Publishing pioneer Judith Plant will host a slideshow presentation at the Nelson Civic Theatre on October 8, alongside a sale of New Society Publishers’ (NSP) books.
“Our culture is pretty well-practiced at hosting and celebrating authors, but it’s not often we celebrate the publisher who makes the author’s ideas available to all of us,” said coordinator Jon Steinman, who recently wrapped up the Deconstructing Dinner Film Festival.
Plant will talk about NSP’s 30 year history as a “solutions-oriented publisher focused on providing people with the tools needed for a world of change.”
The authors NSP has published include Joanna Macy, Starhawk, John Taylor Gatto, Richard Heinberg, Michael Ruppert, Steve Solomon, David Holmgren, John Ikerd and many others. The topics covered include food, gardening, permaculture, natural building and alternative energy, parenting, education, community building and environmental issues.
Steinman came up with the idea to invite Plant to Nelson earlier this year.
“When I was on Gabriola and had the chance to meet Judith Plant, I realized just how geographically isolated NSP is from the communities and people their work has touched globally,” he said.
“I decided then that NSP was its own story worth celebrating and where better to do that than in the Nelson area where I would anticipate exists the high per capita presence of NSP books in Canada.”
For instance, the cohousing project currently under construction at Six-Mile has been using a 2011 NSP book called Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities as their go-to manual. They’ve even employed the authors, Charles Durrett and Kathryn McCamant as architects and consultants.
Tickets are $10 and are available at the door or online deconstructingdinner.com.