The Publisher's Vision

By GAYLE MAVOR - Photo by Shari Macdonald

copyright Driftwood Publishing

It’s always interesting to learn where the seed of an idea originates
and there is no mistaking what currently motivates longtime
Salt Spring Island publisher Mona Fertig to tread where few others
have been willing to venture.

She is full speed ahead on a publishing mission that takes her out of
the basement studio where she and husband Peter Haase are known for
creating beautiful, limited-edition chapbooks of Canadian poetry from their private literary press— (m)Öthêr Tøñgué Press — and onto the slippery slope of trade publishing in Canada through a reincarnated Mother Tongue Publishing Limited.

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it,” reads thesign that hangs in their basement press room and one that seems appropriate given Mona’s history. A maverick, a poet and a publisher of poets, she’s known for her firsts.

In 1978, at age 23, with only enthusiasm, naivety and a federal Explorations Grant via the Canada Council at her back, she ran the first literary arts centre in Canada. The Literary Storefront Society was located in a vacant dress shop in Vancouver’s Gastown. When that lease expired they moved to a larger space on Cordova Street, and right from the start The Literary Storefront was a hub for up-and-coming writers and poets. Hundreds of readings were held, anthologies and monthly newsletters published, advice given and much socializing enjoyed. It existed for six years and has been considered the birthplace of The Federation of B.C. Writers.

 (m)Öthêr Tøñgué Press began in 1990 as an international underground literary periodical Mona ran for four years. She published poetry from “mother tongues” juxtaposed with English translation from writers around the world. She then began the first Canadian poetry chapbook contest, which ran for four years and published limited editions of the best previously unpublished poetry manuscripts.

Now, 30 years later, the mystery behind Mona's decision to venture into trade publishing is solved through the paintings that grace the walls of her Ganges home. Her father, George Fertig, was an artist in the 1950s. While his art was not “known” widely, his daughter has vivid recollections of other artists spending time at their house.

When her father passed away she began to mull over and become frustrated by the status quo in which so few artists are designated as representatives of an entire era.

But she believes providing a broader perspective of artists who worked in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s — those she calls “the unheralded artists of B.C.” — will add to the richness of B.C.’s cultural history.

“What happens to the work of artists who never became famous yet have a body of work that represents their entire life? They are invisible. History is lost,” she says.

To gather more insight into the perils and pitfalls of trade publishing, Mona took a two-day course, The Business of Publishing, taught by Kevin Williams, the former executive vice-president of Raincoast Books who is now with Talonbooks.

“If I had taken that course before I started, I probably wouldn’t have started,” she admits candidly, without any hint that such a reality is about to dissuade her.

Mona’s first choice in the artists’ series is Vancouver sculptor David Marshall. He died in 2006, but he was friends with her father and the founder of the Sculpture Society of B.C., recognized internationally with limited acknowledgement at home. His only public sculpture, Three Forms, is at VanDusen Botanical Garden.

The 192-page Life and Art of David Marshall, written by Monika Ullmann, will launch at Salt Spring’s Pegasus Gallery of Canadian Art on December 13 and at the Architectural Institute of B.C. on January 8 in Vancouver with an accompanying exhibit of sculptures running to February 19, 2009.

Needing funding to begin work on Mother Tongue’s first art book and yet not eligible for funding until four books have been published and she’s been in the business for two years, Mona once again got resourceful in raising money for the David Marshall book. Working with Westbridge Fine Art Auction House in Vancouver, they raised $9,000 in April by selling 26 of 40 pieces of art, some donated by current artists and others from the families of artists of her father’s generation.

In October she tested the waters with her first venture into trade publishing by launching a poetry anthology. RockSalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry is 288 pages of the works of 108 B.C. poets whittled down from 289 submissions from new, mid-career and well-established poets. The book was co-edited with B.C. author and poet Harold Rhenisch, and work of Salt Spring painter Diana Dean graces the cover.

Mona's next Mother Tongue Publishing project is what she calls the search for the great B.C. novel or novella "meant to inspire and encourage the growth and appetite for regionally based literary fiction that arises from B.C.'s landscape, history, culture, language, vision and people.” Open to all B.C. writers, the final judge is Jack Hodgins. The winner receives a publishing contract with Mother Tongue Publishing, a $1,000 advance and more.
In many ways, Mona has many similarities to the artists she is now set to champion. She has spent her entire life writing, hanging out with writers and poets, championing their work and even packaging and publishing their poems in unrivalled, sensuous, handmade creations.

As we walk through her upstairs office, I see photos on the wall from The Literary Storefront days. There’s Margaret Atwood and Patrick Lane. She lists off other authors: Daphne Marlatt, Susan Musgrave, Robert Kroetsch, Tom Wayman, Dorothy Livesay and many more. Grainy black-and-white snaps capture a significant piece of literary history in B.C. with her archives soon to reside at the UBC Archives in Rare Books and Special Collections. The snapshots make me think that I am with yet another “unheralded artist of B.C.,” except in this case, perhaps it is the way Mona Fertig has chosen to live her life, with a consistent belief in the significanceof the words and artwork of others, that will be her own most enduring legacy.

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