About the Press
Write Where We Belong Press is an independent Canadian literary and arts publishing house founded in 2023 and directed by Mary Simmerling — philosopher, poet, Adlerian practitioner, and survivor.
The Press was created as a feminist act of resistance — to unsilence women’s and other marginalized voices, to publish survivor-centered and justice-driven work, and to challenge the systems that have — for far too long — determined whose stories are worthy of being heard.
We produce, edit, and publish poetry, prose, and anthologies that center truth-telling, creative recovery, and the power of art to create space to bear witness. Our authors write from lived experience, bringing forward work that transforms personal and collective experience into meaning, healing, and hope.
Write Where We Belong Press is grounded in integrity, compassion, and the conviction that art and ethics belong to the same conversation.
The Press operates alongside and in dialogue with the What Were You Wearing installations and other curatorial projects under the Write Where We Belong umbrella, extending our shared commitment to art as a form of witness, resistance, and repair.
Our Focus
Writing on the axes of trauma, meaning-making, and reclamation.
Tracing familial and generational geographies — the inherited landscapes of memory, silence, and survival.
Honouring the lived experience of grief and loss, and exploring what so often feels unbearable.
Practicing witness that refuses turning away.
Writing as a spiritual practice — an act of creation, attention, and restoration.
Grounded in ethics, justice, and belonging.
Resisting erasure — of people, of stories, and of truth itself.
Our Ethos
At the heart of Write Where We Belong Press is the understanding that writing is not performance, but practice — a discipline of truth-telling and connection.
As Pat Schneider observed, “In writing, we see, sometimes with fear and trembling, who we have been, who we really are, and we glimpse now and then who we might become.” This recognition of writing as revelation and transformation is central to our work.
We hold to the belief that writing is art, and "our own stories are the stuff of which our freedom is made, our self-esteem, our power.” The stories we publish are acts of reclamation — of voice, agency, and belonging.
As Pat Schneider wrote, when we stay with the writing itself, “no subject is too big.” Through language, we make meaning of what once felt unspeakable. And when we share our words with one another, “we close the wound of loneliness and may participate in healing the broken world.”
This is the work of bearing witness — and it is the foundation of Write Where We Belong Press.
Select Titles
Anthologies
(*Published by Amherst Writers & Artists Press; edited and produced by Write Where We Belong)
Poetry Collections
Scholarly Works
Editorial Vision
Each publication is approached as a collaboration — a dialogue between writer, editor, and reader. The process is deliberate and deeply respectful of voice, form, and truth.
We do not separate art from ethics, or craft from conscience. The act of creation is also an act of restoration — of connection, belonging, and hope.
We stand with those who write through pain, silence, and survival — not to explain, but to claim. Not to soften what happened, but to name it.
Mission Statement
We believe that writing can heal, transform, and resist.
We publish work that gives voice to the silenced, allows for meaning-making where false narratives have been foisted upon us, and holds space for truth in all its forms.
Through writing, we bear witness to both the wounds and the wonders of being human. We believe that every story, when spoken in truth, belongs.
