Freehand Books

Freehand Books Publishing outstanding Canadian fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and graphic literature. Want to stay in the loop?

Our publishing list is an eclectic, purposeful mix, illustrating the dual nature of the phrase 'freehand' – which represents both unfettered creativity (e.g., freehand drawing) and exquisite control (e.g., bull riders must not touch with their free hand). Freehand aims to publish books that show this balance of creativity and skill – in short, books of exceptional literary merit. Sign up for our monthly newsletter, Freehand's Footnotes, here: freehand-books.com/subscribe

This is so exciting -- Dania Idriss's Tales of the Mountains and the Sea is number one on the Calgary bestseller list th...
05/25/2026

This is so exciting -- Dania Idriss's Tales of the Mountains and the Sea is number one on the Calgary bestseller list this week! Congratulations, Dania!

We're so excited and proud to watch the journey of Tangles -- from acclaimed graphic memoir by Sarah Leavitt all the way...
05/21/2026

We're so excited and proud to watch the journey of Tangles -- from acclaimed graphic memoir by Sarah Leavitt all the way to a star-studded premiere at Cannes!

We love the way that director Leah Nelson and producer Lauren Miller Rogen talked about an image in the book that particularly resonated with them -- a depiction of crumbling ground beneath the family's feet as they receive an Alzheimer's diagnosis. (Scroll to see Sarah's powerful, and devastating, panel from the book.)

Huge congratulations to Sarah and everyone involved with the film!

🦉Now available -- we're honoured to publish this completely new edition of Minerva's Owl: Afterthoughts on Love and Loss...
05/18/2026

🦉Now available -- we're honoured to publish this completely new edition of Minerva's Owl: Afterthoughts on Love and Loss. This book was near and dear to Carol Matthews, who revised the book and added a new epilogue shortly before her death late last year. 💙

After “nine days in which we thought you would recover and then eight days in palliative care,” Carol’s husband of more than forty years passed away suddenly. Through the shock and grief that follows, Carol writes and writes, with love and anger and honesty and heartbreak, as she comes to an understanding of bereavement as not the end, but as a stage of married love.

Alison Watt says that Minerva's Owl is "more than a tender handbook for the grieving; a brimming saga of a courtship and marriage, it reminds us to attend well to the art of living.”

Carol leaves us a profoundly wise book on great love and great loss -- about grief and mortality and, above all, about LIFE.

Delighted to see Eric Volmers's piece about Calgary author Dania Idriss in the Calgary Herald!"The imaginative and often...
05/15/2026

Delighted to see Eric Volmers's piece about Calgary author Dania Idriss in the Calgary Herald!

"The imaginative and often harrowing five stories in Tales from the Mountains and the Sea all take place in pivotal moments of Lebanese history: From the 1915 famine to the French occupation of the country in the 1920s, Lebanese independence after the Second World War and the civil war in the late 1970s. The final story, Our House in the Valley, takes place in 2010 in a small village near the Syrian border. All the stories involve some element of the supernatural, although it is largely left up to the reader to decide if the dark spirits, curses and jinn that populate the tales are real or imagined by the characters."

https://freehand-books.com/dania-idrisss-debut-collection-featured-in-the-calgary-herald/

Freehand's own Mikka Jacobsen (author of Good Victory, just shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award!!) will be reading al...
05/14/2026

Freehand's own Mikka Jacobsen (author of Good Victory, just shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award!!) will be reading alongside Neil Surkan, Anna Veprinksa, Blair Palmer Yoxall and Ryanne Kap next weekend at The Next Page!

Tomorrow night in Toronto! Freehand Books and Flying Books are thrilled to host the launch of Elizabeth Philips's new bo...
05/11/2026

Tomorrow night in Toronto! Freehand Books and Flying Books are thrilled to host the launch of Elizabeth Philips's new book, The Time of the Great Singing. Liz will be joined by Pujita Verma, author of Precedence, with Lee Gowan moderating.

Address

Calgary, AB

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Freehand Books posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Freehand Books:

Shortcuts

Share

Category