RAVEN Chapbooks

RAVEN Chapbooks Raven Chapbooks is an independent press located on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, founded by Diana Hayes.

This family venture first began in the late 1990s as Rainbow Publishers and now features emerging and established BC poets.

We are going to print! Send us a message to pre-order Jacqueline Bell's award winning chapbook, the 2025 Raven Chapbook...
04/18/2025

We are going to print! Send us a message to pre-order Jacqueline Bell's award winning chapbook, the 2025 Raven Chapbooks contest winner. Visit the website: RavenChapbooks.ca

We are getting close to press time for Jacqueline Bell's "Summoning", winner of the 2025 Raven Chapbooks poetry contest....
04/12/2025

We are getting close to press time for Jacqueline Bell's "Summoning", winner of the 2025 Raven Chapbooks poetry contest. Here's a peek at the cover with art by Jacqueline's sister, Judy Critchley. [book design by Sarah Clark of sarahclarkdesign[dot]com.

Here are the final results of the 2025 Raven Chapbooks Poetry Contest: WINNER: Jacqueline Bell – SummoningSecond Place: ...
02/24/2025

Here are the final results of the 2025 Raven Chapbooks Poetry Contest:

WINNER: Jacqueline Bell – Summoning
Second Place: Diane Massam – Ground Cover
Third Prize: Murray Mann – In the Land of Cheslatta
Honourable Mention: Marlene Grand Maître – Carrying Lake Superior
Honourable Mention: Mary Ann Moore – The Risks We Take for Love

visit the website to read the judges' citations and learn more about the winning manuscript by Jacqueline Bell.

https://www.ravenchapbooks.ca/2025-winner-shortlist/

I am absolutely thrilled to announce the winner of the 2025 Raven Poetry Contest!! JACQUELINE BELL, for her manuscript, ...
02/24/2025

I am absolutely thrilled to announce the winner of the 2025 Raven Poetry Contest!! JACQUELINE BELL, for her manuscript, "SUMMONING". Many thanks to our judges this year: Arleen Paré and John Barton, and to all the poets who participated.

Here is the judges' citation for "Summoning":

Jacqueline Bell’s, Summoning, maintains that “you reach the age when everything turns / to elegy.” This chapbook is elegiac, yes, familial, inconsolable: “Grief . . . always too late, missing the train.” As in, failed. Starlight has claimed her mother. The poetry is touching, tender. In the face of such regret, we can’t look away. We are reminded that humanity is as “lonely as foghorns.” The poetry is so compelling, we cannot take exception. Who cannot know this; who cannot agree? The ocean, the sand, the driftwood, the mint-green anemones, all come and go: “The opposite of eggs are headstones.” So much clarity, so much strength, so much, in life, is available, and yet so much is absent; as Bell maintains, “We dwell in the wake of memory.” So much in this chapbook lands in a true and meaningful place.

Visit the website to read about our finalists in this year's contest.
https://www.ravenchapbooks.ca/

We have a shortlist!!! The judges submitted the list and we will announce the finalists on February 24th. Congratulatio...
02/10/2025

We have a shortlist!!! The judges submitted the list and we will announce the finalists on February 24th. Congratulations to the six shortlisted poets. There were many excellent submissions and it was a tough decision for the judges I'm sure. (The blind judging rule is always followed in Raven contests.) We thank all the poets who submitted to this year's contest and encourage all of them to continue to pursue their craft. Poetry is alive and well in B.C.!

Here are the names of the shortlisted poets in alphabetical order along with manuscript titles:

Jacqueline Bell – Summoning
Karen Loucks – Last Truths
Marlene Grand Maitre – Carrying Lake Superior
Murray Mann – In the Land of Cheslatta
Diane Massam – Ground Cover
Mary Ann Moore – The Risks We Take for Love

CONGRATULATIONS!

RAVEN ChapbooksThe shortlist for the 2025 Poetry Contest will be announced February 12th! Letters will be sent to all p...
02/02/2025

RAVEN Chapbooks
The shortlist for the 2025 Poetry Contest will be announced February 12th! Letters will be sent to all participants as well as the shortlisted poets. Stay tuned! 🍀

RAVEN Chapbooks— It’s not too late to order books at our seasonal (15%) discount price. Here are the books that are stil...
12/20/2024

RAVEN Chapbooks— It’s not too late to order books at our seasonal (15%) discount price. Here are the books that are still available in print (limited quantities only):

David Haggart – A Curious Happiness in Small Things
Lorraine Gane – Arc of Light
Kyeren Regehr – Disassembling a Dancer
Ian Thomas – Green Islands, Poems from the Great Bear Rainforest
Karl Meade – doom eager
Andrea Scott – In the Warm Shallows of What Remains
Susan Alexander – Berberitzen
Lorraine Gane – If I Have Known Beauty: Elegies for Phyllis Webb

Send your order instructions via email: [email protected]

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING IN B.C.!
Diana Hayes, Publisher

Here are a few more photographs from the Raven Chapbooks November 29th launch of Susan Alexander’s “Berberitzen”, and Lo...
12/05/2024

Here are a few more photographs from the Raven Chapbooks November 29th launch of Susan Alexander’s “Berberitzen”, and Lorraine Gane’s “If I Have Known Beauty: Elegies for Phyllis Webb”; …and a few lines from their beautiful poems:

“Because all that was old had burned clean away.
A new world had bloomed from a heart’s last heat,
And where we lie there are lilies, lilies, sweet lilies.
Where we lie fragrant lilies bloom over our feet.”
from “Ballad”, Susan Alexander

“Something calls out
among the tallest firs.
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Each sweep of green is a wide wing,
the towering seraphim waiting to rise.”
from “Sanctus”, Susan Alexander

Questions rise and fall this morning
like your face surfacing in and out of darkness.

And if all your desire went out to the impossibly
beautiful, where is that desire now?

Did you feel a letting go in your last breath,
a slow ebb into the void?

What will fill the absence of you now?
The waves of grief come and go.

A torrent of water rages in the creek,
dark shoulders opening wider and wider.
“Elegy 4”, Lorraine Gane

[books available to purchase directly from the website: RavenChapbooks.ca]

Raven Chapbooks celebrated this evening with Susan Alexander launching "Berberitzen" and Lorraine Gane launching "If I H...
11/30/2024

Raven Chapbooks celebrated this evening with Susan Alexander launching "Berberitzen" and Lorraine Gane launching "If I Have Known Beauty: Elegies for Phyllis Webb" at the Salt Spring Island Public Library. Poems about love, loss, and the journey towards healing.

The deadline for submitting your poetry manuscript is just over two weeks away: November 30th. The prize is publication...
11/14/2024

The deadline for submitting your poetry manuscript is just over two weeks away: November 30th. The prize is publication for June 2025. Don't miss out on this chance to be published! Check the website for more details and contest guidelines: ravenchapbooks(dot)ca

Raven Chapbooks will be launching Susan Alexander's "Berberitzen" and Lorraine Gane's "If I Have Known Beauty" at the Sa...
11/06/2024

Raven Chapbooks will be launching Susan Alexander's "Berberitzen" and Lorraine Gane's "If I Have Known Beauty" at the Salt Spring Island Public Library on Friday, November 29th at 7 pm. Come out and celebrate these two wonderful poets and books with us! Refreshments, book table, fabulous readings.

I just received the POETRY IN TRANSIT bus card with Andrea Scott's poem "Return to the Lake of Shining Waters" from her ...
10/11/2024

I just received the POETRY IN TRANSIT bus card with Andrea Scott's poem "Return to the Lake of Shining Waters" from her RAVEN Chapbooks winning collection (2024) IN THE WARM SHALLOWS OF WHAT REMAINS. We have only a few copies of her chapbook left! Message me if you would like to order a copy.

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