Assembly Press (2025)

07/01/2025

📣 Story Is a State of Mind: Writing and the Art of Creative Curiosity is out today 📣

Happy publication day to ! Fun fact: the book’s title comes from Sarah’s first ever downloadable e-course (that’s what we called them back then!), which evolved into the Sarah Selecky Writing School.

The early praise for Story Is a State of Mind is ✨:

“A brilliant, soulful, transformative guide to the craft of writing.”—Theresa Reed, author of The Cards You’re Dealt

“Beginning writers and veterans will find useful tips and insights in Selecky’s charming book about the art of transforming the blank page into a story.”—Susan Swan, author of The Dead Celebrities Club

“Through generous counsel, illuminating exercises, and a big helping of magic, Story Is a State of Mind shows us how creativity can be cultivated and sustained for a fertile—and joyful—writing process.”—Emily Urquhart, author of Ordinary Wonder Tales and The Age of Creativity

“Selecky’s deceptively simple practices apply to many art forms beyond writing.”—Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of The Art of Is and Free Play

“A thoughtful, meditative guide to storytelling that will help bring focus to creatives who are feeling lost in our noisy world.” —Carly Watters, literary agent and co-host of The Sh*t No One Tells You About Writing podcast

“An essential companion for anyone seeking to write with magic.”—Maia Toll, author of Letting Magic In and The Night School

This is an especially good one for any resolution-makers out there, just saying.

Scoop up a copy from your favourite bookstore today!

06/01/2025

Looking back to 2024 before we look ahead… ✨

All these fine titles by these very fine authors are available from your fav booksellers 📚💸

23/12/2024

✨ Look what arrived early! ✨

Story Is a State of Mind is designed to help authors through individual projects or with their practice as a whole, and the book is overflowing with tips and tools to develop and support creative curiosity and whole-minded writing.

Makes a perfect last-min gift for the writer in your life 🖊️🎁

The first nonfiction book by acclaimed author and writing instructor Sarah Selecky, It’s set to hit shelves on Jan 7, but PEC locals can get signed copies now from ! ✨

18/12/2024

Did you know that we also sell and distribute copies of Ken Murray's debut novel Eulogy?

The book went out of print when the original publisher folded, and we’re doing our best to give it a second life on the Assembly list.

A slightly skewed family drama, Eulogy is smart, occasionally funny, and very human. “A book about grief has no right to be a page-turner, but this one is.”—Jade Colbert, Globe and Mail

Books & Company in Picton has copies in stock now, and you can order in a copy from your fav bookseller — it’s also the perfect size to fit in a stocking (just saying).

16/12/2024

Good news: we’re reopening public submissions starting in March 2025. Things are going to look a little different this time around thanks to our brand-new submissions schedule. Here’s a preview of how it’s going to work:

*Fiction* submissions will be open for the months of March and September

*Nonfiction* submissions will be open for the months of April and October 

*Poetry* submissions will be open for the months of May and November 

We hope this schedule will allow us to be more attentive readers and will help us respond to submissions more quickly.

This is also an experiment in real time and our plan is to try it for a year and see how it goes, so please be patient as we try it on for size!

We’ll be updating our submissions page with this info and a few additional tweaks to our guidelines in early 2025. In the meantime, sign up for our mailing list via our website to be kept in the loop.

📣 Team Assembly 📣

13/12/2024

“County Social explores the felt sense of connection to the land in all the individuals and families who came here to launch into unknown territory, risking time and money to develop not only the horticulture that produces the industry’s raw materials, but also the infrastructures required to ferment and bottle it — not to mention the venues to serve it. These are all labours of love. With an emphasis on labour. The commitment to craft, and the sheer hard work it requires, is palpable in these pages. The book recognizes, over and over again, the dedication and selflessness that living farm-to-table, or in this case bottle, demands.” — Picton Gazette

Shop local and grab your copy from or visit us in person this weekend in Wellington at Busy Hands for a real deal!

09/12/2024

“This is a novel that goes in circles, the way the narrator’s life seems to be, every path leading back again to a home that never was, poignant, comic, and biting at once.”—Kerry Clare on The Lodgers over at Pickle Me This 🌀🏠💥

This one’s for readers who:
➡️ like novels written by poets
➡️ are into short sections/chapters
➡️ put language and vibes before plot
➡️ appreciate dark wit over slapstick humour
➡️ have ever rented a house or a room or any place to temporarily rest a head

We’re not shipping direct right now in solidarity with Canada Post workers, but you can find copies of The Lodgers at a bookstore near you ✨

05/12/2024

Sometimes speculative fiction “makes things strange.” It opens up our brains and hearts through surprising or strange techniques. It’s a sneak attack on that “same old same old” feeling which makes us feel numb or overwhelmed. Getting our heads around something new energizes us, makes us reconsider what we thought we knew. It awakens us to new insights and feelings.

Gary Barwin contributed an imaginative op-ed to the [Opinion | I love this one, uniquely human ability to make sense of the world. We need it more than ever right now] and you can read it in full here: https://appurl.io/8qkWGKKHJR

04/12/2024

“In the opening essay of her first collection Relative to Wind, Toronto author Phoebe Wang writes “Language can function both as a barrier and an entry point into an identity, and in the case of the language of sailing, it kept me out before it let me in.”

This experience, of being kept out before being allowed in, informs the approaches Wang takes to sailing itself, and sailing as a way to reveal something about writing, community and more.”

Big thanks to melanie brannagan frederiksen for reading and and sharing your thoughts on Relative to Wind in the ! Go google it and read the whole lovely, very smart thing. ⛵️✨

22/11/2024

Out of respect for Canada Post workers, we will not be shipping direct orders for the duration of the postal strike. We encourage you to learn more about why the Canadian Union of Postal Workers () is striking via their website.

In the meantime, if you need one of our books and just can’t wait, please shop for Assembly titles at your favourite local bookstore - is a great resource.

Any orders placed through our website will be fulfilled once the strike ends.

13/11/2024

Relative to Wind: On Sailing, Craft, and Community by Phoebe Wang is New nonfiction reviewed by Alison Manley, Associate Editor. Published by Assembly Press.

📚”Something I think is integral to me being a librarian — a thing I do when I’m not writing over here at TMR — is finding everyone very interesting. Do you have a passion?”

⛵️Alison’s article continues ⬇️
https://miramichireader.ca/2024/11/relative-to-wind-on-sailing-craft-and-community-by-phoebe-wang/

31/10/2024

A rope on a boat is never a rope—it’s a line, sheet, or halyard. The boat doesn’t turn left or right but to port or starboard. If you’re walking to the front of any watercraft, you’re going forward to the bow. When you’re moving toward its rear, you’re moving aft to the stern.

You could draw a boat and label it, but why do that when you can pick up boat words the way a child might? By pointing up at the spreaders, the spars that act like crosstrees extending from the mast. By curling your fingers around the shrouds, the boat’s wire rigging. By remembering that the lifelines are the vinyl-coated wires around the perimeter of the boat when you grab onto them to steady yourself. By pestering the skipper with questions—What’s this? What’s that? Your eagerness earns you a spell on the tiller, and you feel the weight of the water streaming against the rudder. Trip over one of the hard, small parts on the boat and land on your knees, swearing and embarrassed at everyone’s quick concern. You’ll remember the cleat, block, or winch like the name of someone you instantly dislike. Not knowing these names is as clear a sign of a landlubber as wearing sneakers that leave skid marks on the deck. Not knowing means you’ll be corrected until you do.

from the beginning of “Boat Words,” the first essay in Phoebe Wang’s Relative to Wind 🪢⛵️⚓️

Assembly Press