Non-Fiction
ISBN-13: 978-1-997508212
$21.95 CDN / $19.95 US | Trade Paperback
October 2026
In Footnotes: Case Studies in Canadian Small Press Book Making, Cameron Anstee takes a deep dive to look at small press book makers in Canada from the 1960s onwards. His essays are a tribute to the people who have found ways to make books—and to persist in making books—celebrating work that is all too often un- or underacknowledged. Footnotes is an act of recovery, of bibliographic recuperation; it makes the case for looking at how small press books are constructed as objects and as ideas, and at how readers are asked to engage with these book objects in a constantly shifting cultural landscape.
Praise for Footnotes
Cameron Anstee’s Footnotes is a love letter to the bookshelf; how Canadian publishers have created strange and wonderous titles which occupy our desks, thoughts, and dreams. Like a walk down a wooded trail with the finest of park rangers, Anstee points at the titles and presses which sprout, like mushrooms and wildflowers, along the path. I adore this book and the thoughtful, generous, conversations that Anstee has brought to our homes.—Derek Beaulieu, author of Do It Wrong: How to be a Poet in the 21st Century
Don’t let the title deceive you: these fascinating, meticulous essays are much more than footnotes. Anstee skillfully unspools the stories behind a handful of under-the-radar small press publishers and projects to showcase a breadth of Canadian talent past and present. A love letter to ink, long-arm staplers, and artistic potential, Footnotes is an essential catalogue of small press publishing and inspiration for would-be bookmakers. —Leigh Nash, Publisher of Assembly Press
If you are a poet, a small- or micro-press publisher, or a writer of experimental non/fiction, if you are enthralled by works of innovation and daring, if you have a passion for imaginative reading experiences that celebrate the overlooked and the radical, then Cameron Anstee’s Footnotes is for you. These essays will leave you, in Robert Bringhurst’s words, “eager to encounter the originals”, of which Anstee writes so captivatingly.—Beth Follett, author of Instructor
