This week at Valley Press, #84: 'Your five a day'

Dear readers,

Another late newsletter this week – can you believe I've barely had a minute to myself since the last one went out? One of the things I've been doing tonight (besides publishing) is building another book tree, pictured above, this time at our local chapel and made out of non-VP books. They have a Christmas tree festival every year, and the theme this year is 'words that end in tree'; so after last week's pun, Mrs McGarry volunteered us to construct an actual 'poet tree'. Maybe you can spot some of your favourites? (If not, you might like to visit the 'optome-tree' someone built to our left, covered in pairs of glasses.)

This week, rather than lengthy anecdotes, I have five interesting links for you. Feel free to pick and choose which ones you click on, in line with your interests... or show the full extent of your love of Valley Press by engaging with all five!

Firstly, we launched Helen Cadbury's Forever, Now this week at York Explore. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, beginning to end; I felt so honoured to be involved with the book and the evening (as did the rest of the VP team). YorkMix have captured some of the spirit in their thoughtful write-up; for me, it was the first time I'd ever truly experienced 'bittersweet'... happiness and sadness pulling at your heart simultaneously. A truly unforgettable evening. If you missed out, I'm pleased to report we have more events planned for this book in 2018 (details coming soon).

Secondly, there's news that John Wedgwood Clarke will be teaching a five-day course on 'The Poetry of Rubbish' with the Poetry School in the new year. If you can't get to Exeter to take part, there is at least this wonderful long interview on that subject which they published a few days ago, a great companion piece to Landfill.

Thirdly, we were excited to see that the 'Travelling Man' chain of shops (more commonly known for comics and games) have taken a liking to Caroline Hardaker's Bone Ovation. Not only they did they post this glowing short review, they're also stocking it in all their branches, pitching it as a kind of stocking filler for the more thoughtful, quirky gift recipient in your life. Which I'd very much like to second!

Fourthly (is that a word?), lurking in this article about the reading habits of the 'great and good' is a tiny review of Madame Bildungsroman by the novelist Regi Claire. She says Madame B 'offers a brilliant perspective on existence through fragments and aperçus: ambiguous, acerbic, moving and searingly intelligent.' Once again, couldn't have put it better myself... though I did have to look up aperçus; it's an "illuminating or entertaining comment." One to add to your vocabulary; all part of the service here at Valley Press.

Finally, the latest episode of the 'Friday Morning Meeting' podcast (featuring myself and Emma Wright) is now online here. As this is the last one of the year, we've made it a Christmas special framed around the three spirits of A Christmas Carol... and then there's a little discussion of the value of coding skills at the end. Put on the spot to illustrate this episode, I cooked up the picture below starring Emma in the Cratchit/Kermit role and me as Scrooge... I laughed when I saw the result, and I include it here in case you do too.

All of which adds up to a full newsletter, in my eyes... which means you'll have to wait another week to find out about that final, secret Christmas book we're still working on. I'll get to it next week, for definite. It'll be worth the wait!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #82: 'Eggs and baskets'

Dear readers,

Whenever I think we've reached our peak, in terms of events, projects and activities, Valley Press finds a new way to get even busier and send its poor overworked publisher running back to his desk. Not today though; I'm resting up after a bad cold to see if I can make it to yet another glitzy award ceremony in Scarborough this evening. (I'm up for 'Young Entrepreneur' against two bakers, which is a bit of a conflict as I love food and books equally, and am keen to support anything that encourages more baking...)

Today's newsletter is a textbook example of what working on several projects at once looks like, which is also a key topic in this week's 'Friday Morning Meeting' podcast (they're going to be fortnightly, if that hasn't been made apparent before). Towards the end, in what's probably my favourite part, we deconstruct the 'eggs in one basket' idiom – how many baskets/eggs are ideal? Would an egg and spoon race be preferable? We also compare managing a publisher to playing Tetris... it's not all metaphors though, don't worry!

If that's not enough snazzy, 21st-century digital media for you, I also have three videos from Wendy Pratt's Gifts the Mole Gave Me launch event to share. As you can see from the header image, it was held in our favourite room at VP HQ, and attracted a sizable and enthusiastic crowd (hooray!) Wendy had two brilliant support acts, so you have three poetry videos to watch if you feel inclined: Caroline Hardaker, Oz Hardwick and then Wendy herself.  (Enjoy some positive heckling 1min 40sec into Caroline's video, courtesy of perhaps the keenest newsletter reader of all, who also gets some decent airtime in the podcast. You know who you are!)

* * *

There are two books I need to give a serious plug to this week, and the first is Quantum Theory for Cats, which you may recall is being launched at Waterstones York, Friday 1st December from 7pm. This is a debut pamphlet from Ian Stuart, who cites Stevie Smith and Robert Frost as his main influences. Like those literary heavyweights, he champions the art of 'complex simplicity'; the poetry can be witty and wry, but remains serious about its interest in the human experience.

Time I wheeled out a poem. This is one of the more understated pieces, but one that lingered with me long after I first read it:


Phone Call

‘Do you remember, years ago,’ he said,
‘we met up in some bookshop. I was with
my sister. She was quite impressed with you –
said you had a gentleness, an air
of understanding – and a lovely voice.’

‘That’s nice,’ I said, yet knowing as I spoke
I had no memory of that day at all.
It wasn’t me they’d met.

The conversation ended, but he stayed,
my doppelganger – kindly, gentle, calm –
the kind of man I once hoped I’d become.

I look for him each morning in the mirror
and sometimes catch a glimpse,
but then he’s gone.


Ian's pamphlet was the one book this year where I decided to handle every stage of production myself, harking back to days long gone by. I didn't draw the cat on the cover though, that was the work of – fun VP trivia alert! – Ben Hardaker, husband of Caroline Hardaker, our most recent pamphlet author (and in fact Caroline did some of the shading on the final article). Quite the supportive little community we have here!

The next book in our schedule, while also filed under 'poetry', couldn't be more different. Verse Matters is our second big 2017 anthology, and has involved two distinguished editors, cover design by rising star Mandy Barker (of Sail Creative), typesetting by internationally famed text-wrangler Gerry Cambridge, and includes new material from the following writers:

Liz Berry, Bashar Farahat, River Wolton, Shirin Teifouri, Rachel Bower, Sai Murray, Malika Booker, Helen Mort, Vicki Morris, Char March, Mimi Mesfin, Jacob Blakesey, Hannah Copley, S J Bradley, Nick Allen, Wendy Pratt, Jo Irwin, Charlotte Ansell, Warda Yassin, Louise Clines, Catherine Ayres, Ethel Maqeda, Katherine Henderson, Sez Thomasin, Beth Davies, Hollie McNish, Laurie Bolger, Shelley Roche Jacques, Kate Garrett, Debjani Chatterjee, Amy Kinsman, Carol Eades and Suzannah Evans.

Some very familiar names in there, and some exciting 'emerging talent' too. It's all inspired by the legendary Verse Matters spoken word night in Sheffield, and we'll be heading to that fair city on the 14th December to enjoy a launch event, featuring many of the writers mentioned above. Details of that are here.

It seems worth adding that, thanks to the generosity of the editors, all royalties from the book will be split between ASSIST Sheffield and the Cathedral Archer Project in Sheffield, two great causes worth looking up. More on this book next month.

* * *

If all that hasn't quite satisfied your appetite for literary engagement (you really are insatiable), there's also an in-depth review of John Wedgwood Clarke's Landfill on the Manchester Review, with Ian Pople giving that book the serious attention it deserves. Time to hang up my keyboard now, but I'll be back (inevitably) next week, to start the countdown to you-know-what. Plus, there's still time to squeeze in one extra book this year, that I haven't told anyone about yet...

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher                                   

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, #74: 'Strong language'

Dear readers,

As you can see above (if you squint), Valley Press is safely ensconced at the BBC's 'Contains Strong Language' festival, currently running all over the city of Hull. The lovely ladies from Inpress will be manning the stall today (Friday) and tomorrow, then I'll be dropping back in on Sunday to enjoy a bit more of the heady literary atmosphere.

Meanwhile, you may be wondering what to do with your Saturday, so let me offer a suggested itinerary: start the day in London at the Poetry Book Fair, listening to our Yorkshire Anthology poets (11.30am). Then whizz up to York for Oz Hardwick's launch (2.30pm), which promises to include a slideshow; then hop in your helicopter to catch John Wedgwood Clarke in Hull (4pm). After that, since you're in Hull, you may as well visit the VP stall, and enjoy some of the other BBC festivities!

Someone asked me how long the CSL festival was on for; I replied: 'four days... no wait, a fortnight...' and then just looked confused for a few seconds. Turns out both were right; there's one four-day festival and another straight after. There's also the Turner Prize shortlistees to see while you're there. If you ever think you might visit Hull, this is the time.

However, if you don't like travelling (I quite sympathise), we've got some spoken-word poetry for you right here, right now. I had an email from Helen Burke a couple of weeks ago: 'Am doing a new CD of poems with musician Grammy nominee friend Kevin Keough. Will forward you a couple of the spoken poems, wonder if we might refer to em in next newsletter! Might be handy.'

They are really brilliant actually, a whole new avenue for our pal Helen. You can listen by following these three links: 'Moon Landing' (a brand new poem), 'Moments' (from the Collected, page 227), and then the rather dramatic 'Road Poem / Hustle', two uncollected poems which started life separately, then were combined a few years ago.

Hope you enjoy those, and let me end by wishing everyone involved with this weekend's events the best of luck. I'll see you back here next week, when I'm hoping peace and quiet will have once more descended on the literary world...

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #73: 'Them bones'

Dear readers,

This week I'm pleased to introduce you to a new face: Caroline Hardaker with her debut pamphlet Bone Ovation. Caroline submitted during our now-infamous 2016 submissions period, the one with the 20,000 leaflets that asked 'have you got a book in you?' She had, it turns out, and her book is the first of those 600 submissions to make it onto bookshelves. All three October publications are from that enormous pile, with a half-dozen more coming in 2018. (November's publications are special cases, more about them in due course).

Without any particular hooks or publicity angles to speak of, and as the work of a 'new' author, Bone Ovation soared to the top of the pile purely on the strength of Caroline's poetry. I won't say any more about it (for fear of over-doing expectations!) but I will let you see a couple of poems. Here goes:


The Rains

Each raindrop contains a soul
I’m told, and sleet is nought
but the urgent need of the dead to meet
their loved ones once more in the mortal world.
To stroke their skin, to leave a living trace;
a tear drop – a thin, translucent meridian.

My grandmother never used an umbrella
and would tip back her head and eat the rain.
She said it made her feel alive again.


The Woman is Like the Picasso

You’ll not know her, she looks to the side
all eyes
a spectrum of illicit shades
hair all quantum in sharp directions
but swooning around the face
a moon, in carven perfection,
radiating with flowering action
and reaction
a myriad of connections between
the dazzling colours she’s made.

See that fierce pride under bashful eyes?

Even Picasso couldn’t capture it.
He tried
through abstract and dreams
to channel by subconscious
a force too violent
a face too vibrant to lay down
and his mind filled with it
and fell
warped flat.
Her form so potent for creation
it was like painting the rain in clouds,
lightning waiting.

She is facing away, but she is looking.


Though not officially published until 5th October, we're selling Bone Ovation now – copies are here, we figured we may as well! It's already a fairly reasonable £6.99, and remember that newsletter subscribers get 10% off all our books forever; you lucky souls. If you'd like to read a few more poems (including a great one about feet), head here.

Now then: this coming week is a busy one, so you may want to get your diaries out. You'll remember that if you're in York on Saturday 30th, there's an Oz Hardwick launch event and in Hull there's John Wedgwood Clarke. Also in Hull that day (Thursday to Sunday in fact), Valley Press is taking part in a book fair organised by the BBC as part of their 'Contains Strong Language' festival. It's in Hull College, in the Horncastle Building. Myself and Jo Haywood are hoping to be there on Thursday, and I'll likely be back on Sunday if it's as exciting as I expect – but VP books will be there for the four days.

Also on Saturday 30th, this time in London, we'll be at the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair. I'll be manning the stall most of the day, except for a lunch break; and between 11.30 and 12, when seven of our Yorkshire Anthology poets will be sharing their poems with a packed audience in the Brockway Room. Do pop and see that if you're going to the PBF, and of course, come for a chat with me and Emma at our shared table.

Adding some extra excitement to the week (which is clearly needed), Thursday 28th is National Poetry Day, which means there'll be some kind of poetry event near you, for certain. NPD have taken our Yorkshire Anthology under their wing this year, listing it as an official recommendation (see their write-up here). Which was nice of them!

Finally, you can now see John Wedgwood Clarke's BBC programme Through the Lens of Larkin on iPlayer here; yet another way for you to celebrate poetry this week. If you're reading this as someone who doesn't like poetry (I hear such people do exist), I'd first say: give it a chance? And second, don't give up on us ... we have a mammoth non-fiction book coming before the year is out, and all kinds of novels next year. There's always another book around the corner at Valley Press!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #72: 'Ghosts and Mirrors'

Dear readers,

This coming week sees another familiar face back with a new collection: Oz Hardwick and The House of Ghosts and Mirrors. The cover art, partially pictured above, is a photo of the exact spot where Oz was born, which should give you a clue about to what to expect from the new book – we're looking backwards only to find ourselves, figures from generations past, and a touch of both the infinite and the domestic. (And there's a few darkly funny bits, he's only human!)

Here's the opening poem, which asks a few questions that may linger, unanswered, within your mind for some time: (you have been warned)


The Pros and Cons of Immortality

Is it really so bad to begin with an ending?

Here I am, queueing for dreams
in a new world that hardens around me
like a scab on the wound of growing apart
from where I belong, what I know.

So, I ask again, is it really so bad
to be here, where walls crumble,
where your solitary love
is long gone and, surely, forgotten?

Because from here – half a century away,
and counting – even I forget
most of the time. But
that’s what hurts, you tell me,
the long forgetting that hangs
in the air, its cold breath
dampening your sleepless face.

You forget everything
one heartbeat at a time
until you forget yourself.
But is that really so bad?
                       

Antony Dunn says Oz's new collection is 'sad in the best way', which is a great turn of phrase (he's known for them I guess). By the way, you can now enjoy an hour in Antony's company via the video of our sixth "Literary Lunch Hour", which can be found here; we really get to the bottom of how he writes, what makes him tick, how his latest collection was assembled and many other crucial matters. I'm so glad we took the trouble to film these events; they stand as a great record of some truly magnificent writers.

Back on the subject of Oz, and speaking of events (this newsletter is a tricky one, keep up!), he is launching his new collection at York Explore on the 30th September, all details here. This is our day of being in four places at once: you'll remember John Wedgwood Clarke's book launch is also that day, and I'll tell you about the other two events in the next newsletter – you're spoiled for choice!

What's more, both those authors are leaping out from the printed page at the moment: John can be seen on TV screens shortly hosting Through the Lens of Larkin, which Yorks/Lincs residents can catch on BBC1 next Wednesday, the 20th September, at 7.30pm. The rest of you must wait until the 25th September on BBC4, also at 7.30 (and I'll share the iPlayer links here if I remember). It should be excellent, particularly if you have even the slightest interest in Philip Larkin.

Oz, meanwhile, has been working with musician Peter Byrom-Smith on an album setting some of his latest poems (also featured in the book) to music, which can be found here; one for all you opera fans I would say, and there's a great story behind it involving Oz's maternal grandfather.

You're up to date with Valley Press now, thanks as ever for sparing me some of your time. I'd like to end by saying we approve of the shortlist for this year's Booker Prize (we didn't have any eligible titles, so there's only good wishes!)  It includes a debut author from York, evidence (as if you needed any) that North Yorkshire is fast becoming the centre of the literary universe ... and Paul Auster, who after hanging out with Nora Chassler last month, is pretty much part of our gang. As are you, dear reader! It's quite the organisation we're running here...

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #71: 'Of the Dump'

Dear readers, The video of Cath Nichols' launch event can be found here, and it's essential viewing – moving, incisive, thought-provoking (much like the book), rather like having an in-depth conversation with a friend about some important, deeply-felt social issues. We also invited Wendy Pratt, author of this forthcoming collection, to be a sort of 'warm-up act' and read a few poems at the start, so there's a bonus for you. More on Wendy next month! Next week, this series of events comes to a close when we spend an hour in the company of Antony Dunn. Antony will be appearing at the later time of 3-4pm, but in the same location as always; the Sitwell Library at Woodend, Scarborough, a.k.a. Valley Press HQ. There will of course be more events in future (Vanessa is working on approximately four zillion ideas), but probably not in this format, so enjoy it while you can! * * * This coming week sees the release of a new poetry collection by John Wedgwood Clarke, his first since Ghost Pot four years ago. The title is simply Landfill, and though not all of the poems are on that subject, the majority were inspired by a residency at the local tip here in Scarborough, which we optimistically call the "Resource Recovery Centre". Here's John explaining how this period of his writing life began:

"I’d driven past Seamer Carr on the bypass and always noticed the great flock of gulls circling over its summit and the slow lorries crawling over it. The lorries were like fishing boats or tractors with the way the gulls followed behind them. So while this might seem the least wild part of our ‘natural’ landscape, I also sensed it was a place of great ecological energy, a fertile and exciting place from which to view our culture and identify our behaviour as a species. Also, if there’s a fence around a place, I want to have a look behind it."

Reading the book will give you a better idea of how the poet relates "the dump" to the larger ecological / biological issues that have long fascinated him. Hanging round the public skips, watching people dispose of their rubbish was one thing, but the biggest "coup" was to access an open landfill cell, as described below:

"That took some persuasion. I was driven up in a land rover and only allowed ten minutes on the cell itself. It fell like I’d landed on the moon of waste. I bounced along over marshy fields of nappies and chicken carcasses and plastic water bottles. They’d had to fire off rockets to clear the gulls before we could step outside, so my visit was timed to the vast flock that wheeled away on a vast arc over the A59 before making its shit-laden return: the droppings were a key part of the hazard of being on the landfill cell – that and the enormous tractors with spiked wheels twice my height that had enormous, shining, bespattered blades that spread the rubbish out like butter."

We'll bring you the full text of this interview once you've all had time to digest the actual poems. I'd like to feature one here though, and I'm going to be inexplicably awkward and share one of the few poems in the book with no direct link to the theme (but you can still draw a line in the subtext). I think this is just an extraordinary bit of work.

Know Your Place A Northern classroom after the war and her hand’s in the air. She wants to try for grammar school. Oh, the teacher smiles, put it down.  Next day, at the front, there’s a box, gift-wrapped, and she’s called forward. She likes ‘nice things’ but can’t think what she’s done. As she reaches for the gift, the teacher grabs her wrist and squeezes. You must open it in front of the class.  The clock cuts one moment from the next. Should she save the wallpaper? The outer layer reveals a lidded box. Heat glazes her face as the class gazes like sunlight through a magnifier at her fingernails. Inside, she finds another box, string-tied, the paper fingernail creased. She picks at the knot as she will always pick at the knot, her nails bitten to the quick. There’s only another, brown paper this time, the paper of dispatch and back office, of shop counter and bags of seconds, minutes, hours, clocks and klaxons – open it, it’s yours, the teacher urges. Inside the box is nothing, and inside nothing another box, in which she prays.

A launch event will be held on Saturday 30th September, in Hull, details of which you can find here. There are four separate Valley Press events that day, spread all over the country, a real sign of how busy we are at the moment! I'll share details of the other events next week. Oh, and you'll be able to catch John on BBC4 soon presenting a programme about Larkin's photography – details of that will be in a future newsletter too. * * * Before I get back to my publishing responsibilities, two other exciting pieces of news: we've just signed our first comic book artist, Si Smith, for a "graphic novel" (or, literary comic book) in March 2018. Very excited about that project, and getting into a whole new genre. Also, we heard this week that Valley Press is a finalist in the Chamber Bridlington and Yorkshire Coast Business Awards, the scope of which apparently includes Hull, East Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. We're up for "Arts Business of 2017"... you can't vote though, it's judged by business experts, who are coming for a visit in a week or two. The winners are announced at a black tie gala (!) at Bridlington Spa on the 20th October – and we're all going, of course – so look out for more news on that nearer the time. It seems newsletters are going to be increasingly packed this autumn; my poor keyboard is already praying for the return of an intern or two... All best, Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #34: 'Mind the gap'

Dear readers,

Felix and Sue's 'Hull to Scarborough Line' has been going for six years now, and they treated both ends of the line to performances of their new show Mind the Gap this week. If you've not seen H2SL, it's hard to describe exactly what it is: not a play, not a 'reading', but a live event that falls somewhere in between the two. Absolutely brilliant, of course, without fail – there's a reason they pack rooms with 50+ people at a time for a 'literary event' (see header image).

I was able to capture the first seven minutes of tonight's show in video form, and put it on YouTube here; sorry it's not better-filmed, I always forget my camera and end up using the phone! The Hull event had a two-man technical team supplying sound effects and bona-fide station announcements; in Scarborough, we do things a little more modestly, replacing the technical team with a man in a hat (the unmistakable David Lewis). I hope you like it anyway, and remember you can pick up Sue's new book here if you want some great short stories.

I don't have too much else to tell you this week, but I can report I've found plenty of female readers for my submissions 'reading group' – so could really use a couple of men, if any are out there! To recap: I'm needing volunteers to spend a day in Scarborough (now narrowed to the 16th or 17th December) briefly looking at the submissions we've received this year, so I know which potential books real readers might be interested in. People who've done it before have really seemed to enjoy the experience, and I can promise you biscuits and a few free books! If you're interested, reply to this newsletter and let me know. (More ladies are welcome too, the more the merrier!)

Leeds residents have a chance to see Antony Dunn at Yorkshire Dance this Friday, the 11th (St Peter’s Buildings, St Peter’s Square, LS9 8AH); no tickets, you can just turn up at 7pm and enjoy a fantastic reading and some chat. I'm hoping to have the hardbacks by then ... if history's slowest printer finally puts ink on paper (that's a story for another time).

John Wedgwood Clarke's TV programme about the literary history of the Yorkshire Coast is on BBC4 next Sunday (13th Nov), 7.30pm – not last week, as I mistakenly said in the previous newsletter. Definitely worth a watch.

Finally, earlier in the week, I was sorting some old boxes of books and came across this:

I remember writing that when I moved into the Woodend office in 2013, when I had different interns in every fortnight (an exhausting time!) They would inevitably stumble upon the box in the course of their duties, and it turned into a fascinating social experiment ... some laughed it off, some were genuinely concerned and made a point of sitting away from it.

What was in it? We'll never know; I can't remember, and I can't afford to take the risk of opening it ... I've got a wife, a mother, all kinds of in-laws, several bartenders and a six-week-old depending on me! Theories on a postcard, please.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #33: 'Exile and miscellany'

Dear readers,

This week, updates on numerous ongoing projects – but first, I want to mention a new book that you might call an 'honorary member' of the Valley Press family.

Back in January I heard from Adnan al-Sayegh, an Iraqi writer who fled his home country after being condemned to death by the Hussein regime during the 1990s. Now living in London, his latest collection had been translated to English, and prepped for publication by a band of friends, family and supporters: could I help them make it available for sale? As it happened, I could: Adnan's book, charmingly titled To Cuddle My Exile, is available in paperback here and on Kindle here (sorry for the Amazon links, but they do provide a good service!) If you're intrigued, there is a sample of the book available via the Kindle link. You can also read the full story of Adnan's extraordinary life in the blurb; worth clicking through for that alone, I would say.

Onto the updates: let's remember the two Sue Wilsea book launches (and 'Hull to Scarborough Line' performances) which are on this week, at Kardomah94 in Hull on Wednesday 2nd (main show 7pm, book launch 8pm), then at Scarborough Art Gallery on Sunday 6th (main show 3pm, book launch 4pm). I'll be there!

Antony Dunn is coming to Scarborough too this week, to our favourite bookshop Wardle & Jones, on Friday 4th from 6.30. There are only ten tickets available for this event, and the shop is closed Tuesday-Thursday, so you'll need to call them on Monday afternoon (01723353260) if you've any hope of sneaking in. Even I might have to give that one a miss! If you've ordered a signed copy of his new book, I'm hoping to get them all signed and posted that same day.

What else is there? Oh yes: our current submissions process is coming to an end in a month's time, so start getting your manuscript in order if you're a last-minute sort of person. If you've submitted already and are waiting for news, I'll be working through submissions during December and hope to have replied to everyone before Christmas Day. That means I'll be needing volunteers for the reading group, to meet for a day in Scarborough and give opinions on the most promising work. If you'd like to be involved, please get in touch and let me know which days you're available between the 5th and 16th of December. There's no money available, but I do provide biscuits (as you can see below).

I'm still getting a few enquiries about the Yorkshire Anthology: it's not dead, I promise! I hope to have a new date for you soonish, once Miles clambers back to the surface of your enormous heap of Yorkshire-related writing. Oh, and talking of Yorkshire – John Wedgwood Clarke's TV programme can still be viewed on iPlayer here, and I'm told is repeated on BBC4 this week (though I haven't made a note of when ... see listings?)

No picture of George for you this time – don't want to spoil you, he'll be back though! Until then, keep reading, and I'll see you soon.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press, #31: 'Raw Material'

Dear readers,

I want to begin this newsletter by taking you into the near future; to the start of November in fact. With the eyes of the world watching, events will take place (for the first time since 2012) that could decide the path of the free world for decades to come...

I'm talking, of course, about the release of another Valley Press book, with accompanying book launches (what did you think I meant?) After four years, legendary Hull-based writer Sue Wilsea is back with a new collection of her darkly witty short stories, titled Raw Material. If you've read her work before, there's no need for me to sell it to you; one reviewer said her last collection Staying Afloat was 'probably the best collection of short stories I have ever read by a living author' (though Sue wouldn't let me put that on the cover of the new book!)

I can't sugar-coat things theme-wise: there are a lot of stories about death in this book, and the others are mainly concerned with difficult relationships (in some cases, both); but despite that you will laugh, a lot, and your heart will ache at times when Sue points out a tiny detail (like the changing appearance of someone's hands over time). I don't know anyone else who can tell so much story in such few words.

One story, this one about difficult relationships after a death (for a change), is up on our site for you to read now, and you can pre-order the book here. There are two launch events planned, both following a new show by 'The Hull to Scarborough Line' (Sue's literary duo act with Felix Hodcroft) – they are at Kardomah94, in Hull, on November 2nd (main show 7pm, book launch 8pm), then heading to the Scarborough Art Gallery on November 6th (main show 3pm, book launch 4pm). Should be spectacular; I'll hope to see you then.

In other news this week: it's Sunday night, you've tuned your TV to BBC1, and you're settling down to watch a programme about a tousle-haired literary hero from Cornwall. That's right: Valley Press poet John Wedgwood Clarke has finally been given his own TV programme (again, what did you think I meant?) Here's a promotional still, with Dr Clarke looking authoritative yet approachable:

The programme, part of a series titled Books That Made Britain, was shown earlier today, but you can catch it for the next 29 days on the BBC's iPlayer service here. It's brilliant for anyone who wants to brush-up on the literary history of the Yorkshire coast.

Heading inland slightly, Robert Powell (another of our distinguished poets) has been involved in a very interesting project titled 'A Small Box of River'. Elaborating on some of the themes of his VP collection All, he's produced an exhibition and book with artist Jake Attree, which you can see at the Lotte Inch Gallery in York from the 20th October to the 15th November. There are a few events on as part of the exhibition too; you can find details of them on the gallery's newsletter here. After York, it moves to Salts Mill in Saltaire until Christmas, so you've plenty of chances to see it.

That's enough for this week – thanks for reading, as ever, and thanks to everyone who came to our gig in Manchester on Tuesday. Just because I can, here are Matthew Hedley Stoppard and Jo Brandon on their way to the event, about to enjoy an apple:

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press: 'The footprints I left'

Dear readers,

It's been an exhausting and emotional week here in Britain, and indeed here at Valley Press. So here's a big long blast of good news –

As mentioned last week, we headed to the House of Lords on Wednesday for a celebration of poetry from 'non-resident Diaspora South-Asian writers', as they were described by organisers Word Masala. I treated the dignitaries to two poems from Saleem Peeradina's Final Cut, and received for my efforts a small trophy from Baroness Prashar and Lord Parekh (I guess this is the kind of company I'm keeping now?)

Here are a couple of pictures taken by Laura; with Lord Parekh on the left, Word Masala editor Yogesh Patel in the middle, and yours truly on the right. (You can also just make out a picture of Saleem, who was there in spirit.)

So that was all very exciting. We were also thrilled this week to hear Di Slaney's Reward for Winter had been Highly Commended in this year's Forward Prizes – her poem 'Doubtful Words' will appear in the Forward Book of Poetry 2017 – and to read a glowing review for The Finest Years and Me from the Churchill Centre's journal (they know their stuff). I'm declaring £3 off both those books this week with the code GOODNEWS.

And it continues: Valley Press is at the Ledbury Poetry Festival this Saturday, with a veritable bonanza of talent on stage. I'll be talking about the realities of modern poetry publishing at 12.15pm, in the 'Panelled Room' in 'The Master’s House' (all sounds very grand). I'll then be introducing John Wedgwood Clarke at 1.20, and we'll be followed by Di Slaney at 3.40 and James Nash at 4.30, all in the same venue, and all completely free to attend! It's a must if you're anywhere near Herefordshire next weekend.

And there's more. There's a new Rosa-produced VP book out in early July, which she'd like to introduce you to. This was actually a submission for autumn 2016, but Rosa (and the readers) loved it so much, I was persuaded to add it to the end of our already-bulging spring schedule. Over to her:

"In a week of drama and (in Liverpool, at least) appropriately apocalyptic weather, I'm thrilled to introduce an antidote – a beautiful debut collection from a poet that I'm certain has an incredibly bright future ahead of her. All the Footprints I Left Were Red is Rowena Knight's astonishing and assured take on coming of age in a world that can be at once alienating and joyful, harsh and beautiful. She tackles vast themes – as varied as violence, migration, food, and love – in compact poems filled to the brim with vivid imagery. Distinctly feminist in stance, and with the outsider perspective that moving from New Zealand to England at thirteen has afforded her, this debut is sharp, lyrical, and a true breath of fresh air. A book for anyone who has ever felt out of place, wondered why it is that women so often write poems about being in the bath, or grew up believing the Goblin King was real!"

You must check out that cover at the very least (as used in the header for this post), and look out for a preview poem on the site soon – it's exemplary stuff.

If you're wondering why you're hearing about Rowena's book so early, the answer is the one slight bit of sad news today; this is the last of my 'weekly update' emails until September. Valley Press is something of a seasonal business, with the book releases and events mostly happening February-June, September-November – in the other months, like the next two, I get my head down and concentrate on production, admin and submissions. (I also spend some time on the beach; there's a reason I live by the sea!)

I might sneak out one more book during those months: I'm working on a huge Collected Poems project, and if that makes it to print before September I'll do a special bulletin. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful summer, that the sun shines, and that you remember where to go should you be stuck for reading material...

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

'Poets on Bar Street' – and, meet Wardle & Jones

Today, I'm excited to bring you news of a new series of poetry readings in Scarborough, at recently-opened independent bookshop Wardle & Jones. Details of the readings can be found below, in the poster, and afterwards I thought I'd let W&J's proprietors share a few thoughts on the daunting process of opening a new bookshop. Wish them luck!  – J.M.

We are Rachel and Karl – the two halves of Wardle & Jones. 

I am the Wardle half and it's my smile you'll usually see as you come through the door. I mainly read fiction, I also love children's books and am more likely to be found perusing our children's stock than reading a book aimed at grown ups. Karl, the Jones half, on the other hand much prefers non-fiction – history, politics, philosophy – he also loves Terry Pratchett.

We decided to open a book shop after lots of talking, thinking, research and training. It is the one thing Karl and I had always talked about doing together with true excitement. I was aiming to find my sparkle again after leaving a 12-year career as a project manager. It was definitely the right decision – my sparkle’s back and we love being in Scarborough.

We opened on 20 June 2015 after a frenetic five weeks of work from both family and some of the most conscientious trades people I've ever met. There was only one major hiccup when, 10 days before opening, we were told the material for the shelves and counter was not available. Not only would it not be delivered in the next three days as planned, it wasn’t going to be delivered at all! I began contacting local joiners and carpenters and by the end of the following day I'd managed to line up a two-man team. They were new to the area and needed to build a good reputation quickly, it was a fortuitous meeting for all concerned. They did a good quality job and we opened on time, phew!

We decided on books, coffee and cake as the right combination because we'd visited other places where this mixture worked well. Two of our favourite bookshops are Barter Books in Alnwick and Mr B's Book Emporium in Bath. Mr B's doesn't serve coffee and cake but they do have lots of space and comfy nooks to sit and enjoy the books. We wanted to give everyone a place to enjoy being around books in a safe, comfy environment where there was a reason to stay longer and have a proper look.

Our challenge was to fit that into a very small space – just 30m2; serving only cake was the solution. We knew we wanted to serve freshly ground coffee, that way book and coffee lovers alike would have a reason to visit, stay – well, only until closing – and return. So we made sure there was space for an espresso machine and grinder on our carefully designed counter (thanks to Mr Jones' hidden – until now – talent for technical drawings).

Almost 10 weeks in I am enjoying life more than I have for years. I’m excited every day about the people I might meet in the shop and the thoughts, opinions, ideas and memories they might share. But I am fearful of the future too, will we be able to sell enough books, coffee and cake to stay open? Business is at best steady and we certainly need to be selling more in the coming weeks, months and years to carry on for the foreseeable future, but we're hopeful. There are a number of as yet untapped income streams – we are just starting to put together an events calendar, we'd like to start supplying schools when the new school year starts and we have yet to run any joint events with local venues.

Finally, one thing I find useful as a bookseller is to remind myself the books in the shop aren't mine, they already belong to someone else. That way I find it easy to let people look, touch, feel and enjoy the books in their own way, so hopefully they're more likely to make them theirs before leaving.

You can read more about W&J here.

Valley Press Friday Digest, #14

Hello again, readers. It's time for another of my 'weekly digests', and I'd like to follow the format of last week's post exactly, if it's all the same to you - announce a 2015 book, share a couple of minor bits of news, and finish with another poem from Helen Burke's new collection (probably the last one I'll share - I want to leave some mystery to it!)

Photo by Marcos Avlonitis

• In March 2015 Valley Press will publish Seahouses, the first collection of poetry by noted medical historian Richard Barnett, pictured to your right. Think you've heard that name somewhere before? Richard contributed two poems to our Pocket Horizon anthology, so he's the second PH 'alumnus' to graduate to own-book status (after Kelley Swain) - and perhaps not the last. You may also have heard of his book The Sick Rose: Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration, published this year to rave reviews (including by Will Self in The Guardian, who said the writing was 'superbly erudite and lucid' - I'm still pondering whether I can use that comment on the Seahouses back cover!) When Richard sent me his manuscript, my expectations were pretty high, and he exceeded them by miles - it's exceptionally good. I'll just give you one line for now, as a tease: 'tomorrow we will keep bees for all the wrong reasons'.

• If you want to read an even lengthier blog post by me today (and why wouldn't you?), the Young Poets Network have posted an interview I did for them in May. I must stress that the questions are all from different people, which is why they're so random - several people have commented to me that the interviewer has quite an odd approach, thus necessitating a patient explanation by me of exactly what the deal was there.

• A short, fair review of John Wedgwood Clarke's In Between appeared this week, by Greg Freeman on Write Out Loud - you can read that here. He calls it 'modest but enjoyable', which may not make it onto the cover for the reprint, but is quite a nice thing to say.

• Sarah Holt was interviewed this week for Woman magazine, about the experience of writing and launching Love and Eskimo Snow. The interview is set to appear in the August 12th issue, so make sure you grab one - as I certainly won't be scanning it and posting here (wink wink).

• And so to end, another poem from Helen Burke's forthcoming collection Here's Looking at You Kid, which I've just finished typesetting - hoping to go to print next week. My head is full of these poems at the moment, which is why I keep posting them... in the hope that they will take residence in your brains too. This is perhaps the funniest one (there's some serious stuff too - but you don't want that on a Friday night!)

French Cat in French Window

So. I am a French cat in a French window and you
are just passing by – you take my photograph –
why wouldn’t you? – because I am beautiful.
I am beautiful – and you are English – that’s how the cookie crumbles – yes, life can be unfair. Life can be a dog.
I am licking my arse – and I am still beautiful – don’t try
it yourself. I can’t be responsible for hospital bills.
I am a French cat in a French window – you are on your
way to – how you say it – Yorkshire?
I am on my way to Montmartre to buy a little sardine
on a bed of couscous – perhaps a little wine, if the year
she seems a good one. You look very pale – as if
your whole world, she is not coloured in and has no
way of turning the other cheek – and looking up at the moon
and singing in the night. At midnight.
That is when the French cat comes to life.
I myself run a little café in the Bois de Boulogne. I even
let a few English sit at the tables there. But, at this moment
I am cleaning my bottom – with the care of an artiste –
and you take my photograph.
I feel a little sorry for you – but even so, as you click your camera
I will turn my arse right around to face you.
This is – how you call it? –
the French Resistance.

Valley Press Friday Digest, #10

I shall jump straight into today's 'Friday Digest' with some exclusive breaking news:

• Kate Fox and Alfie Crow, authors of last year's The Glasto Code, are working on a sequel set during the Yorkshire leg of this year's Tour de France, which Valley Press will be bringing to you in ebook form - for just 99p! - very soon. As with last year's Glastonbury effort, Fox & Crow (as we can possibly refer to them from now on) have written a rough outline of a mystery novel, and will fill in the gaps with actual events and observations from a real-life event, in this case 'Le Tour Yorkshire' (which is avoiding Scarborough for some reason). The new novel will be called Tour de Force, and the cover is below. Web pages coming soon.

 

• Though the Tour cyclists are heading to York, they probably won't have time to check out the city's snickets, passageways, courts and yards - but we know a man who has, and if you too would like to, York Curiouser have produced a helpful map of all the places John wrote about in In Between, where the poems are currently on show as pieces of (temporary?) graffiti. Here it is:

• There's been even more JWC-related excitement this week: the York poems have been made into a sort of immersive audiobook, which you can listen to here. Also, don't tell anyone (I haven't), but we found out yesterday that John's full-length collection Ghost Pot will be part of New Writing North's Read Regional campaign for 2015. That's two years in a row that Valley Press authors have been represented - quite a result!

 

• We also found out this week what happens when you clear your Gmail inbox on your smartphone:  

 

Proof that there is light at the end of the tunnel for email sufferers - @TheEmmaPress pic.twitter.com/vEi5YR03Hd
— Valley Press (@valleypress) July 1, 2014

• Both me and Emma cut a great swathe through the jungle of our email inboxes this week; so congratulations to... us? After much discussion we decided there's no way around it: we won't ignore them, and we won't hire someone else to answer them, we just have to knuckle down and work through all our incoming correspondence - it's a crucial part of what makes EP and VP such friendly and accessible operations. As for the authors of the five messages I still need to reply to, at time of writing... stand by!

 

• Congratulations also to all our friends who had their ACE grants renewed this week, especially our mutual sales agency Inpress, and the organisation behind Bridlington Poetry Festival (which I know I'm always going on about, but it really is good). Looking forward to the next three years working with you!

 

• I seem to be in a congratulatory mood, so congrats also to Sarah Holt, whose Love and Eskimo Snow made this list of 'Top 10 Holiday Books' for this summer (between John Green and Joey Essex - what company!) Peculiarly for a book with 'snow' in the title, summer looks to be the big season for Sarah's novel - the front-of-store promotion in branches of WHSmith Travel starts next week, so look out for it if you go in one. Oh, and well done to Matthew Hedley Stoppard, who has a poem in the latest edition of Magma, and read at the launch this time last week.

 

• Next week on this blog: Miles Salter is working on a list of who he thinks are the favourites to be named in the 'Next Generation Poets 2014' list (which I've mentioned previously), and I intend to post that in next week's round-up - should be very interesting. Last week I told you all about Helen Burke' forthcoming second collection, but I forgot to tell you how it got its title - it comes from the opening poem, which I will reprint below as a finishing flourish to this instalment of the blog. See you next week!

Here’s Looking at You, Kid

I noticed from an early age that the sun
asked permission to be on our street.
‘Is the sun allowed here?’ I once asked me dad.
And even though he knew it wasn’t,
he pulled his collar high and looked all round –
then put it in his pocket just for me.
Even though he knew to own this bright
this dangerous thing would bring me
perils, as well as joy. 
(Better to have a little sun than none at all.)

And we walked home, like two happy dogs
and the sky was duck-egg blue and the grass
was full of four-leaved clovers
and dad winked – and we laughed to think
he had the sun in his pocket.

‘Here’s looking at you, kid,’ dad said.
‘Here’s looking at you.’