Saboteur Awards shortlistings, reviews, interviews, judging news and more!

The Saboteur Awards

V. Press is very very delighted to see not just one V. Press author shortlisted in this year's Saboteur Awards but two!

Damhnait Monaghan and Diane Simmons are both shortlisted in the Best Novella category - Diane for An Inheritance and Damhnait for The Neverlands.

If you nominated them in the first round, please do go across and vote for them again now in the second round. (Unfortunately, you can't pick both for the award, so you will have to try and choose between them!) Even if you didn't nominate in the first round, please do get your vote and voice in for them now.

The voting form can be found here - for this category and all the others in what is an annual publishing/poetry/festival highlight with the wide range of categories covered and the great shortlists for these. 

More about both flash fiction novellas, sample flash and ordering can be found by clicking on the titles above or here: An Inheritance; The Neverlands.

Reviews/Interviews

John Dust

"[..]so authentic and richly imagined is the character of John Dust that I had assumed he really was part of folklore, a figure stalking the South-West for generations. In fact the character is Louise Warren’s own invention and it is the realisation of this character that gives the pamphlet licence to dazzle, with inventive imagery and new rung language running through the poems. [...]

Neil Elder, The High Window, the full, detailed review here.

A sample poem, more information and ordering for John Dust can be found here.


The Neverlands

"A deceptively slim book that tells an entire Irish family saga, Damhnait Monaghan’s debut, The Neverlands, is a beautiful treatise on who we love and how do we love–especially those closest to us. In this story love is vulnerable and risky…but it is also redemptive. A stunning mini epic full of equal parts sorrow and hope, each tension-filled story stands alone and yet together they create something powerful and universal."

Nancy Stohlman, So You Wrote a Book?, full interview with Damhnait Monaghan about The Neverlands here.

A sample flash, more information and ordering for The Neverlands can be found here.

V. Press's The Reading Room also has more links to interviews and articles by some of our authors about their V. Press titles.

JUDGING

Unfortunately, this year's Hastings Litfest has been cancelled, including the flash fiction competition that V. Press editor Sarah Leavesley was due to judge.

However, Sarah is delighted to be the poetry judge for this year's Gloucestershire Writers’ Network 2020 Competition, supported by The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival.

The theme is 'My World' and the deadline is early July 2020. Full details about the competition and how to enter can be found here. Please do follow the instructions carefully, particularly making sure your entry is anonymous.

PUBLISHED SOON

Just a reminder that Ynygornda by V. Press Prize for Poetry 2019/2020 winner Kelly Williams is published on Friday, with pre-orders going out this week.

Meanwhile pre-orders are also available for John Wheway's debut full collection A Bluebottle in Late October, which is out next month.




VIDEO READINGS

Listen to and watch Charles G Lauder Jr reading his The Aesthetics of Breath poem, 'Sir Walter Raleigh of Bexar County, Texas', below:

Another sample poem, more about The Aesthetics of Breath, endorsements, reviews and ordering for this collection can be found here.

STILL POSTING

V. Press is v. v. pleased to still be sending out orders across the U.K. during the current lockdown. Orders can be placed via the website (bookshop here). Our poetry titles are also available through the Poetry Book Society here. (Use the search tool to find the book or poet you're after.)