Publisher held their annual wayzgoose on Sept. 4

By Drew Glennie

Located on bpNichol Lane, a hidden road nestled between Huron and St. George streets, Coach House Books has been printing and publishing books since it was founded by Stan Bevington in 1965. 

According to publicist James Lindsay, their wayzgoose has been held annually for 20 years (including virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic). While this event is unique to Toronto, it is actually part of a centuries-long tradition in the printing/publishing world.

“[Wayzgoose] is the traditional party printers would have in the beginning of autumn when they would turn to use candlelight,” Lindsay explained. “So it was a time to sort of honor the solstice and the sun going down. And they would invite the public into the press to sort of give them tours and show them around and see how you do things.”

This year’s wayzgoose at Coach House involved guests mingling and chowing down on hot dogs, chips, chocolates, and beverages in the packed back lot while some wandered into the coach house to see the printing operations in action. 

This included one of their two Heidelberg-printed pages from the recently published Messy Cities, as well as the binding and cutting of Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s forthcoming When Water Became Blue.

These books join Coach House’s extensive catalogue of publications which includes fiction, nonfiction,   poetry, and playscripts. Well-known works include André Alexis’ Fifteen Dogs (2015) which won the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; early poetry collections by Michael Ondaatje (late 1960s to early 1980s); Encampment (2025)by Reverend Canon Maggie Helwig from the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields; and poetry by the Four Horsemen, a sound poetry ensemble (1970-1988), including the lane’s namesake bpNichol (1944-1988).

“Canadian-owned and -operated publishers like Coach House Books drive our national literary conversation, discovering and developing authors that would otherwise be overlooked,” wrote Lauren Perruzza, executive director of Literary Press Group of Canada, in an email to the Gleaner. “English Canada is uniquely disadvantaged in telling its own stories, with the media giant that is the United States to the south of us, and to a lesser, but not insignificant extent, the United Kingdom’s influence as well. Around 80 per cent of Canadian-authored books are published by Canadian independent publishers, meaning that companies like Coach House are essential for us to continue to tell our own stories.”

At Coach House, this involves having a special focus on Toronto books. “It’s really important for every city to have a book publisher that does books about that city, not just fictional books about that city, but nonfiction, like specific journalism and history and things like this. And Coach House does specialize in that,” said Lindsay. “And I think it’s a really important part of Toronto literature to have Coach House there as someone who cares about its history and wants to keep documenting it and archiving it.”

Through hosting wayzgoose, Coach House also contributes to the local community.

“It is a community event in the full sense, so it’s a really special way to sort of bring in people who we might not usually have contact with and introduce a lot of especially younger people to Coach House, which is really important for us,” said Lindsay. “Often we’ll get a lot of older writers sort of show up at Coach House as well. So it’s a way to just keep the tradition alive.”

Coach House Books also fosters community by offering events throughout the year, including readings and book launches. They can be found at chbooks.com along with a catalogue of books available to order online. 

Lindsay also notes that they have benefited from their strong community of booksellers and readers, particularly as the printing industry struggles elsewhere. 

“We’re very lucky in the way that I think the industry is feeling a lot of pressure obviously on all sides, on both sides of the border. But Coach House has readership, which is great. And we have fantastic authors,” he explained. “We’re doing a ton of work trying to be symbiotic with the bookstores themselves and have…close relationships with them. And think of it as sort of something holistic within publishing where, you know, without the bookstores, there’s no us. And without us, there’s no independent bookstores as well. So we want to work really closely with people who are still interested in books. Obviously the fan base for literature is shrinking, but there are still people buying books out there, and we just want to have as close a relationship with them as we can.”

READ MORE:

• ON THE COVER: Putting the city’s laneways to work (Jan. 2017)
• BOOKS: A gleaning of reading (Dec. 2015)
• BOOKS: Spring is here (July 2012)
• BOOKS: Looks like a book, feels like a book … local literary gift picks (Dec. 2011)
• BOOKS: Coach House new book launch takes on Dance Cave (Oct. 2011)
• BOOKS: The Devil and Daniel Jones (May 2011)