a hand.
Quite simply, I’m hoping that many of you will take a few moments to tell us about a Biblioasis book (or three!) published over the last decade and why it means something to you still. It can take any form or be any length: from a few words to a paragraph or an essay; from a tweet to a poem or a video. It can be straight text or include a photograph. We’re also open to suggestions. We’ll gather what comes in and publish them here on Thirsty over the coming months and selectively in our monthly newsletter, building a real-time anthology of reader responses and appreciations which will give some great if perhaps overlooked books some well-deserved love.
If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact me. There's no pressure, of course, at all: I just thought that it might be fun, and might get a few more important books into a few more hands. If you care to submit something to this, please just send it to my attention at dwells@biblioasis.com. Thank-you for your continued interest and support, and I look forward to seeing many of you over the course of the Fall season.
Warm regards,
Dan Wells
Publisher - Biblioasis
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