Augur Literary Society is looking to expand its publishing operations and scope in the coming years.

The Toronto-based group publishes two magazines: Augur, which publishes poetry and short fiction focusing on “the speculative, surreal, or slightly strange,” and Tales & Feathers, which publishes cozy slice-of-life speculative fiction. The group has undertaken an ambitious Kickstarter fundraising campaign this month to not only fund Tales & Feathers but also to take the first steps to create a book-publishing arm, to be called Augur Press, fund its new podcast Murmurstations, which launched in September, and originate a new Canadian science fiction-fantasy prize.

Publishing books has been a dream of Augur Literary Society’s publisher and CEO Kerry C. Byrne’s ever since the launch of Augur magazine eight years ago, but it is only now that the organization has capacity and infrastructure to move in this new direction. While creators are paid, the magazines are produced by a large group of volunteers, and that too will be the initial structure for the press.

Augur Press’s launch is planned for 2027, which will coincide with the tenth anniversary of Augur. The press will focus on the same genres as the magazine – science fiction, fantasy, horror, and dreamy realism – and on writers from under-represented groups, Byrne says. The press will publish poetry, novelettes, and novellas between 60 and 150 pages in length. The focus on shorter forms of fiction is driven by the growth in popularity of these forms with speculative fiction readers.

The press aims to publish two or three titles a year at first, through solicitation of manuscripts and then including a mix of solicited and submitted works. The press’s model is to develop works with authors on themes that align with “Augurian atmosphere and market interest,” Byrne says. For the inaugural list, Augur is soliciting works from writers they have worked with: A.D. Sui (a Theodore Sturgeon and Pushcart finalist) for a novella, and Manhahil Bandukwala (a Writers’ Trust Rising Star) for a volume of poetry. These will be officially solicited and signed after the Kickstarter campaign is accomplished, with the work developed over the following year. Byrne will shift away from the magazines to develop the list and business side of Augur Press – the plan is to eventually sell titles both directly and through the trade. Terese Mason Pierre, Augur’s chief programming officer and editor, will handle the poetry titles for the press.

The final venture Augur hopes to fund and launch is the Fledgling Award for Emerging Speculative Brilliance. The nature of the prize is yet to be determined but Byrne says the idea is to recognize “notable moments in sci-fi-fantasy” in Canadian writing and recognize the change and development of writers working in these genres.