A little bit of how's your father/motherhood anthology

Publishing 27th Feb 2014

We've had a great response to our call for submissions to The Emma Press Anthology of Motherhood and The Emma Press Anthology of Fatherhood, with 346 people from around the world sending in their poems before the deadline on 9th December. We received 170 submissions to our anthology of Mildly Erotic Verse earlier in the year, so we were slightly startled by the response to this new call, and delighted by the number of people who felt moved to submit.

Rachel (my co-editor) and I have now read all of the poems (nearly 1000!) and we met up last week to compare notes. It took 8 solid hours of discussion over two days, during which we found that most poems fell into one of a handful of categories. Popular ones included: loving portraits of children and pregnancies; anxious reflections on the responsibilities of parenthood; difficult relationships with parents; and poets considering their parents in the light of their own parenthood. In order to create a balanced pair of collections, we tried to select the strongest poems in each category, but the extremely high standard of submissions meant it was frequently difficult to make the final call.

Publishing 29th May 2014

We ended up with two shortlists from which we'll be crafting our final selections next week, and I hope to start sending out responses in the last couple of weeks of January. I can already tell that these are going to be two incredible books, full of wisdom and heartbreaking insights, and I can't wait to share them with everyone next month and in May. In the meantime, I am also very excited about the covers (exclusively revealed on this blog), and about the launch party for the Anthology of Motherhood, which will be on Thursday 27th February in Vauxhall, London. I hope that lots of Emma Press supporters will come along to support us - do join the Facebook group or put it in your diary if you'd like to attend. I will also try to take the books out of London and around the country, so watch this space.

First Responses From The Literary World

Since announcing our engagement last week, Jamie and I have received many lovely messages from friends of our presses, and even been dubbed 'the most important celebrity wedding of the year ' by one perceptive onlooker. We continue to be extremely excited about our betrothal and hope to be able to share our plans for our forthcoming nuptials with you all very soon, but in the meantime here are some of the responses from the literary world.

"A wonderful marriage of minds!  - And publishing talent!  North meets south, boy meets girl, beautiful books meet beautiful books; hopefully leading to the begetting of more beautiful books… As a Valley Press author I couldn’t be happier to witness these delightful nuptials with The Emma Press." 

– Jo Brandon

"Congratulations to the Emma Press and Valley Press on their marriage. Small presses with such similar values are a match made in heaven and I think, in these uncertain times, a willingness to partner up, vow to stick together for richer, for poorer and share the best of themselves is a decision that I, as a poet, want to shower with confetti. I wish them all the very best for a fruitful, fertile union."

 – Kate Fox

"This is fantastic news - a true meeting of minds, enthusiasms and plans for the future. The Emma Press and Valley Press are both dynamic and forward-thinking publishers with lots to share and celebrate. Can I be a bridesmaid?" 

– Rachel Piercey

"Let's all toast Emma Press and Valley Press and wish them a long and fulfilling coadunation. It's immensely gratifying to see the institution of marriage returned to its roots as a means of forging alliances, consolidating power and sharing spoils. It's also very sensible of them - poetry needs cooperatives and collaborations more than it needs individualistic fervour and queue-jostling. This way, we all get a slice of the cake. By which I mean the wedding cake, but also the metaphorical poetry cake. Two cakes, one marriage. Good luck to them!" 

–  Jon Stone

If you want to add your own thoughts, let us know in the comments box, or tell us in person at the Poetry Book Fair tomorrow. Both Valley Press and The Emma Press will have stalls, so come on by for a chat!

Emma and Valley 'Engaged To Be Wed'

Today, representatives from The Emma Press and Valley Press have announced the unprecedented news that the two small presses are ‘to be married’, in a secret ceremony at an as-yet-undisclosed location.

‘We’re keen to stress this is not a merger,’ says Valley publisher Jamie McGarry, ‘nor are any actual humans getting married. This has come about as we realised the two presses shared a great number of goals and ideals, and we wanted to think of a formal way of working together... without losing our individuality.’

Emma Wright, publisher at The Emma Press, said: ‘I first came across Valley Press when Jamie bought a book from me and we shared a brief but friendly email exchange. I looked him up and found that our approaches to publishing and our route into it were remarkably similar. You could say it was love at first (web)site.’

The Emma Press and Valley Press are both small, independent publishers specialising in poetry and characterised by their personal approach to publishing. Vows exchanged at the ceremony are expected to include the following:

* I plight thee my book news and event write-ups, to publish on our shared blog from this day forward. 

* With my combined catalogue I thee cross-promote, and with all my worldly knowledge of sales and marketing opportunities I thee endow.

* I do swear to share a stand at bookfairs and co-host events, while retaining my own identity and separate list, in the presence of the Nielsen ISBN Agency I make this vow.

Both presses will appear on a panel about DIY Publishing at the CIT Northern Lights Writers’ Conference at the Waterside Arts Centre near Manchester on 12th October 2013.