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

About Leaving by Ian Glass was mentioned by Michael Marks Award 2020 judge Kei Miller as one of the pamphlets that made ‘a kind of longlist’ for that year’s record-entry award. A video of the award ceremony can be enjoyed here, with the longlist comments towards 1hr 20 mins in.

“[…]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).

WINTER OFFERS

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). *

V. Press 2019/2020 collections 2-book bundle with delivery options

V. Press 2019/20 2-book collection bundle for U.K. delivery only £16.00 GBP V. Press 2019/20 2-book collection bundle for Rest of the World £50.00 GBP

2 collections you'd prefer?

* 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). *

V. Press 2020 2-pamphlets bundle with delivery options

V. Press 2020 2-pamphlets bundle for U.K. delivery only £12.00 GBP V. Press 2020 2-pamphlets bundle for Rest of the World £30.00 GBP

2 pamphlets you'd prefer?

* Offer valid until the end of 31 December 2020 only.

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). *

V. Press 2019/2020 collections 2-book bundle with delivery options

V. Press 2019/20 2-book collection bundle for U.K. delivery only £16.00 GBP V. Press 2019/20 2-book collection bundle for Rest of the World £50.00 GBP

2 collections you'd prefer?

* 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). *

V. Press 2020 2-pamphlets bundle with delivery options

V. Press 2020 2-pamphlets bundle for U.K. delivery only £12.00 GBP V. Press 2020 2-pamphlets bundle for Rest of the World £30.00 GBP

2 pamphlets you'd prefer?

* Offer valid until the end of 31 December 2020 only.

REVIEWS

About Leaving

“[…] These are deftly crafted and controlled poems that speak of shock, emptiness
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. […]”

Julia Webb, Under the Radar 26, magazine can be ordered here  

I, Ursula

“The artist’s muse is at the forefront of Ruth Stacey’s second collection, I, Ursula, though colour and texture are equally important to recreate the sumptuous and often sinister settings of the poems: […]

“The most successful poems are where the metaphoric plumbline from now, through layers of story and myth, is strongly defined; excavations of sexual and gender dynamics: […]”

Pam Thompson, Under the Radar 26, magazine can be ordered here 

NEW TITLES

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.

NEW PRINT RUN

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.

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.

I, Ursula

"[...]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.[...] 

"A sumptuous piece of work from a writer that is going from strength to strength."

Antony Owen, Ink Sweat and Tears, full review here

"There is so much to enjoy in these poems. The imagery Ruth uses is inventive and expressive – children’s fists are “clams”, lace is “a little noose”. Line breaks maintain tension and often create a wry humour."

Andrea Mbarushimana, Here Comes Everyone, full review here

For a sample poem, more information or to buy I, Ursula, please click here.

This Lexia & Other Languages

“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. 

Making Tracks

"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."

Maggie Mackay, OPOI, Sphinx Review, full review here

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.

Launching Blue Dot Aubade

V. Press is very very delighted to launch Blue Dot Aubade, a pamphlet of poems by Miranda Lynn Barnes.

“I don’t think poems need to teach anything but nevertheless there's much to learn about the cosmos, the spirit, matter, and what matters here. The best part is that the lessons are delivered by a high-energy beam of surprising, hyper-attentive language. I'm obsessed with light, as are these poems. Ultimately, the language is the lesson – it's how the poems see and they may affect your vision afterwards.

 

Light travels as waves

and arrives as particles.

We travel as bodies

and arrive as light.

(From 'Cheating Light')”

Simon Barraclough

 

“Miranda Lynn Barnes' Blue Dot Aubade uses astrophysics and human experience as lenses for one another and thereby creates a renewed appreciation of both. At times playful, at times poignant, these intelligent poems illuminate our environment in the broadest sense: they give us a new view of our universe and our relationship to it. An engaging, original debut.”

V. Press Guest Editor Carrie Etter

Blue Dot Aubade is very cosmic, and very numinous.

ISBN: 978-1-9161096-7-4

36 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

A sample poem from the pamphlet can be found below.

BUY BLUE DOT AUBADE NOW using the paypal options below. 

Blue Dot Aubade (including P&P/delivery options)

Blue Dot Aubade (including P&P for the U.K. only) £7.50 GBP Blue Dot Aubade (including P&P for Rest of World) £15.00 GBP

Olivine

She’s been found

on meteorites, the dust

on Mars, tails of comets,

and the natal discs

of forming stars. Her crystal

green has been seen

in early solar birth

and the magma ocean

of the moon as it cooled.

She sparkles in every arc,

every glint against the ink

of the sky.

You are the greenest twinkle

in my eye, Olivine.

LAUNCH EVENT

Saturday, 10 October 2020

7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Zoom 

Free but must register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/blue-dot-aubade-pamphlet-launch-tickets-119339751409. Limited open mic slots available to book, first come, first served. 

Autumn news, reviews & National Poetry Day offer

V. Press is delighted to start into Keats' "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" with a lovely article in the Sept/Oct/Nov issue of Mslexia.

Editor and managing director Sarah Leavesley was asked to take part in an interview for the magazine's 'Indie in the news' section, focussing in particular on Natalie Linh Bolderston's pamphlet The Protection of Ghosts. 

Natalie received an Eric Gregory Award earlier this year with an application including five poems  featured in her V. Press pamphlet.The article also includes background on the press and our submission process. 

This issue of Mslexia (87) can be found here and Natalie's pamphlet, which was guest-edited by Carrie Etter, here.

This issue of Mslexia also features an article about the V. Press title  The Neverlands by Damhnait Monaghan, which won the Saboteur Awards 2020 Best Novella  Award. Yvonne Battle Felton's article 'Breaking the mould' combines review and writing exercise. Quotes from it can be found in the review section below.

Competition Joy

Congratulations to V. Press poet Ruth Stacey, whose collection I, Ursula has been longlisted in the Poetry Book Awards 2020!

More about the awards here. A sample poem, more about the collection and ordering of I, Ursula can be found here.

REVIEWS

The Neverlands

“This stunning award-winning novella is told through a series of inter-connected flash fictions. Each is a self-contained burst of character, setting and tension. Alone, each piece is poignant and sharp; together they produce a compelling narrative.[..]"

Yvonne Battle Felton, 'Breaking the mould', Mslexia

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

An Inheritance

“Diane Simmons expertly uses flash fiction pieces to capture the complexities one family experiences over four generations in her novella, An Inheritance (V. Press). Each fictional piece chronologically charts significant moments for the characters as they navigate their lives—both independently and as a family. The collection as a whole is a dramatic family saga that interweaves issues of class, familial obligations and legacy. […]

“Entertaining and powerful, Diane Simmons’ publication, An Inheritance, is a comprehensive collection of flash fiction stories that transcend place and time. […]”

Mikiko Fukuda, Sabotage Reviews, full review here

A sample flash, more information and ordering for An Inheritance can be found here.

Ynygordna

"[...] The juxtaposition of hate and anger with the safety of pure, fluid love, is what sustains this work: I felt the contrast drew me in, and amplified the anguish communicated through the poems.

[...] There is much that is strong and powerful in Ynygordna, which explores many contrasts, not just between love and hate, but also the battle between persecution and acceptance — ignorance and understanding."

Vic Pickup, OPOI review on Sphinx Reviews, full review here

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

Hierarchy of Needs: A Retelling

"The poems in this noticeably direct and unpretentious pamphlet are framed by two pyramid-structured ‘hierarchies of need’ modelled after Abraham Maslow’s 1943 theory of human motivation. One pyramid shows nature’s basic, psychological and growth needs; the other does the same for ‘21st century humans’. The pamphlet sheds light on — and examines the symbiotic relationship between — the two sets of needs. [...]

"This pamphlet is a timely poetic reminder that all life needs to be tended respectfully, by ourselves as well as by others."

Tim Murphy, OPOI on Sphinx Reviews, full review here

A sample poem, more information and ordering for Hierarchy of Needs: A Retelling can be found here.

Making Tracks

"I enjoyed seeing Wareham Morris play with words, presentation and spacing in this collection. What’s also great is when there’s a clear backbone to a collection, which was obvious from the title, ‘Making Tracks’, which was a reoccurring theme throughout. "

Nikki Dudley, full review here

"Making Tracks by Katy Wareham Morris is a creative and conceptual triumph, exploring the disparate effects of a changing place on a multifaceted set of identities, communities, and cultures. Like her poem I try to explain it again,we are in the rhizomes of place-identity and its upheaval. Language and formal experimentation strike a beautifully shaped punch throughout these pages; playfully rendering the slippery nature of memory, class, gender with poetic tricks that are genuinely avant-garde, but never at the expense of earthy guts; which these poems are drenched in. Making Tracks gets to the hypocentre of West Midlands Industrial life."

R. M. Francis

A sample poem, more information and ordering for Making Tracks can be found here.

I, Ursula

"The poems which I find the most powerful are those where the poet explores the experience of the female muse and the male artist in both art and literature. [...] These poems – like so many others in the collection – explore relationships between artist and muse, men and women, the tensions between life and art, and the creation and appreciation of various forms of art, in terms of power and powerlessness."

Jane Simmons, Everybody's Reviewing, full review here.

A sample poem, more information and ordering for I, Ursula can be found here.

NATIONAL POETRY DAY 

This year's National Poetry Day is on Thursday, 1 October with a theme of VISION. V. Press is celebrating the day with a special poetry pamphlet bundle (for U.K. delivery only) that runs from now until the end of Sunday, 4 October 2020.

The NPD2020 bundle is 2 of This Lexia & Other Languages, Winter with Eva, Hierarchy of Needs, About Leaving, Patience , Making Tracks or Ynygornda for £12 including U.K. delivery only.

Please use the Paypal button below to order, remembering to include which 2 titles you'd prefer. (If it's left blank, then V. Press will select 2 for you.)

NB This offer is intended for U.K. only, though a P&P option for the rest of the world is included. Please make sure not to select the wrong option. Thank you.

NPD2020 delivery options

NPD2020 for U.K. delivery only £12.00 GBP NPD2020 for Rest of the World £24.00 GBP

2 pamphlets you'd prefer?

Launching Making Tracks

V. Press is very very pleased to announce the publication of Making Tracks, a poetry pamphlet by Katy Wareham Morris.

“From the very first page of this pamphlet, the reader encounters a voice which is entirely new. Within this pamphlet we find interrogations of masculinity, class, manual labour, what is and isn’t inherited through different generations and, most excitingly, see how these different preoccupations can be refracted and reflected through language and the line.

"As there should be when searching for new ways to contemplate tradition, a fresh type of experimentation with language, its spacial arrangement and its breath, is given to the reader, but always with a solid and concrete centre of people and place. A balance is struck between the heart, and the search for a language, scientific or natural, which might be able to fully represent it. Poems such as ‘You and Him: A Venn Diagram’ give us a visual language for exploring the pamphlet’s themes, and the pamphlet as a whole brings together the insertion of the urban and natural, the historical and the contemporary. An exciting new pamphlet from a poet doing important new things with the art.”
Andrew McMillan

“Making Tracks uses the texture of language and collaged fragments to celebrate those people who worked at the now defunct Longbridge car factory.  Wareham Morris’s father is the beating heart at the centre of these poems, it’s whose voice we hear, entrusted to her tender keeping.  There is the melancholy of a way of life gone here, but also the love of a day’s work and the satisfaction of a job well done.”
Helen Ivory

By design, Making Tracks is very dutiful, yet very fallible.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-0-8
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

A sample poem from the pamphlet can be found below.

BUY MAKING TRACKS NOW using the paypal options below.

Making Tracks (including P&P/delivery options)

Making Tracks (including P&P for the U.K. only) £7.50 GBP Making Tracks (including P&P for Rest of World) £13.50 GBP

Metamorphosis

You were ruled by the track that sliced through the factory,
that carved the operating chaos of your life,
me too, by the blood in my arms –
the cartographic lines drawn in the grass laid before me

to keep it moving, to keep them and us alive.
Hundreds of transposable parts simultaneously
dropping into place like dancers, with your eyes
shut counting beats, the rhythm in your fast feet
recognised the tools, the bodies, the faces
jacked up the day new West Works opened,
when shells swam with robots then sailed
over the Bristol Road. Each day before and after
mechanised, standardised, but you the one-off,
driving from one heart, one hearth to another.
Daily, nightly dangers posed by predictable
assembly sequence, lines forced to refine,
whilst you designed me first, yet my parts
still coming together, directions in motion,
crafting the chaos of the steadfast home that would work us,
and the men who remained unchanged for years,
the production line that had produced you before.

It never stopped – your brain like my brain
loudly crashing to the beat of your fast feet
dancing on my heart, growing from the middle,
multiplicities dropping into additional software
for brand new computers, your quick hands
finished processes same place, same time, every time.
The machine making machines work.
That conveyor bridge demolished first.

A video reading of 'Grass' from the pamphlet can also be enjoyed below.

LAUNCH EVENT

Katy Wareham Morris will launch ‘Making Tracks’ online on Monday, 14 September 2020 from 7.30pm. This event will take place on the platform Blackboard Collaborate. If you’d like to attend, you can email Katy directly for the access link. Her email is: k.wareham.morris@worc.ac.uk.