View the 2008 Kal Press Catalogue
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The Kalamalka New Writers Society, a collective of eight Vernon and Kelowna writers, established Kalamalka Press in 1987 in order to launch and run a bi-annual national competition for a first book of poetry.  By using a panel of five national judges, all established writers and/or publishers, the Collective achieved success with manuscripts that were not only winners, but strong winners that have made a contribution to the national poetry scene, and have helped new voices to be introduced and become established.  Kalamalka Press’ winning books have been short-listed and nominated for numerous regional and national awards, have won The Pat Lowther Award once, and have launched the significant careers of Nancy Holmes, Karen Connelly,  Su Croll, Sue Wheeler and Dona Sturmanis.

The test-run book that launched the Kalamalka Press series was The Possibilities Of Chinese Trout, by established poet Greg Simison, and published by Okanagan College Press in 1986.  After that, the following winning manuscripts were launched under the rubric of Kalamalka Press:  Valancy And The New World, by Nancy Holmes, 1988; The Small Words In My Body, by Karen Connelly, 1990;  Worlda Mirth, by Su Croll, 1992;  Solstice On The Anacortes Ferry, by Sue Wheeler, 1995, and, finally, You Mistook Heaven, by Dona Sturmanis, 1998.  In addition to these winners, the Kalamalka New Writers Society published an anthology of the collective’s poetry and prose, Fat Moon, in 1991.

Kalamalka Press's first book since becoming part of the Kalamalka Institute for Working Writers was Who Lies Beautifully: The Kalamalka Anthology (2002). This collection highlights the poetry and prose of writers who have been associated with creative writing at the Kalamalka Campus, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2002. Contributors include Laisha Rosnau, Jay Ruzesky, Shane Koyczan and Rod Schumacher.

In 2004, Kal Press launched the first two volumes of its Mackie Lecture and Reading Series, Ronald Ayling's Sean O'Casey's Theatre of War and Dennis Cooley's Country Music: New Poems. This is Dennis's sixteenth book of poetry and Kal Press's first book of poetry since 1998. The third and fourth books in the Mackie series, Accommodation: A Dialogue of Culture and Nature, by David Pitt-Brooke and Christine McPhee, and Abundance: The Mackie House Conversations about the Writing Life, by Robert Kroetsch and John Lent, were published in 2007.

Other recent Kal Press titles are Jason Emde's My Hand's Tired & My Heart Aches (August 2005) and Kerry Trevelyan's (kerplnk) (October 2005).

You can contact Kalamalka Press by e-mail at kalpress@kalwriters.com.