Ferno House is a micropress publishing house based in Toronto, Ontario, committed to designing and printing hand-made chapbooks, anthologies, and full-length collections of fiction and poetry.
Ferno House was founded by Spencer Gordon, Mat Laporte and Arnaud Brassard in early 2009. All publications are designed and printed by Arnaud Brassard and Pat Larkin, and edited by writers Spencer Gordon and Mat Laporte.
Mat Laporte is the co-founder and co-editor of Ferno House, a micro-press publisher of poetry and fiction. He is also the author of the chapbooks Demons and Chance Poetics. He lives in Toronto.
Billboards from Hell is a hand-sewn, limited edition (50) release. The book is set in Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and released by Adobe Systems, Mountain View, California in 1990. The cover stock is 100 lb. Chino Strathmore Premium Wove, and the text stock is 70 lb. Soft White Mohawk Superfine Eggshell. The cover is manually screen printed with acrylic inks, and the text is laser printed with toner.
Billboards from Hell was designed and produced by Arnaud Brassard. It was edited by Spencer Gordon.
Mean Matt and Other Shitty Peopleby Andrew Faulkner
Andrew Faulkner lives in Toronto where he co-curates The Emergency Response Unit, a chapbook press. His chapbook Useful Knots and How to Tie Them was shortlisted for the 2009 bpNichol Chapbook Award. Need Machine, his first full-length collection, is forthcoming from Coach House Books in spring 2013.
Mean Matt and Other Shitty People is a hand-sewn, limited edition (50) release. The book is set in Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and released by Adobe Systems, Mountain View, California in 1990. The cover stock is 100 lb. Mist Grey Strathmore Premium Wove, and the text stock is 70 lb. Soft White Mohawk Superfine Eggshell. The cover is manually screen printed with acrylic inks, and the text is laser printed with toner.
Mean Matt and Other Shitty People was designed and produced by Arnaud Brassard. It was edited by Spencer Gordon and Mat Laporte.
Fruit Machineby Shannon Maguire
Currently Sold-out
Shannon Maguire is the author of Vowel Wolves & Other Knots (above/ground, 2011), & A Web Of Holes (above/ground, forthcoming), both chapbooks. Her first full-length collection, Fur(l) Parachute is forthcoming from BookThug in 2013. It was shortlisted for the 2011 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. She is the co-founder and co-curator of AvantGarden Reading Series (Toronto) with Liz Howard & Fenn Stewart.
Fruit Machine is a hand-sewn, limited edition (50) release. The book is set in Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and released by Adobe Systems, Mountain View, California in 1990. The cover stock is 100 lb. Charcoal Grey Strathmore Premium Wove, and the text stock is 70 lb. Soft White Mohawk Superfine Eggshell. The cover is manually screen printed with acrylic inks, and the text is laser printed with toner.
Patrick Larkin is a self-taught artist living in Toronto. He contributes to design and production at Ferno House. Flight Mode is his first published collection.
Flight Mode is a hand-sewn, limited edition (50) release. The cover stock is 80 lb. Eclipse Black Wausau Astrobrights, and the text stock is 70 lb. Soft White Mohawk Superfine Eggshell. The cover is manually foil-stamped with gunmetal foil, and the text is laser printed with toner.
Flight Mode was printed by Arnaud Brassard. It contains black and white illustrations by Pat Larkin.
Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!by Spencer Gordon
Finally! Everyone moves like themselves!
We tell the truth to demons and deceivers,
Satan in his maleficent guises, the suck
of sleep and microwave drumsticks, suicidal
dinners, our own white and wretched rolls ...
Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast! is a chapbook of poems by instructor, writer, and Ferno House co-editor Spencer Gordon.
Spencer Gordon is the author of a Cosmo, an upcoming collection of short fiction from Coach House Books (Fall 2012) and is co-founder and co-editor of Ferno House. His fiction, poetry, and non-fiction have been published in numerous anthologies and periodicals, such as Event, The Windsor Review, subTerrain, Joyland, Existere, Contemporary Verse 2, echolocation, Broken Pencil Magazine, The Danforth Review, The Mansfield Revue, The Maple Tree Literary Supplement, and so forth. He is also co-founder and co-editor of The Puritan, an online literary journal (www.puritan-magazine.com). He teaches writing at Humber College and OCAD U and blogs occasionally at http://dangerousliterature.blogspot.com.
Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast! is a hand-sewn, limited edition (60) release. The book is set in Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and released by Adobe Systemes, Mountain View, California in 1990, and in Alternate Gothic No. 2, designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1903 and released by Bitstream, Marlborough, Massachusetts in 2000. The cover stock is 80 lb. Eclipse Black Wausau Astrobrights, and the text stock is 70 lb. Soft White Mohawk Superfine Eggshell. The cover is manually screen printed with acrylic inks, and the text is laser printed with toner.
Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast! was designed, produced, and illustrated by Arnaud Brassard. It was edited by Mat Laporte.
ISBN: 978-0-9812053-6-6
"Impressive for a first offering, one might have thought Gordon wrote poems like a fiction writer would (there are so many bad examples of such), but these pieces certainly can’t be mistaken for prose, and Gordon has a good sense of the line, such as in the poem “THE YOUNG BAROQUE PAINTERS,” or “A BILLIE HOLIDAY KINDA SUNDAY" ... there is a clarity here that comes through, and a humour that allows entry where one might not have been able, otherwise." —rob mclennan
We cannot lie still beside each other. Ruin the landscape.
My hands search for her soft spots, forget my age.
Somewhere in that fifteen minutes, I knock wine to ox.
We warp, I stain. Hot blood. Old slaughter ...
Black Metal Melody is a chapbook of poems by playwright, librettist, and poet David Brock.
David Brock is the winner of the 2011 Herman Voaden Playwrighting Competition. His other chapbook of poetry is Gasmask Summer (The Emergency Response Unit). He has written libretto for operas that have been performed in Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco, Glasgow, and London. He is currently writing text for a black metal opera (bands and sopranos wanted).
Black Metal Melody is a hand-sewn, limited edition (60) release. The book is set in Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and released by Adobe Systems, Mountain View, California in 1990, and in Blackhaus, designed by Patrick Griffin and released by CanadaType, Toronto in 2005. The cover stock is 80 lb. Eclipse Black Wausau Astrobrights, and the text stock is 70 lb. Soft White Mohawk Superfine Eggshell. The cover is manually screen printed with acrylic inks, and the text is laser printed with toner.
Black Metal Melody was designed and produced by Arnaud Brassard. It contains black and white illustrations by Pat Larkin. It was edited by Spencer Gordon and Mat Laporte.
I slept in voices of smoke
by the woodstove in the basement
of our house by the cemetary
to be small and dreaming parallel
to ceremony and decay ...
Skullambient is a chapbook of poetry by Toronto writer and researcher Liz Howard.
Liz Howard, a native varietal of northern Ontario, has taken root in Toronto where she engages in cognition research and poetics. She is a member of the Influency Salon editorial group and co-cultivates AvantGarden, a new readings series that foregrounds innovative text and sound-based performance by women. Her work has appeared in Misunderstandings Magazine and online at Matrix Magazine as part of the New Feminisms Supplemental. In 2009, she was shortlisted for the LitPop Award for poetry. She is the recipient of a Toronto Arts Council grant for poetry. Skullambient is her first chapbook.
Skullambient is a hand-sewn, limited edition (60) release. The book is set in Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and released by Adobe Systemes, Mountain View, California in 1990. The cover stock is 80 lb. Eclipse Black Wausau Astrobrights, and the text stock is 70 lb. Soft White Mohawk Superfine Eggshell. The cover is manually screen printed with acrylic inks, and the text is laser printed with toner.
Skullambient was designed, produced, and illustrated by Arnaud Brassard. It was edited by Spencer Gordon and Mat Laporte.
more than anything i want you
to be arresting and new, chained
to some new idea about democracy
a theory of gestalt that makes
copious use of the words blankets
and refreshments ...
DEMONS is a chapbook of poems by Ferno House editor Mat Laporte.
DEMONS contains black and white illustrations by Patrick Larkin, was designed by Arnaud Brassard and edited by Spencer Gordon.
It is a hand-made, threaded, and limited edition (50) release.
For Crying Out Loud II is Ferno House's third release. Like its predecessor For Crying Out Loud, For Crying Out Loud II is a collection of poetry and fiction by students formerly and presently enrolled in the University of Toronto's Master's Degree in Creative Writing.
They are:
Meghan Adams; Brendan Bowles; Laura Maija Clarke; Spencer Gordon; Alex Grigorescu; Andrew MacDonald; Annie Russell; Jonathan Simpson; Andrew Sullivan; Catriona Wright.
For Crying Out Loud II is a hand-made, perfect bound, and limited edition (120) release.
ISBN: 978-0-9812053-2-8
Dinosaur PornAnthology
WARNING: This anthology contains sexually explicit material and/or fossils. In order to excavate this anthology you must certify to the following:
Under the governing law of my continent, I have reach the epoch of majority and the epoch required to excavate sexually explicit material and/or fossils (i.e., at least the Lias Epoch). I am excavating this anthology from a location where sexually explicit material and/or fossils are legal and permitted. Furthermore, I will not permit any person or hatchling to excavate this anthology if said person or hatchling is not legally permitted to do so ...
Dinosaur Porn has been lovingly edited and designed by the DIY dream-team combination of Ferno House andThe Emergency Response Unit. This is a limited-edition (200), lovingly handcrafted, and perfect-bound collection of poetry and fiction that responds to the outrageous and creative coupling of the terms "dinosaur" and "porn."
Dinosaur Porn includes poetry and fiction by:
Louise Bak; Gary Barwin; David Brock; Andrew Faulkner; Warren Dean Fulton; Spencer Gordon; Corrigan Hammond; Joe Hickey; Penn Kemp; Henry Lee; Christine McNair; Dave Miller; Nathaniel G. Moore; James Nadel; Leigh Nash; Kenneth Pobo; Shannon Rayne; Carey Toane; Jordan Trethewey; Sara Wilson.
ISBN: 978-0-9812053-1-1
"Beautifully produced in a numbered edition of two hundred copies, there are few anthologies of Canadian writing this odd, and with a variety of interesting work as well." —rob mclennan
"The season's most outlandish anthology." —Open Book Toronto
"Encompassing a wide breadth of madcap variations on the theme, the anthology's combination of brevity, humour, and genuine home-made aura—wrapped into a couple hundred painstakingly produced packages—really made a thoughtful and interesting contribution to Toronto's contemporary literary playground. In times when we utter fear about the death of the book, we can be sure that projects like these maintain the joie de vivre in the small press scene." —Steel Bananas
Ferno House's debut release is For Crying Out Loud: An Anthology of Poetry & Fiction, a collection of poetry and fiction by the students and instructors of the 2008-2009 Master's Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.
They are:
George Elliott Clarke; Laura Maija Clarke; Spencer Gordon; Alex Grigorescu; Andrew MacDonald; Jeff Parker; Wendy Prieto; Jonathan Simpson; Catriona Wright.
For Crying Out Loud is a hand-made, perfect bound, and limited edition (120) release.
ISBN: 978-0-981253-0-4
Review of For Crying Out Loud for Broken Pencil Magazine
Article by Eddie Leslie, Fall 2009
"Hand-made chapbooks typically vacillate between the shoddy and the over-ornate—in other words, either photocopied booklets of staple-stitched construction paper or precious little darlings laced with gold thread and pasted feathers. Arnaud Brassard, designer and printer of the new Toronto micro-press Ferno House, manages to avoid either extreme with resounding panache, producing with For Crying Out Loud (Ferno House’s premiere release) a surprisingly beautiful, perfect-bound masterstroke of hand-crafted restraint.
For Crying Out Loud is a collection of poetry and fiction by the students and instructors enrolled in the Masters degree in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. It boasts a poem fragment by seasoned veteran George Elliott Clarke, written in his audaciously lyrical, overtly musical hand, and a short story by American-born fiction writer Jeff Parker—a pitch-perfect, hilarious send-up of both presumptuous American ex-patriots holidaying in Canada and a somewhat lesser known, home-grown entity—the French Redneck. The rest of the book is divided between the program’s aspiring writers and students. In terms of poetry, one finds the subtle linguistic play and adventurousness of Catriona Wright; the spare, Biblically-inspired verse of Wendy Prieto; the meditative and sickly sensual lines of Alex Grigorescu, and the morbid, keen-eyed histories of Laura Clarke. As for fiction, Jonathan Simpson writes out the affecting, fragmented history of a father’s love; Andrew MacDonald provides a cheeky, happily-perverse look at voyeurism and crime; and Spencer Gordon (the editor of Ferno House) writes a dark reflection on cigarettes, death, and literary ambition, which takes an apt turn for the surreal. If what’s included in this collection is any indication of promise, then we should expect some remarkable work from these burgeoning, Toronto-based writers.
According to the Ferno House website, the book might still be found at choice locations around the city of Toronto for a reasonable $15. I say go pick it up—it’s a damn fine combination of DIY, entrepreneurial 'zine-culture, sophisticated and meticulous design craft, and ambitious literary writing."
