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Friday, 26 May 2017

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

Friday, 19 May 2017

This week at Valley Press, #55: 'When we were winners'



Dear readers,

This week, Valley Press won its very first literary award. Remembering Oluwale, an important and poignant collection of writing inspired by the tragedy of Leeds immigrant David Oluwale, was voted 'Best Anthology' at the 2017 Saboteur Awards. It was a moment of great satisfaction for the many contributors, including editor SJ Bradley and co-organiser Max Farrar (pictured below attending the ceremony), and of course the book's designer, our own Rosa Campbell. I was delighted too, even though my sole contribution was saying 'yes, we must publish that!' this time last year.

Sarah (SJ Bradley) had this to say shortly afterwards:

"It is so wonderful to have Remembering Oluwale recognised by the Saboteur Awards. This is a book which faces up to a shameful episode in Leeds’ history, and persuades the city to do better. David Oluwale was a man who could so easily have been forgotten – at the time of his death, the only official records left about him were the arrest records left by the police who victimised him, and papers from a psychiatric institution. It’s a testament to the resonances of his story that so much wonderful and powerful writing has come about and continues to do so. I am so proud to have been a part of it."

The news of our win, and subsequent reactions from the reading public, inspired me to finally finish the Kindle version of the book, which you can now access here. A half-finished file had sat on my hard drive for many months; the complexity of the formatting (with notes, and a multitude of page layouts) had discouraged me somewhat, and I was able to tell myself: 'they've got the paperback... Kindle publications are old news.' But I knuckled down on Tuesday afternoon and got the job done.

Leeds residents can attend an event celebrating Remembering Oluwale on Wednesday June 7th at Outlaws Yacht Club, from 7.15. This also seems an ideal time to announce that some of the team behind the anthology (including SJ) are lauching a new project along similar lines; a competition which leads to an anthology in support of a good cause. Entries aren't open yet, but you can read the details in the left-hand column here. We'll be publishing the resulting book in March 2018.

As promised, here are Sarah and Max at the Saboteur ceremony:


The other big news this week is that we have a new website. Not entirely-from-scratch new, but built 'on top of' our previous website by original designers Askew Brook.

As well as new functionality – you can now contact a department directly, and audiobooks and hardbacks can be listed alongside paperbacks – it has a new design. Less big blocks of turquoise, more white space, and we can now choose an 'accent colour' for each book, as well as upload a second image (which will sometimes be the back cover, sometimes an object photo).

You can see the new design firing on all cylinders on the Remembering Oluwale page (if you haven't already visited that by now!) It'll be a while before we've added the new images and colours to every book, but we'll get there eventually.

I hope you approve of the new site; these changes all came about by talking to VP fans over the last twelve months, so I'm hoping this version of the site will last us a good few years. If you have any feedback, or spot a bug, let us know.

* * *

Helen Burke update: we're very close to finishing the "primary typesetting" (a process I described last week). Tomorrow could be the day!

And finally, for those who missed Norah Hanson's reading last night at Wardle & Jones, our latest intrepid intern Rebecca has edited and uploaded a video of her poem 'Spark', which you can watch here. Enjoy!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

Friday, 12 May 2017

This week at Valley Press, #54: 'Corner office'



Dear readers,

It's been another hectic, eventful week; and once again I'm not at liberty to tell you about most of it. One more email from various sources would unlock a wealth of news... but for now, let's see what I can mention.

One thing I can reveal is that we're moving office again – cue newsletter readers yawning in unison – but hang on, it's for good this time! The office I imagined would be Valley Press headquarters 'one day, when we make it big' came onto the market, and we'll be based there from 1st June. For those who know the Woodend building in Scarborough (formerly home to the Sitwell family), it's the first floor corner office, pointing towards the Crescent. I've skillfully highlighted it on the header image above.

Our weekly Helen Collected update, as promised: we've got the skeleton of the book assembled, we know where all the illustrations need to go, so the next step is to format them all and place them in. After that, it's a question of assembling the notes section, and the indexes, then we can book a printer and get a firm delivery date! Fingers crossed we'll have that for you by the next newsletter.

Finally, in brief: there was a tiny bit of publicity about Mountain Stories in the Yorkshire Post this week (thank you Mrs Henry). Saturday will reveal whether Remembering Oluwale has won its category in the Saboteur Awards, with SJ Bradley attending the ceremony on our behalf. And don't forget Norah Hanson is reading in Scarborough this coming Thursday; a few tickets still available – see last newsletter for details.

That's all for now, back to the grindstone!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

Friday, 5 May 2017

This week at Valley Press, #53: 'Bless this Handbag'



Dear readers,

This week was filled by the pursuit and registration of two exciting new titles, recruiting one more person for our burgeoning team, and behind-the-scenes prep for two more big bits of news – but I can't announce any of that today!  It'll all be detailed in some future newsletter; there's enough happened this week to fill five editions.

Meanwhile, Helen Burke and her fans are chomping at the bit for her Collected Poems, which we've still not finished. I'm going to commit to weekly updates on that book until it's in your hands, starting now:

Currently we're doing the typesetting, which used to involve bits of metal type but now refers to designing 'the bit inside the book, where all the words live' (that's what I tell people, if they ask). As with most aspects of this title, we've taken the hardest route, and are attempting to individually centre each of the 250+ poems on its particular page – they're still aligned left, of course, but the resulting block of text is then centralised, a process that has to be done pretty much by hand.  That's our usual style, and it looks great; but it's not quick. For a standard poetry book I'd set aside a few solid days for this stage, and Helen's Collected is no ordinary book!

The next step is adding the many illustrations we have planned, which brings its own challenges – I'll speak about that next week, perhaps.

* * *

In other news: details of Norah Hanson's reading in Scarborough have been confirmed, her first here for a couple of years. It starts at 6.30pm, on May 18th, in Wardle & Jones bookshop on Bar Street. Tickets are £5 and include a drink, and can be procured by visiting the shop or calling 01723 353260. Hope to see some of you there.

As a company, we've been a bit lax on events recently, and I'm thinking about dipping my toe back in the water. I'd like to put on a recurring series of nights in Scarborough, each featuring a VP author, but currently have no good ideas for a format or a catchy name. If you're a local person who'd attend such events, why not get in touch and let me know what would get you out of the house on an evening/afternoon? (If you're not local, apologies for essentially wasting your time for two paragraphs!)

On a final note, I'm pleased to report that petition I mentioned a couple of weeks ago soared past its target – partially thanks to you lot, so well done! Follow the Shaw Mind Foundation and Headucation to keep up with the progress of that issue, if interested.

I feel like I still haven't done enough for Helen Burke fans today, so please accept another great poem by Helen at the end of this newsletter. Another busy week ahead, see you on the other side!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher




Bless This Handbag

by Helen Burke, from Today the Birds Will Sing: Collected Poems

At crucial moments of my life
you will find me ironing.
A trick learnt from my mother.
She always smoothed things out,
made peace between warring parties.
Now, the only creases left are around her eyes.

We meet in town, for coffee
and some sort of a cake.
She says she’s taking sugar in tea again,
and perhaps I should.
I don’t look well. Much too pale.

I manoeuvre the talk onto politics.
The Gulf, the Catholic viewpoint,
the new outlook on water births, legalising pot.
Undeflected, she overrides me with
a brief statement on
meringue and eggs you couldn’t get in the war, then
back we go to my own queer pallor.

I wish I’d put more blusher on.
She toys with me like a footballer, playing me back and forth.
Or as if we’re in a trench and she can constantly order me
over the top.
The confrontation is endless.
I wish I could learn this trick from her.
I wish I knew how the war could be won.
I wish I could eat meringue that fast.

I will my cheeks to glow with health as
she leads me across the No-Man’s-Land of
combinations and corsetry, of
hosiery appliances and multi-size inner soles.
Everything the colour of a rich tea biscuit.

Playfully, she tweaks at a string vest as we pass.
‘Call that a changing room? I wouldn’t send a dog in there.’
Like a russet bomb, her handbag is ticking.
It is bright scarlet, goes with nothing that she wears.

Patiently, she shows me something that doubles as
an omelette scoop and a thing for killing wasps.
‘If you’re going to wear green for God’s sake, do it on a Wednesday,’
she says,
and leaves it at that.
We narrowly miss a rail of pinnies.

Slowly we make our way to the bus stop.
Even this much walking is too much now.
I promise to eat more, but to smoke
and go out less.
She waits for the bus, handbag clutched stoically.

Inside it I can glimpse
two tins of rice pudding
and a bottle of Lourdes water – in case of emergency.
She climbs onto the bus. Hands me a separate package.
It’s the third tin of rice pudding.

Even as the bus rounds the corner
I can still see the handbag, gathered to her,
its words of wisdom
like a million sun’s rays, glinting, fabulous.
Eradicating all conflict, going over the top.