The news is not looking good for Key Porter Books. In conversation with Q&Q this morning, former Key Porter senior editor Michael Mouland confirmed that 15 11 staffers were laid off late Wednesday afternoon and that only five six employees remain: publisher Jordan Fenn, assistant to the publisher Sheila Douglas-Evely, production manager Stacey Campbell, national account manager Brad Kalbfleisch, publicist Katherine Wilson, and editor-in-chief Linda Pruessen.

It was very abrupt, says Mouland. We were shocked, we just had our spring pre-sales conference the day before, and there was an expectation that everybody was going to move ahead. According to Mouland, laid-off staffers were informed that the company, which celebrated its 30th birthday last year, will continue operating in a much reduced form. But Mouland says he doesn’t know how the five six remaining staffers will manage such a task. It’s hard to speculate what’s going to happen. It’s a dark day for Canadian publishing.

According to a press release sent out by Harold Fenn, owner of Key Porter parent company H.B. Fenn and Company, the Toronto offices of Key Porter will be closed and the remaining staffers will be moved to Fenn headquarters in Bolton, Ontario. The results, wrote Fenn, presumably referring to sales at Key Porter, have been disappointing and substantially less than positive. It’s time to change our direction and direct our changes toward a smaller and more focused operation. The company will focus itself on a smaller list of annual new titles and limit the program to fewer categories in the future.