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By Lloyd Mackey
Wood Lake Books began in 1982 when two writers decided
to publish an occasional book in their spare time. Ralph Milton and James
Taylor didn’t think they were starting an industry. But . . . Milton
and Taylor’s small kitchen table operation has grown to be a
publisher [whose] products are inclusive, truth-seeking and life-affirming.
Wood Lake Books mission statement
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| Margaret Kyle and Mike Schwartzentruber of Wood Lake Books |
OKANAGAN people who remember the beginnings of Wood
Lake Books (WLB) will recall how Milton and Taylor took over a vacant
Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall near the shore of Wood Lake in
Winfield. In so doing, they were able to get their book publishing
operation off of their respective kitchen tables – one in the
Okanagan, and the other in Toronto.
It was in researching this story that your humble
scribe realized the publisher is, at 25 years, the same age as BC Christian News – of
which I am privileged to be founding editor.
But I digress. I first met Taylor and Milton a decade
before they started Wood Lake. Milton, married to a United Church minister,
was a broadcaster and storyteller extraordinaire with a Mennonite
background. Taylor was managing editor of the United
Church Observer when I was a staff writer
there.
Our paths would cross again in the mid-90s, when Taylor
arranged for me to write These Evangelical
Churches of Ours.
Taylor and Milton sold WLB to the other employees and
took on advisory roles in 1994. Since employee-ownership began, the company
has still striven to carry out the original mission. In 1996, the imprint
Northstone Publishing was created, aimed at a broader range of spiritual
pilgrims.
Taylor and WLB’s current editorial
director, Mike Schwartzentruber were my editors for These Evangelical Churches. And it
is Schwartzentruber and his spouse, WLB marketing director Margaret Kyle,
who pick up on the story.
Continue article >>
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 Wood Lake Books may not be a household word to the good
folk at Trinity Baptist, Kelowna Christian Centre or other evangelical
churches. But they would be better known in mainstream churches. The
publisher is becoming a communicator for concepts of emerging Christianity
put forward by mainliner Marcus Borg and evangelical Brian McLaren.
Today, WLB employees 23 people – not many more
than when the employee-ownership concept was first enunciated, says Kyle.
But it actually operates under three imprints, each of which aims its
efforts “to a specific niche.”
The WoodLake imprint “is directed at churches and
is resource-oriented,” she says, with Schwartzentruber adding that
the original imprint still reflects its core business, if not its outreach
capacity. “Our curriculum materials – known as Seasons in the Spirit –
are used in United, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Anglican congregations
– as well as in some Baptist, Disciples of Christ and Mennonite
churches.”
Northstone, says Kyle, is “directed at the seeker
market. It focuses on such things as sexual and health education, spiritual
discernment and a whole range of spinoffs such as wine, bread gardening
art, pets and grandparenting.”
But it is the CopperHouse line of books that is raising
a little excitement around the publishing house these days, in part because
it is the focal point of “the emerging Christian paradigm,”
notes Kyle. And Schwartzentruber notes that the “ecological
focus” adds to the depth of presentation.
Whatever the emphasis, well over one million items have
come off the presses since that day, 25 years ago, when Milton and Taylor
began working in their kitchens.
Contact: woodlakebooks.com
December 2007
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