Online Lecture

The History of Mother Tongue Publishing

with Mona Fertig and Peter Haase

Join us for an online lecture on May 21, at 6pm, to hear the story of this press’s evolution from a little international periodical, to private press, then award-winning trade publisher.

The event is free and open to all. Please register on Eventbrite:

In their own words

Mother Tongue Publishing is a small home-based literary press on Salt Spring Island on the west coast of Canada. We published fifty-two trade titles between 2008 and 2021, creating a legacy of art and literature. We focused on British Columbia writers and quality writing and editing of books of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, anthologies and regional art history. Our writers won or were short-listed for many book awards. We published four new titles a year until 2021 when Mona Fertig, publisher, retired. “Small is beautiful” is our motto. And we believe books are not just literary career commodities, or vessels to reflect only the political or popular zeitgeist, but doors that always open to excellence and authenticity. We continue to sell and promote our backlist and pay royalties to our writers.

Biographies

Peter Haase was born in Liverpool, UK, industrial electrician, gardener, singer, letterpress printer, linocut artist, author of Liverpool Lad.

Mona Fertig was born in Vancouver, B.C., poet, publisher, author, editor, book artist. The VPL made her a Literary Landmark for starting the first literary centre in Canada, in Gastown, The Literary Storefront (1978-1985).

In 1995 Mona and Peter began (m)Öthêr Tøñgué Press, a private press, after purchasing the complete printing workshop of Frank Pengally. They had ten tons of equipment (which included four large presses and a 1914 linotype plus a giant paper cutter) and over 100 drawers of lead and wooden type, in the basement studio of their 1906 home. Peter studied letterpress printing with Jim Rimmer of Pie Tree Press and Type Foundry, with Jan and Crispen Elsted of Barbarian Press, with Blackstone and Anderson Press of Vancouver and was also inspired by Andrew Hoyen of Arion Press in San Francisco. Mona was mentored in book art by Claire Van Vliet of Janus Press.

(m)Öthêr Tøñgué Press published beautiful limited edition, book-art chapbooks of Canadian poetry, as well as broadsides. These employed handmade endpaper, beautiful cover stock, embossing and debossing, letterpress printing, hand sewing, nonadhesive binding, tipped-in photographs of paintings and linocuts; all were signed and numbered. All were labour-intensive and mostly created in-house. Then in 2008 MTP moved into trade publishing and changed their name to Mother Tongue Publishing, and the big presses were sold. They have kept their Pearl Platen press, 1890, and Vandercook SP-15.