Emma's speech at the 2018 Michael Marks Awards

I want to start by saying how happy I am that the Emma Press has been shortlisted alongside such a great selection of small publishers, all of which were founded in the last few years. I feel like we are part of a movement, changing the landscape of poetry publishing.

We have such power as small presses. We’re probably all running our operations on tiny-to-no budgets, pouring much more time and energy into our books than we could ever earn back in sales, but we also have the power to decide and redefine what gets to be seen as good and worth publishing, and this has an impact on poetry and literature in general.

By publishing our poetry pamphlets, we encourage poets to keep writing, we hold them up for readers and larger publishers to pay attention to, and we help to democratise an industry and an area of culture which can feel like it’s still too much in the hands of the elite. Poetry pamphlet publishing isn’t about following trends or supporting the status quo – it’s a radical act which is rightly celebrated here by all of us tonight.

The four pamphlets which I submitted for the Publishers’ Award were all from our 2015 call for submissions. Having seen from the inside, when I was working for a big publisher, how inaccessible and mysterious publishing can seem, and from the outside how closed-off and cliquey the poetry world can feel, back when I started the Emma Press, I’ve always been keen on having open calls for submissions, to try and be a friendly, welcoming place for people to send their work.

Our open calls have led to an incredibly high quality of submissions, and we’ve been very lucky to be able to add more and more pamphlets to our list which are varied in voice and yet still essentially Emma Press pamphlets.

[At this point I lost my nerve so I wrapped things up and got off stage sharpish. Here's what I was going to go on and say!]

You can buy these lovely pamphlets in our webshop

Julia Bird’s Now You Can Look is a poetic biography of a 1930s artist, telling the story of her awakening as an artist and the passion and heartbreak that accompanies her creative life. It's the third in our Art Squares series and Julia's poems are beautifully accompanied by complex repeating patterns by Anna Vaivare.

Simon Turner’s Birmingham Jazz Incarnation is an experimental sequence, with the poet running one poem through a series of formal rules. It’s part of the Emma Press Picks series and is illustrated with linocut prints by Mark Andrew Webber, with the artist echoing the challenge laid down by the poet.

Rakhshan Rizwan’s Paisley is part of the standard Emma Press Pamphlets series, our only unillustrated books. This is Rakhshan’s first pamphlet and I am so pleased that it has been shortlisted by the judges. Her poetic tone and the charged politics of her writing blew me away from the first read.

Carol Rumens’ Bezdelki is the tenth Emma Press Pick, illustrated by myself. It’s an exquisite collection of poems about grief and love.

I am so proud of all these pamphlets, and I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to tell you about them. It’s been a pleasure working with all the poets and illustrators, and I want to give a special mention to Rachel Piercey, who worked with all the poets on their edits, and Yen-Yen Lu, who worked on the publicity and launch events for all of them.

* * *
I was very happy to see our friends at Guillemot Press awarded the Best Publisher Award, and then came the absolutely stunning news that Bezdelki had won the Best Pamphlet award! you can read the judges' comments here on the Wordsworth Trust site.

This week at Valley Press, #89: 'Grafters'

Dear readers,

Jamie here! We had a great response to Wendy's newsletter two weeks ago (this is a fortnightly bulletin now, remember), and in fact even Mrs McGarry – when pushed – was forced to admit it was a small improvement on the usual communications. That being said, I'm not ready to disappear behind the gates of my chocolate factory just yet, so you can still expect to hear from me occasionally throughout 2018.

I've re-taken the wheel today as I wanted to describe my excitement at hearing Norah Hanson's poem 'Grafters' (from Sparks) on Radio 4's 'Poetry Please' last Sunday. It was chosen by a new-ish friend of ours, Hollie McNish, and you can hear Hollie read the poem, with an introductory discussion, on the iPlayer here. Jump to 5 mins 45 secs to just hear Norah's part (but if you do, you'll miss Seamus Heaney's 'Digging', among other treats).

Hollie's introduction pretty much hits the nail on the head as to why Norah's poetry is important (the first reason: it's great, but there are others given too). That poem is beautiful, and Norah did a great version of it for the Sparks audiobook, which I've uploaded here (or grab the whole audiobook here if you feel inclined, only £3.40). For once though, it wasn't the words or the performance that had me watery-eyed when I listened ... bear with me while I give you a bit of back-story.

There are a very small group of older poets, published in the first years of Valley Press, who took a chance on me when I had almost no idea what I was doing – in my first year of full-time publishing, for example, I was more-or-less running around like a headless chicken. I should have been laughed out of the industry, but instead these authors were patient, let me make mistakes, and gave me the benefit of the doubt. (Hopefully, decent-looking books were their reward!)

Without them, there would be no Valley Press today, and it's a concrete fact that without publishing Love Letters & Children's Drawings (Norah's first collection) in November 2011, VP wouldn't have made it past that Christmas. Because of this history, to hear Norah's poetry make it onto national radio, with McGough, Heaney, McNish et al (even though it only amounts to a minute of airtime) is genuinely one of the top ten moments of my career so far. Here's hoping it brings her a whole new readership. Tell your friends!

* * *

The other big excitement this week was the announcement that Antony Dunn's Take This One to Bed has been selected for New Writing North's tenth annual 'Read Regional' campaign. This means a large-scale stocking-up of the book by libraries in the north of England, a series of events in the region, and Antony writing a new introduction to the book, which you can read here (a great bit of writing in itself). A list of the events can also be found on that link, which includes visits to Hartlepool, Morpeth, Darlington, Newcastle, Leeds, Stockport, Bradford and Hull. A great time to catch this poet in action!

There was also a new episode of 'The Friday Morning Meeting', which (as you'll hopefully recall) is a publishing podcast I've been recording with Emma Wright from the Emma Press. You can hear the new show here, find the whole archive here, and in theory you can now 'subscribe' to the podcast via iTunes here (do let me know if that works). We're becoming quite proud of these programmes, I don't mind telling you – and the EP team are also proud of their new Anthology of Love, which looks absolutely fantastic, and features a handful of VP poets to boot. I've ordered my copy! It's definitely the best book published since our last newsletter (especially with our 'hairy' book, which I unwisely teased at the start of the year, still in production).

On that note, it's back to work now for me and the rest of the team. The submissions backlog is now down to 87 (from 296 when I originally paused subs), so great progress made there... we'll soon be able to open our doors again to new work (keep writing!) Wendy will be writing to you again in a couple of weeks' time, when our first graphic novel is expected to arrive on the shelves – so as ever, watch this space.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

Meet the Emma Press editors: Emma Wright

The Emma Press is introducing a new element to pamphlet submissions: authors get to choose the editor they would like to read their submission in the first round. This doesn't mean that you have to have this editor if your book is chosen, and nor does it guarantee that your chosen editor will be the one who reads your manuscript in the first round, but we will try our best.

We've put together profiles of all four Emma Press editors, to help you decide which editor might look most favourably on your manuscript. We do recommend that you read all four profiles and give them some thought, but don't agonise over your decision – if the editor reading your manuscript thinks it's good but might appeal to another editor more, they will pass it on to them.

* * *

Hello, I’m... Emma Wright.

Mandatory editor selfie

in front of bookcase

I'm hoping to find... deft, crisp writing that charms and delights. Prose and poems where I lose all sense of time while I’m reading them and then feel like I’m floating when I’ve read the final line. I’ll be focusing on the prose pamphlets, and I hope to find some cracking short stories, essays, novellas, and who knows what else. I'll also be looking out for poetry that is wild, angry and full of colours and rich imagery.

Three of my favourite books are... I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, Stranded at the Drive-In by Garry Mullholland and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

I wish I'd published... The Folded Clock by Heidi Julavits.

I wish I'd written... All but a Few by Joan Aiken.

I've got a soft spot for... dabs of humour in most kinds of writing. Writing that screams ‘THIS IS SERIOUS TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT AND SAD’ the whole way through makes me want to blow raspberries.

I'm a stickler for... prose that scans well. I want my authors to be in command of the rhythms of their sentences, using the beats and stresses to communicate with the reader just as much as the choices of words.

Recently I edited... Leanne Radojkovich’s cool, twisty fairytales in First fox, Jan Carson’s warm, lightly surreal Postcard Stories, and Daina Tabūna’s alarmingly honest coming-of-age stories in The Secret Box (translated by Jayde Will).

My advice to anyone thinking of submitting is... Think about what your pamphlet will bring to the readers’ lives. Sometimes writers are advised to write for themselves and no one else, but when you’re at the stage of sending out a manuscript it’s probably helpful to put yourself in the editor’s shoes and think about what will make them decide to devote months towards bringing your manuscript into print. At the Emma Press, it’s most likely to be because the editor believes your book will bring comfort and/or joy to the reader. Also, if you're nervous about submitting, go for it! Other people have books – why shouldn't you?

* * *

This round of pamphlet submissions ends on 10th December 2017. See the Emma Press website for guidelines.

This week at Valley Press, #75: 'Year Ten'

Dear readers,

Valley Press is now nine years old; October is the start of our tenth year of publishing in Scarborough. When I registered with the Nielsen ISBN agency as an 'official' publisher (on a paper form!), I had to say when my first books were coming out: I just put 'October 2008', which they then noted in their system as 1st October 2008. I can't remember if I had the books by then or not, but that's the only confirmed date I've got from that era – so that's our official birthday.

The first two books were out of print by the end of that year; good luck finding them anywhere now! They were both written by me, a novel from my late teens and a collection of semi-respectable poems. I went on to self-publish two more books of poetry under the Valley Press name, but realised when going 'professional' in 2011 that it might be a bit of a faux pas have myself on the roster... so those early books were swiftly dropped. Tenebrae, by Nigel Gerrans, is the earliest VP title still for sale; that dates from October 2009.

Since going into publishing full-time, I haven't written a single word of 'creative writing', though my book about snails was resurrected (pun intended) by The Emma Press in 2014. There's some news on that front, however; I've decided to celebrate VP's tenth birthday (next October) by writing a company memoir, and have made a decent start already. So far it reads like a really long, rambling, nostalgic newsletter – if you've enjoyed these last three paragraphs, you'll like that book when it appears. Watch this space.

While we're looking back (and speaking of The Emma Press), here's a great photo of myself and Emma from last week's 'Free Verse' Poetry Book Fair:

We have done a lot of book stalls together over the years; so being in a nostalgic mood, I searched my computer just now to find a classic snap with a similar pose. This is the closest I could get, from a time when Emma only had two books of her own; hard to believe when you see what her stall looks like now! (Also hard to believe: I used to wear a suit to book fairs?)

That's from mid-2013, judging by the books on display. The latest plan for Emma/Valley harmony, adding to our ongoing joint blog, is for us to host a fortnightly podcast discussing 'how to make books, a living, and a difference' – it's still in the early stages, but I find announcing plans publicly makes them more likely to happen. (That's also why I mentioned the book I'm writing, above.) Again, look out for that!

One genre of writing I didn't abandon was the 'informative article', and I've done another one this week, with advice for aspiring small press publishers on how to price and discount their books. If you'd rather just read books, and not see how the sausages are made, you might like to give it a miss – but otherwise, you can find it here.

One final bit of entertainment for you this week: John Wedgwood Clarke appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday, discussing his latest poetry collection Landfill. You can listen on iPlayer here if you missed it on the day; jump to 1 hour 41 minutes (and 40 seconds) in to catch the exact start. It's another great opportunity to hear the thinking behind Landfill; they even get the boss of our local tip on the phone, to get his view on John's year spent visiting and observing the mechanisms of waste.

I'm not going to lie to you: it's still a thrill to hear one of our books discussed on Radio 4 (for the third time, that I know of). If you'd told me back in 2008, when I filled in my ISBN registration form, that a hundred books would follow – and the 101st would get discussed on Today, just after the papers – I'd have thought you were absolutely bonkers. But here we are! Thanks for reading, as ever, and I'll see you next week.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #60: 'Better than never'

Dear readers,

A very late blog post this week, as it's been a packed Friday – full of important meetings, complex tasks and some exciting parcels; including the flyers/posters for our 'Literary Lunch Hour' events (viewable here), the 'machine proof' for Today the Birds Will Sing, and the paperbacks of Madame Bildungsroman's Optimistic Worldview (photos below).

Speaking of that mysterious character... Madame B is set to be officially 'launched' in Edinburgh, on Friday 21st July at the Lighthouse bookshop, all details here. Attendees have been promised a chance to 'quiz' the author, hear sections of the book performed live, and enjoy jazz music performed by non other than legendary local poet Don Paterson! It should be quite a night, I can tell you. (Entry is free.)

Before that, author Nora Chassler is coming to Scarborough on Wednesday 5th July to run a flash fiction workshop; that's in the evening from 6pm at Wardle & Jones, our go-to independent bookshop. (For those still living in the real world, 'flash fiction' is a trendy phrase for 'very short stories'.) Attendees will be writing these stories with guidance from Nora, who's aiming for a supportive and relaxed mood. It's just £5 to attend (with a drink included), get in touch with W&J to book a place.

The wonderful Wardle & Jones has just turned two years old, and if you visit today (Saturday 24th) there's 40% off all books and an all-day party atmosphere! To run an independent bookshop for any amount of time requires a superhuman love of books, infinite patience with readers, and more than a little visual-merchandising magic... so you can imagine what it takes to last two years. Huge congratulations to them.

Oh, and while I've got my congratulating hat on... same goes to Richard O'Brien, who won a prestigious Eric Gregory Award this week for his as-yet-unpublished debut collection of poetry. Long-time followers will remember we published his pamphlet A Bloody Mess in 2014 (with Dead Ink, back when they were only doing ebooks). It was obvious back then that Richard was a poet destined for great things; and he's still just getting warmed up...

Richard will be a familiar face for fans of the Emma Press, and we were inspired this week by a typically feisty blog from their founder Emma Wright (read it here) about starting her business. 'It's not fair that the poorer you are the safer you have to play it,' she writes, about job prospects for our generation... no-one does hopeful defiance like Emma!

Another great blog this week came from Helen Cadbury, discussing her forthcoming Valley Press collection, as well as her origins as a poet and the 'forensic' nature of that art form (connecting it to crime writing). Read that one here.

A great blog post you won't be reading this week, despite promises last time, is the one from our 'Submissions Coordinator' Tess. I've ended up saying too much myself – and as I write this, midnight is fast approaching! I'll hope to bring you that soon; in the meantime, thanks as ever for your time reading our newsetter, it's much appreciated.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #39: 'Reading material'

Dear readers,

Yesterday our 'reading group' gathered at Woodend to look at all the submissions you sent in during 2016. The header image above shows only one sixth of the envelopes we received – whoah. I don't know exactly how many there are, but it must be several hundred. Thanks so much for taking the time, buying the stamp (and book, if you didn't just stumble upon an entry form!), and trusting us with your precious creations; having now looked at each one myself, I can report there wasn't a single entry that would have embarrassed us if we published it. No time-wasters. Just a lot of very sincere and talented writers, from which I must choose a half-dozen to take forward into book form.

I am some way towards having a shortlist, but not quite there yet – at time of writing I haven't contacted a single person to let them know the result. I will be, though; you'll definitely hear from me before too long (within a month?) Sending positive emails and talking to excited prospective authors may be the best part of the job, while telling the other 99% they didn't make it may be the worst ... so naturally I'm hoping Mrs McGarry will help with that second part. (She gets all the glamorous tasks.)

This week saw the launch of Guests of Time, at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. I didn't attend personally, but it looks like an amazing venue – where else do you get the backdrop pictured below? (That's Kelley Swain in the foreground, photo by Amo Spooner. Almost a 'second presidential debate' vibe going on...)

A few people have commented that they're interested in the book, which includes poems from Kelley, John Barnie, Steven Matthews and various historical figures – but find the £24.99 price a bit off-putting. 'Hey Jamie, why is it so pricey?' they cry. Well, it's a hardback (with ribbon marker and all the trimmings), featuring 18 fantastic, creative, full-colour photographs printed on the best paper I could find; and it's a limited edition, I've only printed 200 and won't be doing any more to that standard. Plus, I've just re-activated the code that gets you £5 off, until the end of the year – just enter OXFORD at the basket.

I like to think we price fairly here at VP: Norah Hanson's Sparks, also launched this week (at the same time we were reading the submissions), is only £7.99, as it's a paperback containing nothing more than black words on cream paper ... in a format I plan to keep reprinting until the cows come home! Norah's debut collection, produced in my first year of professional publishing, has been reprinted seven times, so there's a lot to live up to.

Talking of printing: I've now taken legal advice in the infamous case of the Antony Dunn hardbacks (where I was led repeatedly astray, paid the offending company in full, but still haven't got them). In an official letter, I gave the printers a firm deadline of Wednesday, or else, so let's hope they meet that ... giving us a slim chance to find an open post office and get them to patient pre-orderers before the sun sets on 2016. (By the way: please place all Christmas orders by Wednesday lunchtime, folks.)

I'm going to finish this week's newsletter, and indeed the year's correspondence, with some very good news – on Tuesday, The Emma Press won the Michael Marks Award for best pamphlet publisher (after being shortlisted repeatedly in the past). You'll know me and Emma share this blog, and you can read the inspirational speech she gave on winning here; you may not know that she's one of my all-time heroes, not just in publishing but in the world generally. I don't know anyone who works harder, and stays so kind and positive (an old word would be 'chipper'), whilst doing more good for the literary community.

People say 'oh that Jamie McGarry, he's so enthusiastic about publishing' – and I am, of course – but compared to Emma I'm a cynical old grump. She's a legend! Tributes have been pouring in on Twitter, and hopefully this will be the moment when the Emma Press slips into the mainstream artistic consciousness of the UK. Check out her books, if by some miracle this is the first you're hearing of her. (We love Rachel Piercey too, of course.)

Next Sunday is Christmas Day, it turns out, so I'll be firmly off-duty ... but I might find a little something to pop on the blog. Other than that, I'll be taking a short break in the new year, but will be back before long for another amazing, exhausting programme of potentially award-winning new literature. I've got a good feeling about 2017!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

Emma's speech at the 2016 Michael Marks Awards

The Emma Press won the Publishers' Award at the 2016 Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets! The announcement was made at a special dinner held at the British Library on Tuesday 13th December, and I'm still reeling from the shock. It's thrilling to get this kind of recognition this early on, and it means a huge amount to me to have our pamphlet programme highlighted in this way.

The life of a very small press publisher can be quite a solitary one, so I relished the opportunity to spend an evening amongst my industry peers. All the shortlisted publishers had to give a 3-minute presentation about their presses before the winner was announced, so I took the opportunity to talk about something I don't often address publicly but which I think about all the time, as it informs everything I do: diversity in publishing.

You can read the full speech below, and you can see our full range of poetry pamphlets in our webshop.

Emma Wright delivering her speech at the British Library (© Tony Grant)

Emma's speech at the Michael Marks Awards

I'm Emma Wright and I started the Emma Press just over four years ago, after quitting my job at Orion Publishing Group. I never thought I would start my own company, let alone a publishing house, but then – in 2012 – I got tired.

I got tired of seeing men's surnames in the names of the imprints I was working on, and I got tired of looking around the publishing industry and seeing women pretty much everywhere other than at the very top. And I was tired of waiting for other women of colour to rise up the ranks and show me that it was possible, and that this wasn't exclusively a white man's club.

I needed representation in a way that's hard to understand when you're already represented everywhere. I was tired of waiting, so I moved back to my parents' house in Reading, I quit my job and I decided to try and be part of the change.

And now I'm here. I've published 33 poetry books, with 17 more due out next year. I've run two Arts Council-supported poetry tours and, though it's always a financial struggle running an unfunded press full time, my developing sense as an entrepreneur has allowed me to keep the press – and myself – afloat in my new home city of Birmingham.

Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright, after the awards dinner

I've worked with my good friend and brilliant poet and editor Rachel Piercey to champion writers we believe in and produce books which appeal to readers beyond the usual poetry book-buying audiences. We work hard to develop our authors and bring them opportunities, and we're especially proud of our three pamphlet series: the Picks, which are themed and have black and white illustrations; the Pamphlets, which include introductions from other poets as another way in for the reader; and the Art Squares, which are lavishly produced, with full-colour illustrations.

And it's hard. Of course it's hard. I'm running an unfunded poetry publisher, putting books out into a wider cultural conversation that is dominated by vocal, entitled white men, voicing their opinions often without a clue about the toxic state they're contributing to. It's dispiriting, but I'm hopeful that things are changing. Other people are tired too, and I'm seeing more movement now to tackle publishing's lack of diversity.

So, recognition like this means a lot. It's wonderful to be here tonight amongst other poetry-lovers, celebrating the poetry pamphlet, and I want to thank the Michael Marks Awards team for drawing attention to this small but vital part of the poetry ecosystem. Being here tonight, I'm feeling positive about the future.

* * *

The Michael Marks 2016 Award for Publisher of #PoetryPamphlets is won by @TheEmmaPress at @britishlibrary pic.twitter.com/OjAknbWrrS

— Tim Robertson (@RSLDirector) December 13, 2016