Fish Gotta Swim Editions

March 28, 2023

Our Spring newsletter can be read here (and you can sign up to receive, oh, maybe two newsletters a year at the fishgottaswimeditions.com page):

https://mailchi.mp/5c33b5a36a8d/fish-gotta-swim-editions-newsletter-spring-2023

December 12, 2022

The beautiful Susanna Hall, Her Book is on Kerry Clare’s Books of the Year list! (Visit fishgottaswimeditions.com for order information.)

https://picklemethis.com/2022/12/12/2022-books-of-the-year/https://picklemethis.com/2022/12/12/2022-books-of-the-year/

November 12, 2022

So delighted that Barbara Lambert’s Wanda is still finding readers!

https://canadianwritersabroad.com/2022/11/11/remembering-wanda/

September 12, 2022

I haven’t been adding to this page because I know many interested readers visit the Fish Gotta Swim Editions page directly for news of our books and so on. But lately we’ve had really great press so I’ll add some links here.

Jennifer Falkner’s Susanna Hall, Her Book came out in May.

A great review in the Miramichi Reader!

Kerry Clare at Pickle Me This loved it.

The Historical Novel Society wrote about it here.

The novella was featured at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s blog, Shakespeare & Beyond.

In the October issue of the Literary Review of Canada (forthcoming), there’s an excellent review of Susanna Hall, Her Book; it will be posted on our site. I like what the reviewer, J. R. McConvey, has to say about the novella in general (“This seems to be an ideal time for the novella
to take a turn in the spotlight.“) and us (and another small publisher, Undertow) in particular:

As the persistence of
presses like Fish Gotta Swim and Undertow
demonstrates, there are homes for slim volumes
that swing above their weight and aren’t afraid
to cross lines.

Long live the novella!

May 7, 2022

Our latest title, Susanna Hall, Her Book, by Jennifer Falkner, is now available! Visit fishgottaswimeditions.com for information.

June 23, 2021

At Fish Gotta Swim Editions, we are happy to give book clubs a 10% discount when they order multiple copies of our titles. And until the end of July, we will also cover the shipping for book club orders within Canada. We think our novellas make perfect book club choices.

March 13, 2021

For information about our forthcoming title, Barbara Lambert’s Wanda, please visit our Fish Gotta Swim Editions website.

And if you would like to be added to our newsletter list, sign up on the home page of our website. There’s a toggle there to take your information.

September 26, 2018

Our new fall newsletter went out yesterday. If you’d like to be on our (e)mailing list, just let me know.

Tower Readings and Autumn Greetings

As the season turns, our thoughts turn too—the summer’s bounty stored on the shelves or in the freezer, logs stacked for morning fires, heavy quilts aired, and books at every turn. Is there anything nicer than the prospect of time spent in the pages of a story as old as those told on winter evenings, maybe a cup of something warm at hand? A story where the woman living alone in a verdant garden finds a baby among her cabbages, where the rose planted by a child’s window echoes the thorny turn of a relationship, and where danger lurks on sidewalks decorated with leaves and vines.   Torque likes the greens—dark greens—and black. Shadows, snaky vines, dense woods where, looking in, you just know you’re going to get trapped, maybe in a bear pit or a snare, maybe get eaten by the things with slavering jaws, and yellow-green gleaming eyes. We are delighted with the progress our second title, Frances Boyle’s Tower, is making in the world. Frances will be in eastern Canada during the last couple of weeks of October and has put together a book tour to rival those of the big five: October 18, 6pm, the Attic Owl Reading Series in Moncton, NB October 21, 2 pm, Odd Sundays, 2 pm at Corked Wine Bar, 83 Regent Street, Fredericton, NB  (with Janet Barkhouse) October 24, noon, Yarmouth Public Library, 405 Main Street, Yarmouth, NS October 24, 7 pm, Lockeport Public Library, 35 North Street, Lockeport, NS October 25, 7 pm, at the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, 1113 Marginal Road, Halifax, NS (with Janet Barkhouse) October 26, 7pm, at Lexicon Books, 125 Montague St,  Lunenberg, NS (with Janet Barkhouse) If you happen to be close by, please attend! Amy Mitchell in The Temz Review said: “Tower is honest, insightful, and beautifully written, with the kind of tight execution to which many novellas aspire, but which few achieve. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.” Other readers have commented on its magic, the sense they had of being transported in time and place while reading. Our first title, Winter Wren (by FGS co-publisher Theresa Kishkan), continues to receive positive attention, finding its way onto university course lists and to book clubs. We have a small but loyal tribe eager to read what we publish and we encourage you to join us, to tell your friends, and maybe consider our titles as gifts to yourself or others. Ask your local libraries and book stores to order our novellas, too. If you are a reviewer, let us know. We can supply copies. We appreciate your support. We’re still fond of Ian McEwan’s observation that, “… the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction. It is the beautiful daughter of a rambling, bloated, ill-shaven giant (but a giant who’s a genius on his best days).” Making a place for this rare and lovely form is our privilege. We’re reading submissions for our third title and look forward to more novellas finding their way to us. We’re interested, too, in receiving submissions that extend the novella form as well as adhere to it. Nonlinear narratives, lyrical hybrids, innovative fictions that employ elements of memoir, investigations that  pause for poetry, explore documentary, and generally expand the boundaries of story rather than fencing it in: try us! Visit our website fishgottaswimeditions.com to order, or for more information on our titles. Winter’s coming and that fire is waiting! -Anik and Theresa

April 16, 2018

My publishing partner Anik See and I are really excited to announce that our micro-press, Fish Gotta Swim Editions, will release its second title, Tower, a novella by Frances Boyle, a little later this spring.

If you would like more information, let me know. I can add you to our newsletter list or send you what I think of as our “catalogue” — two pages describing our publications thus far. If you would like a review copy, I will have a limited number of those too.

April 18, 2017

Call for Submissions

Fish Gotta Swim Editions is looking for new, previously unpublished manuscripts between 20 000 and 40 000 words. Our focus is primarily the fictional novella, but we’ll consider other forms of innovative prose, including non-fiction. Think fictional essays or manifestos, non-fiction novels, or anything in between. Small treasures that will make one want to read them in a single sitting, and tell all of one’s literary-minded friends.

If you think your finished manuscript fits this bill, send it to us in PDF format. Your work must be original, and by a single author. Contact information (including an email address) should be included on the title page. Manuscripts will not be returned. PDFs can be submitted via email to aniksee@kpnplanet.nl and theresakishkan@gmail.com. Feel free to tell us a bit about yourself or include a bio. We’ll do our best to notify you of our decision within three months.

Please share our call for submissions with your friends and writing network, or anyone else you know looking for a publisher.

Anik See and Theresa Kishkan

Fish Gotta Swim Editions
Madeira Park | Amsterdam
fishgottaswimeditions.com

October 29, 2016

After the rousing success of our first publication, Winter Wren, we’re convinced that the novella is not dead. That is, after all, why we started this press. To celebrate the form, and because we know there are lots of novellas sitting in drawers out there, we’ve decided to hold a “Gone Fishing“ novella contest. Fish Gotta Swim Editions will publish the winning entry as a beautifully designed, physical book. Here’s how it works:

Send us your finished (fiction) novella. Entries already published, accepted, or submitted elsewhere are ineligible. Entries must be original work by a single author. PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOUR NAME DOES NOT APPEAR ON THE MANUSCRIPT. Contact information (including an email address) should be included with the title on an enclosed separate page. Manuscripts will not be returned.

Length: approximately 20 000 to 40 000 words
Deadline: January 31st, 2017
Prize: 25 copies of the book, plus promotion and distribution via the Fish Gotta Swim Editions website and review copies sent to literary blogs and magazines
Entry fee: $35CAD payable via PayPal (button on the fishgottaswimedtions.com site), Interac e-transfer or cheque in Canadian funds. Please make cheques payable to Theresa Kishkan (Fish Gotta Swim Editions’ co-publisher, in case you were wondering, and you can ask her about Interac…).
Submitting: PDFs can be submitted via email to aniksee@kpnplanet.nl and theresakishkan@gmail.com

The winner will be notified by April 1st, 2017

Please feel free to share our call for submissions with your friends and writing network, or anyone else you know who has a novella just waiting to be published.

The fish are jumping, and our net is ready!

Anik See and Theresa Kishkan

October 15, 2016

Anik has built a website for our imprint: www.fishgottaswimeditions.com

September 13, 2016

A generous and lovely review of Winter Wren at Pickle Me This today.

http://picklemethis.com/

September 12, 2016

September is novella month at my house. I’m offering a special deal — all three of my novellas (Inishbream, Patrin, Winter Wren) for $45. Shipping included. (It’s not too early to think about Christmas shopping!) Here’s my grandson Arthur enjoying his grandma’s novellas on the rocking chair in my kitchen.

To order, send me an email (theresakishkan at gmail.com) and I’ll arrange the details.

May 14, 2016

I keep seeing the box of Winter Wrens in the kitchen (three boxes arrived yesterday from Printorium in Victoria and man, are they good at what they do!)  and feeling very happy with how it looks. Tomorrow I’ll be packing up the first orders, along with the keepsakes John printed last week.

Thrilled to see this in B.C. Booklook (scroll down until you come to K):

http://bcbooklook.com/about/whos-who/

April 28th, 2016

So many people have shown such enthusiasm for Fish Gotta Swim Editions! Thank you all! Winter Wren has been proofed and double-proofed and is now at the printer (the excellent Printorium in Victoria…). We expect to see our first shipment next week. Can’t wait! I’ll post a photograph of the first box of books. For those of you who order early, there will be a special little keepsake, printed on one of our platen presses by Friend (and one of the husbands) of the Press, John Pass.

An Introduction…

In September, 2014, writers (and friends) Anik See and Theresa Kishkan were having a conversation about novellas. Both wrote them, both had published them (Anik’s Postcard was part of a collection released by Freehand Books in 2009 and Theresa’s Inishbream was published by Goose Lane Editions in 2001). But as they talked, they realized that the manuscripts they’d recently completed had been turned down by many publishers who’d all said more or less the same thing: “Great writing! But we can’t publish novellas!”

“Well, you know what that means!” Who said it first? Doesn’t matter. They both laughed. And Fish Gotta Swim Editions was born that day, in Theresa’s kitchen on the Sechelt Peninsula, as Anik paused for a night or two enroute from the Berton House Residency in Dawson City to her home in Amsterdam.

And why the novella? Ian McEwan says, “I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction. It is the beautiful daughter of a rambling, bloated, ill-shaven giant (but a giant who’s a genius on his best days).” What would a literary family look like without that beautiful daughter? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Because the novella tends to be brief, with a flexible range of 20,000-40,000 words, Anik and Theresa envision small books – handsized! — with good design values. They agree with Henry James who admired what he believed was the novella’s perfect scale: “the value above all of the idea happily developed. . . .” Think of something beautiful and rare, perfect for an afternoon’s reading by the fire, with a glass of wine.

Between them, Anik See and Theresa Kishkan have decades of publishing experience. Anik has published 3 books, including Saudade(Coach House Books, 2008) and A Fork in the Road (MacMillan, 2000); she has produced award-winning radio documentaries for CBC Ideas, ABC, and Radio Netherlands Worldwide; and her articles have appeared in the Walrus, National Geographic, and Brick. She has also worked as a letterpress printer and book designer. Theresa has published 12 books, most recently Mnemonic: A Book of Trees (Goose Lane Editions, 2011) and the novella Patrin (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2015); her work has been nominated for many awards, including the Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction, the Pushcart Prize, National Magazine Awards, and the Hubert Evans Award for Non-Fiction.

So – Fish Gotta Swim Editions. Because, well, they gotta.

_____________________________________________________________________

Fish Gotta Swim Editions distil decades of writing, editing and design excellence into novellas a pleasure to read and to hold.

In 1974, in the disrupted midst of her life as a painter in France, Grace Oakden comes home to Canada and buys a cabin on a west coast beach. A friendship with the dying, embittered son of a famous artefact collector, and an affair with a local potter working in the Bernard Leach tradition, buttress her awakening engagement with chosen place and discovered purpose: to paint the view at dusk.

Theresa Kishkan is the critically acclaimed author of 11 books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, most recently a memoir, Mnemonic: A Book of Trees (Goose Lane Editions,2011) and a novella, Patrin (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2015). She lives near Pender Harbour, northwest of Vancouver.

ISBN 978-0-9780054-5-0 (paperback) May, 2016

138 pages, paperbound, with French flaps

$18 + shipping and handling. (As postal rates fluctuate, we will bill you at cost.) For now, we will accept cheques or money orders. Query first.

For North, South, and Central American orders:

Fish Gotta Swim Editions c/o Theresa Kishkan (theresakishkan at gmail.com)

Elsewhere:

Fish Gotta Swim Editions c/o Anik See (foxrunpress at yahoo.ca)