Friday 28 February 2020

Launching An Inheritance

V. Press is very very delighted to launch An Inheritance, a historical flash fiction novella by Diane Simmons.

An Inheritance is a gem of a novella. It succeeds in spanning seventy years and four generations of one family, exquisitely capturing their relationships, secrets and divided loyalties. The historical changes wrought by each decade are delicately interwoven throughout the twists and turns within the family’s life. This captivating narrative will make you weep and smile.”
Joanna Campbell

“Despite large secrets and larger financial woes, one family’s superior love, kindness and understanding pulls them through the hardest of times, from generation to generation. An Inheritance is a poignant heart-warmer of a novella-in-flash and is a useful lesson in the importance of kindness in this life.”
Nuala O’Connor

An Inheritance is very readable and very intriguing.

A sample flash from the pamphlet can be found below.

ISBN: 978-1-9161096-5-0
44 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

BUY An Inheritance NOW using the paypal link below.


An Inheritance (including P&P/delivery options)

Profit and Loss
1932

Thomas takes the cameo brooch. 
“The mount is gold,” the customer says. “It was a present from my husband on our wedding day.”
    Thomas reads the inscription on the back: 14th May 1930. Not even two years ago. “It must be difficult for you to part with this Mrs Baldwin – even temporarily.”
    “My John wouldn’t be happy about it, but…”
He nods and searches in the drawer for his eye glass, relieved that he has an excuse to look away. When Mrs Baldwin had first started coming into the shop, she’d been pretty. Now she’s emaciated, her eyes shrunken and her face pale. He sees so many customers with tuberculosis. At least she has something worth pawning – many don’t. Recently, he was tricked into giving a good price for a bundle of clothes, only to find that someone had hidden a cabbage inside to make the parcel heavier. The smell in the storeroom was ghastly. His father would never fall for such a trick, but Thomas, guessing at the customer’s desperation, was almost glad to be deceived. 
Thomas picks up the eyeglass, does a quick calculation, offers a loan of five guineas.

Six months after Mrs Baldwin’s death, Thomas removes the brooch from the safe. He has taken care to follow the business’s guidelines to the letter. His father won’t tolerate special treatment or any display of compassion, even for a grieving husband burdened by doctor’s bills and funeral costs. The brooch must go up for sale today and a profit recorded.
     He cleans the brooch, attaches a two-guinea price tag to it and places it on a velvet tray in a prominent place in the shop window. By lunchtime, two people have inspected it, but it doesn’t sell. By two pm, despite brisk trade and a lady promising to return within the hour, it still hasn’t sold. By four, concerned that his father will arrive soon to shut up the shop, Thomas moves the brooch out of the window, wraps it in tissue paper and puts it into his breast pocket. 
     With one eye on the door, he takes five guineas out of his wallet and places the money into the till. It’s more than he can comfortably spare, but he’ll find a use for the brooch one day. Neatly, he records the transaction in the ledger – sale price in one column, profit in the next – just as his father likes it.

LAUNCH

The public online launch for An Inheritance takes place on Facebook on Monday, 2 March 2020. Details here


Friday 14 February 2020

Launching Winter with Eva

V. Press is very very delighted to celebrate Valentine's Day with the publication of the poetry pamphlet/sequence Winter with Eva by Elaine Baker.

“This is a poignant but tough love story told against the backdrop of Brexit-era England. Eva is Romanian, a free spirit with a beautiful soul navigating the ignorance and hatred of her adopted country. Elaine Baker’s powerful but understated narrative is told from the perspective of Eva’s British lover, Sean, who is at once enchanted but also bewildered by her foreignness, her language, her precarious status in a country that isn’t hers – all the things that threaten to drive them apart. So what begins as a love story evolves to encompass a greater theme – these poems speak eloquently of the way we live now.”
Tamar Yoseloff

“Elaine Baker writes so beautifully about love: macrocosmic passion and domestic comfort are drawn with sharp, sensual tenderness. But Winter with Eva is also a timely sociopolitical exploration and a gripping page-turner of a pamphlet, one to read carefully yet compulsively in a single sitting.” Rachel Piercey

Winter with Eva is very human, very conscious.

A sample poem can be found below.

ISBN: 978-1-9161096-4-3
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

BUY Winter with Eva NOW using the paypal link with posting options below. 

Winter with Eva (including P&P/delivery options)

Winter with Eva has already received its first review.

"[...] There is a strong sense of narrative arc: two people meeting, falling in love, sharing their lives until cracks show ending with Sean’s dilemma. The poems balance celebration and disintegration. A satisfying read."
Emma Lee, full review here.

Crowns

We’re all set up –
two beers. Mixed nuts.
Half a plastic tub of Roses on the rug.
It’s a Wonderful Life
playing out on the telly.

You’ve been baking
and before you’re back with the plate
I can already taste the cozonac –
sweet and melting.

We pull the crackers,
put on the paper crowns
hold hands,
settle down to watch George Bailey drown
in his small American town.

Every year’s the same.
I pretend this isn’t crying.

It doesn’t get you
till the end,
when all George’s friends descend,
fill the room with smiles,
empty their pockets to an impromptu chorus of
‘Hark the Herald’.

Now your tears are coming,
there’s no stopping them.

You say you miss the singing.
Where are all the children?

Saturday 8 February 2020

Early Spring Reviews & Poetry Book Fair



Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair is managed by The Poetry Society

V. Press is very very pleased to be exhibiting at the 'Free Verse' Poetry Book Fair in London on Saturday, 22 February 2020, with a lunchtime reading featuring three V. Press poets.

The fair is a highlight on the poetry publishing calendar, featuring presses from across the U.K. and takes place at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL from 11am to 5pm.


The V. Press reading takes place at 1.40pm and features V. Press poets Jinny Fisher, Natalie Linh Bolderston and Martin Zarrop.

'People, power, politics’: V. Press poets Jinny Fisher, Natalie Linh Bolderston and Martin Zarrop look at intergenerational issues, family relationships, survival, personality, science and politics in poems from their pamphlets The Escapologist, The Protection of Ghosts and Making Waves Albert Einstein: Science & Life.

 More information about what's in store for this year's fair can be found here, on Facebook here, and the Twitter / Instagram hashtag is #freeverse20.

If you can make the fair, please do come and say hello - we're v. v. much looking forward to meeting readers and writers!

Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair is managed by The Poetry Society

REVIEW NEWS

I, Ursula


"[...] Overall “I, Ursula” is a chilling, memorable exploration of the darker side of the muse. She is stalked, hunted, desired and formed in other’s image, a body on which to project desires. Rarely does she get her own voice but here she contemplates the power dynamics in relationships and how she is used to create art, often to her own detriment. Despite the projection of delicacy and fragility, she has to remain strong with a will to survive. Ruth Stacey has created a powerful collection."

Emma Lee, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem or to order a copy of I, Ursula, please click here.

Winter with Eva


This pamphlet is officially out on Valentine's Day next week, but has already received its first review.

"[...] There is a strong sense of narrative arc: two people meeting, falling in love, sharing their lives until cracks show ending with Sean’s dilemma. The poems balance celebration and disintegration. A satisfying read."
Emma Lee, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem or to order a copy of Winter with Eva, please click here.



Patience


'[...]“Patience” is a reminder of the value of connection between generations, legacies of objects and character passed from the contemporary to the future. The poems show sensitivity and an acute focus, exploring different aspects of an overall theme. Their gentleness acts as an invitation to the reader to engage with and interpret the poems. Their pace is measured which combines with a calm tone to explore grief, loss, legacy and intimacy. The title, “Patience” is apt. These are slow poems to enjoy at leisure.'
Emma Lee, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem or to order a copy of Patience, please click here.

About Leaving


"The theme of finding strength in a family and creating a safe place for children, even those who grow up and leave, to return to is as strong as the notion of leaving. The poems benefit from a programmer’s precision with language, but also offer texture and an openness of interpretation. They start in personal experience but open out into a universal concern: the effect on children of a parent’s absence and a desire to ensure home feels welcome. For all its apparent lightness, “About Leaving”, probes the intense experience of loss and recovery with honesty and concern."
Emma Lee, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem or to order a copy of  About Leaving, please click here.

The Protection of Ghosts

Natalie Linh Bolderston's The Protection of Ghosts had two mentions in the Poetry Wales '44 Poetry Books of 2019 as nominated by poets'.

"There is a sadness to the poems as they strive to reach into the minds and memories of others, but also a wiry strength.  An exceptional debut from a young poet."
Anna Lewis

"Many unforgettable and searing evocations of loss and the unceasing search for healing."
Jeffery Sugarman

If you didn't pick up a copy last year, you can still get one now. More information, a sample poem from The Protection of Ghosts and ordering here.

Making Waves Albert Einstein: Science & Life 

“[…]Zarrop imparts his knowledge with a lightness of touch, with an ear for the anecdote and keen sense for picking propitious moments in time.[…]
The science really comes to life where the poet-narrator-teacher employs metaphoric image or storytelling to great effect, as in ‘Equivalence.’ The image is of a man in a lift with the cable severed. Is he an astronaut, floating, or is he falling, in that precise moment? ‘as reaction/follows action,/performs a slow rotation/before terrestrial matter,/without a single thought,/gets in the way.’ The verbal shift from the scientific to the colloquial finale of ‘gets in the way,’ illustrates best the poet’s ability to bridge these two worlds in a way that is fascinating, and illuminates for once, (to me, at least, as one all too decidedly ‘non-scientific’), the poetry of, and in, equations, equivalencies and scientific paradox.”

Ken Evans, The Manchester Review, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem or to order a copy of Making Waves, please click here.

John Dust

"[...] The title character is a malleable ghost-like person others can project their feelings on. Just when someone thinks they have the measure of him, he shifts and surprises. He represents traditional folklore but can be found in Poundland. [...]"

Emma Lee, The Blue Nib, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem or to order a copy of John Dust, please click here.

The Aesthetics of Breath 


"[..]the careful building of these poems into a logical order, the vivid depiction of transient lives, the insight into social and historical events, was competent and challenging. The strength and beauty of some poems more than made up for lapses into the esoteric and, as reader, I felt gifted with the surprising perspective of man and father."

Pat EdwardsLondon Grip, full review here.

For more information, a sample poem or to order a copy of  The Aesthetics of Breath, please click here.



OTHER EVENTS

Friday, 28 February 2020 in Cheltenham, 7.30pm

Ruth Stacey will be reading from I, Ursula at The New Bohemians event, Cheltenham, hosted by Jennie Farley. Tickets £8.00 includes wine, soft drinks, nibbles. Contact su@deespaceworks.co.uk or pay on door. Venue: deepspaceworks art centre, 11 Hamilton Street, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham GL53 8HN. Free parking at St Edward’s Prep School, London Road (opposite Hamilton Street).


Wednesday, 25 March 2020 in Bishop's Castle, 7.30pm

Ruth Stacey will be guest poet at VERBATIM, hosted by Pat Edwards, at The Poetry Pharmacy, 36 High St, Bishops Castle, SY9 5BQ, entry £3 (inc drink & nibbles), with open mic slots available on the night.


Happy reading and hope to see you at Free Verse on 22 February!