Sunday 18 December 2022

Seasonal greetings and special offer reminder!

  


V. Press would like to wish all our readers, writers and supporters a joyous festive period and very very Happy New Year!

This year, to celebrate the season, V. Press has a special offer that runs the whole of December 2022 for orders for delivery in the UK. With every title purchased over this period for delivery in the UK, we will send a free pamphlet/chapbook/book.*

Happy reading, relaxing, rejoicing!

* This offer runs from 1 December 2022 to midnight on 31 December 2022, UK-time and UK-delivery only.


Friday 9 December 2022

Launching Powerless Rangers

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the publication of Powerless Rangers by Jack McGowan.

“There is such an open-hearted charm, an immediacy and pleasure of recognition to these poems that it takes a moment to realise how they’re working on you. The forensic attention to nostalgia, popular culture as a natural and built environment; what surrounded us and moulded us and exerts invisible influence over us to this day. McGowan is a master of engaging humour and subtle melancholy. I dislike the word ‘relatable’, but I expect that’s the easiest term people will reach for, even as the poems themselves unpick our complex relations to our world.”
Luke Kennard

“The poems in Powerless Rangers enchant through their spoken power. They are clear-eyed about what makes us who we are and show true strength through their openness, compassion, and self-knowledge. The humour, language, and energy will win over readers and audiences alike.”
David Morley 

“McGowan’s poems are loud, with their energetic wit and playful meanderings, but they disguise a romantic, nostalgic centre and when it surfaces the audience or reader are encouraged to switch from one emotion to another in a second – which is a delight.”
Ruth Stacey

Powerless Rangers is very nostalgic, and very nineties.   

ISBN:  978-1-7398838-3-6   

34 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

A sample poem can be enjoyed below.

We watched the box set of Friends until we weren’t

Our love abandoned us before we did.
Hot coals anticipate cold glimmers 
like once fond notes sketched into 
the sweat on shared mirrors.
But boardgames became box sets, 
watching the things that stitched us scatter.
Like that summer we chased
rainbows in your old Toyota,
trying to find an end. Either. 
It didn’t matter.


Thursday 1 December 2022

Seasonal greetings and a special offer

 


V. Press would like to wish all our readers, writers and supporters a joyous festive period and very very Happy New Year!

This year, to celebrate the season, V. Press has a special offer that runs the whole of December 2022 for orders for delivery in the UK. With every title purchased over this period for delivery in the UK, we will send a free pamphlet/chapbook/book.*

Happy reading, relaxing, rejoicing!

* This offer runs from 1 December 2022 to midnight on 31 December 2022, UK-time and UK-delivery only.


Friday 28 October 2022

The V. Press Prize for Poetry and gearing up towards Christmas

2022 V. Press Prize for Poetry


V. Press is very very excited to share that the winner of the 2022 V. Press Prize for Poetry is Trudi Holland, with Amber Horne as a runner-up.

A shortlist of eight anonymous manuscripts was sent over for this year’s prize by the University of Worcester’s creative writing team.

Editor Sarah Leavesley said: “This year’s shortlist was exceptionally strong, demonstrating a strong sense of structuring and theming of the manuscripts as a whole, encompassing a wide range of forms, including experimental techniques, as well as striking imagery and lines within the individual poems.

“Picking a winner from these wasn’t easy, but I eventually went with ‘Braised in wine’ by Trudi Holland. An evocative use of food throughout this manuscript both whets the reader’s appetite and explores how what we eat feeds into (nearly) every other aspect of life, including body image, self-worth and relationships with others. This is also coupled with compelling use of the second person and a mastery of striking last lines.

“My runner-up is ‘Gates’s Monster’ by Amber Horne for its original slants and relevant contemporary feel combined with an impressive range of form and experimental techniques, as well as great use of sequences threaded across the manuscript.”

REVIEWS

The Beautiful Open Sky

Reviewing Hannah Linden's "impressive debut chapbook", The Beautiful Open Sky, for Litter Magazine, Steve Spence writes: "Her mix of graphic imagery – ‘the sunk pits’ for example – within an exploration of thought and feeling has a genuine link to what I’m going to call confessional poetry, something which is increasingly difficult to pull-off post Lowell and Plath, especially given the internet overload of such material, but it works here very effectively. It’s that combination I think of thought and feeling which does the trick and the careful use of language[...]"

The full review can be found on Litter Magazine here. A sample poem, audio recording and ordering for The Beautiful Open Sky are available here.

You'll need an umbrella for this

"[...] Victoria Richards has created a journey through girlhood to motherhood that invites readers to travel along though her humanity, humour, wry observations and recognisable scenarios. These lyrical poems want to share their stories and show what it is to be human. Their multi-layered approach rewards re-reading."
Emma Lee, full review here.

A sample poem, more information and ordering for You'll need an umbrella for this can be found here.


NEW TITLES


V. Press is very very delighted to announce that Set a Crow to Catch a Crow by Mary-Jane Holmes is now available as an eBook on Amazon.

“These are stories that pulse with transformation, visceral, lush, and sound-rich. In Holmes’ lyrically-charged short fictions, worlds tilt, horizons thrum and yearnings come unmoored, and the language pulls us close to the bloodstream of her characters, feeling for their pressure-points, their broken wings. Their land and homescapes leap to life around them, set alight by breath-catching images that bind us into the textures and electrons of each scene, skin and earth, creek, board and bone. Each brief diorama in this volume delivers us a ‘quivering glint’ of characters caught in slipstream instants, lingering on the verge of fission, or hauled into ‘dark runnels of the heart’ where currents of longing and threat inescapably converge. Holmes’ writing rubs the fibres of life between our fingers, so we feel its restlessness and wonder.” Tracey Slaughter 

“The stories that fill Mary-Jane Holmes’ Set a Crow to Catch a Crow are perfect, precise, highly burnished narrative shards that describe a moment in time but imply both what came before this moment and very likely may come after. It might only be a grain you are offered but you get a whole world. It is only writing of a very high order can pull off the feat that is pulled off here.” Carlo Gébler 

Set a Crow to Catch a Crow is very textured and very liminal. 

A sample flash fiction from Set a Crow to Catch a Crow can be enjoyed here.

NOW AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK IN THE U.K. AND INTERNATIONALLY ON KINDLE through Amazon, including Amazon.co.uk here and Amazon.com here.


NOW AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER

V. Press is very very delighted to announce that Powerless Rangers by Jack McGowan is now available to pre-order.

“There is such an open-hearted charm, an immediacy and pleasure of recognition to these poems that it takes a moment to realise how they’re working on you. The forensic attention to nostalgia, popular culture as a natural and built environment; what surrounded us and moulded us and exerts invisible influence over us to this day. McGowan is a master of engaging humour and subtle melancholy. I dislike the word ‘relatable’, but I expect that’s the easiest term people will reach for, even as the poems themselves unpick our complex relations to our world.”
Luke Kennard

“The poems in Powerless Rangers enchant through their spoken power. They are clear-eyed about what makes us who we are and show true strength through their openness, compassion, and self-knowledge. The humour, language, and energy will win over readers and audiences alike.”
David Morley 

“McGowan’s poems are loud, with their energetic wit and playful meanderings, but they disguise a romantic, nostalgic centre and when it surfaces the audience or reader are encouraged to switch from one emotion to another in a second – which is a delight.”
Ruth Stacey

Powerless Rangers is very nostalgic, and very nineties.   

ISBN:  978-1-7398838-3-6   
34 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

A sample poem and pre-ordering for Powerless Rangers can be found here.

WELCOME TO THE READING ROOM


Just a reminder that if you're looking for a Christmas gift, our The Reading Room contains themed listings for some of our titles to help you pick out the perfect present for a reader with particular interests. New listings have just been added which extend the range even more than before! You can get to The Reading Room by clicking here.


Thursday 6 October 2022

HAPPY NATIONAL NATIONAL POETRY DAY!

V. Press is very very delighted to share that a poem from Sarah Doyle's chapbook Something so wild and new in this feeling has been chosen for this year's National Poetry Day resources. You can enjoy her poem 'Birds sang divinely to-day' here.

The website has lots of other poetry resources that can be used for this year's National Poetry Day celebration, themed 'The Environment'.

Another sample poem and more information about Something so wild and new in this feeling can be found here.


NEW TITLES' NEW PRINT RUNS

The Beautiful Open Sky

Hannah Linden's The Beautiful Open Sky has been selling so well that we've had to order a second print run in the week of its publication!

The Beautiful Open Sky opens with an extraordinary run of poems, heartbreaking and precise, about the damage done by a narcissistic mother. As it progresses, the poems accumulate symbols, becoming increasingly phantasmagorical, before the patterns of a new life emerge as if through broken cloud.  It works as a story, direct and emotional, but is also a meditation on how we remember – on the limits of reason and metaphor as ways of understanding the past. This is a fine model for a pamphlet: a focused set of beautiful poems, cunningly arranged, which draw power from each other. A wonderful debut.” 
Tom Sastry

“Truths are slippery and sometimes sinister in this stunning exploration of familial relationships by Hannah Linden. It can be hard to know who to trust, or who is parenting whom. But there is beauty here too, and a positivity that shines through despite the odds. Self-reflective and superb, Linden’s use of language is playful and imaginative. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
Julia Webb

The Beautiful Open Sky is very past and very present. 

A sample poem, audio recording and ordering for The Beautiful Open Sky is available here. If you don't already have one, get a copy while you still can!



Meanwhile, Victoria Richards' full collection, You'll need an umbrella for this was only published at the start of July and we've already had to get a new print run for this too!

“The title isn’t messing about: these poems soak the page with language that is visceral, immediate and sharp. An exciting debut full of vitality, pain and joy.” 
Luke Wright

“In this gorgeous debut, Victoria Richards asks ‘What are girls made of?’ And the poems answer: cans of Strongbow; ballpoint tattoos; dirty jokes; ghost bikes tied to lampposts; Ingrid Bergman’s eyeballs. All of the above and so much more is contained in this collection. A world of mothers, journalists, children and girlhoods are all drowned or on fire in You’ll need an umbrella for this. Richards tells us these stories with love, humour, lyricism and the sort of eye for detail which leaves an impression on the heart. I will read these poems for years, pass them onto friends: part secret, part gossip, part gift.” 
Lewis Buxton 

“Victoria Richards’s remarkable debut, You’ll need an umbrella for this, is more than a book of poems, it is a best friend. These poems will be there for you in the middle of the night when you are lovesick or broken hearted; they will glance you a knowing look when you need one most and make you laugh even when you think you’ve forgotten how. In these poems, without reserve, expectation or apology, Richards is offering us her heart. Accept it and she will make a fire out of beauty and pain, pour vodka on the flames and dance with you in the light.” 
Amelia Loulli

You’ll need an umbrella for this is very wild and very windswept.

A sample poem and ordering for You'll need an umbrella for this  is available here.

REVIEWS


"[...]Hannah Linden’s pamphlet is full of love, compassion and insight. Her use of language is colloquial yet rich and deep. This is a wonderful debut pamphlet from a poet with many more books inside her. Its first print run sold out within a week!"
Rachael ClyneLondon Grip, full review here.

A sample poem, audio recording and ordering for The Beautiful Open Sky is available here.




INTRODUCING A NEW V. PRESS GUEST EDITOR 

V. Press is very very delighted to be working with Charlotte Gann on a new forthcoming title that she will be guest editing...

Charlotte Gann
 is an editor by trade – she worked as Editor of Health Which? magazine, for instance – and also works, within poetry, as Editor of The Understory Conversation (of which she’s Founder), and Co-Editor of Sphinx Review. She has an English degree from UCL and an MA in Creative Writing and Personal Development from the University of Sussex. She’s also a poet, with one pamphlet – The Long Woman (Pighog), shortlisted for the 2012 Michael Marks Award – and two full collections – Noir (2016) and The Girl Who Cried (2020), both published by HappenStance. Her main focus in recent times has been on developing and convening The Understory Conversation, a hub for creatives curious to explore the underside. She is guest editor of Georgia Gildea's forthcoming V. Press poetry pamphlet bed.


GEORGIA GILDEA is a writer from Oxford. She is a graduate of the Warwick Writing Programme (2016) and holds an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published poems in MarbleLunate and The Cardiff Review. Georgia is interested in writing that emerges from a place of voicelessness, and in the complex process of claiming a voice. Her forthcoming V. Press poetry title, bed, is her debut pamphlet.

Tuesday 20 September 2022

Launching The Beautiful Open Sky

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the publication of The Beautiful Open Sky by Hannah Linden.

The Beautiful Open Sky opens with an extraordinary run of poems, heartbreaking and precise, about the damage done by a narcissistic mother. As it progresses, the poems accumulate symbols, becoming increasingly phantasmagorical, before the patterns of a new life emerge as if through broken cloud.  It works as a story, direct and emotional, but is also a meditation on how we remember – on the limits of reason and metaphor as ways of understanding the past. This is a fine model for a pamphlet: a focused set of beautiful poems, cunningly arranged, which draw power from each other. A wonderful debut.” 
Tom Sastry


“Truths are slippery and sometimes sinister in this stunning exploration of familial relationships by Hannah Linden. It can be hard to know who to trust, or who is parenting whom. But there is beauty here too, and a positivity that shines through despite the odds. Self-reflective and superb, Linden’s use of language is playful and imaginative. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
Julia Webb

The Beautiful Open Sky is very past and very present. 

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-1-2

36 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

A sample poem can be enjoyed below.

BUY The Beautiful Open Sky NOW using the paypal options below.

The Beautiful Open Sky (with p&p options)

N.B. Any international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.


Child

Snow-born to a drift of a girl.
My hand: her hand, HER hand.

My hand is a doll. Bend this way
bend that. Build snow-men—

coals for their eyes, the bruise
of their stares: boys that are men.

Girl drifts into woman. Mother 
me, she sighs; sister me the winter.

Grow. Don't grow. Pick a flower
for a self. Be a bulb in a cupboard.

Bloom me for Christmas. Sip of nectar
that sits with a view of the yard.

Home is the vinegar bottom of a jar.
She births more children, neighbours, sherbets

dipped bitter with liquorice. Today she wants me
film-star, cat-suited in red. Find me a song

she hasn't sung. She jived them orange.
She has rhythm but no time.

She catalogued me a fable, said you will
understand when you are a mother.


Listen to Hannah read her poem 'Mindstrap' here:



Monday 8 August 2022

Launching Creature Without Building

V. Press is very very delighted to share the publication of Creature Without Building, a chapbook of poetry by Ray Vincent-Mills.

Creature Without Building is a striking debut publication from Ray Vincent-Mills, a poet of exceptional skill and tenacity. The subtle – at times surreal – imagery only serves to underscore the fragmentation of identity provoked by hostile and challenging contemporary cultural politics. At the same time, the poems contained within are laced through with the rawness of lived experience and the precision of authentic observation. In their work, Vincent-Mills offers readers a lens through which to appraise and re-appraise their own complicity in the construction of a social fabric that so often excludes what it should enfold. I exhort readers to keep their eyes peeled for Vincent-Mills, whose star is sure to keep on rising.” 

J
ack McGowan


“These poems speak for themselves: bold, bracing, and creating their own style and voice!”

Sarah Leavesley

Creature Without Building is very visceral and very captivating. 

Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2021

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-9-1

36 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the poems in this chapbook deal with traumatic experiences that readers may potentially find disturbing, including domestic abuse, bulimia, rape, racism and graphic violence. 

A sample poem can be enjoyed below.

BUY Creature Without Building NOW using the paypal options below. 

Creature Without Building (with p&p options)
N.B. Any international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

It takes two

A whistle directed at a small boy with a clumsy red scooter 
has the father’s eyes on me.
His lips snap back to the starting line.
We do not talk,
but his eyes call mine
and I think
there really is something in double takes.
In wondering if I took my time with the head like papier-mâché,
discarded the rest, dangled my fingers in…

What colour could I be today?

Friday 22 July 2022

Summer Reading & other news!

NATIONAL POETRY DAY

V. Press is very very delighted to share that a poem from Sarah Doyle's chapbook Something so wild and new in this feeling has been chosen for this year's National Poetry Day resources. You can enjoy her poem 'Birds sang divinely to-day' here.

The website has lots of other poetry resources that can be used for this year's National Poetry Day celebration on Thursday, 6 October 2022, themed 'The Environment'.

Another sample poem, more information and ordering of Something so wild and new in this feeling can be found here.


NEW TITLES NOW AVAILABLE

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time

V. Press is very very pleased to share details of our latest novella-in-flash, Fifteen Brief Moments in Time by Philip Charter.

“A book of unexpected insights and extraordinary grace, rippling with loveliness, sorrow, and finesse. All taking place in one room, bound by a single unraveling ribbon of time.”
David Eagleman

“Charter balances the light but rich ideas of philosophy and time with well-drawn if flawed characters, hustling and striving, and wishing for better lives. As one of them says, ‘There are no checks at the door. Anyone can walk in and expand their mind.’ I’m glad I took my seat for this novella and surrounded myself with the sounds and actions of its characters.” 
Tommy Dean

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time is a very fast and very philosophical novella-in-flash.

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-0-5 
52 pages
R.R.P. £7.99

A sample and ordering for Fifteen Brief Moments in Time can be found here.


Meanwhile, our latest poetry collection, You'll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards, launched at the start of July.

“The title isn’t messing about: these poems soak the page with language that is visceral, immediate and sharp. An exciting debut full of vitality, pain and joy.” 
Luke Wright

“In this gorgeous debut, Victoria Richards asks ‘What are girls made of?’ And the poems answer: cans of Strongbow; ballpoint tattoos; dirty jokes; ghost bikes tied to lampposts; Ingrid Bergman’s eyeballs. All of the above and so much more is contained in this collection. A world of mothers, journalists, children and girlhoods are all drowned or on fire in You’ll need an umbrella for this. Richards tells us these stories with love, humour, lyricism and the sort of eye for detail which leaves an impression on the heart. I will read these poems for years, pass them onto friends: part secret, part gossip, part gift.” 
Lewis Buxton 

“Victoria Richards’s remarkable debut, You’ll need an umbrella for this, is more than a book of poems, it is a best friend. These poems will be there for you in the middle of the night when you are lovesick or broken hearted; they will glance you a knowing look when you need one most and make you laugh even when you think you’ve forgotten how. In these poems, without reserve, expectation or apology, Richards is offering us her heart. Accept it and she will make a fire out of beauty and pain, pour vodka on the flames and dance with you in the light.” 
Amelia Loulli

You’ll need an umbrella for this is very wild and very windswept.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-8-4
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99

A sample poem and ordering for You'll need an umbrella for this  is available here.

FORTHCOMING & AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER

Creature Without Building is a striking debut publication from Ray Vincent-Mills, a poet of exceptional skill and tenacity. The subtle – at times surreal – imagery only serves to underscore the fragmentation of identity provoked by hostile and challenging contemporary cultural politics. At the same time, the poems contained within are laced through with the rawness of lived experience and the precision of authentic observation. In their work, Vincent-Mills offers readers a lens through which to appraise and re-appraise their own complicity in the construction of a social fabric that so often excludes what it should enfold. I exhort readers to keep their eyes peeled for Vincent-Mills, whose star is sure to keep on rising.” 
Jack McGowan

“These poems speak for themselves: bold, bracing, and creating their own style and voice!” 
Sarah Leavesley

Creature Without Building is very visceral and very captivating. 

Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2021

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-9-1
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50
TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the poems in this chapbook deal with traumatic experiences that readers may potentially find disturbing, including domestic abuse, bulimia, rape, racism and graphic violence. 

A sample poem and pre-ordering for Creature Without Building, which is published in August 2022, can be found here.

AWARDS & REVIEWS

May We All Be Artefacts


V. Press is very delighted to see Chloe Hanks' May We All Be Artefacts receive a special mention in the Best poetry pamphlet category of the Saboteur Awards 2022. 

A sample poem, more information and ordering for May We All Be Artefacts  can be found here

The full shortlist and special mentions for all categories of the award can be found here.



What love would smell like


"These are tender poems, rich in intertextual images.[…] Grout handles form and content with dexterity and a lightness of touch.[…] These poems of love, desire, and loss create an intimate portrayal of female love. ‘Ursa Minor’ describes home as ‘a place like/ Sunday morning coffee and two opposite words/ pushed together to make something delicious// and startling’. This description can equally be applied to Grout’s evocative pamphlet."

Mary MulhollandThe Alchemy Spoon, issue 6

A sample poem, more about What love would smell like and ordering for the chapbook can be found here.

Friday 1 July 2022

Launching You'll need an umbrella for this

 

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the publication of You'll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards.

“The title isn’t messing about: these poems soak the page with language that is visceral, immediate and sharp. An exciting debut full of vitality, pain and joy.” Luke Wright

“In this gorgeous debut, Victoria Richards asks ‘What are girls made of?’ And the poems answer: cans of Strongbow; ballpoint tattoos; dirty jokes; ghost bikes tied to lampposts; Ingrid Bergman’s eyeballs. All of the above and so much more is contained in this collection. A world of mothers, journalists, children and girlhoods are all drowned or on fire in You’ll need an umbrella for this. Richards tells us these stories with love, humour, lyricism and the sort of eye for detail which leaves an impression on the heart. I will read these poems for years, pass them onto friends: part secret, part gossip, part gift.” Lewis Buxton 

“Victoria Richards’s remarkable debut, You’ll need an umbrella for this, is more than a book of poems, it is a best friend. These poems will be there for you in the middle of the night when you are lovesick or broken hearted; they will glance you a knowing look when you need one most and make you laugh even when you think you’ve forgotten how. In these poems, without reserve, expectation or apology, Richards is offering us her heart. Accept it and she will make a fire out of beauty and pain, pour vodka on the flames and dance with you in the light.” Amelia Loulli

You’ll need an umbrella for this is very wild and very windswept.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-8-4
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99

A sample poem can be enjoyed below.

BUY You'll need an umbrella for this NOW using the paypal options below.

You'll need an umbrella for this (including P&P)
N.B. Any international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

You’ll need an umbrella for this 

I hold on to the handlebars of the buggy 
like they’re an anchor, tethering me to the pavement. 

Without them I am rudderless, adrift – 
my stomach full of metal wool, cutting me slowly. 

No one can see me bleeding right here 
on the street. They just say, “How’s the baby?” 

as my spleen ruptures, my liver withers, twists itself 
inside out. My gums shrivel up around my teeth, 

which start dropping like rain. They form pearlescent 
puddles for you to crunch through. The wave 

surges up, up, up and breaks over the berth of my inner ear;
my eyes leak floodwaters, red with the bodies 

of billions of crustaceans who meet a slow, wet end. 
How ironic – to be a creature born of sea, dead by drowning. 



Monday 30 May 2022

Launching Fifteen Brief Moments in Time


V. Press is very very delighted to share the publication of Fifteen Brief Moments in Time, a novella-in-flash by Philip Charter.

“A book of unexpected insights and extraordinary grace, rippling with loveliness, sorrow, and finesse. All taking place in one room, bound by a single unraveling ribbon of time.”

David Eagleman

“Charter balances the light but rich ideas of philosophy and time with well-drawn if flawed characters, hustling and striving, and wishing for better lives. As one of them says, ‘There are no checks at the door. Anyone can walk in and expand their mind.’ I’m glad I took my seat for this novella and surrounded myself with the sounds and actions of its characters.” 

Tommy Dean

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time is a very fast and very philosophical novella-in-flash.

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-0-5

52 pages

R.R.P. £7.99

Flash sample:

Luca Cangemi and everyone he knows will be long dead, but the moment will come. Theoretical physicists believe it will be anywhere from 2.8 to 22 billion years in the future. In that moment, everything reverses.
    The Big Crunch is a cosmological event in our future and our past in which the density of matter grows sufficiently that gravitational attraction overcomes the expansion that began with the Big Bang. Entropy reverses and the second law is broken. Chaos retreats.
    Order is regained as space contracts. Broken rocks reform and decayed bodies reanimate. We live our lives in reverse, unexperiencing everything we did the first time around, moving backwards, shrinking towards birth. Instead of questions about creation, we search for the harbinger of order. Who began this? What is our final form?
    Luca imagines the crowds at his book signings dissipating and the offices of his academic fellowships decreasing in size. Wrong turns are righted and his family grows closer. His briefcase heals itself and he returns it to his mother. Life rewinds back to him as a young boy, unreading the words that inspired him to look for meaning in all of this. If it can all be reversed, are all shared experiences undone? All bonds broken? Luca returns into his parents, then ancestors, apes, microbes, and nothing. The earth, the planets and stars all merge into one perfectly ordered mass.
    Yet, this is not an end, but another beginning in which the universe is reborn in another bang. Galaxies, planets, plants, and philosophy professors will live the same lives as they did billions of years before (and after). The process of positive and negative entropy repeats and we all make the same mistakes again.


Time elapsed: the infinitely repeating cycle of a universe
Excerpt from 'The Direction of Everything'

LAUNCH EVENT

Phil will be launching Fifteen Brief Moments in Time with an online Zoom reading and Q & A on Monday, 6 June 2022 at 7pm (London time). Please email him on philipcharterauthor@gmail.com to get the Zoom link. 

Friday 18 March 2022

Spring offers, Reviews, Events

 

V. Press has two special offers that run until the end of March 2022 - perfect for Mother's Day, treating yourself or as a gift for someone else.*

'Dashing Duets' offer - any two of the eligible full poetry collections for £17.50 including UK delivery only, eligible titles are: knots, tangles, fankles, A Woven Rope, A Bluebottle in Late OctoberThe boy who couldn't say his name, The Aesthetics of Breath, Like loveUnable MotherBlink , The Nagasaki Elder and Bolt Down This Earth. Please make sure you enter the titles of the two eligible collections you'd prefer in the paypal text boxes when you purchase. Otherwise, you will be sent two picked out by V. Press.

Dashing Duets offer with delivery options
1st eligible title choice?
2nd eligible title choice?


'Pocket some flash' offer - choose any one of the eligible flash pamphlets (print versions only) for £7.99 (including p&p for UK-only delivery) and get a copy of a pocket novella (Always Another Twist or Kaleidoscope) included for no extra cost, eligible flash pamphlets are (print copies only): Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, Midnight LaughterThere's Something Macrocosmic About All of This or Hometown. Please make sure you enter the title of the eligible flash pamphlet you'd prefer in the paypal text box when you purchase. Otherwise, you will be sent one picked out by V. Press.

'Pocket some flash' offer with delivery options
Which eligible flash pamphlet?

* Both these offers run until the end of March 2022 (unless stock runs out sooner) and are intended for UK delivery only. For delivery elsewhere, V, Press would advise checking the titles' individual prices, as these may be a cheaper option for international customers. NB Any international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

 

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER


V. Press is very very pleased to share details of this spring's novella-in-flash, Fifteen Brief Moments in Time by Philip Charter, which is now available for pre-order.

“A book of unexpected insights and extraordinary grace, rippling with loveliness, sorrow, and finesse. All taking place in one room, bound by a single unraveling ribbon of time.”

David Eagleman

“Charter balances the light but rich ideas of philosophy and time with well-drawn if flawed characters, hustling and striving, and wishing for better lives. As one of them says, ‘There are no checks at the door. Anyone can walk in and expand their mind.’ I’m glad I took my seat for this novella and surrounded myself with the sounds and actions of its characters.” 

Tommy Dean

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time is a very fast and very philosophical novella-in-flash.

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-0-5
52 pages
R.R.P. £7.99

A sample and pre-ordering for this novella-in-flash is available here.


V. Press is delighted to share details of  our next poetry collection, You'll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards, which is now available for pre-order.

“The title isn’t messing about: these poems soak the page with language that is visceral, immediate and sharp. An exciting debut full of vitality, pain and joy.” Luke Wright

“In this gorgeous debut, Victoria Richards asks ‘What are girls made of?’ And the poems answer: cans of Strongbow; ballpoint tattoos; dirty jokes; ghost bikes tied to lampposts; Ingrid Bergman’s eyeballs. All of the above and so much more is contained in this collection. A world of mothers, journalists, children and girlhoods are all drowned or on fire in You’ll need an umbrella for this. Richards tells us these stories with love, humour, lyricism and the sort of eye for detail which leaves an impression on the heart. I will read these poems for years, pass them onto friends: part secret, part gossip, part gift.” Lewis Buxton 

“Victoria Richards’s remarkable debut, You’ll need an umbrella for this, is more than a book of poems, it is a best friend. These poems will be there for you in the middle of the night when you are lovesick or broken hearted; they will glance you a knowing look when you need one most and make you laugh even when you think you’ve forgotten how. In these poems, without reserve, expectation or apology, Richards is offering us her heart. Accept it and she will make a fire out of beauty and pain, pour vodka on the flames and dance with you in the light.” Amelia Loulli

You’ll need an umbrella for this is very wild and very windswept.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-8-4
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99

A sample poem and pre-ordering for the collection is available here.

REVIEW NEWS

What love would smell like

"The poems in this debut collection are filled with love and longing, delivered in a calm, wistful tone. It’s a romantic, gentle publication. The female body is always present, often wrapped in sensuous, languid language communicating tenderness and intimacy."

Tamsin HopkinsSphinx, full review here.

"Each poem invents its own form with the result that the poems are very fresh. They jump off the page. SK Grout does a wonderful job with this and what I enjoyed most was her ability to hold us in the moment."

Anne BaileySphinx, full review here.

A sample, poem, more information and ordering for What love would smell like can be found here.

EVENTS

Sarah Doyle will be reading from her V. Press pamphlet Something so wild and new in this feeling and talking about Dorothy Wordsworth at an in-person event this spring in Hertfordshire:

Ware Poets, Friday, 13 May 2022, 8pm, at Ware Arts Centre, Kibes Lane, Ware, Hertfordshire SG12 7BS. £5

No need to book in advance, tickets will be available to buy on the door. The event will have a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, with an open mic for those wishing to share a poem of their own on the night. Sarah will be signing books.


Monday 14 February 2022

Love, love...love our special offers!

 

Whatever else you're doing today, we hope you'll have time to love some poetry and flash fiction. Our Valentine's sample of work from some of our back catalogue can be found here, and a sample poem, more information and ordering of sk grout's recent poetry chapbook What love would smell like here.

V. Press has also put together two special offers that run until the end of March 2022.*

'Dashing Duets' offer - any two of the eligible full poetry collections for £17.50 including UK delivery only, eligible titles are: knots, tangles, fankles, A Woven Rope, A Bluebottle in Late OctoberThe boy who couldn't say his name, The Aesthetics of Breath, Like loveUnable MotherBlink , The Nagasaki Elder and Bolt Down This Earth. Please make sure you enter the titles of the two eligible collections you'd prefer in the paypal text boxes when you purchase. Otherwise, you will be sent two picked out by V. Press.

Dashing Duets offer with delivery options
1st eligible title choice?
2nd eligible title choice?


'Pocket some flash' offer - choose any one of the eligible flash pamphlets (print versions only) for £7.99 (including p&p for UK-only delivery) and get a copy of a pocket novella (Always Another Twist or Kaleidoscope) included for no extra cost, eligible flash pamphlets are (print copies only): Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, Midnight LaughterThere's Something Macrocosmic About All of This or Hometown. Please make sure you enter the title of the eligible flash pamphlet you'd prefer in the paypal text box when you purchase. Otherwise, you will be sent one picked out by V. Press.

'Pocket some flash' offer with delivery options
Which eligible flash pamphlet?

* Both these offers run until the end of March 2022 (unless stock runs out sooner) and are intended for UK delivery only. For delivery elsewhere, V, Press would advise checking the titles' individual prices, as these may be a cheaper option for international customers. NB Any international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

V. Press is delighted to share details of  our next poetry collection, You'll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards, which is now available for pre-order.

“The title isn’t messing about: these poems soak the page with language that is visceral, immediate and sharp. An exciting debut full of vitality, pain and joy.” Luke Wright

“In this gorgeous debut, Victoria Richards asks ‘What are girls made of?’ And the poems answer: cans of Strongbow; ballpoint tattoos; dirty jokes; ghost bikes tied to lampposts; Ingrid Bergman’s eyeballs. All of the above and so much more is contained in this collection. A world of mothers, journalists, children and girlhoods are all drowned or on fire in You’ll need an umbrella for this. Richards tells us these stories with love, humour, lyricism and the sort of eye for detail which leaves an impression on the heart. I will read these poems for years, pass them onto friends: part secret, part gossip, part gift.” Lewis Buxton 

“Victoria Richards’s remarkable debut, You’ll need an umbrella for this, is more than a book of poems, it is a best friend. These poems will be there for you in the middle of the night when you are lovesick or broken hearted; they will glance you a knowing look when you need one most and make you laugh even when you think you’ve forgotten how. In these poems, without reserve, expectation or apology, Richards is offering us her heart. Accept it and she will make a fire out of beauty and pain, pour vodka on the flames and dance with you in the light.” Amelia Loulli

You’ll need an umbrella for this is very wild and very windswept.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-8-4
74 pages
R.R.P. £10.99

A sample poem and pre-ordering for the collection is available here.

REVIEWS

What love would smell like

"It’s this same mix of the personal and the profound that resounds throughout SK Grout’s collection, along with sounds, sights, and sensory language that brings them evocatively to life. [...]  The sensual and the stellar therefore come together in this collection; and as the “rowr” of the bear intimates there’s a refreshing, original style to the writing, too, making this, to quote from the book, “an endless pool of innovation” [...]"

Mab Jones, Buzz, full review here.

A sample, poem, more information and ordering for What love would smell like can be found here.

A Woven Rope 

"I very much enjoyed this collection. Written in three parts, it covers the span of a human life. The first part deals with birth and childhood, the second part comprises a more diverse set of poems and the third part focuses on the ageing and loss of a parent. The title for the collection comes from a line in the poem ‘Self’:

The rim of the world’s a woven rope
you’ll wrap around your wrist to keep you safe.

This couplet seems to me to an excellent example of how Plewes uses simple language in a powerful way. Her visual images are very evocative; they draw the reader in. [...]"

Sue Wallace-ShaddadLondon Grip, full review here.

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


knots, tangles, fankles is a highly ambitious and original collection where Reed takes the complex and detailed research of Sanity, Madness and the Family and transforms it into a multi-vocal poetic sequence which not only engages with its radical theoretical ideas but also speaks to the human distress and pain experienced by some individuals and their families.” 

Jeremy KearneyThe Polophony, full review here.

A sample poem, more information and ordering for knots, tangles, fankles can be found here.


SPRING LAUNCH OF knots, tangles, fankles

Book Launch: knots, tangles fankles by Alex Reed

Friday, 4 March 2022 at 7pm-8-15pm

Venue: Newcastle Recovery College, Newcastle NE1 6UF.

Please join us at this launch event which will include poetry from Alex’s publications plus some musical setting of his poems by Keren Banning.

Admission is free. Donations to the Recovery College (ReCoCo)are welcome.
ReCoCo is an innovative peer-led mental health facility which runs a variety of creative, educational and support-based activities.
For further information contact Alex at: areedhexham@gmail.com

SUBMISSIONS UPDATE

V. Press would like to say a big thank you to everyone who submitted their poetry chapbook samples in the January submissions window.

Editor Sarah Leavesley is looking forward to reading them over the coming weeks, and anticipating some tough decisions!

TO RECEIVE NEWS LIKE THIS DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER USING THE MAILCHIMP SIGN-UP ON THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THE HOMEPAGE.