The Porcupine's Quill
Celebrating thirty-five years on the Main Street
of Erin Village, Wellington County
Awards & Acclaim: 1998
Buying on Time by Antanas SileikaThe anecdotes, extended scenes and burgeoning imagination that make up these stories are tightly composed and sharply focused. The book manages to be both harsh and sympathetic. It welds humour, tragedy and the personal embarrassments we all live through in a colourful and memorable way.
1998—Stephen Leacock Award,
Shortlisted
1998—City of Toronto Book Award,
Shortlisted
Promise of Shelter by Robyn SarahWhat a treat it is to read stories that do not seek to reduce the complexity of our lives or the ambiguities of our relationships, intriguing stories that are profound without being heavy. There are eight stories here, some very short, others long, and all worth reading, pondering and then rereading.
1998—Hugh MacLennan Prize,
Shortlisted
Jacob's Ladder by Joel YanofskyOur protagonist here is Jacob, an anglophone Montrealer immersed in a complicated loneliness of the soul. He is surrounded by empty friendships, unrequited passions, undue antagonisms, and even a fatal attraction. There is deft observation and much emotion. This may all sound excessively cluttered, but Yanofsky’s prose is capable of handling the action.
1998—Prix Parizeau,
Shortlisted
1998—Grand prix du livre de Montréal,
Shortlisted
The Porcupine’s Quill is remarkable in Canadian publishing in that most of the physical production of our journal is completed in-house at the shop on the Main Street of Erin Village. We print on a twenty-five inch Heidelberg KORD, typically onto acid-free Zephyr Antique laid. The sheets are then folded, and sewn into signatures on a 1907 model Smyth National Book Sewing machine.
To take a virtual tour of the pressroom, visit us at YouTube for a discussion of offset printing in general, and the operation of a Heidelberg KORD in particular. Other videos include Four Colour Printing, Smyth Sewing and Wood Engraving. Photographs of production machinery used on these pages were taken by Sandra Traversy on site at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill, December 2008.
The Porcupine's Quill would like to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. The financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) is also gratefully acknowledged.