“In these inventive and adventurous collage poems, Sarah Doyle presents Dorothy Wordsworth’s exuberant feeling for life and language in a fresh fabric of her own making. Sympathetic and insightful, tactful, and imaginative, Doyle’s compositions refract the energies of Dorothy’s writings through the subtle medium of her own sensibility, and the result is at once daring and illuminating.”
Tuesday, 2 March 2021
Launching Something so wild and new in this feeling
“In these inventive and adventurous collage poems, Sarah Doyle presents Dorothy Wordsworth’s exuberant feeling for life and language in a fresh fabric of her own making. Sympathetic and insightful, tactful, and imaginative, Doyle’s compositions refract the energies of Dorothy’s writings through the subtle medium of her own sensibility, and the result is at once daring and illuminating.”
Thursday, 18 February 2021
Open Submission Window


V. Press is delighted to announce that we will be open to submissions for flash fiction chapbooks from Friday, 19 February 2021 until Sunday, 7 March 2021.
Full details of how to submit can be found here. Please make sure you take the time to read and follow these guidelines.
This year, for the first time, V. Press is open to submissions from authors based outside of the U.K. Authors based outside of the U.K. should read further details about this below, and make sure to follow the extra submission guidelines in addition to the standard guidelines.*
Previously, V. Press flash fiction pamphlets have been published in a saddlestitch (stapled) format. This year, it is likely that our flash fiction chapbooks will move to a perfect bound (spined) format.
We are primarily looking for one or two manuscripts to be published in 2021, but the authors of some shortlisted submissions may be invited to keep in touch with V. Press about the possibility of publication at a later date.
V. Press looks forward to receiving your submissions!
* For internationally based authors
Historically, V. Press has not published authors based outside of the U.K. because of the practical logistics and costs involved with selling/posting printed books overseas. If we were to take on an internationally based author in this submissions window, we anticipate that it would be for a short print run, with an accompanying eBook version.
In addition to the usual submission guidelines, international authors should include details of how many author-rate copies they would be purchasing (so that they can sell from their stock in the country where they live). They should also detail how they would support marketing the title to both audiences where they live and in the U.K. (This additional information should be no more than an A4 page long and included before the front page of their submission document.)
Friday, 12 February 2021
Heading towards spring...reading, writing, reviews
REVIEW NEWS
"Blue Dot Aubade has a strong sense of humanity and wonder at its core, exploring values of compassion and curiosity through astronomical phenomena. It doesn’t require the reader to have a knowledge of astrophysics or seek to confound with complex, condensed explanations. Through astrophysics, Miranda Lynn Barnes has created a new way of looking at human issues and how we fit in the wider universe."
“[...]This Lexia & Other Languages explores the inability of a neurotypical world to incorporate those who don’t conform, how dyslexics are failed by schools and carry that stigma into adulthood. Helen Kay does this with warmth and wit, crafting poems that explain without judgment or self-pity, opening out their world to a general reader.”
Emma Lee, Sabotage Reviews, full review here
Friday, 18 December 2020
Festive Greetings and a Happy New Year 2021
V. Press would like to wish all our authors, readers and supporters a healthy, peaceful and hopeful festive season and a Happy New Year!
We're also very very delighted to share an extra item of December good news and our continuing Winter Offers for readers below.
MICHAEL MARKS AWARD/TLS REVIEW NEWS
“[…]He concentrates on absences and reminders: telling details of daily life made poignant by circumstance, or mundane things that emotion and events have transformed into pregnant symbols. The scale is small, the language low-key, concerned with such things as a “shining hour” spent “drinking milk, / watching children’s television”, and the more poignant for it.[…]”
William Wootten, TLS, full review here.
More information, reviews, a sample poem and ordering the pamphlet can be found here. About Leaving is also eligible for purchase as part of our Winter Bundle Offers (details below).
Don't forget our Winter Offers for readers run until the end of December 2020.Full details of both bundles can be found below, one for 2019/2020 collections and one for 2020 pamphlets . Although international delivery options are included in the Paypal options, these offers are intended for UK delivery only. For international customers, it is likely to be cheaper if they purchase from the individual title pages.
V. Press 2019/2020 2-book collections bundle - choose 2 titles from the following list for £16 including p&p for delivery in the UK: A Bluebottle in Late October (poetry) by John Wheway, I, Ursula (poetry) by Ruth Stacey, Cuckoo (poetry) by Nichola Deane, The Aesthetics of Breath (poetry) by Charles G. Lauder Jr and The boy who couldn't say his name (poetry) by John Lawrence. Please make sure to list your preferred titles in the option box, or leave it blank if you'd like V. Press to select for you. Although this bundle is primarily intended for 2019/2020 collections, you may opt for earlier V. Press collections or 1 collection + 1 pamphlet if you wish (provided it's a title that's not sold out - please check the Bookshop page to check this before ordering). *
* Offer valid until the end of 31 December 2020 only.
V. Press 2020 pamphlet bundle - choose 2 titles from the following pamphlets list for £12 including p&p for delivery in the UK: Blue Dot Aubade (poetry) by Miranda Lynn Barnes, Making Tracks (poetry) by Katy Wareham Morris, Hierarchy of Needs (poetry) by Charley Barnes and Claire Walker, This Lexia & Other Languages (poetry) by Helen Kay, Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (flash fiction) by Meg Pokrass, Ynygordna (poetry) by Kelly Williams, An Inheritance (flash fiction) by Diane Simmons, Winter with Eva (poetry) by Elaine Baker. Please make sure to list your preferred titles in the option box, or leave it blank if you'd like V. Press to select for you. Although this bundle is primarily intended for 2020 pamphlets, you may opt for earlier V. Press pamphlets if you wish (provided the titles aren't sold out - please check the Bookshop page to check this before ordering). *
* Offer valid until the end of 31 December 2020 only.
Saturday, 21 November 2020
2020 has been a harder year than most, adapting to a world with covid-19 and the many repercussions from this. At V. Press though, at least one of the changes has been positive: the start of our first eBook versions of some of our titles.
This year is also the press's fifth anniversary of our first V. Press solo-authored titles. Over this time, we've grown from three poetry pamphlets in 2015 to 6 poetry pamphlets, 2 full collections and 2 flash fiction pamphlets this year, with more exciting manuscripts already lined up for 2021.
Despite challenges along the way and small margins in the small press world, there's lots to celebrate and be thankful for - our amazing authors, their wonderful books, our fabulous readers and the stunning poetry covers produced by Ruth Stacey over these years as V. Press designer. We'd like to thank her again for this and wish her well as she moves onto new things.
Big thanks are due too to Carrie Etter again this year for guest editing a second pamphlet for V. Press, Blue Dot Aubade by Miranda Lynn Barnes. Also to all V. Press authors, readers, reviewers, journals and everyone who has helped and supported both the press and individual V. Press authors.
As the press moves forward into 2021, we have few special announcements. The first is that V. Press has been able to donate £500 to the Woodland Trust this Christmas in recognition of the importance of publishing as sustainably as possible.
The second is that from 2021, V. Press is trialling a perfect bound chapbook style for our pamphlet/slim volume length poetry and flash titles.
A sneak preview of the first of these, Something so wild and new in this feeling by Sarah Doyle, can be found below. And for those missing Ruth's covers, we have one final design from her with Jenna Plewes' full collection A Woven Rope.
Finally, as we head towards advent, V. Press has a few special offers for our readers to help brighten the winter months or use as Christmas gifts.
ADVENT / WINTER OFFERS
V. Press is delighted to have two advent/winter 2020 bundle special offers running for our UK readers from now until 31 December 2020.
Full details of both bundles can be found below, one for 2019/2020 collections and one for 2020 pamphlets . Although international delivery options are included in the Paypal options, these offers are intended for UK delivery only. For international customers, it is likely to be cheaper if they purchase from the individual title pages.
V. Press 2019/2020 2-book collections bundle - choose 2 titles from the following list for £16 including p&p for delivery in the UK: A Bluebottle in Late October (poetry) by John Wheway, I, Ursula (poetry) by Ruth Stacey, Cuckoo (poetry) by Nichola Deane, The Aesthetics of Breath (poetry) by Charles G. Lauder Jr and The boy who couldn't say his name (poetry) by John Lawrence. Please make sure to list your preferred titles in the option box, or leave it blank if you'd like V. Press to select for you. Although this bundle is primarily intended for 2019/2020 collections, you may opt for earlier V. Press collections or 1 collection + 1 pamphlet if you wish (provided it's a title that's not sold out - please check the Bookshop page to check this before ordering). *
* Offer valid until the end of 31 December 2020 only.
V. Press 2020 pamphlet bundle - choose 2 titles from the following pamphlets list for £12 including p&p for delivery in the UK: Blue Dot Aubade (poetry) by Miranda Lynn Barnes, Making Tracks (poetry) by Katy Wareham Morris, Hierarchy of Needs (poetry) by Charley Barnes and Claire Walker, This Lexia & Other Languages (poetry) by Helen Kay, Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (flash fiction) by Meg Pokrass, Ynygordna (poetry) by Kelly Williams, An Inheritance (flash fiction) by Diane Simmons, Winter with Eva (poetry) by Elaine Baker. Please make sure to list your preferred titles in the option box, or leave it blank if you'd like V. Press to select for you. Although this bundle is primarily intended for 2020 pamphlets, you may opt for earlier V. Press pamphlets if you wish (provided the titles aren't sold out - please check the Bookshop page to check this before ordering). *
* Offer valid until the end of 31 December 2020 only.
REVIEWS
and the weight of being a parent under difficult circumstances, and at the same time
they are tender and hopeful poems that speak to the reader of humanity, the difficult
paths that life takes us on and how we can endure and emerge transformed. […]”
Pam Thompson, Under the Radar 26, magazine can be ordered here
V. Press is also v. v. pleased to reveal that we have now released an eBook version of Jude Higgins' very evocative and very colourful flash fiction pamphlet The Chemist's House.
V. Press has only a handful of the print copies of this popular pamphlet still available. For a sample flash, more information about The Chemist's House and to buy a copy of the print or eBook version, please click here.
V. Press is also delighted to announce a new print run of John Wheway's collection A Bluebottle in Late October. The debut collection was only published in May but appropriately celebrated late October with a new order from the printers. A sample poem, endorsements, more information and ordering can be found here - do check it out soon, in case this print run sells out too!
COVER PREVIEW OF V. PRESS'S FIRST 2021 TITLES
V. Press's first 2021 title Something so wild and new in this feeling by Sarah Doyle is already available for pre-order. This series of collage poems based on Dorothy Wordsworth's journals is very composite and very metamorphic. A sample poem, endorsements, further information and pre-ordering can be found here.
This will be followed by Jenna Plewes' collection A Woven Rope and we're also looking forward to V Press Prize for Poetry winner Chloe Hanks' pamphlet/chapbook, May We All Be Artefacts.
Friday, 23 October 2020
Looking Onwards
There's no doubt that 2020 has been a hard year! Here in the UK, it also feels like this Christmas season may not be the kind of winter festivity that it is normally.
V. Press editor Sarah Leavesley was due to be on a month-long residency at the International Writers' and Translators' House in Latvia. This won't now be going ahead - for obvious reasons.
But though this Christmas may be different to what might have been expected at the start of this year, V. Press has some extra special seasonal cheer lined up...watch this space, as they say, for more news on this soon.
Meanwhile, we've a range of new reviews and titles for you to curl up with, perfect for semi-hibernation, temporary escape from reality and pure enjoyment!
REVIEWS
A Blue Bottle in Late October"John Wheway’s brilliant debut collection, A Blue Bottle in Late October, is ambitious; a mini saga with a compelling narrative arc, told through a series of short, self contained lyrics grouped into three ‘acts’, with plenty of drama and action and memorable characters. An ordinary, everyday tragedy, made extraordinary by the telling of it. [...]
"This collection has the heart and narrative scope of a novella, elevated into something special by the poet’s eye. Just open at random and enjoy [...]"
Alison Woodhouse, The High Window, full review here
For a sample poem, more information or to buy A Blue Bottle in Late October, please click here.
"[...]Stacey is a master of deceptive language that haunts you by its lullaby and paradigm style. Before you know it, you are seduced and involved into the play of words and metaphors.[...]Antony Owen, Ink Sweat and Tears, full review here
Andrea Mbarushimana, Here Comes Everyone, full review here
For a sample poem, more information or to buy I, Ursula, please click here.
“Sometimes the more unlikely the subject matter, the more intriguing it can be, as this pamphlet exemplifies. Helen Kay, a dyslexia tutor, considers dyslexia and how it is — and isn’t — addressed in mainstream schooling and beyond, principally via the relationship between a mother and her son.”Matthew Paul, OPOI, Sphinx Review, full review here
For a sample poem, more information or to buy This Lexia & Other Languages, please click here.
"These are heartfelt pieces which speak of tension: the permanence of the natural, and the soul’s depth, versus the expediency of market values and the urban. Thought provoking and original."
For a sample poem, more information or to buy Making Tracks, please click here.
NEW TITLES
V. Press is very very delighted to have published Blue Dot Aubade by Miranda Lynn Barnes earlier this month. Hosted by Caleb Parkin, with guest poet Tania Hershman and a wonderful open mic section to the theme of Miranda's beautiful pamphlet as well as her stunning reading, the launch event was truly out-of-this world!
A sample poem, more details about Blue Dot Aubade, guest edited by Carrie Etter, and ordering can be found here.