Stan Bevington, David Helwig, and Jack Hodgins named to the Order of Canada

As part of yesterday’s Canada Day festivities, Governor General Michaëlle Jean has announced 60 new appointments to the Order of Canada. Among this year’s new members are BC-based novelist and short story writer Jack Hodgins and poet and novelist David Helwig. Also honoured was Coach House Books founder and “head coach” Stan Bevington and Giller Prize founder Jack Rabinovitch, who was named an officer of the Order. The Quebec writers Wajdi Mouawad, Claude LeBouthillier, and Jean O’Neil were also recognized by the Governor General.

The times they are a-changin’

If you can get past the boomer nostalgia for the 1960s — “There once was a golden age when culture occurred in the laneways of central Toronto” — Globe and Mail columnist John Barber has written an otherwise excellent column on the ongoing struggle to save Coach House Press from being redeveloped out of business. Seems the University of Toronto organization that owns the old garages that house Coach House is preparing to tear down the buildings to make way for more student housing. Though the organization has offered Coach House office space in the new building, publisher and printer Stan Bevington says the move would never work: “They’re very clear they don’t want the presses in the new building.”

Related links:
John Barber’s Globe and Mail column on Coach House Press