Invisible Publishing

The Canadian Indie Booksellers’ Association released their Booksellers’ List for the best books of summer, one of which is Michael Rancic’s A Nation of Tinkerers: A History of Electronic Music in Canada from 1945 to 1985. Thanks to Jo of TYPE Books for the wonderful blurb! The book publishes August 11, so there’s plenty of time to preorder your copy from an indie bookstore, because INDIE 4EVER!

“Well of course they do.”

A raucous and lovely launch for Sallie Fullerton’s Baby Face/Face de bébé last night at . Thank you to the audience for filling the room and buying ALL the books, for Sallie for their wonderful reading, to the DOCUMENTS team, and to Suzanne Girard, the luminous photographer whose work fills the book.

Booksellers, esteemed members of the media (social or otherwise), particularly eager readers: galleys/advanced review copies of our fall/late summer books are ready to make their way into the world. Drop a comment/DM or fill out the form linked in our bio to get your hands on one.

AUGUST: A Nation of Tinkerers: A History of Electronic Music in Canada from 1945 to 1985 by Michael Rancic

SEPTEMBER: Floating Islands by Joyce Mansour, translated by Emilie Moorhouse

OCTOBER: The Furrow by Valérie Manteau, translated by Claire Foster

NOVEMBER: Fair by Jen Calleja

Today we’re celebrating the publication of Susannah M. Smith’s third book: The Alchemy of Paradise.

“A luminous novel told in snippets, The Alchemy of Paradise considers how best to live in the face of loss.”—Carolyn Wilson-Scott, Foreword Reviews

In this novel, a curator confronts grief, loss, and mortality by arranging the fragments of her life—objects, memories, impressions—into a fragile order.

Set in contemporary England, with Venice shimmering at its core, The Alchemy of Paradise follows her attempt to preserve what might otherwise vanish, shaping a collection that makes survival possible. When order fails to yield meaning, she turns to the alchemical, where matter shifts into metaphor and loss becomes transformation.

A novel of ideas told through poetic essays and reflections, The Alchemy of Paradise explores the tension between collecting and transmuting, order and disorder. In the spirit of Walter Benjamin’s collections, and in dialogue with writers like W.G. Sebald, Patti Smith, and Leanne Shapton, it meditates on the ways that art and imagination allow us to chart personal maps through the universal yet individual territories of loss. Refusing collapse into despair, The Alchemy of Paradise offers curation itself as a restless, ongoing practice of creation and renewal.

Susannah M. Smith is the author of The Fairy Tale Museum (Invisible Publishing) and How the Blessed Live (Coach House Books). Her short fiction, poetry, and visual art have appeared in various publications. She lives in Vancouver.

It’s publication day for Sallie Fullerton’s Baby Face / Face de bébé (featuring photographs by the legendary Suzanne Girard) the first book in the rehomed and reimagined DOCUMENTS series.

Constructed with the tools of poetic and documentary convention—fragmentation, oral history, rhythmic and imagistic leaps—Baby Face / Face de bébé weaves a portrait of Denise Cassidy, known as Baby Face, the first woman to own a le***an bar in Montréal.

Iconoclastic and authoritative, revered and feared, Baby Face’s story remains nevertheless largely undocumented. Yet for those in the know, the Montréal q***r scene is nearly impossible to recount without her. The story of Baby Face is, too, the story of a formative time and place in North American le***an culture and a testament to those who have worked to preserve her history.

Blending photographs by Baby Face’s personal photographer Suzanne Girard with archival clippings, spliced interviews, audio from independent films, and other marginalia, the book offers a window into a particular moment in q***r life—and a nod to the DIY methods often used to preserve histories relegated to the margins.

Ottawa, ON / May 11 / 7PM

Join us at Perfect Books for an Invisible Publishing cabaret to celebrate Susannah M. Smith’s The Alchemy of Paradise. Readings by Cameron Anstee, Jennifer Falkner, and the author herself. Moderated by the great Amanda Earl.

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A curator confronts grief, loss, and mortality by arranging the fragments of her life—objects, memories, impressions—into a fragile order.

Set in contemporary England, with Venice shimmering at its core, The Alchemy of Paradise follows her attempt to preserve what might otherwise vanish, shaping a collection that makes survival possible. When order fails to yield meaning, she turns to the alchemical, where matter shifts into metaphor and loss becomes transformation.

A novel of ideas told through poetic essays and reflections, The Alchemy of Paradise explores the tension between collecting and transmuting, order and disorder. In the spirit of Walter Benjamin’s collections, and in dialogue with writers like W.G. Sebald, Patti Smith, and Leanne Shapton, it meditates on the ways that art and imagination allow us to chart personal maps through the universal yet individual territories of loss. Refusing collapse into despair, The Alchemy of Paradise offers curation itself as a restless, ongoing practice of creation and renewal.

Susannah M. Smith is the author of The Fairy Tale Museum (Invisible Publishing) and How the Blessed Live (Coach House Books). Her short fiction, poetry, and visual art have appeared in various publications. She lives in Vancouver.

Praise for The Alchemy of Paradise

“A luminous novel told in snippets, The Alchemy of Paradise considers how best to live in the face of loss. […] Metaphysical and insightful, The Alchemy of Paradise is an innovative novel.”—Carolyn Wilson-Scott, Foreword Reviews