This week at Valley Press: a call for Yorkshire poems

Dear readers,

I'll leap straight in this week with the biggest news: as part of our Arts Council grant for 2016, we promised to publish a Yorkshire-themed poetry anthology, and we are opening submissions for it today. Here's the official announcement, which you can feel free to spread around the internet:

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Call for submissions: Yorkshire poetry anthology (deadline: 31st May)

In October 2016, Yorkshire-based Valley Press will publish an anthology of poetry which aims to document and celebrate our multi-faceted home county. We are now searching for great poems to feature in the book, from writers based anywhere in the world. Poems can be on any subject or topic – a place, an incident, a person, an idea – with only one rule: there must be some connection with the county of Yorkshire. (If in any doubt as to where Yorkshire begins and ends, consult this helpful map.)

Contributing poets will each receive a copy of the finished book, and a share of £900 in prize money/fees. We are considering poems which have been published before, but the author must be able to grant Valley Press non-exclusive rights to reproduce them in this anthology (if in doubt, consult your previous publisher).

The anthology will be edited by York-based poet Miles Salter, and submissions (maximum three poems per author) should be sent to milesinyork@hotmail.com, with the subject line 'Yorkshire Poetry Anthology', by 5pm on May 31st. The featured poets will be announced by September 1st, and the book is expected to be launched on National Poetry Day (Thursday 6th October).

Funding for this project has been generously provided by Arts Council England. We look forward to seeing your poems – best of luck!
 

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In other news: I was delighted by the response to last week's newsletter – no great exodus of subscribers, plenty of emails of support, and better still, lots of people taking advantage of the 'buy one get one free' offer! Thanks folks!

To keep the goodwill going, I'll do another offer this week: anyone who buys our first hardback, Ex Libris by David Hughes, can receive a second VP book free of charge. You should be able to add a 'note to seller' at the checkout advising me which book you'd like as your freebie (or say 'surprise me!') – but if you can't find that button, just reply to this email and let me know your choice.

I've chosen Ex Libris as Antony Dunn, the book's editor, is coming to Scarborough on February 11th for a reading at our favourite bookshop Wardle & Jones, and he's promised to read from David's book as well as his own collections. You can find details on that event here, and contact the bookshop for tickets, which are £5. I won't be featuring too many events in these newsletters – as I worry about annoying the 95% of subscribers who don't live anywhere near Scarborough! – but that will be a really special evening.

Next week: the new website is coming, and it is looking good. Watch this space!

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

This week at Valley Press: 'the dawn of a new era'

Dear readers,

Welcome to another year on board the unstoppable literary juggernaut that is Valley Press; which, since I last wrote, has been described as 'one of Yorkshire's leading publishers' by the Yorkshire Post. I could get used to that!

I want to try something a bit different this year with the newsletter; rather than giving you a lengthy missive at random intervals, I'm going to do a short email every Sunday afternoon. Most people I've broached this idea with have reacted in horror, but I've always felt market research can only take a person so far ... so let's give it a whirl.

February will see the launch of our new website, and with that operational, I'll be able to give out 'exclusive discount codes' to newsletter subscribers; so there's one good reason to stick around. The plan is to have a half-price paperback on offer every single week – but in the meantime, I'll do a 'buy one get one free'. This week, anyone who buys our latest publication, Jo Brandon's The Learned Goose (pictured above), can receive a second VP book free of charge. Just make sure to formally request the free book at the checkout. You can specify which you want, or say 'surprise me' and see what turns up!

Two bits of news since the last newsletter: first, I've expanded the team at Valley Press, with the finer details announced in this blog post. My newly-minted colleagues have been working wonders with our Twitter feed since then; plus, Rosa has resurrected our Tumblr (which to be honest, I'd forgotten existed) and launched us onto Instagram. If you're into that sort of thing, make sure you follow us; and there's always Facebook too.

Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, I need to draw your attention to a new opportunity for writers, which could lead to publication in a Valley Press book this June. The Remember Oluwale Writing Prize, to be judged by Caryl Phillips, Marina Lewycka and Ian Duhig, has been explained wonderfully on the Leeds Big Bookend site, so head there if you think you could come up with a short story or shorter poem on an important subject.

Check your inbox for more of the same next week – thanks for reading.

All best,
Jamie McGarry, VP Publisher

Why I Published our Pamphlets (Part 2)

Our open call for poetry and prose pamphlet submissions ends this Sunday (13th December) and I've been thinking about what I can do to help people who are still deciding what to send us. I've already written about what we do when we process submissions, so I thought it might be useful to look at submissions from another angle and explain why I chose to publish all the pamphlets we've put out already.

You can read Part 1 here, and all the pamphlets are available to buy in our webshop (pamphlets make great Christmas presents and stocking fillers!).

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Malkin, by Camille Ralphs (£5.00)

Series: The Emma Press Picks

Malkin, by Camille Ralphs

Why: Last year I hadn't worked out how to tether my netbook to my phone to access the internet, so I just downloaded all the Word docs and read them on my many train journeys, only matching them up to their covering letters later. Consequently, I was a little flummoxed by both the premise and language of Malkin: the poems take the form of monologues from those accused in the Pendle witch trials of 1612, and Camille uses unorthodox spelling for various reasons but partly to immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the period. But even though I didn't know who was speaking and why the spelling was as it was, I still had a powerful response to the visceral poems and knew I loved them.

Favourite lines: 'And after, well fed-up but famished, I knashed at th bare bakside 
of an apl csh csh - -/ nd an appl & 
another apple – and felt non the better for it, only old.'

AWOL, by John Fuller and Andrew Wynn Owen, illustrated by Emma Wright (£10.00)

Series: Art Squares

AWOL, by John Fuller and Andrew Wynn Owen

Why: One of my poetry bugbears is poems that don't seem to be written with any reader in mind. I don't need that reader to be me, but in the poems I publish I like to have a sense that a poem has been written with an audience in mind; that the poet wants to share something with a reader. I was drawn to the poems in AWOL because I can't get enough of both poets' joy in form and language, but also because they are letter-poems, written from a poet in his late seventies to a poet in his early twenties. I like the way John and Andrew's different perspectives on life sit together in the book, and I find the tenderness and mutual respect throughout very touching.

Favourite lines: 'We want, not days strung out like beads, 
But the whole present in our hands, 
Constant, as the past recedes. 

We’ve had enough of wonderlands: 
We want our share of wonder now. 
Who cares if no one understands?'

True Tales of the Countryside, by Deborah Alma (£6.50)

Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets

True Tales of the Countryside

Why: I think a good word to describe Deborah Alma’s poems might be ‘indomitable’. She writes about insecurity, fear and self-doubt, as well as sex, the countryside and ageing, but the underlying theme is strength. I love the directness of the emotions in True Tales of the Countryside, and reading the manuscript for the first time felt exhilarating. Little details from everyday life and love leapt out at me, perfectly observed and sometimes horribly familiar: the graffiti on the bus shelter, the sticky closeness of nature, the squashing down and clawing back of self in an abusive relationship. I thought True Tales would resonate with and give strength to a lot of readers.

Favourite lines: 'I am a mother, a field, a house. 
Without me, windows darken, 
no-one else knows how to put on lights 
 just to bring the house to life.'

If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women, by Jacqueline Saphra, illustrated by Mark Andrew Webber

Series: Art Squares

If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women

Why: This is the book which launched the Art Squares! Jacqueline’s sequence of prose poems was so compellingly strange and full of rich visual details that I knew the best way to present them had to be something that gave the text room to breathe. I liked the idea of creating a kind of picture book for adults, with plenty of white space around the text and illustrations that complemented the atmosphere of the poems. As a publisher, I think a lot about how to influence and enhance the reader’s experience, and I think the format of the Art Square encourages a slower, more contemplative reading experience, which might be how I think all poetry should be read.

Favourite lines: 'When I was a child I tied my mother and father together with bandages and put a song in their mouths. If I wound them up they sang an Afrikaans duet in perfect thirds.'

Myrtle, by Ruth Wiggins (£6.50)

Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets

Myrtle, by Ruth Wiggins

Why: This is another set of strength-giving poems, I think. There are ideas in Ruth’s poems which really stuck with me from the first read of her manuscript, and felt like a good, grown-up way of looking at life. She writes about sex and death with a mix of solemnity and mischief which I love, and which I wanted to share with other readers.

Favourite lines: 'This morning we mostly lay on the couch, 
impersonating cats, talking gibberish. 
This afternoon you fucked me, right out 
of my pyjamas and into yours.'

Rivers Wanted, by Rachel Piercey (£6.50)

Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets

Rivers Wanted, by Rachel Piercey

Why: Reading poetry can sometimes feel like a relief from being me, as I become immersed in another person’s world view. Rachel’s world view is full of sharp, disturbing observations, about animals, social interactions and courtship rituals, but I still find myself delighted whenever I read any of her poems, because they contain such unexpected ideas that I feel utterly transported.

Favourite lines: 'If you have always been 

on a train between two places, 
 put up your feet here. 
A hero has come to show you 

the revelatory stoniness of stones 
 and how, upturned, they disclose 
 an adjacent magic underneath.'

Two new books (and assorted news) from Valley Press

Dear readers,

Let me start by sharing a photo, taken last week by the great David Chalmers:

Yes, that’s every Valley Press book from the last five years, in one towering stack. It’s an odd feeling to see five years of work expressed so visually (precariously, even!) It makes me think ‘wow, we've really achieved something’, with perhaps a little bit of: ‘five years work, for one mid-sized stack of books?!’  But hey, what a stack.

Balancing at the top is our third publication for November, The Finest Years and Me by Mark Woodburn – sequel to Winston and Me, which long-term fans will remember VP publishing in 2012. Winston and Me saw plucky young scot Jamie Melville run away to join the army, in 1916, aged just fifteen years old. He ended up as an orderly to Colonel Winston Churchill, and they faced various battles in the trenches and outside them. (I won’t go into too much detail, rest assured it moves along at a pace – and is still available of course, see here.)

The sequel (pictured below) picks up the story twenty-five years later, in 1942, when Winston is Prime Minister, facing enemies ‘across the world, inside his own parliament, and within his very soul’ (to quote the blurb). With all this in mind, Winston’s family decide to call for Jamie, who has since relocated to Scarborough (very wisely), but soon finds himself in London and Washington D.C., involved in ‘high-end decision making, intrigue, treachery and betrayal’.

Both Mark’s books are meticulously researched; early readers were convinced the first was a genuine memoir. If you’re a fan of historical fiction and interested in the world wars, they come highly recommended. The Finest Years and Me is out now, but we’re officially launching it on Tuesday 8th December, at Blackwell’s in Edinburgh, from 6.30pm. It’s free to come along, of course, and you’ll get to see me interview Mark about the writing process and more. Should be fantastic! Click here to find out more information on this book and next week’s event.


The final Valley Press book for November, and 2015, is The Learned Goose by Jo Brandon – copies haven’t arrived here at time of writing, but they do exist, as evidenced by this photo kindly provided by Villi from Pulsio (one of our wonderful printers). Again, long-term fans will recognise the name; we published Jo’s debut pamphlet Phobia in 2012, and are very proud to now present her first full-length collection ... in a glorious, foiled-up, almost-square production.

It was partly this last-minute change of dimensions that led to me waiting for copies at 9pm on release day; but I think you'll agree, when you read it, that abandoning our usual B-format was an inspired move – with the new wider pages giving Jo’s wonderful lines room to stretch out, and allowing all the poems to appear in the shape she originally intended. I've had the privilege this year to work on some of the best poetry I've ever read, and ‘the Goose’ (as we've been calling it) is firmly in that category.

There’s a launch, of course! Head to the Heart Centre in Headingley, Leeds, on Friday 11th December from 6pm for a fantastic night of poetry, discussion (chaired by James Nash), and themed refreshments (apparently!) We'd be honoured if you RSVP’d to the event on Facebook here, and of course purchased the book.


Finally – I can report that as of 5pm today, submissions to Valley Press for 2016 have closed. I’ve just emailed the last few stragglers, so if you haven’t had confirmation from me (or Mrs. McGarry, who has been kindly assisting in my quest to clear the inbox) that your manuscript has been received, it may be lost – or there could be a problem with your email address, we’ve had quite a few error messages. If this applies to you, please get in touch and we’ll put it right.

I’ll be looking at this new batch of subs over the next month or so, and will be putting together another ‘focus group’ to come to Scarborough one day and help me go through them. If you‘d like to take part in that, please do drop me a message – it involves a good few hours of completely unpaid work, but everyone seemed to have a great time when we did it in July!

The submissions process for 2017 publications will start in February, with a slightly different format, as part of our big Arts Council project – so look forward to hearing about that. I’ll leave you to it now, but if I don’t manage a December newsletter (and I don’t see you at the two excellent launch events mentioned above), I hope you all have a brilliant festive season; huge thanks for your support in 2015.

All the best,
Jamie McGarry (VP Publisher)

Why I Published our Pamphlets (Part 1)

Our open call for poetry and prose pamphlet submissions ends on Sunday 13th December and I've been thinking about what I can do to help people who are still deciding what to send us. I've already written about what we do when we process submissions, so I thought it might be useful to look at submissions from another angle and explain why I chose to publish all the pamphlets we've put out already.

You can read Part 2 here.

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Oils, by Stephen Sexton (£6.50)

Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets

Oils, by Stephen Sexton

Why: These are definitely poems which grew on me each time I read them (we read manuscripts at least twice, if not three times, before even shortlisting them). I found it hard to get a handle on the poems initially, but then literally dozens of Stephen's nervy, melancholic thoughts – like 'I ask what it means when even / in my dream I'm a coward' – stuck in my head and I knew that these were special and I had to publish them.

Favourite lines: 'I can’t hold onto anything, Anne. Because it doesn’t exist, 
I’ll meet you in town. Borrow some wine from the woman 
next door, reach for glasses. Live, then show me what I got wrong.'

Captain Love and the Five Joaquins, by John Clegg (£5.00)

Series: The Emma Press Picks

Captain Love and the Five Joaquins

Why: The Pick is the original Emma Press pamphlet format and I always hoped that established poets would use it for their more experimental projects. Captain Love is a wonderful example of this, as John Clegg tells the frankly unbelievable (and yet true-ish) story of bounty hunter Harry Love, through a mixture of poems and prose. It's short, but by gum is it swashbuckling, packed with swordfights, tequila and... Zorro?!?

Favourite lines: 'Love isn’t safe. The lines across his palm, which Ezmerelda stared at for so long before confessing she could read no future there, have started to converge. One eye popped halfway open overnight and Love was busy with his needle in the morning. Nothing’s ready for the visit. Love must send to Fresno for his epaulettes. '

Raspberries for the Ferry, by Andrew Wynn Owen (£6.50)

Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets

Raspberries for the Ferry

Why: I do have a soft spot for formal poetry, and Andrew Wynn Owen's way with metre and rhyme is so infectiously playful that he had me at 'These luscious buds should be illegal / Reserved for emperor and eagle.' The language in his poems is rich, textured and colourful, which I love, and – more than that – his worldview in this pamphlet is exuberant and joyous, which makes it a pleasure to read and very easy to want to share with readers.

Favourite lines: 'I précis 

this shaky simile because I am 
so happy, life-hallowed, the carp that swim 
in the Arno know, the leaves by the dam 

rustle knowledge of it, and the pilgrim 
stops short to wish me well [...]'

Ikhda, by Ikhda, by Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi (£6.50 / £4.25)

Series: The Emma Press Pamphlets

Ikhda, by Ikhda

Why: Ikhda is a multi-lingual globetrotter, so she uses the English language in a rollicking way which feels instinctive and fresh. When I was reading her manuscript, I liked how her poems had a surreal quality and could be viciously satirical and angry but also innocent and tender. This pamphlet feels feminist to me on a very personal level, so it felt important to publish it.

Favourite lines: 'I smelled your distinctive 
typical smell 
from hundreds of kilometres, 
branches of trees swaying gently. 
I walked along silently 
looking for a stud 
to marry me once 
and feed my ren for years.'

The Held and the Lost, by Kristen Roberts (£5.00)

Series: The Emma Press Picks

The Held and the Lost

Why: Escapism is a large part of the appeal of reading for me; it feels like a weight is being lifted when I can immerse myself in someone else's way of seeing the world. I've never been to Australia, but from Kristen Roberts' poems I can imagine the wide gaping spaces, luscious vegetation and oppressive heat. There are so many finely-observed details in Kristen's poems that reading the manuscript felt like stepping out into a variety of distant bedrooms, backyards and beaches.

Favourite lines: 'You cook and we eat, fingers barbeque-blackened, 
lips soft with lamb fat. Your smile is eager, 
mine a dam defying rivulets of ageing, unpaid crimes. 
 We ignore the old conversations pressing at closed doors 
 and instead talk longingly of rain.'

The Emmores, by Richard O'Brien (£5.00)

Series: The Emma Press Picks

The Emmores, by Richard O'Brien

Why: Love poems were my point of entry into liking poetry as an adult, but before long I started feeling resentful of the treatment of the muse: either they would barely be present in the poem, sidelined by the poet's interest in the poet, or they would suffer a lot of assumptions being made about their feelings. What I like about The Emmores is the honesty of these love poems – Richard doesn't pretend that these are anything other than the hopeful declarations of someone whose main pulling power is his way with words.

Favourite lines: 'and if I could I’d call tornadoes down 
to wrench up rooves of Collyweston slate, 
disintegrate unyielding dry-stone walls 
and crazy-pave a path across the fields 
to your door.'

The Flower and the Plough, by Rachel Piercey (£5.00 / £3.50)

Series: The Emma Press Picks

The Flower and the Plough

Why: Back in 2012, these poems struck a deeply personal chord with me, and I was astonished that another person could express feelings that I felt intensely but couldn't articulate. It felt like these poems were about my failing relationship and increasingly conflicted ideas about romance, and I felt all the better for having read them.

Favourite lines: '[...] when you temper
 scraps into treasure

 I think it’s worth it,
 and when you
 spit out glass

though you only got sand
I think it’s worth it.'

Poets on their Pamphlets: Ruth Wiggins on poetry and 2D vision

There's just over a month left in our annual call for poetry and prose pamphlet submissions (deadline: 13th December), so I've asked some more of our pamphlet poets to share an aspect of their pamphlet-creating experience on this blog, to join our Poets on their Pamphlets series. I hope that this will be inspiring to people who are thinking of sending us something or in the process of assembling their submission.

Ruth Wiggins

This week, Ruth Wiggins explains what it's like to see the world in just two dimensions and considers the effect this might have had on her poetry. We published Ruth's debut pamphlet, Myrtle, almost exactly a year ago and we have always found her worldview uniquely bracing and reassuring, so it's fascinating to get a further insight into the way she writes.

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What It's Like, by Ruth Wiggins

Against Perspective 

At this vantage I am
m    a    s    s    i    v    e
here
I-can-bury-my-face-in-the-hillside
work the green with my fists
 like a suckling cat
guzzle up       g   r   o   u   n   d   w   a   t   e   r
draughts of sap 

I have a lazy eye, or as it's more correctly known, amblyopia. I can't see Magic Eye pictures and 3-D films are torture. It's quite common, but what people tend not to know is that it destroys depth perception. It doesn't affect my driving, but I have a sorry history of broken toes, ankles & crockery. When people ask what it is like to see the world in 2-D, I usually answer, 'It's like this!' (Holds flat of hand to face.) It is less like seeing the world, and more like colliding with it.

Perhaps inevitably, this has an impact on my poetry. Emma was very supportive when we were putting Myrtle together, and not least when I decided to open my pamphlet with a short, oddly-typeset piece called 'Against Perspective', a poem that had become something of a totem for the way I physically see the world.

What it's like... (photos by Ruth)

A friend once described my poetry as 'falling in', which fits because the world certainly feels that way. I find natural and urban landscapes equally absorbing. Things that move give me a sense of depth, which is great, but spiders are endlessly alarming. Tricky when the room you work in is spider city. I have always enjoyed photography, and tend to take wide aperture shots of something in close focus surrounded by a lot of edge blur, which feels like an extension of this.

When I look at the poems in Myrtle, I am struck by how many lines also bear out this wonky perspective: newly solid / with three dimensions of pink is some kind of wish-fulfilment; from which vantage point the ambush will spring, for 'ambush' read ANYTHING but particularly spiders; Curse the kindness of the rocks that jut, yet / will not wreck, demonstrates my need for trust in the solid universe; and Forces open the sky – any vista pretty much covers the impact of swooping birds. 

Although not a defining credo, I enjoy the precise aesthetic of the Imagist poets, largely because they have that same crashing-onto-the-retina effect. And I particularly enjoy poems that wormhole you into a physical world, such that you really arrive there. Poems that take you wading through the physical, in a way that is both sensual and abstract and which in turn pushes the brain to engage beyond the 'this is how it looked'.

Here are a few lines from Alice Oswald's tremendous poem 'Tithonus' that really encapsulate this idea of perception colliding with the universe –

the dawn // which is a wall of green // which is a small field sliding at / the speed of light // straight through the house and on / to the surface of the eye 

... and that is exactly what it's like.

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Myrtle, by Ruth Wiggins, is available in paperback (£6.50) and ebook (£4.25). She keeps a blog at Mudpath.

Our open call for poetry and prose pamphlet submissions ends on 13th December 2015. Full details can be found here. 

Two new books from Valley Press

Dear readers,

After all the excitement last month, October has been almost peaceful – but don't think I've been enjoying my good fortune on a beach somewhere, sipping cocktails! I've been preparing for a big November, which should see the publication of four new titles from Valley Press. I'll just tell you about the first two today, though, as they have launch events imminent (and you can have too much of a good thing).

We'll start with Ex Libris, which has the honour of being the first Valley Press hardback, and the first time the poetry of David Hughes has been collected in print. David taught English at St Peter's School in York for almost thirty years, whilst quietly getting on with some excellent writing – he had finished around two-hundred poems at the time of his death, in 2011. This collection has been meticulously edited by David's friend, fellow poet and former St Peter's student Antony Dunn, who should be a familiar name to many of you (from the Bridlington Poetry Festival, perhaps?)

It really is a fantastic book, but don't take my word for it – Brian Patten perfectly described Ex Libris as: 'A wonderful collection by a poet whose work has been saved from oblivion by an act of love'. Helen Mort has said: 'If you only discover one writer this year, make it David Hughes' ... so consider yourselves told!

You can read a sample of Ex Libris on the book's homepage, if the above has sufficiently piqued your interest. The launch event for this book will take place on Thursday November 5th, at St Peter's School, York; there'll be a fireworks display at 6pm, with drinks, food and Antony Dunn reading from the book at 6.30pm. This is a free event, but you are asked to RSVP to s.jenks@stpetersyork.org.uk if you'd like to attend. Here's a map to the venue. Hope to see some of you there!

The second November book will be Cinema Stories, by long-time Valley Press poets James Nash and Matthew Hedley Stoppard (who I'm sure need no introductions). For this volume, James and Matthew toured and researched the cinemas of Leeds – some abandoned, some re-purposed (there were seventy at one point) and some still proudly operational. They then wrote a book of poetry on that subject, and about the mysterious shared (yet personal) experience that is cinema-going ... the results are fascinating. As ever, you can read a sample on the book's homepage.

Cinema Stories is to be launched at the Leeds International Film Festival (no less!) on Tuesday 10th November, in an event at Leeds Town Hall from 7pm. The two authors will be reading from the book, and there'll be a few other treats as well (think, multimedia extravaganza). This time you will have to buy a ticket to attend; you can do so through the festival's website here.

That's all for today, I'll be in touch in a couple of weeks with news of the other two November titles – there's one more poetry collection, and one big chunky historical fiction novel, both by established Valley Press authors. Watch this space!

All the best,
Jamie McGarry (VP Publisher)