No, not an annoyingly clever 5 year old but an amazingly vibrant young publishing house called The Emma Press and named after Emma Wright, who started the venture along with Rachel Piercey, my featured poet and Newdigate prize winner in 2008. And in the 5 years of its existence they have supported over 400 new writers and some of them like me with a “6” in front of their decade.
Their mission which they have accepted with great energy, professionalism, commitment and kindness, has been to seek out poets and prose writers and encourage them through their “calls for submissions”. This has allowed an amazing array of talent to see the light of day. These “calls for submissions” are on their website and open to all, topics ranging from the traditional love theme to aunts and beyond! They want to encourage literature that is welcoming and accessible. And, importantly, they are concerned to foster writing for children. They are also committed to having a live persona and can be found at their local well known national bookshop in Birmingham and at book events at venues up and down the country.
But their greatest virtue, in my opinion, is the blending of an intellectual rigour with a sense of fun to deliver the writer’s words. I attended the London launch in January of their Anthology of Love held in a café serving fab cakes iced with our words – a convivial and enlightening experience.
Anthology of Love
Their Anthology of Love contains 50-plus new poems from a variety of pens, some more tried and tested than others. Edited by Emma and Rachel it is has black and white illustrations by Emma and is wrapped up in a vibrant, colourful cover which will not be missed! Rachel has one poem included, titled Symbiosis, a witty and tender poem, in sonnet form, about love between two unlikely participants, an Egyptian plover and a Nile crocodile. Despite their obvious differences they “share four-chambered hearts which beat in time”. In the fourteen lines she creates the intimate world of two intimates allowing us glimpses of the tenderness of this “unlikely pairing”.
Rachel Aunts Launch
In addition to her writing Rachel also runs workshops in schools and at festivals and I shall be welcoming her to Dorset in June, Saturday 16th, when she will be running a poetry writing workshop at Littlebredy Walled Garden, Dorchester, Dorset, a real haven of peace, entitled “I hear it in the deep heart’s core”. Information is available at www.littlebredy.com.
But now they’re in process of editing the next anthology and selecting their next series of individual pamphlets. Not surprising, then, that they won the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlet Publishers in 2016. They deserve it and more.
Poetry Writing Workshop at Littlebredy: www.littlebredy.com
www.theemmapress.com