I’m excited to share the news that in early 2026 I will be taking over as publisher at Gaspereau Press. After 28 years at the helm, Andrew Steeves and Gary Dunfield will be stepping aside, entrusting me with the privilege and responsibility of carrying on the work they started back in 1997.  

Any transition of this magnitude is bound to involve change. The physical operations of the press will relocate to Sackville, New Brunswick, and trade printing and binding will no longer be carried out in-house, though books will continue to be published with letterpress jackets in the signature Gaspereau style. There are new voices that I’m excited to invite to the conversation, particularly Acadian literature in English translation, while at the same time keeping the old habits of thought and story alive.

But above all else I remain committed to the values that for me, as a long-time reader and lover of these books, exemplify everything that Gaspereau Press stands for: great design, careful attention to the details of production, and a commitment to literature that reminds us of who we are, and what we have the potential to become.  

The work currently carried out at The Hardscrabble Press ­– poetry chapbooks and letterpress broadsides – will be folded into the larger Gaspereau publishing program.

I’ll share more details of this transition as it evolves over the coming months, as I begin to work with all those whose voices make the Gaspereau conversation the thriving cultural marker that it is. 

Keagan Hawthorne