Fair time & new titles

Spring has picked up its space since our last news post, with some great things in store for the coming months. You can enjoy some of these highlights below, with more soon. Happy reading, writing and Free Versing!

V. Press at London Book Fair

Thanks to Inpress and Arts Council England, V. Press editor and M.D. Sarah Leavesley headed to London Book Fair at London Olympia for the first time last month.

The fair is a big event on the publishing calendar for a number of reasons, including selling/buying foreign rights and agents selling/auctioning titles to publishers. It's also a great chance to meet and talk with people from all realms of the publishing world -- writers, publishers, agents, editors, printers, booksellers, book distributors, marketing services, audio book services and more.

The extra pull on top of this for V. Press as a small poetry and flash fiction press was the chance to get wider insights into the industry, through the panels and discussions as well as talking with people. 

Being a small regional press can be an isolated working environment at times. In the wake of things like the X-exodus and increasing diversification, covering costs and marketing books is harder now than it was when V. Press first started in 2013. But it was reassuring to come home feeling we're in as good a position as possible to face some of the challenges ahead.

Next 'event' stop for us now is a completely different kind of book fair...

Saturday, 25 April 2026 -- Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair in London

Sarah is very very excited to be heading back to London for the V. Press stand at the Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair 2026. This free 12noon-6.30pm event takes place on Saturday, 25 April 2025 at St Columba’s, SW1X 0BD.

The fair is a chance to meet other publishers (and poets), find out more about their work and buy some books. For more information about this year's Free Verse, check out this year's event details on The Poetry Society website here.

Just Published

V. Press is very very excited to share the publication of grown girl by Eleni Brooks.

“The essence that makes grown girl stand out can’t be distilled down to just one thing. Here, a confident voice, striking lines, unusual images and light touch all work together to create an interesting and insightful read. More than that though, this pamphlet is very relatable, very re-readable and casts both familiar and unfamiliar experiences in a new light.”

Sarah Leavesley, V. Press Prize judge

“Eleni is clever, subtly witty and honest to no fault. When poetry is this relatable, it reminds you how sharing your experiences can make another feel understood; although it’s shared and not the same, it makes you feel like you’re there again, but this time you’re not alone. Very powerful poetry.”

Jemima Hughes

Grown girl is very raw and very hopeful.

Winner of the V. Press Prize for Poetry 2025-26

ISBN: 978-1-0682701-1-6
32 pages
R.R.P. £7.50

Ordering and a sample poem for grown girl may be enjoyed here.

Out Soon

Timing-wise, V. Press is delighted to celebrate spring's arrival with Hatchery by Elizabeth Osmond. Launching next month, this debut poetry chapbook is now in stock, ready to hatch!

“Hatchery is an essential guide on how to wed, celebrate, and advocate for our NHS. Stunning imagery and metaphor stitched throughout in myth, a hard graft medic with historical transitions in care. ‘Take comfort in ritual / step into sacred waters.’ Elizabeth Osmond's poems treat birth to a last breath with all senses, especially touch. She splices medical expertise and tantalising storytelling with human kindness. ‘Doctors in Difficulty’ is raw in its reality of caring whilst juggling family and self. ‘Yeah, this is how it's done’.” Helen Sheppard

“Drawing on her expertise as a neonatal consultant, Elizabeth Osmond applies her impressive sensibilities as a poet to chart a chronological course through the evolution of medical care and prevailing attitudes, skilfully interweaving these fascinating historical dioramas with contemporary testimony borne of experience and observations in the field. Queen Victoria, having ‘chosen to become interested in 2024’, makes ward rounds where ‘She melts through the wall’ and ‘a laced glove strokes the Perspex door’, while modern practitioners undertake the ‘Newborn Check’, ensuring their charges are ‘Creased, as washing bundled fresh from the machine’. A 1903 exhibition of ‘incubator babies’ contrasts with the tender dignity of ‘Conversation’, in which ‘I talk to the baby in the incubator [...] I tell him we all once were stars’. Finding imaginative resonance in references ranging from a zoo’s Reptile House to the BBC Shipping Forecast, these poems are alternately magical and pragmatic, interrogative yet compassionate, brimming with humanity and intelligence. Even if Osmond’s ‘heart is wanting to be fearless / but it is a colander with little holes / through which doubt seeps in’, Hatchery is a work of hope and wonder: ‘I wash my hands’ she writes, ‘and contemplate new life’.” Sarah Doyle

Hatchery is very visceral and very vibrant.

ISBN: 978-1-0682701-2-3
36 pages
R.R.P. £7.50

More information, a sample poem and pre-ordering for Hatchery may be enjoyed here.