Véhicule Press

Montreal, QC

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Founder and Leadership

Véhicule Press was the publishing imprint of Coopérative d’Imprimerie Véhicule. Guy Lavoie and Simon Dardick were the founders. In 1981 Nancy Marrelli and Simon Dardick continued as publishers when the coop wound down.

Carmine Starnino is associate publisher and editor of the Signal Editions poetry imprint. He is also a poet and literary critic.

Dimitri Nasrallah is the editor of the fiction imprint, Esplanade Books. In addition, he is a novelist and translator. His latest book is the novel, Hotline.

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

Véhicule Press began in 1973 on the premises of Véhicule Art Inc. in Montreal – one of Canada’s first artist-run galleries located in what was once the legendary Café Montmartre nightclub. We publish Canadian writers in all their diversity, with a commitment to publishing first-time authors. As a minority language publisher in Quebec we celebrate the literature of our community—Quebec authors writing in English, and francophone writers in translation. And with the Ricochet Books imprint we indulge in one of our passions: bringing back into print Canadian noir novels of the 40s, 50’s and 60s.

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

As a result of international mergers, the once diverse publishing landscape has become concentrated in the hands of a few companies. The challenge for small presses is to continue to publish fresh and innovative Canadian voices. And to take chances.

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

We work with the Association of English Language Publishers of Quebec, and collaborate with the Quebec Writers Federation, to create public events such as the Holiday Book Fair so that writers can meet their readers, and vice versa.

Lorna Goodison’s first poetry collection to be published in Canada in over nine years, Mother Muse heralds the return of a major voice. In her exquisitely lyrical evocations of Jamaican lore and tradition, these poems move boldly and range widely; here are praise songs alongside laments; autobiography shares pages with the collective past.

The first anthology to represent the generation of millennial writers now making their mark. Diverse, sophisticated, and ambitious in scope, the short stories in this ground-breaking book are an essential starting point for anyone interested in daring alternatives to the realist tradition that dominated 20th century English-language fiction.

A new translation of Réjean Ducharme’s debut novel that rocked a generation. In 1966, Réjean Ducharme, then a 24-year-old unknown, published L’Avalée des avalés, the debut novel that would go on to serve as a zeitgeist for several generations of French-Canadian readers. Over the last fifty years, it has become a cornerstone for a culture, taught in high schools and universities as the foundation of modern Québécois literature. Astoundingly, an English-language edition of the book hasn’t been in print since 1968, and has never before been available in Canada