Valley Press Friday Digest, #17

I shall keep things short and to-the-point in this week's digest. The big news is of a new signing: in January 2015 Valley Press will publish All, the second collection of poetry by Canadian-born, Yorkshire-based poet Robert Powell. We've done some great work on both text and cover so far, and are approaching a final manuscript - the poems are phenomenal, of course, and you won't have to take my word for it as I will be sharing some of them on the blog in the coming months. You can see to your right how the cover currently looks - that's a cup full of sunflower seeds. I'm thinking of putting a picture of some fully-grown sunflowers on the back ... or is that too obvious?

Robert (pictured below) will be familiar to some of you as the director of Beam, the arts, architecture and education charity that run the Wakefield Literature Festival - surely one of the best festivals of its kind. They have recently announced their programme for this year and it is phenomenal, check that out (as a priority) here.

Talking of priorities: after months of clinging onto the cliff-edge of my inbox, I've finally let go - there are dozens of unread emails and letters, more arriving all the time, and I can't seem to fully catch up. Unless I'm also going mad, the oldest unreplied-to email (dated 1st August) is from the Lithuanian embassy, wanting to work with Valley Press - so if you too are waiting for a response, at least you're in good company.

In an effort to curb the flow, I spent a couple of hours this week starting an expanded Frequently Asked Questions page, which will hopefully grow over time and result in noticeably less email traffic. Quick-minded readers may comment: 'but if you'd spent those two hours actually replying to emails, the problem would have been solved!' - sure, temporarily, but what about the next time this happens? Plus, I was really in the mood to write some FAQ answers; I'm sure you know what that's like. See you next week.