Although a collection of minimalist poems (or one long poem composed of minimalist fragments), Wound Archive has a lengthy origin story. In 2016-2017, I was a Fellow at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I was researching instances of Holocaust survivors reading poems as part of their testimonies and was deeply invested in exploring the place poetry held in survivor testimony.

The sea wept with Rhys, each wave breaking like a breath he couldn’t catch. Clouds aglow in pink and orange stretched above the western coast of Lanilia. Dawn over the Wilnayan Sea always echoed the blush of succulent fruit to him. Memories bloomed on his tongue, of the sharp, citrusy bursts of sunpearls and the lingering, spiced warmth of mourningberries. Rhys stood, motionless, clutching the flower bud in his hand, rubbing its soft petals. He wondered if he would soon forget the taste of his favourite fruits as well.

It was like laying beams in the dark, trying to trust that something will hold even though I could not see or understand the entire structure yet. There was a tenacious fear that I was imagining incorrectly, that I was misunderstanding my own creation, and mistaking whim for truth.

2026 is well underway with spring fast approaching, and there have already been lots of great books by small presses released to start off the year. But there are plenty more coming out soon and it’s never too late to add to your reading challenge, whether you’ve set an official one on Goodreads, joining many other avid readers, or something more casual, such as a list of titles you’ve been meaning to get to before the year is out. However you like to enjoy your reading, without further ado, here are 10 books published by Canadian small presses that you should consider adding to your 2026 reading challenge, and why they deserve to be there. 

Fresh loroco, importing banned. Oblong 

little smugglers, edible blossoms, green-

sheathed, pale inside. Insipid. Pandemic 

first date in rain. Sipping cheap white wine from 

a pink plastic cup, SLUT scrawled across the 

bus shelter. I text a friend a selfie. 

Ishtanu (call him Stan) is a Hittite immortal keeping his head down in Toronto and recounting some of his experiences. Tróán is an immortal Trojan princess who thought she’d killed Stan in post-war Berlin but who now knows he survived. Yes, technically Stan can die. He has just managed not to for 3200 years.

Based on Tea Gerbeza’s experience with scoliosis,How I Bend Into More (Palimpsest Press, 2025) re-articulates selfhood in the face of ableism and trauma. Meditating on pain, consent, and disability, this long poem builds a body both visually and linguistically, creating a multimodal space that forges Gerbeza’s grammar of embodiment as an act of reclamation.

This story begins in 2022, Padua, midwinter. Across the city a debate is raging. It concerns a woman whose name I only recently learned: Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, the first woman in the world to earn a Ph.D. City councillors Margherita Colonnello and Simone Pillitteri have proposed to place a statue of Piscopia in the town square — a notable historical woman to join the effigies of notable historical men. This suggestion has sparked outrage across the country.

Let us accept the crowd-fostered confusion of person. Let us precariously enjoy the close-call near-cliché which hugs us with homely familiarity: are we nearly there yet?  Let us reconsider the title: The Character Actor Convention. Convention – is this the only  Convention we may find? Or not?

STAN ON GUARD is meticulously well-researched, but Wilson never lets historical fact get in the way of a wildly inventive, absurdist romp -- each period pitstop is a novella unto itself.

River travelled softly along the boundary line between sleep and waking. Somewhere off to the side, he was aware of Mom and his sisters talking, the motion of the car. But he was also wandering through a deep dark wood, looking for Fern. Someone or something had taken her. He couldn’t see the sky through the tree canopy and didn’t know if it was day or night. He just knew he had to find her. Looking up from the long, shadowy path ahead of him, he watched a giant cedar slowly tip and fall across his way, its roots tearing out of the ground in horrifying silence. He woke with a start. The car was turning off the highway.

There is a story in the collection that doesn’t work, or it’s not doing what it really needed to do when I dreamed it to life years ago. I don’t know if every reader could pick it out before reading this, but I think some might.

On one warm summer day, the heat was stifling in University Station. As always, I waited, poised, coiled like a spring. When the tones chimed, I would be ready to strike. 

     I was relieved when we got paged out for a call. 

     I hit the bay door switch, Fletch started the truck and I jumped in. He hit the lights and siren and we took off. The siren’s wails echoed off the apartment blocks and office towers. Our rig’s lights reflected in the windows of the shops at street level. 

I wrote the book in the ‘gritty realism’ style. That’s intentional, I want my readers to feel, see, smell and touch – everything that the main character, Steve Lewis, does. I want them trudging to calls in his work boots. Though it’s fiction, Shoebox is loosely based on calls I did or ones my crew mates were involved in. 

Margo LaPierre’s Ajar is a poignant collection on LaPierre’s experience with bipolar disorder 1 with psychotic features. This collection is not one that shies away from harsh realities of Madness; instead LaPierre reclaims and makes real the Mad self with tender honesty. Ajar is an account of “what it is to have [LaPierre’s] body” and how the ill self cannot be separate from the “well” self.

My non-clinical academic interests and research have been in medication safety for nearly 30 years now. In 1998 I witnessed a fatal medication error that significantly impacted all involved. In 2011, I set up the first Medication Safety Program at SickKids hospital with a particular focus on reducing harm caused by opioid errors and accidental tenfold overdosing.

One might think that Billy changes his mind about the tawdry game of politics because he gets to see it up close and personal. As Mark Twain once noted, “Politicians and diapers should be changed often – and for the same reason.”

I discovered my love of swimming in 2019. One of my best friends had just died, and I was searching for escapism—away from screens, away from work, and, in some ways, away from my own body. The weightlessness of being submerged in the public pool eased my angst and softened the tension and grief in my neck and shoulders. The quiet beneath the water cleared my mind. The rhythm I could build toward, channel, and disrupt brought me a sense of control and steadiness. Stripping down my body and taking a warm shower before and after felt reverent. Small talk with strangers—those quiet good mornings in the lobby and the lanes—became part of the day’s calm order. The pool, like the poem, became a place of repetition, refining, and resistance. 

With an unnaturally faint heart, I clasp
rooted qualms that match my own:
fears hidden in worn rock,
fears that rest in vertebral gaps.

Want to start writing editorial book reviews? This is a great way to strengthen the literary community, gain publication credits, network, get free books, and even make a little cash (usually $25 to $125 per review, although not every outlet offers payment).