This week at Valley Press, #90: 'How to Disappear'

Dear bookish types,

It’s Wendy here again, with the Valley Press fortnightly newsletter. It’s been an exciting couple of weeks at VP HQ, with lots happening, but I’ll start by wishing you all a happy Chinese New Year! We are very lucky to be able to boast two brilliant and highly-thought-of Chinese authors: Yang Zhengguang’s How Old Dan Became a Tree is a collection of short stories which challenge boundaries and are stacked full of dark humour and film-like vividness, while Ye Guangqin’s Mountain Stories is an insightful, creative and often magically absurd collection set in China’s Qinling mountains. We’re proud of being able to explore other cultures and happy to be in a position to bring world literature into people’s lives and onto their bookshelves. If you fancy travelling to China without going anywhere, this is how to do it. (A third entry in this series is to be published in May.)

Next up, we have news of our latest launch and a new venture by Valley Press into the world of graphic novels. Si Smith has produced more than just a comic: as far as storytelling goes, How to Disappear Completely ticks all the boxes. It is intense, moving and truthful, and the artistic representation of the story is incredible; the use of colour and light as metaphor is skilful and superb. I don’t read very many graphic novels, but I have now read this one three times, finding something new to enjoy each time I do. Without wanting to offer spoilers, it is gripping. What I will say is this: we don’t talk about male vulnerability enough, we don’t talk about male mental health enough, and the pressure to ‘get on with it’. By exploring vulnerability, especially in men, and mental health problems, we challenge the taboo around it, so this feels like a very important publication. It explores a very personal journey and does it in a startlingly beautiful way. How to Disappear Completely is launching at OK Comics in Leeds on February 22nd at 5pm. If you’re on Facebook, there’s a Facebook Events Page where you can catch up with all the news surrounding it. It is quite honestly one of the best things I’ve read in a while.

In other news, we were delighted to welcome an aspiring young publisher to the Valley Press Headquarters last weekend. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take any pictures, so you’ll have to believe me when I say that we had a lovely hour or two chatting about publishing, books in general, the publishing industry in the North, and how to get a foot in the door with secondary school student Evie, her mum Caroline and even Evie’s gran who came along to reminisce about Scarborough. We think it’s really important for young people wanting to work in publishing, as writers and creatives or as the behind-the-scenes team that make the magic happen, to be able to come along and chat to real life people about the realities of that industry. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have a young person eager to see how it all works.

That just about sums up this week, except to say that Jamie and Emma have once again provided a brilliant and entertaining podcast, which you can find here (and remember, you can subscribe on iTunes here). One last thing, in the form of a tiny little bit of self-promotion: I am absolutely delighted to say that my poem ‘Nan Hardwicke Turns into a Hare’ will be featured on BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please on Sunday the 18th February at 4.30pm. I am so excited I can hardly breathe, especially since it is the incredible poet Liz Berry as guest host and I am a huge fan. My own Valley Press poetry collection, Gifts the Mole Gave Me, is available in the Valley Press shop alongside many, many other wonderful Valley Press titles – we also recently published new poetry by Liz herself in our Verse Matters anthology. Anyway, enough talking about me, I hope you have a lovely weekend, and check in on us on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram. We have a lot of fun on social media, come and join in!

If you are interested in becoming a Valley Press reader and helping us to gauge public reaction to potential books, drop us a line; and if you or your publication are interested in reviewing any of our titles, do get in touch. Independent publishers need all the support they can get, we’re passionate about our authors and want to support them on their writing journey; spreading the word about their work seems one of the best ways to do so.

In the meantime, have a bookish weekend!

Best wishes,
Wendy Pratt (Reader Engagement Officer)
x

This week at Valley Press, #87: 'Old Dan'

Dear readers,

Happy new year! I'm writing on behalf of your favourite Scarborough-based publishing company (remember us?), where we're starting the year as we mean to continue; just five days in and already a new title is on the shelves.

First up for 2018 is How Old Dan Became a Tree, the second in our 'Shaanxi Stories' series published in association with Northwest University, Xi’an (if anyone from there is reading, happy new year to you too... for February, of course). If this is the first you're hearing about the Shaanxi series, don't worry, you've only missed one title – the sublime Mountain Stories – and you can read about the genesis of the project here.

I thought Mountain Stories was the perfect introduction to Chinese literature in translation, and this new book (by Yang Zhengguang) is a fairly suitable next step – though it is definitely a challenging read. Even in China these stories are considered boundary-breaking, with no shortage of sex and violence (consider yourselves warned). I had various interns proof-reading the text last summer; they would frequently stop, read out a toe-curlingly outrageous bit of prose, and I would reply: 'good grief!' But then they would quickly say: '...but I'm really enjoying it, I'm gripped.' So there you go. (Did you ever hear about the publisher who went broke peddling tales of lust and revenge? No, me neither...)

If you fancy something more local, York-based poet Ian Stuart has recorded an audiobook version of Quantum Theory for Cats, which you can pick up here (or from your preferred audiobook seller) for just over £3. Besides working as a Ghost Trail guide, Ian is also a professional voiceover artist, so the quality of this production (polished in the studio by Scarborough hero Tom Townsend) is second-to-none. Our Arts Council grant for 2018 included funding for audiobooks, so expect quite a few more before the year is out.

There was no newsletter last week, but my typing fingers weren't idle; I sketched out a brief business plan for a one-person publishing company (that's the kind of thing I do for fun these days) and posted it here. Afterwards, my inbox was filled with questions and comments about the featured figures, so I'm now working on a follow-up piece to answer them. Stay tuned for that soon...

...but not next week, as I've decided to make this newsletter a fortnightly event in 2018. The hope is that I can redirect some creative energy to write the 'ten years of Valley Press' memoir, which I half-promised would appear this coming October, and also give the Emma/Valley podcast a decent go (the most recent episode is still the Christmas one).

So I'll see you in two weeks, when I'll be ready to reveal the next book (which is yet another surprising diversion from the usual programming). Stay out of trouble!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #63: 'Only nice people'

Dear readers,

I’m Harriet, and today is my penultimate day as an intern at Valley Press, having been here for almost two weeks now. I’m very excited to be e-meeting you all, as Jamie assures me (and I’ve discovered for myself) that “only nice people” are associated with Valley Press! Jamie’s original plan for this week’s newsletter was that I would write it alongside Emma, another July intern, but it turns out that collaborative writing is harder than anticipated, as we discovered after having spent five minutes agreeing on “We are Harriet and Emma”. So, today you’re stuck with me, and you can look forward to hearing from a fresh new voice next week.

As cliché as it sounds, I’m going to begin by saying that I have had an amazing two weeks, and I’d like to thank Jamie, Jo, and Tess for making me feel at home within the team. Having found it so difficult to get any kind of work experience in publishing, I’m incredibly grateful to Valley Press for giving me such an enjoyable and hands-on introduction to the publishing world. There’s been lots going on around here, and I’m certain you’re all dying to hear exactly what I’ve been up to, so bear with me as I give you a brief snapshot of some of my most exciting endeavours.

You’re all undoubtedly very diligent with your newsletter-reading, so I’m sure you’ll know that Jamie has taken on seven exciting books translated from Chinese, the first of which is titled Mountain Stories and is already available to buy. Much to my surprise, I’ve been let loose on the final stages of the second of these fascinating books. Without giving too much away (Jo is keeping a careful eye on me from across the desk), I can tell you that you’re in for another treat with this next one! Although I study English Literature at university, I also take a French literature module, so I’m definitely an advocate for immersing oneself in a different way of thinking and living. I hope you all agree that Jamie and team have taken on a very admirable and worthwhile project.

I also had the pleasure of attending an author meeting with the lovely Caroline Hardaker and her editor Char March, where I watched in awe as together they carefully grafted away at Caroline’s debut poetry pamphlet, due to be published in October (see candid ‘creatives at work’ shot below!) Far from being a depressing session of hole-picking, we all left feeling inspired, refreshed, and ready to move forward with her beautiful collection (Jamie’s round of G&Ts helped too). In fact, I was so taken by Caroline and her poems that I have since made it my mission to find the perfect cover image for the book: it’s nice to think that I might make a genuine contribution to all the wonderful work going on here.

Speaking of wonderful work (see what I did there?), the team here have recently struck up a friendship with the literary folk of Marsden, who are hoping to put their village on the map as ‘Marsden the Poetry Village’. When they approached us to support them in their first project – to fill the village pubs with poetry books – of course we were more than happy to oblige. Pairing great poetry with great alcoholic (or otherwise) refreshment sounds like a no-brainer to me.

In other news, it seems Jamie has been spending his ‘email holiday’ imagining what it would be like to have fourteen other people who could answer all his emails for him. Only (half) joking. But following on from his ‘Small Press Publishing for Profit’ articles, he’s written a new piece fast-forwarding the Valley Press timeline and envisioning life with a team of fifteen. (Before the masses descend, I’d like to call first dibs on roles #2-#15, please and thank you.) How all the work gets done with a team a quarter of this size is beyond me, but I’m certainly glad Jamie has allowed himself to take a tiny step back for the next fortnight! Here he is at the British Grand Prix, presumably selected as the furthest possible pursuit from literary publishing...

Before I sign off, and before you think the intern role at Valley Press is nothing but glamour, I should probably mention that Emma and I spent a day distributing posters around Scarborough last week (I got incredibly sunburnt and Emma’s shoes rubbed – oh, the perils of being a publishing intern!) The posters were advertising the ‘Literary Lunch Hour’, a series of events running throughout August and September, which offers you the chance to spend an hour with your favourite Valley Press authors for just £5 (full info here). Sadly, I’ve been informed that lunch is not included, but why waste time eating when you could be nattering away with Nora Chassler or Antony Dunn?

Lastly, but not least(ly), don’t forget about Nora Chassler’s Edinburgh launch on Friday 21st for Madame Bildungsroman’s Optimistic Worldview, which is, in her own words, a “book of fragments, allegories, aphorisms and general oversharing”. There will also be live jazz and wine, as though that description isn’t tempting enough.

Thank you for sticking with me as I negotiated my way through Jamie’s ‘newsletter to-do list’ for this week. You’ll be relieved to know that you won’t have to put up with my irritating habit for ‘hilarious’ bracketed-off asides next week, as, like I said, you’ll be hearing from the other intern, Emma!

Thanks once again to Jamie et al, as well as all the other brilliant people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.

Have a lovely week!

Harriet Clifford,
Valley Press intern

This week at Valley Press, #62: 'The Eagle'

Dear readers,

I must start by thanking everyone for the outpouring of kind words after our last email. I've included another Helen Cadbury poem at the end of this post, in a different genre; a childhood anecdote in fact (showing the great storytelling skill everyone's been talking about in the past week, along with a 'Twinkle' of humour).

After a few requests, I turned last week's poem, 'The Dance', into an image which can be easily shared on social media (find that here). The family have asked that donations in Helen's memory go to Accessible Arts and Media, York, a brilliant organisation which Helen chaired for a number of years – details here.

* * *

Elsewhere at Valley Press, Helen Burke's twenty-month wait to see her Collected Poems is almost at an end – hardback copies arrived in the VP office on Thursday (see picture above). An ebook is also available now. The hardback, after all this effort, is priced at £30... but we realise that is a touch steep, so for the next few weeks you can all have 20% off using the discount code BIRDIES.

In other new releases: Mountain Stories is "officially" published today, and should be appearing on bookshop shelves across the UK. For those who've already ordered, I hope you find it as intriguing and entertaining as we did. A sample can be found here, if you've not yet read anything from our new Chinese translation series. We're working on the second volume at the moment; I have the final manuscript in my hand.

This week also saw the release of our third audiobook publication. We invited Norah Hanson over to Scarborough to record her latest collection Sparks, using the brilliant studio/production setup at Tom Townsend's Village Records. We did take after take of each poem until they were perfect, and the results are available on Amazon, Audible and iTunes now for just a few pounds – less than a posh coffee! Give it a try.

If free entertainment is more your style, VP authors Sue Wilsea and Nora Chassler recently visited the Valley Press office, and graciously agreed to film video interviews, answering the questions from TV programme 'Inside the Actor's Studio'. (In the video, I credit them to James Lipton, but have since learned he borrowed them from a man called Pivot... who in turn lifted them from Proust. So more literary than you'd think.) You can see Sue's video here and Nora's here.

* * *

I'm about to embark on an email holiday for a few weeks, starting Sunday – I'll be keeping one eye on the workings of Valley Press though, and still doing the occasional meeting/event (so don't panic if we've got one booked!) The next few newsletters will be from enterprising interns and other VP staff, so look out for some lively new voices in your inbox. Enjoy those, and the poem below – see you in August.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

---

The Wrong Label

by Helen Cadbury, from Forever, Now (published November 2017)

The Christmas I unwrapped an Eagle annual
there was Dan Dare, all black lines, strong jaw,
the Mekon, slime-green, repulsive, sucking me in.
Each comic strip a rush of danger, thrill of speed.

Minutes in to this new-found joy, a cry went up,
my brother sat with a Twinkle annual in his lap.
I fought my case, ruined Christmas with my argument,
and lost. These things happen, simple mistake.

I flicked the pages of Twinkle, where fat-faced
children smiled pink-lipped smiles, cherubic.
I was having none of it. I spent the afternoon
plotting how to make the Eagle mine.

This week at Valley Press, #56: 'Stick together'

Dear readers,

This week, you’re not hearing from Jamie, your usual bearer of Valley Press-related news – instead, you’re hearing from me, Rebecca, one of the lucky interns working for VP this summer. You can check out a blog post about my first week as an intern here. So, whilst Jamie is busy working on other important things, it's my job to make sure you’re all up-to-date on what has been happening this week.

Of course, it goes without saying that this week has been a tough one. With the news of a terrorist attack in my home city of Manchester, there has been a strange atmosphere lingering in the air. What happened was devastating, but the love we have witnessed since the event; the people of Manchester offering victims a place to stay, the tireless work of the emergency services, and the kindness of strangers in the aftermath, have shown us that love is stronger than hate.

The important thing to take from this tragedy is that we have to stick together in the face of evil, and we showed that this week – it was beautiful to see the support given to the people of Manchester. Even though the events made me feel so far away from home, I felt the love. Sharing this newsletter feels unimportant in contrast, but maybe it's more important than ever? The fact we have this community, this newsletter, is an opportunity to spread the message that we must come together as one. As our friend Stephen May wrote on Facebook, it's a victory “every time we gather together to celebrate freedom of expression”. It is important we keep in our minds what happened, that we take time to grieve and remember the victims, but it is also important to carry on.

* * *

I am aware that Jamie has already shared the news, in a previous week, about VP's exciting new Chinese translated books project – but, it has now caught the attention of The Bookseller, the go-to magazine for all things publishing. They have written an article this week all about the project, which you can see for yourself here. Since the news spread about our project, there has been a real buzz within the Chinese literary community across Twitter – which is promising!

On Saturday 3rd June, Jamie and I will be attending a literary event in Leeds city centre, a fairly new opportunity to appear on the scene – the Northern Short Story Festival. The day will see lots of published authors come together, along with editors and publishers (Jamie is appearing on a panel!) It’s open to the public, and there are some great workshops to get involved with, but it looks like they’re selling out of tickets quickly, so make sure you head over to their website if you’re interested in attending.

As I’m sure you all know, our new website went live last week. However, it unfortunately experienced some teething problems. The site had a bug, which meant that when some of you ordered books (between Friday 19th at 11am, and Tuesday 23rd at 11am), the orders weren’t being processed properly, which meant no payment was collected, and we weren’t informed of any orders. The issue has since been resolved, so if you would like to try again with your order, please do.

And finally, an update on Helen Burke’s Today the Birds Will Sing: the typesetting of the poetry has been completed, all 248 pages! The book is still available for pre-order, with a definitive delivery date to be announced next week.

* * *

And that is all from me! You are now up-to-date on what has been happening here at Valley Press. I hope you all have a lovely week ahead, and it was a pleasure to act as a stand-in deliverer of news for Jamie.

All the best,
Rebecca Moynihan, Valley Press intern

This week at Valley Press, #52: 'Mountain Stories'

Dear readers,

A book launch was held this week in the city of Xi'an, in the Shaanxi province, Northwest China. Word on the street is that esteemed local writer Ye Guangqin has work coming out with an English publishing house ... apparently (it is whispered) these publishers have close ties to Her Majesty the Queen, are responsible for some of greatest works of literature ever to be laid down on the printed page, and arrange all this from a castle on the English coast (while famous cyclists pass underneath, for their entertainment).

The name of this prestigious organisation? Valley Press, of course.

The green speck on the above picture is a stack of Mountain Stories, our next-but-one publication, due to hit bookshelves in July. (The next project is still Helen Burke's book, which is currently in the middle of typesetting – Jo claimed on Thursday that we're 'getting close' to finishing, which I was happy to hear! More on that next week.)

So how did the work of an acclaimed Chinese author travel all the way from Xi'an to Scarborough, and how did the resulting books make the five thousand mile journey in the opposite direction; from a shelf in our humble office to that grand table in Northwest University? The answer to the second is: by plane, I guess, and the first is a long story of chance encounters and deeply engaged literary people at both ends (particular thanks due to Robin Gilbank and Professor Hu Zongfeng, pictured above with the author and other key staff at the university.)

You may not have heard the word Shaanxi before, or be particularly familiar with the bestselling Chinese-language authors who call that province their home, but you're about to be: in an unprecedented arrangement, we've signed an agreement to publish a whole series of titles from the region's finest authors, in 2018 and beyond. Translated with great care by the team in Xi'an, then edited and proof-read by native English scholars, these books offer an astonishingly fresh literary experience for UK readers. I'm excited; it's something genuinely new for us all to get to grips with.

What kind of writing should you expect? I've put up a sample from Mountain Stories here; one of my favourite extracts, describing the author's struggles to film a TV drama in a remote Chinese village. If you've read and enjoyed that, and want to know more about the book and the author, all the details are on our website here (and you can buy, of course! Remember to apply your 10% subscriber's discount code, TENFOREVER).

If you are fluent in Chinese, you can read their side of the story here (Google translate isn't much help!), but otherwise I think that's enough info for the time being. More later in the year. In other news this week: Norah Hanson will be reading in Scarborough on May 18th, details to be confirmed – keep that evening free if interested – and there's some truly fascinating anecdotes about Aunts from Emma Press writers on our blog, in honour of their latest anthology. You can't say we don't give you anything to read!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher