We’ve been running for eighteen months (‘running’ really feels like the right word) and as we prepare for the next season of titles I thought it might be an idea to offer an update on what we’re doing and what the coming year looks like. There are some exciting developments.
Firstly, we’re really pleased with the little books we’ve been making recently. Each title teaches us a new lesson, whether that’s about printing techniques, paper stocks, typography or design. And in every post we should express our gratitude to the printer for indulging our play – while making one of this coming season’s books we clogged up or blew up (yes, really) four of his machines. Thank you Roy, and sorry!
In terms of new titles, we have most of 2018 just about ready to announce, and even some of 2019. But first things first. This autumn we have four titles on the way, stylistically diverse and formally distinct. It’s been serious fun spending time with them and we can’t wait to launch them. They are:
Rosmarie Waldrop’s White is a Color
Martyn Crucefix’s O. at the Edge of the Gorge
Andrew McNeillie’s Making Ends Meet
Nic Stringer’s A day that you happen to know
It’s such a delightful mix of writers, both new and established. We’re very pleased to be able to present a new prose poetry sequence by the brilliant Rosmarie Waldrop, case bound in white cloth and very cleanly designed. This will be our next release in the middle of September. Rosmarie is one of the greats, with a life in poetry that goes back half a century. Next to that, we have a debut collection from Nic Stringer. This is an exciting prospect and we’re just finishing it now. It’s been illustrated by the artist Lucy Kerr, who has created a new series of ‘illusions’. Andrew McNeillie’s book is also a real pleasure to announce. Andrew has been a great supporter over the years, an experienced poet and a generous editor and publisher. His collection is hugely atmospheric, menaced by the sea and the night. And then there’s O. at the Edge of the Gorge by Martyn Crucefix. This is a sonnet sequence, elegant and intoxicating, and it has been beautifully designed by Phyllida Bluemel. The pairing of Martyn and Phylly has worked exceptionally well. (Publishers take note: you won’t find a more thoughtful or sympathetic artist and illustrator than Phylly.)
We are planning to have a launch event featuring readings by Andrew McNeillie, Nic Stringer and Martyn Crucefix, with an exhibition of work by Lucy Kerr and Phyllida Bluemel, on 11 November at Terre Verte Gallery in Altarnun, Cornwall. Please put it in the diary.
That will take us to Christmas and into 2018, when we will be bringing you new poetry from Amy McCauley, Robert Lax, Dom Silvester Houedard, Sarah Cave and Keith Waldrop, creative non-fiction by Wolfgang Hildesheimer (translated by Nicola Barnes), as well as an experimental essay on ‘liminography’ by Rob Dickens. And then we have a very exciting new collaborative development for the second half of 2018, as we team up with the UK’s leading short fiction salon, The Word Factory, to present a series of short story pamphlets by some of the country’s most interesting writers. We will be announcing the project, as well as the first four writers, shortly, but they are all terrific.
That should keep us busy, right?
