RAVEN Chapbooks

09/16/2025

NOTE: Our next chapbook contest will be in 2027. Stay tuned! Visit our website for inspiration and to order chapbooks by our previous contest winners and our Indigo Series. We look forward to reading your poetry manuscripts next year!

Raven Chapbooks is an independent publisher of beautifully designed small edition poetry books owned by Diana Hayes on Salt Spring Island.

08/28/2025

POETRY IN TRANSIT! The press release has just gone out and I'm excited to say that RAVEN Chapbooks poet, Susan Alexander, is featured this year with nine other B.C. poets. Her book, "Berberitzen" was launched by Raven Chapbooks, November 2024. Congratulations Susan!

Find out more about the Poetry in Transit program and celebration planned at the Word Vancouver Festival, September 20th: https://books.bc.ca/

The 2025-26 Poetry in Transit selected poets and featured books:
Calvin Wharton, North Vancouver, BC - This Here Paradise (Anvil Press)
Christine Lowther, Tla-o-qui-aht territory (Tofino), BC - Hazard, Home (Caitlin Press)
Jen Currin, New Westminster, BC - Trinity Street (House of Anansi Press)
Joseph Kidney, Vancouver, BC - Devotional Forensics (Goose Lane Editions)
Junie Désil, Lasqueti Island, BC - allostatic load (Talonbooks)
Lauren Peat, Vancouver, BC - Future Tense (Baseline Press)
Natalie Lim, Vancouver, BC - Elegy for Opportunity (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers)
Renée Harper, Nelson, BC - Boundary Territory (Now or Never Publishing)
Susan Alexander, Bowen Island, BC - Berberitzen (Raven Chapbooks & Rainbow Publishers)
Tom Wayman, Winlaw, BC - Out of the Ordinary (Harbour Publishing)

08/12/2025

You can order any of these books online through the RavenChapbooks(dot)ca website. Get in touch, order books. We are offering a discount for anyone purchasing books in August/September! We can send out the full catalogue too for anyone wanting to read more about our titles. Congratulations to all Raven authors!

08/11/2025

Rebecca Hendry’s beautiful chapbook is now available at Talewind, Sechelt. Copies can also be ordered directly on the RavenChapbooks(dot)ca website. This is a very special limited edition collection of poems. Let us know if you’s like to order a copy while it is still available.

08/07/2025

Circle ceremony, sharing memories of poet David Haggart at a Celebration of Life, July 31st. Chris playing Amazing Grace on the bagpipes on the deck. We passed the talking stick, read poems, recalled stories, memories, songs.

THAT YEAR
it froze hard and deep
in November
not a whisper of snow
you stand on your skaes
all sixty pounds of you
open your coat
and the wind moves you upriver
toward the rest of your life
from "A Curious Happiness in Small Things"

07/31/2025

Hot off the press with the latest Raven Indigo Series chapbook: Rebecca Hendry signing copies of "The Lightning Tree." Her book is now available for order on the RavenChapbooks.ca website. Rebecca will be reading at Planet Earth Poetry in Victoria on October 10th and in Gibsons (date/venue t.b.a.) Congratulations Rebecca! ⭐️

07/30/2025

On Thursday, July 31st, here on Salt Spring Island at All Saints-by-the-Sea, we will join in a Celebration of Life for long time Salt Spring resident and poet, David Haggart. Please join us, 2-4pm. Bring a poem, a story, a memory.

David was the first poet published by Raven Chapbooks with his book, "A Curious Happiness in Small Things." 🪻💜 We will read poems from his book.

07/11/2025

The print proof arrived today! - Rebecca Hendry's beautiful collection of poems, "The Lightning Tree" will be available at the end of July and orders can now be placed on our website:
https://www.ravenchapbooks.ca/the-lightning-tree/
These poems are detailed survival instructions for those who grieve, those walking the earth “no longer whole” when the universe has “cracked apart”.
–Mary Ann Moore and Ursula Vaira, Raven Chapbooks judges, 2024

06/24/2025

We've gone to press with our next Indigo Series poetry chapbook, Rebecca Hendry's "The Lightning Tree"!

Rebecca Hendry has published two novels, "One Good Thing" (Touchwood Editions, 2018) and "Grace River" (Brindle and Glass, 2009), and her short fiction has appeared in the Dalhousie Review, Wascana Review, Event, Windsor Review, Room, and other literary journals. She has been a book editor for over twenty years, working for Canadian publishing houses as well as self-publishing companies and private clients. She lives in Gibsons, BC.

We will post more information next month when the book is available. Orders can be placed in advance via the RavenChapbooks.ca website contact form.

Congratulations Rebecca!

06/17/2025

Here's a recent review by Steven Ross Smith in The BC Review on RAVEN Chapbooks new release, "Summoning" by Jacqueline Bell, plus Mary Ann Moore's "Modern Words for Beauty" and Sharon Thesen's "Day Song". Thank you Steven and Brett Josef Grubisic, editor of The BC Review.

Steven Ross Smith reviews Summoning, by Jacqueline Bell (Salt Spring Island: Raven Chapbooks, 2025) 22.95 / 9781778160387, Modern Words for Beauty, by Mary Ann Moore (Nanaimo: House of Appleton, 2025)

06/03/2025

The ravens are busy here in the trees at the home of Raven Chapbooks We’ve been listening to their caws and gurgling croaks all afternoon. Take a listen. Maybe they are protecting nests or feeding young. Maybe heralding our new Raven Chapbook, “Summoning” by Jacqueline Bell. Poetry

06/02/2025

Lovely to see Andrea Scott, the 2024 Raven Chapbooks poetry winner relaxing in the sun and reading Jacqueline Bell's "Summoning" - winner for 2025.