ECW Press


ECW Press is a Canadian book publisher located in Toronto, Ontario. It was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named Essays on Canadian Writing. They started publishing trade and scholarly books in 1979.
ECW Press publishes a range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, sport, and pop culture. As the company grew and diversified what they publish, the company name could no longer stand for Essays in Canadian Writing. In 2015, Publishers Weekly listed ECW Press as one of the fastest-growing independent publishers in North America.
ECW Press releases around 50 new titles a year.

History

The company was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named Essays on Canadian Writing. Five years later, ECW published its first books—trade and scholarly titles. It started with two principal series: the Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors and Canadian Writers and Their Works. Through the 1980s ECW upgraded its typesetting facilities, published reference titles, and began to service third-party clients, creating books for corporations to use for promotional purposes and events such as anniversaries. In the 1990s, ECW re-commenced trade publishing and expanded its scholarly and reference lines for high school and public libraries. They started publishing a mix of commercial books alongside their literary books, such as pop culture books, sports books, and genre fiction.
Robert Lecker left the company in 2003 to follow his own pursuits, and in 2013 David Caron bought part of the company from Jack David. Jack David and David Caron remain co-publishers and co-owners.

Titles

Fiction