Moniker Press is a small risograph print studio and publishing project in Vancouver, BC, that works collaboratively with artists to produce small editions of books, zines and print ephemera.

Weird Load Projects is a publisher of artist-designed books, clothing & ephemera. Original works, collaborations and small-run commissioned projects. Cool things created for strange people. Owned and operated by Liam Hogan.

Based on Lekwungen & W̱SÁNEĆ territories and inspired by queer & trans newsletters across time, DYKE NEWS is a community newsletter devoted to making space in print for the creation of lesbian culture. Started in 2022, DYKE NEWS is released quarterly, and currently has 6 issues in print, which are for sale by mail subscription and in independent & radical bookstores in Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver, and Edmonton.

Aaron Friend Lettner makes unusual books. Working primarily with photography, Aaron traverses the crossways of art, memory, and place. He turns books into public presentations; sites of performance and ritual where seen and unseen worlds elide. Aaron received the inaugural Edward Burtynsky Grant in 2016 for his photobook "Doorways" and a Canadian national book design award from the Alcuin Society in 2022 for his work on "anglepoise" – a conversation in poems between two women over 220 years. His books are held at the Deutsches Buch-Schriftmuseum in Leipzig (part of the National Library of Germany) and The Special Collections and Rare Books Division of W.A.C. Bennett Library (Simon Fraser University, BC). Website: https://www.aflaflafl.com/

Not-for-profit, collectively owned, community bookstore and autonomous space. Lekwungen Territory (Victoria, BC, Canada).

The Riso Collective at Open Space is an artist initiated press. Through print, the collective aims to activate creative voices and build a vibrant, colourful, and inclusive community. Located in Victoria, B.C. Canada on the traditional territories of the Lekwungen and WSÁNEC peoples. https://www.risocollective.com/

ammock Residency is a mad- and disability-led artist residency program committed to creating meaningful inclusion and accessibility in art by listening to artists and meeting them on their own terms. What sets this residency apart is its focus on centering the accessibility through a disability justice framework, creating an environment that is more nurturing than taxing. The Hammock Residency Press is the publications wing, rooted in the artistic and activist history of zines, micropresses, mail art and conceptual art ephemera, DIY publishers and Independent Media Centres.

The Ministry of Casual Living (MoCL) is an artist-run centre based in Victoria. Established to provide artists from all disciplines with an accessible venue for experimentation, MoCL is committed to promoting critical, self-reflective discourse, and integrating the artistic process into all aspects of everyday life.

Erik Volet (b. 1980) is an artist based in the West Coast of Canada and is a member of the Inner Island Surrealist Group. He has shown in Canada, the United States and France. His primary focus is on painting and drawing. He has also produced and illustrated books, zines and has been active in outdoor mural painting. Influences which continue to be important to his process of art making are early twentieth century art movements, comic book art, graffiti, and an ongoing engagement with Surrealism.

Meagan Berlin is a printmaker, illustrator, and tattoo artist working on the territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ people. Their work has appeared in ROOM magazine, Poetry is Dead, Salt Hill Journal, GUTS magazine, TRAINS magazine, DYKE NEWS, and superfroot mag.

JLRB Press is a small-run imprint that specializes in poetry, with a strong emphasis on queer and neuro­divergent voices and emerging writers.

The Malahat Review, established in 1967, is among Canada’s leading literary journals. Published quarterly, it features contemporary Canadian and international works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction as well as reviews of recently published Canadian poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction.

The Dirty Dishes Collective is a collaborative curatorial project co-founded by Dani Neira and Cassia Powell. With an emphasis on supporting emerging artists, the DDC embraces forms of care and connection which actively resist institutional art dynamics, and work toward alternative, relational ways of being together.

Flux Media Gallery is a Contemporary Media Art Space operated by MediaNet.

Austin (Print Hole) is a printmaker whose work pays homage to the great masters of Ukiyo-e. His work is inspired by legends and lore out of Japan and his distinct style is recognizable by his use of high contrast and clean shapes. Austin is also the creator of Spatial Matter, a small zine showcasing local artists in an effort to create a more unified artistic community in Victoria. Austin is interested in all matters of print and is currently exploring screen printing and risograph.

PANELIST

Kim Dhillon is the author of Counter-Texts: Language in Contemporary Art (Reaktion Books, 2022). Her work across art criticism, essays, creative nonfiction, and poetry explores written language as a tool of power, oppression, and liberation, particularly as it is used in visual art. She holds a PhD in Critical and Historical Studies from the Royal College of Art, London, an MA in Curating from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a BA in Cultural Studies and Art History from McGill University, Montreal. She is currently working on two projects: a Canada Council-funded book of autofiction inspired by the life and work of painter Agnes Martin, and a novel. She is the owner of the indie micro bookstore, Brentwood Bound, which is located in a pizza cafe in Brentwood Bay, BC. She lives on the traditional and unceded territory of the Malahat and W̱SÁNEĆ nations on Vancouver Island with her husband and three children. In her free time, she runs on trails and tries to swim a kilometre a day.

PANELIST

Casey Wei is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and writer based in Vancouver, BC, on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She is a PhD candidate in Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, where her practice-based research in film-making, writing, and performance is informed by participatory activities such as editing, publishing, and programming. Recent works include the book Tuning to Oblivion: an artist residency (M:ST Performative Art, 2023), and the album Stimuloso (Mint Records, 2022) with her band, Kamikaze Nurse. She is the Editor at ReIssue and Short Forum Programmer at Vancouver International Film Festival.

PANELIST

Kara Stanton is a writer and cultural worker of Ukrainian, Scottish, and Irish ancestry who has been living on unceded Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ territories since 2012. Their poetry has been published in Room, Poetry is Dead, and Arc Poetry Magazine. They are the assistant editor at ReIssue and the editor/publisher of Dyke News, a print lesbian newsletter they founded in spring 2022.

MODERATOR

Dani Neira is the 2023 Small Press Fest coordinator. They are a second-generation settler of mixed Colombian ancestry based in Victoria, BC, on the unceded territories of the Lekwungen peoples. Neira’s interdisciplinary practice involves curatorial projects, publishing, writing, editing and visual art. Exploring the affective and structural conditions of language, memory and built environments, their work embraces collective knowledge and the queer slippages which occur in everyday life. Neira holds a BA in Art History and Visual Studies from the University of Victoria, and is the co-founder of collaborative curatorial project Dirty Dishes Collective.