Coach House to Temporarily Step Back from Poetry

At the Toronto Star, Alana Wilcox, Editorial Director of Coach House Books, explains to Books Editor Deborah Dundas why the Toronto-based publishing house will take a temporary hiatus from accepting poetry submissions. Dundas foregrounds, "The announcement was made on the company’s blog on Tuesday." From there: 

“Poetry is changing, and the way people read is changing,” Alana Wilcox, editorial director of Coach House, told the Star. “We live in a Twitter world now — what does that mean for poetry?”

Coach House still has six poetry titles planned for publication this year and another six for 2019.

“I just want to have the opportunity to consider possibilities. It’s important for everyone to take a step back sometimes and think about what they’re doing,” Wilcox said, adding that economic reasons were not a consideration.

The announcement also states that “During this time, we will revisit the mandate, policies and procedures that guide our poetry list.”

When asked whether the move had any connection to recent scandals at the University of British Columbia and Concordia creative writing programs, Wilcox said “No.”

“We want to think about how we’ve been working and what we can do differently. It’s important for everyone to take a step back sometimes and think about what they’re doing.” She noted that “we have so many manuscripts we need to just take a breather.”

Read more at the Toronto Star.