CHP action? (fwd)

[Kathy Chung]

Hello all,

I've been following a series of discussions on Coach House in the
CANLIT-L list and I find this message practical, more than just talk.
Thought members of CANDRAMA might like to read it considering that Coach
House is/was? one of the *play* publishers in Canada.

______________________________________
Kathy Chung <kchung at chass.utoronto.ca>
Graduate Centre for Study of Drama
University of Toronto, Canada



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 13:14:00 -0700
From: CANLIT-L <canlit at PSB.NLC-BNC.CA>
To: Multiple recipients of list CANLIT-L <CANLIT-L at INFOSERV.NLC-BNC.CA>
Subject: CHP action?

It has been suggested that I post a letter written by Frank Davey to Sheila
Copps about CHP.  Apparently the fate of the press's backlist lies with the
Business Development Bank, which has taken it over as security for the money
that CHP owes.
Perhaps members might wish to write to Ms. Copps as well.

The Hon. Ms. Sheila Copps,   M.P.
Minister of Heritage
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6


Dear Ms. Copps

I am writing to ask if there is anything your office can do, in the matter
of the Coach House Press bankruptcy, to encourage the Business Development
Bank to attempt to find a publisher willing to purchase the entire back list
of the press and keep it 'in print' on an ongoing basis.

I iknow that there are some publishers who would be willing to take over the
backlist, and that most of the authors would prefer an arrangement that
allowed them continuing sales and royalties over one that merely returned
their copyright and cartons of books to them.

The Coach House backlist of titles, accumulated over 31 years, is in a sense
a national treasure.  It will be a national disaster if these books, which
form the basis of countless university undergraduate and graduate courses,
both in Canada and abroad, are returned to their authors, who in most cases
have few resources for placing them with another publisher or for
wholesaling them to bookstores.  Many of these books will not be
economically viable as individual titles for a new publisher to take on,
while they would be viable as part of a package with similar titles.

The result of a dispersal of the Coach HOuse backlist would be that most of
the books would vanish from bookstores, and become unavailable for
university ordering.  Their authors would suffer grave damage to their
careers.  The work of nationally important writers, like Nicole Broassard,
Dionne Brand, Daphne Marlatt, and Gail Scott, which our government has
subsidized and nurtured, would become academically and culturally invisible.


Moreover this is a backlist and a collection of writing in which the
government and nation have a considerable direct investment through the
Canada Council block grants the press has received over the years and the
various monies the Secretary of State and Heritage Ministries have given it.


I urge you to give your attention to this matter and try to bring about a
resolution that protects this important part of our living heritage.

Yours Sincerely


Frank Davey
Carl F. KLinck Professor of Canadian Literature


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