The new year - if not a turning point as such, a pausing moment for looking back and looking forwards, across publications, award successes and new reviews.
Since V. Press's publication of Jacqui Rowe's Ransom Notes in 2015, V. Press has published 25 titles, across poetry and flash. In 2018 this included: How to Parallel Park, Against the Pull of Time, A Z-hearted Guide to Heartache , These nights at home, Unable Mother , Like love, Three Men on the Edge and There's Something Macrocosmic About All of This.
This past year saw Romalyn Ante's Rice & Rain win the Saboteur Awards 2018 Best Poetry Pamphlet, with Claire Walker's Somewhere Between Rose and Black shortlisted. Antony Owen's The Nagasaki Elder was shortlisted in the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.
But the end of one year is the beginning of another, and we've more than ever lined up for 2019, including Jinny Fisher's The Escapologist (pamphlet), Martin Zarrop's Making Waves (pamphlet) and John Lawrence's The boy who couldn't say his name (collection), which are already available for pre-order!
V. Press is also starting the new year with a new feature - Love Thursdays! Every Thursday from January 3 right up to Valentine's Day, we will be sharing a selection of love poems and flashes by V. Press authors. Yes, there is romance, but also the grittier real-life edge of love too!
And our 2019 fiction publications will include The Neverlands by Damhnait Monaghan and Midnight Laughter by Paul McDonald.
Meanwhile...
REVIEW NEWS
V. Press is very delighted to end 2018 with Romalyn Ante's Rice & Rain praised in the TLS.
"Romalyn Ante's Rice & Rain is also interested in re- or dislocation, full of memories of home (in her case the Philippines) being replayed, a watchful shoring-up of vanished, loved scenes and people. Ante's mixing of the small and grand scale, and her clarity of vision, are particularly impressive..." Declan Ryan, TLS, full article here
The pamphlet was also one of Liz Berry's choices for a 'perfect poetry Christmas gift' ('treasures') in the winter issue of Poetry News.
For more about Rice & Rain, a sample poem and to order a copy, click here.
“This is a spare, meticulously-crafted and deceptively simple collection which carries a weight far beyond its few pages and which will bear repeated reading by anyone looking to come to terms with the finite nature of our relationship with life and land.” Justine Knowles, The Cannon’s Mouth
“...a gentle, accessible, attractive, but at times astringent pamphlet… Plewes is economical and to the point, marshalling her material effectively…This awareness [of precariousness/walking a tightrope] influences the form of the poems and gives then a contrapuntal quality and an edge which makes her work interesting as well as enjoyable.“ Dilys Wood, Artemis
For more about Against the Pull of Time, a sample poem and to order a copy, click here.
On the fiction front, Three Men on the Edge is also continuing to hit a strong note with readers and critics, including the latest new review.
"There is heartache and humour in this tale of three men on the edge of lonely despair. Each tells his own story about coping with anger, self-doubt, depression in precise and beautifully crafted segments where the author is not afraid of introducing the heightened surrealism of troubled thoughts and dreams..."
Jennie Farley, full 5-star review here
Our Cultural Intern Kibriya Mehrban's latest selection of 'Top Notes' are for These nights at home by Alex Reed (poems) and Keren Banning (photographs).
Snow Patrol – If There’s a Rocket Tie Me To it
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Distant Sky
Peter Gabriel – I Grieve
Joe Purdy – Good Days
Putting together a playlist for Alex Reed and Keren Banning’s work These nights at home presented a very particular challenge for me. When reading this, there is a painful clarity that it is grounded in a very real and very specific experience of grief on the poet’s part..."
Kibriya's full playlist recommendations, with her reasons for these choices, can be enjoyed on Chez Nous.
Finally, we're delighted to give readers a sneak preview of V. Press's first 2019 title, Martin Zarrop's Making Waves Albert Einstein: Science & Life. The poetry pamphlet is published in January, and Kibriya has created some beautiful photo-quotes, including...
