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Founder

Geoffrey Nilson is a writer, musician, visual artist, student, cyclist, and, not least, father.

Tell us a bit about your press. How did you start? Who are your influences, in Canada and beyond? What is your mission?

pagefiftyone is a zero-revenue press. I do not sell things, I give them away. Why a press? I don’t want it to have anything to do with business. I publish poems I love because there are so many poems that deserve to be tangible. It’s an act of love and friendship with authors and readers.

What about small press publishing is particularly exciting to you right now?

The handmade and the short run both offer a certain limited uniqueness to the literary object that is impossible with large-scale productions.

How does your press work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large?

All of the poets I have published I knew previously in some way, either through my education or through the writing community. These were people who had welcomed or supported me in the literary community, and who I feel a special kinship with. They are my friends and peers. Their writing is important to me and lots of times I don’t feel it gets the attention it deserves. And so, I publish it, in the best I can. In this way, I hope my community of friends and peers will grow and I can continue to publish more poems from writers I care about.

Tell us about your publications. What makes them special, needed, and/or unique?

I’ll leave that up for the readers to decide.

How have the current multiple global crises impacted your work with the press?

Who can focus on anything right now? Not me. My work has been on hold for quite a few months. But things are getting back on track. I have new poetry forthcoming from derek beaulieu and Winston Le (a Vietnamese-Canadian poet based in Langley, BC), both of which I am very excited about. Winston does amazing things with asemic writing!

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