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Diversity and Inclusion

HarperCollinsCanada is guided by our core values as a publisher, which include diversity, inclusion, and respect for all our authors, our publishing industry colleagues, as well as our team members. Our goal is to cultivate a publishing environment that reflects those values in practice. 

As both a publisher and an employer, HarperCollinsCanada views diversity broadly and aims to include people of all ethnicities, races, genders and gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, classes, religions, national origins, and abilities. We are a member of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, providing employees with resources and training to further support being an open, accepting, and inclusive place to work and to publish.

In discussion with employees, initiatives are being developed to remove barriers and better attract and retain employees in BIPOC communities to work in the publishing industry. Additional anti-racism training and education programs have been developed for employees to raise awareness and further build an open and inclusive culture for our staff, authors and partners.

We are proud to publish authors from many backgrounds, communities, and cultures. We welcome voices representing the wide-ranging perspectives and experiences that reflect our books’ varied readerships. In every case, we look to broaden our representation, actively seeking authors from under-represented communities and providing a supportive and collaborative environment in which to publish their books in order to bring their work to the largest possible readership both at home and abroad.

HarperCollins Canada participates in outreach into the reading and writing communities. This includes participation in and support of literary festivals across the country; editorial team participation in author/editor quick-pitch sessions at The Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD) and the King’s College MFA in Creative Nonfiction program; speaking and attending symposiums with Diaspora Dialogues, Massey College, Word on the Street, and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, among others; and the bi-annual awarding of the HCC/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction, in collaboration with UBC’s MFA Creative Writing Program and the CookeMcDermid Agency. Since 2013, the prize has awarded a contract and full publication to a student. Executive Editor Janice Zawerbny has been instrumental in founding the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, an annual award for a single work of fiction by a woman or non-binary writer. HCC Executive Publisher Iris Tupholme serves on its committee.

New outreach programs include the inaugural Writer of Promise Scholarship at the Humber School for Writers, to be awarded annually to a student to help fund writing time. HCC Executive Publisher Iris Tupholme serves as the Chair of the HSW Program Advisory Committee. 

Also launching in 2020 is an HCC Author Consultation and Referral Program, in which authors from the HCC program are invited to refer writers of promise from a widely inclusive background to HCC editors. This program will be launched following consultation with authors of a range of backgrounds and experiences, and contributors to the consultation and referral process will be compensated in recognition of that work.

HarperCollins Canada has had an active role in creating and participating in the International Visitors Programme at the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Now in its thirteenth year, this visitors program has brought editors, writers, publishers, and literary scouts from around the world to meet Canadian authors against the backdrop of the festival. More than 300 participants have travelled to Toronto from countries such as China, Scotland, Ireland, the US, France, Spain, Portugal, Israel, and Italy. Each year, Indigenous publishers are invited fellows of the program, with the goal to expand global reach for Indigenous authors.

HarperCollinsCanada is proud to support the following organizations:

  • Frontier College
  • Humber School for Writers
  • The Children’s Book Bank
  • The Writers’ Trust of Canada
  • The FOLD Foundation
  • Kingston Writers Fest
  • Toronto International Festival of Authors 
  • Book and Periodical Council
  • Vancouver International Writers Festival
  • The Writers’ Union of Canada
  • Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts
  • Canadian Writers' Summit 
  • West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society
  • Funny Pages Canada
  • Toronto Reference Library
  • gritLIT
  • Creative Nonfiction Collective
  • Toronto Romance Writers
  • The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

 

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