New Star Books is closing down.

In a statement posted to the Vancouver-based independent press’s website earlier this week, publisher Rolf Maurer said he had made the “painful decision” to wind down the press’s operations.

“There are several factors that have led to this decision, including my own age and health, increasing difficulty of access to the marketplace, and the cold wind blowing in New Star’s direction from our arts councils, whose support of our work is a condition of existence,” Maurer wrote.

Maurer began working at New Star in 1981, and has been the owner and operator since 1990, according to a BC BookWorld biography.

New Star grew from literary supplements published in the independent newspaper the Georgia Straight in the late 1960s. A collective of authors and writers responsible for the supplements established the Georgia Straight Writing Series to publish books. Over the years the “York Street commune” transformed the press into the Vancouver Community Press, with an emphasis on current affairs and politics titles. In 1974 the press was renamed New Star Books, and from 1978 to 1990 was led by Lanny Beckman as publisher.

The indie publisher has faced fiscal challenges before.

In awarding Maurer the Jim Douglas Publisher of the Year Award in 2011, Harbour Publishing publisher Howard White said “I am fully aware of the irony and also the importance of making this award in a year when New Star, whose great contributions have never been properly appreciated by our funding agencies, has had its operating grant brutally cut by the BC Arts Council. … But if there is one quality of Rolf’s you can really count on, it is tenacity and I know he will stay true to his purpose, gear down, and power through to many more years of outstanding books.”

New Star will not be acquiring any new books, but will continue to promote and distribute its existing titles, Maurer said.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to engage in meaningful work, and to work with writers in bringing their books to readers,” he wrote. “I’m grateful to have lived and worked in an era when the value of the work we do, as publishers, writers, and others involved in publishing, was valued, and supported by citizens through the taxes they pay.”