This week at Valley Press, #66: 'Gripped'

Dear readers,

It's Jamie – I'm back, after a three week "holiday" which has (predictably?) resulted in an inbox with hundreds of unread messages. So let me start by apologising to anyone whose valuable words are languishing in there; I'll get through them in due course.

Let me continue by thanking Emma and Harriet for writing the last three newsletters; they really captured the VP tone, and added so much energy that I had to check the caffeine rating on the office coffee! Interns will be with us until mid-September, so expect more communications from them in the near future. (The latest one just started this morning, so I didn't think it would be fair to throw her into the deep end straight away!)

They are paid, by the way – we've done informal internships in the past, but now we're a serious company with a payroll (and considering how they're supposed to work extremely hard all day every day), I knew it was time to get the VP chequebook out. That being said, I imagine the emails with their bank details are somewhere in that inbox deluge... some patience may be required...

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This week saw the final, definitive 'launch' of our Yorkshire Anthology, which is now available in all good bookshops (and many disreputable ones). If you missed out on the event, which also featured music from Miles and Oz's band, you can battle your way through my latest attempt at live-streaming (part 1 here, part 2 here). Lessons learned every time I try it!

You can read an interview with Miles Salter, who did most of the selecting and who originally had the idea for the anthology, in the York Press here. Of particular interest is Miles' concept for the cover, which I vetoed on about forty-six separate occasions – it was to feature 'an abandoned coal town, a half-eaten curry, a York back alley and a drunk reeling along a Hull street'. The jury is still out re: that one.

The Anthology poets will be coming to Scarborough on August 24th, as part of our new events series 'The Literary Lunch Hour' (to be rebranded next time, as people keep asking what's for lunch – the title refers to the time of day only!) Check out the poster below:

You'll notice the first event is this coming Thursday, the 10th August, and features Valley Press legend James Nash. The plan is for James to read some classic sonnets, a few of his Cinema Stories poems, and some brand new material from a new collection due in autumn 2018. As it's the first event, and there'll be some VP newbies in the crowd, we'll also be looking back on nine years of Valley Press history. In a recent conversation, me and James agreed to 'chat like it's an Olympic event', so enjoy that!

Other highlights this week included a blog from forthcoming VP poet Caroline Hardaker, offering more fascinating insights into the publishing process (read it here). One 'fun tip' she offers for submitters is to wait until the end of each submissions window, which means more time to revise your work and 'less time to grip your face in angst'. Agreed; we don't want anyone gripping their own face in such a fashion!

Elsewhere, Remembering Oluwale editor SJ Bradley (who has a new novel out, not with us, but you're still allowed to read it) has blogged about her experience working on the anthology, from first meeting to the famous awards triumph – a brilliant bit of writing in its own right, located here. Apparently she has the 'best anthology' trophy on her desk; must get an intern to steal that sometime...

Finally, Helen Burke was interviewed for close to an hour on Chapel FM, detailing her 'origin story', rather like a literary superhero – you can find that here. Hope to see as many of you as possible at her contribution to the Literary Lunch Hour on August 17th. Thanks for reading, hope this comes at the beginning of a great weekend!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

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.

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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

This week at Valley Press, #49: 'Remembering'

Dear readers,

You may recall a book we published last year, titled Remembering Oluwale (with a title like that, how could you forget?) It's returned to the spotlight recently in various ways. One of the contributors won the 'Pitch and Pen' event we took part in during March, and is heading for a solo publication (the slow way – she still needs to write most of the book!) That encouraged me to re-read the anthology, and it's still as compelling a year on.

We're working on another anthology titled Verse Matters, due in November (eye-wateringly brilliant stuff, couldn't be more excited about that one), and during the first meeting today I heard that the editors were encouraged to offer it to Valley Press because of our great work on Remembering Oluwale. Particularly the design; so a big shout-out to Rosa Campbell, if she's reading. (She's very busy with her PhD at present.)

RO's editor SJ Bradley has been working tirelessly to get the book the attention it deserves, and this recently paid off in the form of a shortlisting for the Saboteur Awards. Unlike the typical literary awards, this one won't be decided in a secluded boardroom somewhere; it's a public vote, open until April 30th. Hustling for votes makes me feel a little queasy, but if you do feel compelled to give your opinions on literary matters, you can vote in all the award categories via their website here.

(I also heard SJ is gearing up to edit another 'prize anthology', this one exclusively for short stories – more details later in the year. That's probably a secret though, so shh!)

I'm constantly astonished at how a single project can send out ripples in all directions that don't become obvious until many months, or even years, later; that's been a big lesson from 2017 so far. The Chinese project I've been hinting at (which I will explain soon, I promise) originated from someone attending one of our very first book launches in 2011 – over the years, word spread from that room in Scarborough library to the foothills of the Qinling Mountains, in the middle of China.

That's all I've got to say this week, though after all this it would be remiss of me not to offer you 20% off Remembering Oluwale; use code REMEM at the checkout to claim that. Oh, and I also enjoyed reading this blog post by one of the 'winners' of our 2016 submissions process, Caroline Hardaker, who has a pamphlet coming out in early October. It's a rare insight into what happens after we say 'yes'; something I'm hoping to do a lot more in the near future.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher