Join the Alcuin Society's host Richard Hopkins, for an on-line lecture exploring the remarkable journey of Salt Spring Island's Mother Tongue Publishing founders. Listen to some amazing stories... there will Q & A session afterwards.

Register at https://www.alcuinsociety.com/events/the-history-of-mother-tongue-publishing

Peter Haase, born in Liverpool, UK, industrial electrician, gardener, singer, letterpress printer, linocut artist, author of Liverpool Lad.

Mona Fertig, born in Vancouver, B.C., poet, publisher, author, editor, book artist. The VPL made her a Literary Landmark for starting the first literary centre in Canada, in Gastown, The Literary Storefront (1978-1985).

Richard Hopkins taught at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at UBC for 22 years in the areas of reference services, reader’s advisory services, library instructional services, research studies, and management of libraries. He is used antiquarian/bookseller.

In 1995 Mona and Peter began (m)Öthêr Tøñgué Press, a private press, after purchasing the complete printing workshop of Frank Pengally. They had ten tons of equipment (which included four large presses and a 1914 linotype plus a giant paper cutter) and over 100 drawers of lead and wooden type, in the basement studio of their 1906 Salt Spring home. Peter studied letterpress printing with Jim Rimmer of Pie Tree Press and Type Foundry, with Jan and Crispen Elsted of Barbarian Press, with Blackstone and Anderson Press of Vancouver and was also inspired by Andrew Hoyen of Arion Press in San Francisco. Mona was mentored in book art by Claire Van Vliet of Janus Press.

(m)Öthêr Tøñgué Press published beautiful limited edition, book-art chapbooks of Canadian poetry, as well as broadsides. These employed handmade endpaper, beautiful cover stock, embossing and debossing, letterpress printing, hand sewing, nonadhesive binding, tipped-in photographs of paintings and linocuts; all were signed and numbered. All were labour-intensive and mostly created in-house. Then in 2008 MTP moved into trade publishing and changed their name to Mother Tongue Publishing, and the big presses were sold. They have kept their Pearl Platen press, 1890, and Vandercook SP-15.