Marty Gervais

Charles Henry "Marty" Gervais (born 1946) is a Canadianpoet, photographer, professor, journalist, and publisher.

Life
Gervais is the publisher of Black Moss Press, one of Canada's oldest literary publishing firms. It has published nearly 500 titles.

Gervais has also published plays, children's books, non-fiction and, a book of photography, A Show of Hands: Boxing on the Border (2004).

His first published novel, Reno, appeared in 2005 from Mosaic Press, and was nominated for the international Three-Day Novel Writing contest. Another book, Taking My Blood, charting his time in a hospital, and including photographs he took while he was there, came out in 2005.

In May 2009, another book, "Lucky Days: New Poems," appeared from Mosaic Press. This followed Gervais' 2006 book, Wait For Me, that was launched on the west coast at readings in Victoria, British Columbia, and Salt Spring Island.

In 2009, Biblioasis published The Rumrunners: The Expanded Edition. It was a bestseller, and appeared on the Globe and Mail's top 10 in non-fiction titles. In 2010, Mosaic Press published another non-fiction title, this one about growing up Catholic. It is called Afternoons With The Devil.

Gervais lives in Windsor, Ontario.

Recognition
In 1998, he won the prestigious Toronto’s Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian letters and to emerging writers. In 1996, he was awarded the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award for his book, Tearing Into A Summer Day. That book was awarded the City of Windsor Mayor’s Award for literature. Gervais won this award again in 2003 for another collection, To Be Now: New and Selected Poems. Gervais has also been the recipient of 16 Western Ontario Newspaper Awards for journalism.

In 2006 Gervais and his work were the subject of an episode of the television series Heart of a Poet produced by Canadian filmmaker Maureen Judge.