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ECW Press

Logo: Pumpkin46, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

Canadian book publisher

ECW Press is a Canadian book publisher located in Toronto, Ontario. It was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named Essays on Canadian Writing. They started publishing trade and scholarly books in 1979.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1974Founded1
  • HeadquartersToronto1
  • Websiteecwpress.com
  • Legal formBusiness corporations (which includes professional corporations)3
  • LEI254900KJ5MJL69OTC3743
  • StatusActive3
  • LEI statusLapsed (not renewed)3
  • Registered address665 Gerrard Street East, M4M 1Y2 Toronto, Canada3
  • Registered withMinistry of Government and Consumer Services, 3735203

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ECW Press is a Canadian book publisher located in Toronto, Ontario. It was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named Essays on Canadian Writing. They started publishing trade and scholarly books in 1979.2

The story

The company was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named Essays on Canadian Writing. Five years later, ECW published its first books—trade and scholarly titles. It started with two principal series: the Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors (ABCMA) and Canadian Writers and Their Works (CWTW). Through the 1980s, ECW upgraded its typesetting facilities, published reference titles and began to service third-party clients, creating books for corporations to use for promotional purposes and events such as anniversaries.

In the 1990s, ECW re-commenced trade publishing and expanded its scholarly and reference lines for high school and public libraries. They started publishing a mix of commercial books alongside their literary books, such as pop culture books (the first being The Duchovny Files: The Truth Is in Here by Paul Mitchell, published in 1995, a biographical dossier on actor David Duchovny that includes episode guides of The X-Files), sports books, and genre fiction.

Robert Lecker left the company in 2003.

ECW produced its first audiobook in 2009 and expanded its operations in 2015. ECW launched the audiobook imprint Bespeak Audio, focusing on Canadian production of Canadian books, in 2017.

From Wikipedia’s article on ECW Press, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5

Products and brands

Fiction

Steve Stanton, Reconciliation, Retribution, Redemption, Freenet

Heather Tucker, The Clay Girl

Jen Sookfong Lee, The Conjoined

Anne Emery, Cecilian Vespers, The Sign of the Cross, Obit, Ruined Abbey, Death at Christy Burke's, Lament for Bonnie, Children in the Morning, and Barrington Street Blues

Read the full text

Joey Comeau, Overqualified

Cordelia Strube, On the Shores of Darkness, There Is Light

John McFetridge, Dirty Sweet: A Mystery, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Swap: A Mystery, Tumblin' dice

Kevin J. Anderson, Clockwork Lives (with Neil Peart), Clockwork Angels (with Neil Peart), editor of 2113: Stories Inspired by the Music of Rush

Amanda Leduc, The Miracles of Ordinary Men

Randal Graham, Beforelife, Afterlife Crisis, and Nether Regions.

Andrew F. Sullivan, The Marigold

Non-fiction

Neil Peart, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, Roadshow, Far and Away, Far and Near, Far and Wide

Darcy McKeough, The Duke of Kent

Maude Barlow, Boiling Point

George Bowering, The Hockey Scribbler

Barry Avrich, Moguls, Monsters and Madmen

Geri Jewell, I'm Walking as Straight as I Can

Liisa Ladouceur, Encyclopedia Gothica

Liisa Ladouceur, How to Kill a Vampire: Fangs in Folklore, Film and Fiction

Emm Gryner, The Healing Power of Singing: Raise Your Voice, Change Your Life (What Touring with David Bowie, Single Parenting and Ditching the Music Business Taught Me in 25 Easy Steps)

Christopher Labos, Does Coffee Cause Cancer?

Lenore Newman, Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food

Lenore Newman and Evan D.G. Fraser, Dinner on Mars: The Technologies That Will Feed the Red Planet and Transform Agriculture on Earth

Poetry

Marilyn Dumont, The Pemmican Eaters

Judith Fitzgerald, River

Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Slow States of Collapse

Robert Priest, Reading the Bible Backwards

Jamie Sharpe, Cut-up Apologetic

Patrick Woodcock, You can't bury them all

George Murray, Whiteout, Glimpse, Diversion

Emily Schultz, Songs for the Dancing Chicken

R. M. Vaughan, Ruined Stars

Paul Vermeersch, The Fat Kid

Hawksley Workman, Hawksley Burns for Isadora

Gillian Sze, Quiet Night Think

Sports

Tim Hornbaker, National Wrestling Alliance, The Untold Story of the Monopoly that Strangled Pro Wrestling, Capitol Revolution,

Yvonne Bambrick, The Urban Cycling Survival Guide

Val James, Black Ice

Red Kelly, The Red Kelly Story

Pat Patterson, Accepted

Dennis Hull, The Third Best Hull

Bruce Hart, Straight from the Hart

Heath McCoy, Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling

Marsha Erb, Stu Hart: Lord of the Ring

Greg Prato, Sack Exchange

Bryan Alvarez & R.D. Reynolds, The Death of WCW: 10th Anniversary Edition

Dylan "Hornswoggle" Postl, Life Is Short & So Am I

Pop Culture

Lindsay Gibb, National Treasure

Crissy Calhoun, Love You To Death, Spotted: your one and only unofficial guide to Gossip Girl

Jesse McLean, Wait For It

Graeme Burk and Robert Smith?, Who's 50, Who Is The Doctor, The Doctors Are In

Greg Renoff, Van Halen Rising

From Wikipedia’s article on ECW Press, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5

Timeline

  1. 1974Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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