A special thanks to the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program for supporting and funding our storytelling and oral history activities these past few months. We've learned a lot and are just beginning to put our new skills into practice.
Northwestern Ontario Arts group explores storytelling and publishing
Over the past months, the Art Borups Corners storytelling club has gone from sharing ideas in small circles to becoming an officially recognized publisher with work circulating both nationally and internationally. We began with the publication of Where Dignity Grows: Stories of Self, Others, Nature, and Community, and quickly learned what it takes to move from idea, to manuscript and then to marketplace.
One of our biggest milestones was submitting their first publication to Library and Archives Canada through the Digital Legal Deposit program. This step ensures that our stories are preserved in Canada’s national collection and will appear in the country’s library catalogues, connecting our work to researchers, educators, and readers for years to come. It also establishes us formally as a Canadian publisher, with our name recorded as the publisher of record in the bibliographic system.
Beyond learning to tell and share our own stories, we’ve also learned about international distribution. Where Dignity Grows is now for sale through a wide network of booksellers and platforms: Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Everand, Vivlio, Rakuten Kobo, Bol.de, Smashwords, Orell Füssli, Fable, Tolino, Vivlio, Palace Marketplace, Librarie E. Leclerc, Cultura, Casa de Libro, Hugendubel, LaFeltrinelli, Morawa, IBS.it, Décitre, and Standaard Boekhandel. This list spans Canda, the United States and several European countries, demonstrating that our stories are able to travel far beyond our own community.
Together, these steps show that what started as a local storytelling initiative has become a publishing venture with a national and global footprint. We are now archiving our voices in Canada’s cultural memory while making them accessible in bookstores around the world — a dual achievement that strengthens both our legacy and our reach.
Supporting Northern Ontario Arts
A special thanks to the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program for supporting and funding our storytelling and oral history activities these past few months. We’ve learned a lot and are just beginning to put our new skills into practice! We also thank Art Borups Corners, the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program, the Labovitz School of Business and Economics, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Creative Entrepreneurship Program and Ottawa-based Global Dignity Canada.
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