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About

Nimbus Publishing is the largest English-language publisher east of Toronto.

Nimbus produces more than thirty new titles a year on a range of subjects relevant to the Atlantic Provinces— children’s picture books and fiction, literary non-fiction, social and cultural history, nature photography, current events, biography, sports, and cultural issues. Nimbus publishes the best books on Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.

Nimbus also does distribution for numerous Atlantic publishers, making the company the biggest book distributor on the east coast of Canada. For a list of distributed publishers, go here.

In 2005, Nimbus introduced a new fiction imprint called Vagrant Press.

Vagrant Press

Vagrant Press is Nimbus Publishing’s fiction imprint. Vagrant titles are available throughout the Atlantic region and across the country.

Our two inaugural titles—Relative Happiness by Lesley Crewe and Maclean by Allan Donaldson—were published in September 2005. Relative Happiness has gone to a third printing, and Maclean was shortlisted for the prestigious Writers’ Trust Fiction prize. Since then Vagrant has continued to produce fiction that has garnered both the love of readers and the admiration of reviewers. The View from a Kite by Maureen Hull (published in 2007) captured a Moonbeam Award for teen fiction and was shortlisted for the CLA Young Adult Book of the Year Award. Brian Tucker’s debut novel, Big White Knuckles (2007), was shortlisted for the Books in Canada/Amazon.ca First Novel Award. In 2008, Vagrant was thrilled to publish the first novel for adults by renowned children’s writer Sheree Fitch—Kiss the Joy As It Flies, which was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

When we started thinking of what to call our new imprint, we wanted a name that was different from Nimbus—something less traditionally Maritime yet still rooted to this place. It was Nimbus owner John Marshall who suggested Vagrant. Nimbus was named after the Marshall family’s second boat—Vagrant was the name of the first. Etymologically, Vagrant also has interesting roots. Vagrant means “to wander,” and implies unpredictability and lawlessness. Applied to writing, these are desirable qualities, and ones we look for in the fiction we publish.

The publishing philosophy for Vagrant is simple: To publish only those novels that absolutely must be published and should be read. With no set quota of titles to publish, the aim is to create a list built on literary excellence. There may be a year when no titles are published under the Vagrant imprint; in other years, the number of titles may range from two to six.

Vagrant aims to publish high quality, original novels. We’re looking for Atlantic Canadian stories with broad appeal, and writing that is exciting and fresh. Vagrant will publish contemporary and historical fiction, but not conventional genre fiction (sci-fi, mystery, romance, etc.). For now, Vagrant will not publish collections of short stories, although the occasional special project, like the Vagrant Revue of New Fiction (an anthology of short fiction from Atlantic Canada’s most talented and promising writers), may appear.

Green paper practices

As of March, 2008 Nimbus publishing has made an official commitment to be a more environmentally friendly company. For more information, read about our commitment here. And find out more about publishing industry paper practices through Markets Initiative.

Support

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage for our publishing activities.

This post is also available in: العربية (Arabic)