The Words We Found: the best writing from 21 years of Voiceworks magazine launches today!

What to say about this book? I edited it, and it was a great project to work on. It was also a quick project, as I got the gig back in May. May was not that long ago, hardly enough time to put a book together. But thanks to a lot of hard work from the People Collective, especially designer Aaron Moodie (and me, ahem), it came together and it looks great.

There has been so much good stuff published in Voiceworks over the years, choosing pieces to fit just 192 pages was incredibly difficult… but ultimately rewarding. Reading back over the 78 issues that have been published to date was quite epic, but I’m glad I took up the challenge. It made me think a lot about what makes ‘good writing’. In the case of Voiceworks, ‘good writing’ means not just polished work, but writing that is brave and raw and experimental. A lot of it made me tremble, or punch the air and scream YES!; ‘good writing’ hits nerves you didn’t even know you had. Another highlight was meeting with the past editors – some I already knew, others I didn’t, but it was a joy hearing their reminiscences about their tenures at Voiceworks. It’s a bit of a crazy, difficult gig, and the people who have done it over the years are all creative and interesting people.

Anyway, my introduction is published online if you’re interested in the history of Voiceworks or want a bit of a primer on the magazine: Voiceworks Then and Now.

The book hits all good quality independent retailers today, or can be purchased online from Express Media. And of course it’ll be available at the launch, happening tonight from 6pm at Trades Hall.