Wong, Arsenal to publish BIPOC books
August 26th, 2025
Award-winning author, Lindsay Wong is partnering with Arsenal Pulp Press to select, edit and publish works of adult literary fiction and non-fiction by emerging BIPOC writers who have published no more than one book previously. Applicants must be Canadian citizens or landed immigrants; there are no age restrictions. Those currently enrolled in a post-secondary program are not eligible.
“Arsenal has been monumental to my own career and for so many other BIPOC authors in Canada who would not otherwise have an opportunity to publish if Brian Lam and his incredible team did not take a chance on them,” Wong says. “In mainstream publishing, BIPOC authors are still told they are ‘too niche,’ ‘too weird,’ and ‘not reliable enough,’ and so many aspiring and emerging writers often feel discouraged when they aren’t able to get that first publishing contract. I am honestly ecstatic to collaborate with Arsenal again, and I am excited to see what racialized writers in Canada have been working on. I love genre-blurring books that transcend what we think we know about a particular subject or form. I love dark humour. Nothing in literature scares or shocks me.”
“We’re thrilled for the opportunity to work with Lindsay to develop the work of emerging BIPOC writers in Canada,” says Lam, Arsenal’s publisher. “It’s something that is very dear to our publishing heart.”
Lindsay will oversee the program’s initial call for submissions, which will have an application window of four months beginning on August 26, 2025. The call for submissions can be found on Arsenal Pulp’s website: arsenalppulpp.com
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Lindsay Wong is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling memoir The Woo-Woo (Arsenal Pulp, 2018), which was a finalist for Canada Reads 2019 and won the 2019 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. Her book of short stories, Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality (Penguin, 2023), was shortlisted for the BC and Yukon Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. She has written a YA novel entitled My Summer of Love and Misfortune (Simon & Schuster, 2020). Her novel Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies is forthcoming in January 2026. Wong holds a BFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in literary non-fiction from Columbia University. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Winnipeg. Follow her on Instagram and Threads @@lindsayywongg.m.
Photo credit: Shimon Karmel
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