John Shoesmith is Outreach Librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto, and curator of the 2013 exhibition Death Greatly Exaggerated: Canada’s Thriving Small and Fine Press which explored examples of the fine book-making craft in Canada since the year 2000 while nodding to Canada’s small presses.

We met at the Fisher and talked, among other things, about famed printer and book designer Robert Reid, Fraser Mines Revisited, Kuthan’s Menagerie, McGill University Press, the Lande Bibliography of Canadiana, Heavenly Monkey, Barbarian Press, Pericles, Crispin and Jan Elsted, Simon Brett, Gus and Will Rueter, the Aliquando Press, Stan Bevington, Glenn Goluska, Margaret Atwood, Porcupine’s Quill, Tim Inkster, Walter Bachinski  and Shanty Bay Press, Circus, George Walker, The Book of Hours, the Church Street Press, Gapereau Press, Andrew Steeves, Michael Torosian, Lumiere Press, Hell Box Press, ordering the Death Greatly Exaggerated catalogue, book fairs, and bookplates by Wesley Bates.