CMU Press thrives in the sweet spot between academics, artistic merit, and focus on Mennonites

In the eclectic, vibrant landscape of Prairie books, many publishers work hard to cultivate their own niches and specialties. 

Fewer of these balance such interests with an institutional direction, and fewer still manage to find the sweet spot between such specificity and a broader appeal.

But CMU Press and its director, Dr. Sue Sorensen, are out to plumb the best of both worlds. 

“I feel confident that CMU Press is both serving the Mennonite community and fulfilling my objective of creating excellent, beautiful books for everyone,” Sorensen says. 

“We’re a scrappy little publisher that manages to pull off some lovely and smart books.”

When Sorensen became director of the press in 2021, she inherited a long publishing legacy. 

While today the press operates under the auspices of Winnipeg’s Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), it began 50 years ago as CMBC Publications under the oversight of the Canadian Mennonite Bible College.

CMU Press itself was formed in 2000 out of this previous iteration, and the two presses have a combined history of over 100 publications.

“By default, CMU Press is an academic publisher with a leaning toward Mennonite studies and a serious interest in theology and the church,” Sorensen explains, further noting how it espouses a commitment to “peace, service, social justice, and conflict transformation.”

Sorensen, a professor of English at CMU since 2005, admits that as an English professor, “I can’t help but expand more robustly into literary works. I’ve always been invested in independent regional publishing.”

To that end, she says, the press balances oversight from a council of CMU faculty and staff with that from an external advisory council, cooperates with other Manitoba publishers through the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers, and works with talented young freelancers “who get as much of a kick out of making books as I do.”

“I just love making books,” she says, “and doing so in a professional manner, with high standards in design and production.”

In particular, CMU grads Jonathan Dyck and Katie Sawatzky both serve on the external advisory committee and are contracted for design and editing services, respectively.

“CMU Press is definitely an unusual enterprise,” notes Sorensen. 

“It’s always been run by one or two faculty members and has often functioned on a wish and a prayer.” 

She chalks its continued success up to the support of the local community, the quality of its offerings, and the skill of collaborators like Dyck and Sawatzky.

“Folks on the Prairies are well-read and very keen to celebrate artistic merit,” she says. And CMU has given the press, and Sorensen, relative autonomy in how it pursues these aims. 

“Most of our manuscripts come from Mennonite writers,” says Sorensen, “and we choose the best of them.”

In reflecting on CMU Press’s titles, past and present, many highlights come to mind for Sorensen. 

One was Dora Dueck’s award-winning This Hidden Thing, in the production of which Sorensen was involved as an editor in 2011; her first book produced as CMU Press’s director was Dueck’s 2022 essay collection Return Stroke.

“I’m so honoured that Dora brought this book to the press and trusted me with it,” she says.

Travelling further back in time, Sorensen points to the press’s Open Access archive, through which they’re scanning backlist titles from their CMBC days and making them freely available online. 

“These older works are long out of print, but many are of historical interest, especially biographical works of key personalities on the Western Canadian Mennonite scene.”

Looking to the future, Sorensen says part of her goal is to “in some small way further important conversations.”

A focus of particular urgency for Sorensen is “to foster compassionate, productive dialogue among settlers and Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island,” and such a dialogue can be detected in the forthcoming Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission by scholar and minister Dr. Carmen Lansdowne, the first Indigenous woman to ever be elected as moderator of the United Church of Canada.

Other forthcoming highlights are Ice: Moments, a collection of photography by the late University of Manitoba arctic researcher Klaus Hochheim, and In Search of a Mennonite Imagination, a collection spanning 125 years of Mennonite criticism and being edited by York University’s Robert Zacharias for a 2025 release.

It’s easy to recognize and appreciate both the passion and rigour Sorensen brings to her work at CMU Press, and exciting as a reader to peruse their wide-ranging front list. 

“I just love making books,” she says, “and doing so in a professional manner, with high standards in design and production.” 

These standards will quickly become apparent to anyone lucky enough to pick up one of CMU Press’s recent releases.

“Books save lives,” Sorensen concludes. 

“They’ve saved my life many times over. I love to see a book through every stage on its way to readers.”