Orca publishes everything from beautifully illustrated board books and picture books to middle-grade and young-adult fiction. We strive to produce books that illuminate the experiences of people of all ethnicities, people with disabilities and people who identify as LGBTQ+. Our goal is to provide reading material that represents the diversity of human experience to readers of all ages. Orca aims to help young readers see themselves reflected in the books they read. We are mindful of this in our selection of books and have a particular interest in publishing books that celebrate the lives of Indigenous people. Providing young people with exposure to diversity through reading creates a more compassionate world.

Orca also offers three different series of high-interest, low-reading level (hi-lo) fiction for those readers facing literacy issues. The series are Orca Currents, Orca Soundings and Orca Anchor.

A long-time member of the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia and the Association of Canadian Publishers, Orca is committed to bringing our stories and authors to as wide an audience as possible. Our responsible publishing practices include printing virtually all books in Canada on Forest Stewardship Certified paper and making every effort to reduce, reuse and recycle. All Orca titles are also available in multiple digital formats for reading on a variety of devices, and collections are available on a subscription basis.

The main editorial office and warehouse are located in an old house, now painted yellow, built in the early 1900s in Victoria, British Columbia. Attached to the back of the house is an old brick structure that was once the barn for the horses that delivered milk to nearby residents. Across the street is an urban organic farm where Orca staff can go to pick up produce and seedlings in the spring. Down the street are Canada’s oldest Chinatown and synagogue, and just beyond that the tree-lined streets of downtown Victoria and the Inner Harbour. From a warehouse near Bellingham, Washington, Orca distributes its own titles and those of a number of other Canadian publishers throughout the United States.

Orca acknowledges that the area in which we work is occupied by people, ourselves included, who are largely not indigenous to this area. We live and work within the traditional territories of the Lkwungen (Esquimalt and Songhees), Malahat, Pacheedaht, Scia’new, T’Sou-ke and WSÁNEĆ (Pauquachin, Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum) peoples. We are grateful for the natural beauty and resources we have access to and aim through the books we publish to play a part in raising readers and citizens who will have a great understanding of our history and this land.