It has been a long and exciting journey to become one of western Canada's foremost literary publishers.Turnstone founder and editor Wayne Tefs recalls the first steps toward forming Turnstone Press and the incredible journey it has been.
It’s twenty years ago, and you’re sitting in a pub on Pembina Highway in Fort Garry and a clutch of dreamers is dreaming words, words in ink and cut pages and covers. You’re dreaming the book, the tangible, tactile object. You haven’t heard yet of perfect binding, of dingbats, of saddle stitching, Corel, Ventura, fulfillment, or financial statements. You have no notion that you’re looking down the dangerous end of a telescope at more than two hundred published books, at Governor General’s Awards, at GG nominations, First Novel Prize nominations, Lamperts, Leacocks, Lowthers, McNally's, the delighted faces of dozens of first time authors. You certainly are not contemplating twenty years of labour, of screening twenty thousand manuscripts, of Editorial Board meetings, conferences with writers, proofreading, copy-editing, launches, grant-applications, Literary Press Group, the ACP, conference calls – if you had, you probably would not have hazarded the dream. The work alone would have thrown you off. No, you are in love with words, with story, with song, and you are doing nothing more than dreaming the book – a simple thing, a good thing, a thing that carries and sustains what you are and what the place you live in may become.
Wayne Tefs from Due West