For more than fifty years, Memorial University Press has been a quiet engine of scholarship in the North Atlantic. Its books appear on the shelves of anyone curious about life in Newfoundland and Labrador, and behind each one of those books there is a long chain of decisions, conversations and editorial care.

For more than a decade now, Alison Carr has been at the centre of that work.

Her role as managing editor might sound self-explanatory. But in practice, it resembles something closer to cultural stewardship.

She initially joined the press when it still operated under the banner of ISER Books, a name familiar in academic circles but often misunderstood within the wider reading public.

Ms. Carr saw both the strength of that legacy and its limitations. And when the time came to consider a new identity, she helped guide the press through a thoughtful reimagining. Not a break from history, but a clearer statement of purpose.

This rebranding was not merely cosmetic. It reflected the confidence of a press that had outgrown quiet obscurity. Under Ms. Carr’s leadership, the publication list broadened, more manuscripts were taken on each year and the subjects expanded while still keeping the North Atlantic at the heart of the publisher’s mission.

Ms. Carr earned her bachelor’s degree from Queens University and later studied graphic design at George Brown College and at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Before joining Memorial, she worked for some of the most established and important independent publishers in Canada, including Groundwood Books and Dundurn Press.

And she’s been deeply committed to independent publishing in Canada for years. She’s been a member of the executive committee for the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association (APMA) and was president of the APMA for two years.

She’s currently on the board of the Association of Canadian Publishers and on the executive for the Association of Canadian University Presses.

Her work with Memorial University Press is hands-on and deeply collaborative. She’s been instrumental in raising the visibility of the press and has helped establish the press’s reputation within Canada’s broader publishing landscape.

And that presence matters. It means authors from across the country and beyond recognize Memorial as a serious home for their scholarly work, especially if the North Atlantic is part of their story.

 

Alison Carr, Randy Drover (MUPress sales and marketing co-ordinator) and Rebecca Roberts (Breakwater Books) at the 100 Women 100 Votes event co-hosted by Breakwater, MUPress and EqualVoiceNL in April 2025. Photo courtesy of Alison Carr.

 

But her contribution is not only about expanding reach. It’s also about deepening the press’s sense of responsibility to the communities it serves. Many of the books she shepherds forward deal with lived histories, Indigenous knowledge, environmental change and social memory. They require careful ethical engagement, cultural understanding and a grounded relationship with place.

Ms. Carr brings that grounding, and the press remains accountable not only to scholarly standards but to the people whose experiences are documented in its pages.

The transformation of Memorial University Press did not happen overnight. It happened through years of editorial labour, strategic thinking and an unwavering commitment to making ideas accessible.

In recognition of this work, Memorial’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences awarded Ms. Carr the Dean’s Award for Exceptional Services to the Faculty (Staff) in 2022.

In a university setting, it’s easy to focus on classrooms, labs and lecture halls as the primary sites of intellectual life.

But a university press tells another story. It tells a story about continuity, preservation and the public value of scholarship.

Through her work at Memorial University Press, Ms. Carr has shaped not only what the university publishes, but how it understands and celebrates its place in the world.

Her contributions ensure that Memorial’s research is not confined to campus, but carried outward into conversations that stretch across the North Atlantic and beyond.