Chapel Street Editions

01/29/2026

"Something quite extraordinary often happens when people who are bare acquaintances have a conversation about a mutually appreciated book, or when one of them introduces a book previously unknown to the other that instantly rings a bell and sparks an animated conversation. It's as if in a loose network of associations an island of common ground suddenly appears and a sense of affinity clicks into place that leaps across the space between them."

Next Thursday, February 5th, 7 pm at the shop (88 York St.), we're excited to welcome Woodstock publisher, author, and activist Keith Helmuth in to read from and talk about his memoir Working in the Commonwealth of Books.

It's a book for anyone who reads books, talks about books, works in the book trade, or is interested in grassroots conversations about community and culture, vocation and values.

We hope you will join us.

01/11/2026

We're hosting or participating in some exciting events over the next few weeks!

All events take place at the shop unless otherwise noted.

See our website for more details.

09/20/2025

Chapel Street Editions books available today at Buttermilk Creek Fall Festival in Florenceville.

09/09/2025

A couple of years ago during the transfer from Westminster Books to Westminster Bookmark we were taking our store's inventory. On one table we had piled all of the books by local publisher Chapel Street Editions. From Peter Clair's Taapoategl & Pallet to Virginia Bliss Bjerkelund's Meadowlands, it was amazing, even a bit overwhelming, to see just how much of our region's creativity and history was contained there.

Keith Helmuth, publisher of Chapel Street Editions, has devoted his life to books and book culture. He has done this as an activist, a bookseller, a college librarian, a bookstore manager, and a community-based publisher. And whenever he's in the shop talking books or presenting an author at an event, he brings his quiet curiosity, his sense of purpose, and his kind nature with him.

So what a joy to see his memoir, Working in the Commonwealth of Books, arrive at the shop today. We at Westminster Bookmark can't wait to read it and share it with you.

08/28/2025

Book Launch at Connell House:
Chris in the Wilderness is a new book by George Frederick Clarke (1883-1974). It is a rare and wonderful occasion when an unpublished manuscript by a much-loved author is discovered, and their voice is heard once again.
Such is the case with the novel Chris in the Wilderness. In 2007, the manuscript was found among Clarke’s papers in the attic of his Woodstock, NB home.
The book has now been published and includes illustrations by Tappan Adney. A book launch will be held at Connell House in Woodstock on September 4th at 7 p.m.
Chris in the Wilderness is the story of a teenage boy who accompanies Noel Polchies on a hunting expedition into the great woods of central New Brunswick to learn the ways of wilderness living.
Noel is the main character. He was a Wolastoqiyik Elder and Clarke’s close friend. This book is his tribute to Noel. It is a substantial portrait of the man and his character.
Mary Bernard, Clarke’s granddaughter, family archivist, and editor regards Chris in the Wilderness as Clarke’s best novel. She will be in attendance from her home in Cambridge, England. Readings will be presented and Mary will be speaking about the importance of this book to the remembrance of Noel Polchies and for the preservation of cultural heritage.

08/21/2025

08/05/2025

Happy ! 💕🇨🇦📚

“Everything reminds me of an arts column.”

A Great Cloud of Witnessing: Arts Journalism of Nancy Bauer, now provides a lively trip through almost four decades in which the New Brunswick arts scene has developed in a particularly creative way.

Nancy Bauer’s career as an arts journalist began in 1980 when Joseph Sherman, the editor of ArtsAtlantic, the “arts journal of record,” asked if she could be their New Brunswick-based writer. Over almost twenty years, she contributed 18 articles as well as reviews of books, plays, and art exhibits, as well as providing notes and updates from important happenings in the province, such as the foundational meetings of the New Brunswick Arts Board.

Over the next 11 years, she wrote a total of 531 columns, 800 words per week. This column was a must-read for anyone interested in New Brunswick arts; it encapsulated what was happening in New Brunswick’s arts and culture scene. As it delivered the scoop on the present moment—book launches, gallery openings, theatre productions, award ceremonies, etc.—it also documented significant developments of the past, like the formation of Fredericton’s Gallery Connexion.

Filled with curiosity, passion, and insight, these columns grappled with pertinent issues of the day like arts funding and the rise of the e-reader; they paid homage to the people that were making things happen in New Brunswick’s arts and culture scene and commemorate significant figures on their passing. All of this makes her columns, and the body of work in whole, a necessary starting point for anyone who plans to research or write about New Brunswick arts and culture.

As a creative writer, Nancy Bauer was a participant-observer and an organizer in the arts. She was among the founders of the Maritime Writers’ Workshop, the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick, ArtsNB, the Gallery Connexion, and the Word Feast Literary Festival in Fredericton."

Visit us in person or online at tidewaterbooks.ca 💕🇨🇦📚

Chapel Street Editions

08/05/2025

Happy weekend!! 'That We Have Lived At All: poems of love, witness & gratitude' by Marilyn Lerch is our Featured in-store! 💕🇨🇦📚

"Marilyn Lerch writes from a vital connection with the beauty of the Earth and with a compassionate hold on the reality of both personal and community relationships. The core vision that informs her work repeatedly bursts forth with incisive images of the human world she cares about so deeply and with which she has a long history of passionate engagement. These images characterize both the insufferable folly that now threatens the commonwealth of life, and her unwavering commitment to a shared vision of how to make a better world for all.

“Marilyn Lerch defines insight, perception. She moves through the world, feet sensing ground, eyes witnessing all, and then finding what is endless reward, i.e. the proverb: “life not to be questioned, but borne”; “mortality the hardest truth to live with”.... In every line, a haiku lurks; in every poem, there’s radical instruction: “refuse any form of slavery ... /perform acts that feel right and lovely in themselves, /create profound, poignant, terrifyingly beautiful art....” With the “moon my essential companion” and “coming to serenity in the flow” of tides and light and love, Lerch is as sensitive as Dylan Thomas, but as clear-eyed as Elizabeth Bishop. A trustworthy inner voice cupped gently by paper.”

–George Elliott Clarke
7th Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2016-17)"

Visit us in person or online at tidewaterbooks.ca 💕🇨🇦📚

Chapel Street Editions

07/13/2025

What magical sounds do a guitar, violin, piano, and other instruments make? Find out in this exciting interactive introduction to music that's just right for curious little ones! 'My Little Music Book: I Love Music' by Marion Billet! 💕🐱📚🎶🎺

Seen here w/ Paul Lauzon's 'When Music Happens' 💕🐚📚🎶🎻

"What Happens When Music Happens?

Singer/songwriter, music therapist, and philosopher of music, Paul Lauzon, asks and answers this question in this truly unique book.

When Music Happens combines a poetics of music with a scholarly exploration that draws on biological, neurological, emotional, psychological, and ecological experience and response. The author illuminates “the anatomy of a musical being” at every stage of life; he unfolds a holistic “Music Systems Theory” that provides a coherent context for the practice of music therapy. The result is a book that shows the way music pervades human existence and why it is effective as a developmental discipline and as an integrative therapy."

Visit us in person or online at tidewaterbooks.ca 💕🇨🇦📚

Scholastic Canada Chapel Street Editions

07/10/2025

Emily Dickinson Goes Camping and other Wildly Domestic Poems starts with a salute to a poet who has long been a presence in the author’s life. Today's Featured in-store! 💕🇨🇦📚

"Karen Davidson’s new book begins with a collection of twenty poems that grew up around her affinity with Emily Dickinson’s often puzzling work. Into a vast and often dense array of scholarly commentary on Dickinson’s enigmatic ambiguity, Karen Davidson drops a cool sheaf of poems with a transparent twinkle in her eye.

As a poet and kindred spirit, she lifts up the subtle, wry, and serious humour often hidden under the surface of Emily Dickinson’s poems and in her unorthodox social and philosophical stance. This copacetic touch gives Emily Dickinson Goes Camping a poetic and literary aura of unique interest.

Forty-two additional poems in four sections complete the book. They range in time and geography from the author’s home, garden, and community life in rural New Brunswick back to childhood on a Manitoba farm. In poem after poem, a distillation of language unfolds across the page that fulfills the promise of the subtitle. “Wildly domestic” is an unusual voice to hold in tension and harmony. But, like Emily Dickinson, Karen Davidson has made it the signature of her art."

Chapel Street Editions