Products

Have a good old fashioned birthday!

A2 size card (5.5" x 4.25")

Blank interior

Printed in full-colour on high quality 100% recycled paper

Paired with brown kraft envelope

May you get older and golder, just like the Golden Girls!

Blank inside.
A2 size: 4.25" x 5.5".
Printed on matte white cardstock with gold foil detail
Comes with kraft envelope, cellophane sleeve.
Designed and printed in Toronto, Canada.

Meet the Olive Clubtail Dragonfly! These endangered dragonflies are known for their striking blue eyes and are only found in five different locations throughout Canada. Show your appreciation for this endangered species with this full DIY mini embroidery kit or gift it to a friend!

The kit contains everything you need to embrace the embroidery obsession:

• QR code for a Digital Set of Instructions including stitch guide, colour guide, and fun facts about your bug of choice
• 3 full DMC cotton floss skeins
• 1 full DMC Diamant floss
• 2 John James needles (size 7)
• Pattern on Stick and Stitch Stabilizer (simply stick it onto the fabric!)
• 6" x 6" Kona cotton
• 6" x 6" backing cotton
• Patterned fabric for backing
• 4 inch Elbesee FSC-certified beechwood embroidery hoop
• 2 Stick and Stitch Designs 

This kit makes one 4-inch finished piece, ready to hang.

Ultra-absorbent, reusable, and handmade in Toronto, ON. This face cloth features a minimal print on one side made of the softest printed organic cotton, and a waffle-cotton textured side for scrubbing and washing. Paired with Freon Collective's 100% organic cotton rounds, they make the perfect addition to a sustainable beauty and lifestyle routine.

● Made from 100% Organic Cotton
● One face cloth measures 11"x11"

Wash on the gentle cycle with cold water and and lay flat to dry.

*Please note that all face cloths are handmade in a Toronto studio. Prints are digitally printed using water and plant-based inks. Product may differ slightly in appearance and colour depending on the batch.

Celebrate an engagement with a big ol' OMG!!

- blank inside
- A2 size: 4.25" x 5.5" 
- printed on matte white cardstock
- comes with red envelope, cellophane sleeve
- designed and printed in Toronto, Canada. 

Ermergerd, did you see that ring? Congrats on the engagement!

4.25" x 5.5".
Blank inside
Packaged in a cellophane sleeve
Made in Canada

BESTSELLING BOARD BOOK: TURN SIMPLE FOODS INTO BEAUTIFUL BOARDS WITH MORE THAN 100 EASY RECIPES AND IDEAS

Sharing food on boards is the perfect way to entertain family and friends. With minimum effort and maximum impact you can casually host in style, while focusing on spending time together, rather than being stuck in the kitchen. No cooking skills are required to make these boards (and you!) shine! In On Boards, food stylist Lisa Bolton has put together 50 ideas for instantly approachable boards, all with effortless entertaining in mind, as well as 52 recipes for delectable savory and sweet additions like Beet Hummus, Bourbon Bacon Jam, Mashed Potato Dip and Chocolate Salami. The boards can be pulled together in very little time, and each includes presentation and styling tips to impress your guests. Any assortment of food can be pulled into a beautiful board, so you will be able transform whatever is in your fridge and pantry when unexpected guests arrive! With chapters on Everyday Boards, Holiday & Special Occasion Boards, Seasonal Boards and Around the World Boards, you will find inspiration for every gathering. Whether you are looking for a breakfast or brunch board; a board for Christmas Day, Superbowl Sunday or New Year's Eve; a huge celebration or a cozy date night for two, it is included in this collection of gorgeously curated boards. On Boards is the gift people give again and again--perfect for those who love to entertain, but not the stress that goes with it!

The freedom to read is under attack.

From the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves.

A defense of the dying art of losing an afternoon—and gaining new appreciation—amidst the bins and shelves of bricks-and-mortar shops.

Written during the pandemic, when the world was marooned at home and consigned to scrolling screens, On Browsing’s essays chronicle what we’ve lost through online shopping, streaming, and the relentless digitization of culture. The latest in the Field Notes series, On Browsing is an elegy for physical media, a polemic in defense of perusing the world in person, and a love letter to the dying practice of scanning bookshelves, combing CD bins, and losing yourself in the stacks.

Deborah Dundas is a journalist who grew up poor and almost didn’t make it to university. In On Class, she talks to writers, activists, those who work with the poor and those who are poor about what happens when we don’t talk about poverty or class—and what will happen when we do.

Growing up poor, Deborah Dundas knew what it meant to want, to be hungry, and to long for social and economic dignity; she understood the crushing weight of having nothing much expected of you. But even after overcoming many of the usual barriers faced by lower- and working-class people, she still felt anxious about her place, and even in relatively safe spaces reluctant to broach the subject of class. While new social movements have generated open conversation about gender and racism, discussions of class rarely include the voices of those most deeply affected: the working class and poor.

On Class is an exploration of the ways in which we talk about class: of who tells the stories, and who doesn’t, which ones tend to be repeated most often, and why this has to change. It asks the question: What don’t we talk about when we don’t talk about class? And what might happen if, finally, we did?

Praise for On Class

“The author uses her own experience of growing up poor to thread interviews with writers and activists about the barriers to success in Canada’s widening class divide.”
—Globe and Mail

“I really enjoyed Deborah Dundas’s small and brave book On Class. She addresses the need to speak about the different classes in Canada, and the ways it is almost impossible to cross their divides.”
—Heather O’Neill, author of When We Lost Our Heads

“On Class is urgent and wise, written with Dundas’ trademark wit and crisp prose. Raw and smart, it urges readers not to look away from the complexity of issues affecting the poor and working class, especially in a time of constant political, economic, and social turmoil.”
—Open Book

“A nifty, provocative little book.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“On Class is a great read, perfect for readers less familiar with the notion of class and what it really means, but also interesting and thoughtful enough for those who have already begun to engage with the topic. Dundas pulls a lot of threads together in this volume, but it works really well and serves as an excellent, broad starting point.”
—The Miramichi Reader

“On Class might be a quick read, but it is definitely an important one.”
—The Quarantine Review

“[Dundas] shares her own experience of growing up poor and facing class-driven barriers to success.”
—Zoomer

“Why does our society put so much emphasis on individual achievements and pay so little attention to collective ones? On Class doesn’t offer answers to these critical issues and questions—a task beyond any one volume—but it does offer a pleasing invitation to reflect upon them.”
—Monitor

Praise for the Field Notes series

“A clear-eyed assessment of the links between property, policing, and the subjugation of Black people … Walcott’s analysis of the ways in which white supremacy is baked into the legal systems of Canada and the U.S. is stimulating. Progressives will embrace this well-conceived call for change.”—Publishers Weekly

“Running a brief but far-reaching and punchy 96 pages, On Property has an absolute certainty of purpose: calling for the abolition of private property ownership … [If] statements such as ‘the problem of property is resolved through its removal’ or calls to ‘abolish everything’ can make some people quake, when Walcott’s pamphlet argues for the human ability to reconsider and rebuild societal structures, the stances come across as sensible and, better yet, doable.”—Toronto Star

“Rinaldo Walcott locates his contribution to the Field Notes series on current issues, On Property, in the present political moment, while using historical references and events to argue for the abolition of police and property … Walcott concludes his case by asking for a new ethics of care and economy that does not keep feeding into the incarceration system, a system rigged to continue Black suffering … It is a question we must ask ourselves after reflecting on the ways in which we, too, are complicit.”—Quill & Quire

“Kingwell offers a slender, thoughtful, sometimes meandering disquisition on risk that “is inflected (or infected) by the virus, but not precisely about the virus—except as it grants new urgency to old questions of risk and politics. A host of cultural allusions—from Shakespeare to the Simpsons, Isaiah Berlin to Irving Berlin, Voltaire, Pascal, and Derrida—along with salient academic studies inspire Kingwell to examine the many contradictory ways that humans handle risk … An entertaining gloss on an enduring conundrum.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Urgent, far-reaching and with a profound generosity of care, the wisdom in On Property is absolute. We cannot afford to ignore or defer its teachings. Now is the time for us-collectively-to take up the challenge in this undeniable gift of a book.”—Canisia Lubrin, author of The Dyzgraphxst and Voodoo Hypothesis

A Winnipeg Free Press Top Read of 2021

What if David Bowie really was holding the fabric of the universe together?

The death of David Bowie in January 2016 was a bad start to a year that got a lot worse: war in Syria, the Zika virus, terrorist attacks in Brussels and Nice, the Brexit vote—and the election of Donald Trump. The end-of-year wraps declared 2016 “the worst … ever.” Four even more troubling years later, the question of our apocalypse had devolved into a tired social media cliché. But when COVID-19 hit, journalist and professor of public policy Andrew Potter started to wonder: what if The End isn’t one big event, but a long series of smaller ones?

In On Decline, Potter surveys the current problems and likely future of Western civilization (spoiler: it’s not great). Economic stagnation and the slowing of scientific innovation. Falling birth rates and environmental degradation. The devastating effects of cultural nostalgia and the havoc wreaked by social media on public discourse. Most acutely, the various failures of Western governments in their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If the legacy of the Enlightenment and its virtues—reason, logic, science, evidence—has run its course, how and why has it happened? And where do we go from here?

The inspiring story of an ordinary man who, from humble beginnings and against the odds of a devastating illness, has led—is leading—an extraordinary life.

To many people, Walter Gretzky is the ultimate dad, the father of the Great One, Wayne Gretzky, and the first inspired coach to a talented young boy. Walter’s major insight into hockey—that a player should “go where the puck is going”—guided Wayne’s brilliant style, and Wayne himself has said about his talent: “It’s God-given. It’s Wally-given.” It's safe to say that no other famous hockey player’s father is held in such high esteem, and that Walter Gretzky has carved out this singular niche in his own right.

Now, for the first time, Walter tells at length the story of his life, about growing up on a small family farm, about meeting and marrying Phyllis, about raising four boys and a girl in a modest home in Brantford on the salary of a telephone repairman, about hanging onto his modesty and values when the comet of talent and celebrity hit.

Walter also talks about the process of recovering from a stroke that came close to killing him ten years ago. Through his own grit and determination, and with the help of dedicated therapists and doctors, his family and friends, Walter battled back from an aneurysm that left him with many cognitive difficulties and destroyed a decade of memories—including his recollection of the death of his mother and almost all of Wayne’s NHL triumphs of the eighties.

As many of the people who have encountered Walter even briefly will testify, he is very charismatic, and it’s his extraordinary compassion, which has flourished since his stroke, that makes him so compelling. Yes, he struggles with some limitations, but he has also discovered a calling in helping others. All of his many public speaking engagements are for charity, and this book would not exist were it not for Walter’s role as the official spokesperson for Canada’s Heart and Stroke Foundation. The only way he would ever agree to talk about himself at such length was in the hope that his experience with stroke would be useful to other people. “Every second of every day is important to me,” he writes, “and I only hope that if telling my story can help even one person, then all of this will be worth it. And remember, there is life after stroke…look at me!”

A Globe and Mail Book of the Year

A CBC Books Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2021

From plantation rebellion to prison labour's super-exploitation, Walcott examines the relationship between policing and property.

That a man can lose his life for passing a fake $20 bill when we know our economies are flush with fake money says something damning about the way we’ve organized society. Yet the intensity of the calls to abolish the police after George Floyd’s death surprised almost everyone. What, exactly, does abolition mean? How did we get here? And what does property have to do with it? In On Property, Rinaldo Walcott explores the long shadow cast by slavery’s afterlife and shows how present-day abolitionists continue the work of their forebears in service of an imaginative, creative philosophy that ensures freedom and equality for all. Thoughtful, wide-ranging, compassionate, and profound, On Property makes an urgent plea for a new ethics of care.

With COVID-19 comes a heightened sense of everyday risk. How should a society manage, distribute, and conceive of it?

As we cope with the lengthening effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic, considerations of everyday risk have been more pressing, and inescapable. In the past, everyone engaged in some degree of risky behaviour, from mundane realities like taking a shower or getting into a car to purposely thrill-seeking activities like rock-climbing or BASE jumping. Many activities that seemed high-risk, such as flying, were claimed basically safe. But risk was, and always has been, a fact of life. With new focus on the risks of even leaving the safety of our homes, it’s time for a deeper consideration of risk itself. How do we manage and distribute risks? How do we predict uncertain outcomes? If risk can never be completely eliminated, can it perhaps be controlled? At the heart of these questions—which govern everything from waking up each day to the abstract mathematics of actuarial science—lie philosophical issues of life, death, and danger. Mortality is the event-horizon of daily risk. How should we conceive of it?

In this compelling whodunnit, Elaine Dewar reads the science, follows the money, and connects the geopolitical interests to the spin.

When the first TV newscast described a SARS-like flu affecting a distant Chinese metropolis, investigative journalist Elaine Dewar started asking questions: Was SARS-CoV-2 something that came from nature, as leading scientists insisted, or did it come from a lab, and what role might controversial experiments have played in its development? Why was Wuhan the pandemic's ground zero—and why, on the other side of the Atlantic, had two researchers been marched out of a lab in Winnipeg by the RCMP? Why were governments so slow to respond to the emerging pandemic, and why, now, is the government of China refusing to cooperate with the World Health Organization? And who, or what, is DRASTIC?

Locked down in Toronto with the world at a standstill, Dewar pored over newspapers and magazines, preprints and peer-reviewed journals, email chains and blacked-out responses to access to information requests; she conducted Zoom interviews and called telephone numbers until someone answered as she hunted down the truth of the virus’s origin. In this compelling whodunnit, she reads the science, follows the money, connects the geopolitical interests to the spin—and shows how leading science journals got it wrong, leaving it to interested citizens and junior scientists to pull out the truth.

A picture book celebrating Indigenous culture and traditions. The Governor General Award--winning team behind When We Were Alone shares a story that honours our connections to our past and our grandfathers and fathers.

A boy and Moshom, his grandpa, take a trip together to visit a place of great meaning to Moshom. A trapline is where people hunt and live off the land, and it was where Moshom grew up. As they embark on their northern journey, the child repeatedly asks his grandfather, "Is this your trapline?" Along the way, the boy finds himself imagining what life was like two generations ago -- a life that appears to be both different from and similar to his life now. This is a heartfelt story about memory, imagination and intergenerational connection that perfectly captures the experience of a young child's wonder as he is introduced to places and stories that hold meaning for his family.

About the Author

Writing is, and always will be, an act defined by failure. The best plan is to just get used to it. 

Failure is a topic discussed in every creative writing department in the world, but this is the book every beginning writer should have on their shelf to prepare them. Less a guide to writing and more a guide to what you need to continue existing as a writer, On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer describes the defining role played by rejection in literary endeavors and contemplates failure as the essence of the writer’s life. Along with his own history of rejection, Marche offers stories from the history of writerly failure, from Ovid’s exile and Dostoevsky’s mock execution to James Baldwin’s advice just to endure, where living with the struggle and the pointlessness of writing is the point.

Praise for On Writing and Failure

“The Canadian novelist and essayist describes the defining role rejection has played in his career and reflects on its importance in the lives of notable writers, from Ovid to Dostoyevsky and Baldwin.”
—New York Times

“I want to buy up a big lot of Marche’s contribution and hand them out to anyone struggling to write”
—Vanity Fair

“[Marche’s] writing style is buoyant and funny. […] When the stars are aligned, someone writes a work as provocative, informed and droll as On Writing and Failure.”
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“While writing starts with one person, an empty page and an urge to say something, it ends with another person reading your words, digesting them and making a judgment. In the process the reader owns your words and makes something of them […] That’s why I’m keeping On Writing and Failure on my desk—for encouragement—which I am guessing is Marche’s true purpose in writing the book.”
—Globe and Mail

“On Writing and Failure romps through a series of anecdotes about the thwarted aspirations of authors so as to instruct a ‘kid writer’ not to hope for anything.”
—Literary Review of Canada

“In On Writing and Failure, Marche attempts to reset the way we talk about such struggles. He stomps Freytag’s Pyramid flat. […] Marche’s book isn’t a pep talk, but it’s not intended to cut you off at the knees. His sole prescription is stubbornness. ‘You have to write.'”
—Washington Post

“Marche reaches something deeper when he reminds us that many of these famous literary figures couldn’t make a living wage with their writing […] The book is endlessly quotable, and at times very funny.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Marche’s purpose is not to discourage young tyros from taking up the pen but to inform them—via repeated commands of ‘no whining’—that writing is not the path to success, riches or even, often, respect; writers write in spite of failure.”
—The New Statesman

“Marche is reluctant to give generalized advice, but what he does offer cuts right through the bullshit.”
—Broken Pencil

“On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer must be considered essential reading for anyone seeking to write for a living, be it as a novelist, essayist, poet, columnist, or any other writing genre. Itself exceptionally well written.”
—Midwest Book Review

“On Writing and Failure is a slim little truth bomb I wish had been written when I first harboured notions of writing to be published.”
—Policy Magazine

“Marche’s advice to writers, then, is to ‘keep throwing yourself at the door.’ Keep racking up rejections, keep amassing failures. Endure long enough, and eventually there will be a breakthrough, however arbitrary, however fleeting. On Writing and Failure is thus both a dark glimpse into the trials of creativity—and a comfort, a consolation.”
—Lean Out with Tara Henley

“Not only could I brave it; I managed to relish it.”
—Miramichi Reader

“On Writing and Failure is less about writing and more about perseverance. Reading it reminded me of all the things I thought impossible before I tried them and now find impossible to live without. Writing is one of those things.”
—Compulsive Reader

“A sparkling cocktail of bittersweet jokes and fizzing truth bombs.”
—Jonathan Coe, author of Bournville

“Number 6 in the Biblioasis Field Notes Series. A tiny book that holds enough to be a repeated reference. Any writer will benefit from having this honest exposure to the importance of failing. It is a harsh, and still kind, reminder that the effort is more important than the result—because without the effort there isn’t a chance of anything at all.”
—Carrie Koepke (Skylark Books), The Columbia Daily Tribune

“A paean to persistence, a celebration of art for its own sake, and my favorite entry yet in the excellent Field Notes series from Biblioasis.”
—James Crossley, Madison Books

“A central (perhaps the central) paradox of the writing life is this: in order to churn out the freest, most generous, truest work possible, the writer must embrace the utter and complete futility of the task of writing. As a writer at the beginning of a new project, I couldn’t ask for a better companion to carry me through the coming, inevitable, necessary days of failure, joy, and frustration. Marche’s essay is such a heartening guide through the writer’s life (of failure). As a reader, Marche’s perspective on the lives, hopes, frustrations, and failures of some all-time greats is nothing short of a marvel. It’s like being able to see into the upside-down of centuries of literature. Any person interested in language, books, stories, and meaning-making will find themselves richer for reading this exceptional little book.”
—Chris Lee, Boswell Book Company

Praise for Stephen Marche

“How Shakespeare Changed Everything is fun and informative, with more than its share of ‘Aha!’ moments packed between its diminutive covers. Mr. Marche’s thesis is compelling and probably more true than we ever imagined.”
—New York Journal of Books

“So dazzling, so unsentimental … A work that is both beautiful and confusing. In other words, an honest love story.”
—New York Times

“Stephen Marche is capable of writing … any darn thing he wants.”
—Globe and Mail

“Brilliant … Marche has created a stunning, evocative, and impressionistic account of the ascent of wealth in the twentieth century. . . . The Hunger of the Wolf could be Marche’s breakthrough novel.”
—Booklist, starred review

“A dazzling virtuoso piece. Marche turns the making of a family’s fortune into a fascinating, bloody fairy tale.”
—Emma Donoghue, author of Room and Frog Music

“Untrammelled, unfettered, unprecedented, unselfconscious and friggin’ unbelievable, this book busts the novel open, makes literature an open question, and maps out brave new worlds for the reader to spelunk. With Raymond and Hannah I knew this guy was up to something brilliant. Shining at the Bottom of the Sea tells me I hadn’t the faintest idea.”
—Daniel Handler, author of Adverbs