|
The Emma Pressmeet the publishers: James Trevelyan & georgia wallFor our Press of the Month feature, we’re delighted to shine a spotlight on The Emma Press, an independent publisher known for its lyrical, innovative, and carefully curated books and pamphlets. This interview was recorded live during our first in-person Meet The Publishers event on Monday 23rd June, in Newcastle upon Tyne, where we had the chance to talk in depth and openly with Georgia and James about the press’s journey and vision.
From their early days championing poetry and translated children’s books, to expanding into fiction and creative nonfiction, The Emma Press balances artistic risk-taking with a genuine commitment to supporting emerging and underrepresented voices. We hear about the realities and rewards of small press publishing—from the joys of editorial care and design collaborations, to navigating funding challenges and the thrill of prize success. Rooted in Birmingham and dedicated to fostering community, The Emma Press is not just publishing books; they’re creating connections - between authors, readers, and the wider literary ecosystem. Whether you’re a writer curious about submitting your work or a reader eager to discover fresh voices, this feature offers insight into a press that values craft, care, and diversity at every step. |
Our event was held on the eve of the Inpress Books trade conference, where we had the opportunity to host this usually private interview in front of a live audience of readers and writers. Here we have transcribed the first half of the evening’s conversation in full.
We hope you enjoy.
We hope you enjoy.
JR: Well, firstly, both, thank you so much for coming – and hot off the train as well! So I do really appreciate it.
JT: I was just saying, I feel like we've had a three and a half hour meeting on the way here. So if we have non-elegant answers, that will be why.
JR: Especially given that whirlwind of an entrance, I don't want to bombard you with all the tough questions first. Do you want to just start off by introducing yourselves and telling us a little about your roles? Whoever wants to go first?
JT: Shall I go first?
GW: Yeah, you go first.
JT: Hello, I'm James Trevelyan. The director of The Emma Press. I have been there over two years now. I covered Emma's maternity leave and then we've just kind of co-worked together since then. And Emma, as you will probably guess, is the founder of The Emma Press. This (Georgia) is not Emma, but a lot of people think you are.
Emma (Dai’an Wright) founded The Emma Press in 2012. Maybe we'll talk about that. I’m responsible, I guess, for the day-to-day running and editorial as well. Me and Emma divide up editorial. I do poetry and novels. And Emma does children's and non-fiction. I’m sure more of that will come up later.
GW: Yeah, so, my name's Georgia Wall. I am Publishing Manager, but essentially I'm a plate catcher, which I love. That is one of the things I absolutely love about small press publishing – that I am the same person who will be writing and telling people how brilliant a book is, asking if they'd be interested in reviewing it, and I'm also the person packing those books and shipping them. That implies that you don't do that, but I think we're all quite hands-on. I've been at the press officially since 2022. James (JT), you're four days a week, aren't you? I'm two and a half days a week, just to give a sense, between us, we've probably got one whole person. Between you, me, Gosia, and Emma--
JT: — I think there are nearly two full-time people.
JR: I was gonna ask how big the team is because the website shows some of you, but I didn’t know if there were more people behind the scenes or whether that’s literally everyone.
JT: No, that’s literally everyone. It kind of gives a false impression because Peri (Cimen), our publishing assistant, is one day a week. And Gosia (Weber), our finance officer is one day paid, one day a week – but sort of does bits of ad hoc here and there. Yeah, Georgia’s two and a half. Emma is the one who – probably being her company – is paid the least and works the most.
GW: Yeah, true ‘small press big dreams’.
JR: Yeah, a few people in this room will be able to appreciate that, I think. But you’ve both come from very different backgrounds, right? Georgia, are you still working as a translator?
GW: Yeah.
JR: So working on that now, sort of juggling The Emma Press – or is Emma Press’ work taking over a bit more of your time?
JT: I was just saying, I feel like we've had a three and a half hour meeting on the way here. So if we have non-elegant answers, that will be why.
JR: Especially given that whirlwind of an entrance, I don't want to bombard you with all the tough questions first. Do you want to just start off by introducing yourselves and telling us a little about your roles? Whoever wants to go first?
JT: Shall I go first?
GW: Yeah, you go first.
JT: Hello, I'm James Trevelyan. The director of The Emma Press. I have been there over two years now. I covered Emma's maternity leave and then we've just kind of co-worked together since then. And Emma, as you will probably guess, is the founder of The Emma Press. This (Georgia) is not Emma, but a lot of people think you are.
Emma (Dai’an Wright) founded The Emma Press in 2012. Maybe we'll talk about that. I’m responsible, I guess, for the day-to-day running and editorial as well. Me and Emma divide up editorial. I do poetry and novels. And Emma does children's and non-fiction. I’m sure more of that will come up later.
GW: Yeah, so, my name's Georgia Wall. I am Publishing Manager, but essentially I'm a plate catcher, which I love. That is one of the things I absolutely love about small press publishing – that I am the same person who will be writing and telling people how brilliant a book is, asking if they'd be interested in reviewing it, and I'm also the person packing those books and shipping them. That implies that you don't do that, but I think we're all quite hands-on. I've been at the press officially since 2022. James (JT), you're four days a week, aren't you? I'm two and a half days a week, just to give a sense, between us, we've probably got one whole person. Between you, me, Gosia, and Emma--
JT: — I think there are nearly two full-time people.
JR: I was gonna ask how big the team is because the website shows some of you, but I didn’t know if there were more people behind the scenes or whether that’s literally everyone.
JT: No, that’s literally everyone. It kind of gives a false impression because Peri (Cimen), our publishing assistant, is one day a week. And Gosia (Weber), our finance officer is one day paid, one day a week – but sort of does bits of ad hoc here and there. Yeah, Georgia’s two and a half. Emma is the one who – probably being her company – is paid the least and works the most.
GW: Yeah, true ‘small press big dreams’.
JR: Yeah, a few people in this room will be able to appreciate that, I think. But you’ve both come from very different backgrounds, right? Georgia, are you still working as a translator?
GW: Yeah.
JR: So working on that now, sort of juggling The Emma Press – or is Emma Press’ work taking over a bit more of your time?
|
GW: I mean, it takes over, but it’s given me insights that I wouldn’t have dreamed of getting as a translator. Before, I fell into translation more than anything. I entered publishing doing nothing to do with books. I worked in a nursery for preschool children. Before that – I joked on the train that I was not going to tell my life history! – but I’ll just say my first job was working as a volunteer for the Home Library Service. And then I worked for what at the time was Ottakar’s, which then got taken over and became part of Waterstones, for six years in total, which I think was a really formative experience. Ottakar’s, the bookshop, at the time, gave you quite a lot of authority in choosing books. So I think it was totally different to you (JT). Until I started working with translation within The Emma Press, I’d always seen books as a finished product – absolutely amazing. And it was only when I worked at the press and saw what everyone does that I was like, “oh, they don’t come like this!” I mean, obviously I’d seen proofs, but tiny things – I mean, I’d see a whole manuscript change. I’m like the extreme opposite, whereas you’ve (JT) always been much more on the reading and the writing side than me.
JR: You were at Penned in the Margins, James, right? JT: Yes. So yeah, at the start I kind of just worked in bars for ages. And then I did a Creative Writing MA in poetry. I was trying to be a poet in London-- GW: —You were a poet. I should say this – when Emma said he was going to be our director, I was like, “Oh no, like, a poet – a real poet – what’s he going to be like?” Because I’d posted out some of his books, and I was like, “Oh no.” JT: Ha! I am published by the Emma Press, yeah. So, I really loved Penned in the Margins. I’m sure if you work in indie publishing, a lot of people did. And the job came up for them, which was Sales and Marketing – basically what Georgia does now, which is everything that isn’t editorial. |
|
JR: And were you also at the Arts Council as well?
JT: Yeah, and so after a few years with Tom (Chivers) there, I sadly left to go to the Arts Council. Taken by a salary that was liveable. [I was] reasonably miserable for five years in such a hands-off role, but also, you see so much. I wouldn’t be able to do this job now, necessarily, without having done that. Because you see what you need to do to get funding, which is entirely what we rely on. Pretty much – off book sales alone, we wouldn’t, even with one and a half full-time team members, we wouldn’t be able to quite [make it work].
JR: Sure. You both joined the press at different times. So you’ve seen it grow in slightly different ways during that time. Can you give us a bit of an insight into the Emma Press that existed when you started, and how you feel like that’s grown since joining the team?
GW: Well, I think for me, when I started it was Emma and Pema (Monaghan). Pema was Emma’s first official employee and I massively still do really admire them both. They’re both very talented editors and writers and particularly why I wanted to work for The Emma Press … we were saying before about how publishing is necessarily very selective—you know, from open submissions we get about 500 and we normally take two books out of that, so you’ve got like a 1‑in‑250 chance of being published, which is not good odds. That said--
JR: —I mean, that sounds like pretty decent odds, actually, now that you say it!
GW: Ha! Sure. But when I started following the press, because Emma had done translations, that was how I found out about them—I was like, someone’s in Birmingham doing this, I’m going to stalk them! I really loved how open the press was. She did a newsletter, which we still do, called “Emma’s Newsletter,” where she talks about the process of running a publishing house. Really practical nitty‑gritty ups and downs like, “Oh, these books have been delayed because of this.”
JR: Which is a great resource, actually, for people who maybe want to get into publishing, or even just writing - to see what’s behind the curtain.
GW: Yeah, I loved her tone. That makes it sound like it’s a gimmick but it’s not. I thought, yes, publishing is necessarily selective, but it doesn’t need to be opaque, and her mission was to make it welcoming and accessible. I think that’s been your (JT) guiding principle.
JT: So, it’s probably worth talking about Emma from the start. The first book The Emma Press published was by someone on my MA [course], Rachel Piercey’s The Flower and the Plough (2013) --
JR: — That book might be in the room, actually. Did I see somebody bring a copy with them?
(audience member waves book in the air)
GW: Oh my God!
JT: That’s a rare thing. That’s really nice … oh wow, that’s really nice--
Audience member: It’s very close to my heart!
GW: And that’s how we got our logo, that book. From those illustrations.
JR: Oh, I hadn’t realised that, that’s really interesting.
JT: So, yeah. Then Emma was doing anthologies; it was very start‑up, inviting poets who were probably around the same circles and encouraging them to submit, which is how a lot of small publishers start. It wasn’t cliquey at all—unlike some London readings where no one talks to you—or you wouldn’t feel comfortable, I certainly wasn’t. But Emma always did, and people spoke to you, and by the end of the night you’d feel like everyone knew each other. Sort of like we have today.
So, guiding‑principle‑wise, that author support and open environment are crucial to us. On the poetry side, sales are pretty low‑stakes, so why not make it a really good experience for the author—and for us, frankly. You want to work with people you like, and submissions time lets you feel that out.
JR: We’ll save more on the submission process for later—people here will have questions, I’m sure—but I’d like to talk about the kind of books you’re publishing now and in the near future. The list is nicely diverse: fiction, kids’ books, poetry … how important was it to branch out beyond poetry?
JT: Honestly, when I talk to people I admit it’s a bit of a “stupid” tactic—tomorrow at the Inpress sales conference we’ll be pitching books from every genre. Maybe it’s better to focus, but variety keeps things interesting. Strategically, sales-wise, children’s poetry collections and nonfiction do well; we aim for at least one strong title in each every year. We’ve just done our first novel (Wild Boar, Hannah Lutz) in April—that’s been a bit of an experiment. It’s probably due to the failure of our short story collections, to be honest. Short‑story collections are tougher: huge editorial time, little sales, even when these writers are great. You hope readers come back when those writers publish novels in the future and rediscover those books.
JR: It is said, typically, that short stories aren’t as commercial, right? Is that how you’ve found it?
JT: Definitely - it’s a real shame. I mean, is it? I don’t personally rush towards a short story collection.
GW: I think because you can read, say, The Moth - the magazine of shorts. I’d buy an anthology, but not often single‑author collections? I look at my shelves and don’t have many, even though I think they’re excellent. Maybe that’ll change. And Other Stories just won the International Booker, so…
JT: I’d be interested to hear about their sales figures! But you don’t sell anywhere near as much. I now mentally file them with our poetry pamphlets—projects we really want to publish to support a new writer, but that don’t take the same design or editorial load. A full short‑story collection is a lot of work to sell 300 copies.
JR: Obviously, literary agencies are all over the country, but there’s a great one called The North up here. And Stan at The North—he used to be my boss in the bookshop, actually—always said, “If you can write short stories, you can write a novel, and I’ll take the novel.” That seemed to be his preference at least. I don’t know if that was the official word of The North - but it was certainly Stan’s word. But it’s interesting, right? I love reading shorts.
Let’s talk about Wild Boar. Some people here tonight joined us for our book club for Wild Boar—we loved it, right? Can you tell us about getting Wild Boar out into the world and how it’s been received?
JT: It’s been really interesting. We took it from open submissions—the translator sent a sample. We really loved it. It fits the Emma Press vibe: slightly surreal prose, beautifully written, three narrative voices that really drive it, even though the plot isn’t …
GW: It’s what we said in, like, simple words—we were both like, “Oh, we like books where not that much really happens, but they just feel very lyrical.”
JT: So it’s been running, and in terms of how it’s been received, it’s been kind of fascinating. I think in sales terms, we see from Inpress, the other warehouses, the bookshops that order—and there are lots of bookshops that order all our books—and they normally order one book, and for that they’re ordering two, three, four, maybe, which is really cool. We’re in that kind of period now where we don’t know what happens next—two months later, three months later, does it drop off or not? But yeah, it’s [our] first foray into fiction.
JT: Yeah, and so after a few years with Tom (Chivers) there, I sadly left to go to the Arts Council. Taken by a salary that was liveable. [I was] reasonably miserable for five years in such a hands-off role, but also, you see so much. I wouldn’t be able to do this job now, necessarily, without having done that. Because you see what you need to do to get funding, which is entirely what we rely on. Pretty much – off book sales alone, we wouldn’t, even with one and a half full-time team members, we wouldn’t be able to quite [make it work].
JR: Sure. You both joined the press at different times. So you’ve seen it grow in slightly different ways during that time. Can you give us a bit of an insight into the Emma Press that existed when you started, and how you feel like that’s grown since joining the team?
GW: Well, I think for me, when I started it was Emma and Pema (Monaghan). Pema was Emma’s first official employee and I massively still do really admire them both. They’re both very talented editors and writers and particularly why I wanted to work for The Emma Press … we were saying before about how publishing is necessarily very selective—you know, from open submissions we get about 500 and we normally take two books out of that, so you’ve got like a 1‑in‑250 chance of being published, which is not good odds. That said--
JR: —I mean, that sounds like pretty decent odds, actually, now that you say it!
GW: Ha! Sure. But when I started following the press, because Emma had done translations, that was how I found out about them—I was like, someone’s in Birmingham doing this, I’m going to stalk them! I really loved how open the press was. She did a newsletter, which we still do, called “Emma’s Newsletter,” where she talks about the process of running a publishing house. Really practical nitty‑gritty ups and downs like, “Oh, these books have been delayed because of this.”
JR: Which is a great resource, actually, for people who maybe want to get into publishing, or even just writing - to see what’s behind the curtain.
GW: Yeah, I loved her tone. That makes it sound like it’s a gimmick but it’s not. I thought, yes, publishing is necessarily selective, but it doesn’t need to be opaque, and her mission was to make it welcoming and accessible. I think that’s been your (JT) guiding principle.
JT: So, it’s probably worth talking about Emma from the start. The first book The Emma Press published was by someone on my MA [course], Rachel Piercey’s The Flower and the Plough (2013) --
JR: — That book might be in the room, actually. Did I see somebody bring a copy with them?
(audience member waves book in the air)
GW: Oh my God!
JT: That’s a rare thing. That’s really nice … oh wow, that’s really nice--
Audience member: It’s very close to my heart!
GW: And that’s how we got our logo, that book. From those illustrations.
JR: Oh, I hadn’t realised that, that’s really interesting.
JT: So, yeah. Then Emma was doing anthologies; it was very start‑up, inviting poets who were probably around the same circles and encouraging them to submit, which is how a lot of small publishers start. It wasn’t cliquey at all—unlike some London readings where no one talks to you—or you wouldn’t feel comfortable, I certainly wasn’t. But Emma always did, and people spoke to you, and by the end of the night you’d feel like everyone knew each other. Sort of like we have today.
So, guiding‑principle‑wise, that author support and open environment are crucial to us. On the poetry side, sales are pretty low‑stakes, so why not make it a really good experience for the author—and for us, frankly. You want to work with people you like, and submissions time lets you feel that out.
JR: We’ll save more on the submission process for later—people here will have questions, I’m sure—but I’d like to talk about the kind of books you’re publishing now and in the near future. The list is nicely diverse: fiction, kids’ books, poetry … how important was it to branch out beyond poetry?
JT: Honestly, when I talk to people I admit it’s a bit of a “stupid” tactic—tomorrow at the Inpress sales conference we’ll be pitching books from every genre. Maybe it’s better to focus, but variety keeps things interesting. Strategically, sales-wise, children’s poetry collections and nonfiction do well; we aim for at least one strong title in each every year. We’ve just done our first novel (Wild Boar, Hannah Lutz) in April—that’s been a bit of an experiment. It’s probably due to the failure of our short story collections, to be honest. Short‑story collections are tougher: huge editorial time, little sales, even when these writers are great. You hope readers come back when those writers publish novels in the future and rediscover those books.
JR: It is said, typically, that short stories aren’t as commercial, right? Is that how you’ve found it?
JT: Definitely - it’s a real shame. I mean, is it? I don’t personally rush towards a short story collection.
GW: I think because you can read, say, The Moth - the magazine of shorts. I’d buy an anthology, but not often single‑author collections? I look at my shelves and don’t have many, even though I think they’re excellent. Maybe that’ll change. And Other Stories just won the International Booker, so…
JT: I’d be interested to hear about their sales figures! But you don’t sell anywhere near as much. I now mentally file them with our poetry pamphlets—projects we really want to publish to support a new writer, but that don’t take the same design or editorial load. A full short‑story collection is a lot of work to sell 300 copies.
JR: Obviously, literary agencies are all over the country, but there’s a great one called The North up here. And Stan at The North—he used to be my boss in the bookshop, actually—always said, “If you can write short stories, you can write a novel, and I’ll take the novel.” That seemed to be his preference at least. I don’t know if that was the official word of The North - but it was certainly Stan’s word. But it’s interesting, right? I love reading shorts.
Let’s talk about Wild Boar. Some people here tonight joined us for our book club for Wild Boar—we loved it, right? Can you tell us about getting Wild Boar out into the world and how it’s been received?
JT: It’s been really interesting. We took it from open submissions—the translator sent a sample. We really loved it. It fits the Emma Press vibe: slightly surreal prose, beautifully written, three narrative voices that really drive it, even though the plot isn’t …
GW: It’s what we said in, like, simple words—we were both like, “Oh, we like books where not that much really happens, but they just feel very lyrical.”
JT: So it’s been running, and in terms of how it’s been received, it’s been kind of fascinating. I think in sales terms, we see from Inpress, the other warehouses, the bookshops that order—and there are lots of bookshops that order all our books—and they normally order one book, and for that they’re ordering two, three, four, maybe, which is really cool. We’re in that kind of period now where we don’t know what happens next—two months later, three months later, does it drop off or not? But yeah, it’s [our] first foray into fiction.
|
JR: I was going to ask—since it’s the first one—if it’s performing quite well, are you already looking at doing more fiction in the future?
GW: Yes! JT: We have two more novels signed up, I think. We’ve got one coming out called The Waiter, which is an English-language novel by a Malaysian writer based in the UK. It’s kind of an adult choose-your-own-adventure. It’s weird. I think if you liked Wild Boar, this might not be one for you… JR: Ha! That’s interesting. What a sales pitch! GW: But I do think that’s a really good example of how much—well, you were saying before that you were like, “When I talk about it, I think it’s a terrible strategy!” And I’m quite aware —just saying, we’ve got Foundry (Editions) in the room! And I feel like so many things—aside from beautiful covers, there are Foundry books at the front there (points to the bookstall table)—but sometimes I’ll read something and think, “Oh, this feels like it could be a Foundry book.” Whereas I feel like we, as a press, are very much steered by the fact that we have open submissions. And the book that James is talking about--The Waiter—we were like, ‘Okay, we really, really want to find another kind of crafty essay collection, like on food writing…” and then we go and pick a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Because I feel like that is the nice thing about open submissions: you literally never know what you’re going to get. And even though the four of us at the time were like, “Oh, we really want to find something like this,” what we went for was nothing like that at all. But it intrigued us. JT: And it feels like that should be the way. GW: I think that’s why we have quite an eclectic but also fun range. And in a way—I mean, I know now with Wild Boar it feels like a totally natural fit—but actually in the beginning we were like, “This is really exciting and different.” |
|
JT: I was going to say—talking to Emma as well—we talked about this: I think that the first book in a genre is the important one, or it felt to us like the most important. And Wild Boar felt like an Emma Press novel, because it’s surreal, it’s poetic--
GW: —and short! We love a short book.
JR: I want to talk about the general aesthetic as well. They’re all gorgeous books but all quite different. Do you work with different designers? Do you work with a designer—not in-house—but one designer that does them all? Or do you outsource?
JT: No, different. But we did work with a designer in-house, because all of them were Emma’s books. Emma designed for a long time. As it got bigger and we started doing more, she stopped doing that. I suppose for our children’s books we were sort of doing the same, or our past two or three have been in the same illustrator--
GW: --Reena Makwana, who’s lovely to work with.
JT: I guess, to kind of give a bit of a branded look. And these two (points to How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart by Florentyna Leow and Bound by Maddie Ballard) are part of our essay collections, so I think they’re sort of similar.
GW: Emma was going to illustrate [How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart]... Emma actually went into labour just before she was meant to finish it. So she asked Elīna if she could do it. Elīna Brasliņa, who illustrates a lot of our children’s books and has a picture book coming out—and is brilliant. So that was finished by someone else. But I feel like that’s more the essay collection series vibe.
JT: Wild Boar’s [cover] we took from the Swedish version, actually. We had to change it slightly because the image was going to cost about £2,500 to reuse. So we just found one for free from Birmingham Museums. It’s quite similar, but better, we think.
GW: That sounds so cheap of us!
JR: No, it’s interesting to know these things, right?
JT: Yeah, often the design is geared around price and availability, and working with people who are emerging. And then—like our authors—we hope it’s been a nice experience for them. And when they start to come up a bit more, they might stay with us for a few more books. And it was the same at Penned in the Margins when I was there. Eventually, your designer, after ten books, can get £800-1000 for a cover, and it’s just not worth the time.
GW: We’ve had at least two, possibly three, authors who—when we acquired the book—have said, “Actually, I know someone. Would you be interested? Is there a budget for a cover? I’d really like to work with this artist if possible.” We just want to be like, yeah, sometimes it’s nice to try. Which I hope—I know this actually sounds like we have no strategy—we do. But I hope, if you’re considering submitting or if you’re writing, it is a hopeful thing. Because, actually, we don’t know what we want. And then we see something—even if it’s not like ‘this’—this is someone that’s engaged with the press, they see what we’re doing, and they’re taking us into a direction we didn’t expect—but let’s try!
JR: And I guess the more successful and better-known the press becomes, you’re going to get all sorts of other types of submissions that may not have considered you before. The kind of submissions you’ll get after Wild Boar might be entirely different, right?
JT: That’s our real hope. And also making our step into translated fiction, which I think… You’re (GW) a translator—I think we probably read, personally, more [translated fiction] outside of work.
JR: I want to touch on translation while we’re on the subject. It’s seeping into a lot of what you’re working on. Was that a natural progression or was that a deliberate choice?
GW: It’s all down to money. In the spirit of being totally transparent--Lawrence Schimel, who is a translator — I don’t know how he does it, he’s an amazing translator, absolutely. I feel like probably in the thousands of books from Spanish—actually between Spanish and English—encouraged Emma to try. And I think she was like, “It’s a lot. It’s not only that we’ve got the investment of the book itself—you’ve got the rights and the royalties [to deal with]” and he was like, “But some countries have funding available. Let me suggest...”
JT: I’m assuming then the countries that had funding available were Latvia and Estonia. A lot of our first children’s books were translations [from there].
Are they a tougher sell? I think they probably are. Obviously, there’s a growing appetite in the country for translated fiction, adult books—I’m not entirely sure that appetite is there for translated children’s…
GW: I’m fresh off a schools project [who] were like, “Can we work with you? Because we’re interested in translated children’s fiction.” I think it’s becoming as much [a thing] as it is for adults. I think people are more aware of translation, so are interested in it. But I think people buy sometimes for the culture—which is a really important audience for us, the people that support the press.
JR: And are you finding that the readership is international as well? Are you finding that these stories are finding their way outside of the UK?
GW: Yes, but then it’s a whole saga with the postal service right now!
GW: —and short! We love a short book.
JR: I want to talk about the general aesthetic as well. They’re all gorgeous books but all quite different. Do you work with different designers? Do you work with a designer—not in-house—but one designer that does them all? Or do you outsource?
JT: No, different. But we did work with a designer in-house, because all of them were Emma’s books. Emma designed for a long time. As it got bigger and we started doing more, she stopped doing that. I suppose for our children’s books we were sort of doing the same, or our past two or three have been in the same illustrator--
GW: --Reena Makwana, who’s lovely to work with.
JT: I guess, to kind of give a bit of a branded look. And these two (points to How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart by Florentyna Leow and Bound by Maddie Ballard) are part of our essay collections, so I think they’re sort of similar.
GW: Emma was going to illustrate [How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart]... Emma actually went into labour just before she was meant to finish it. So she asked Elīna if she could do it. Elīna Brasliņa, who illustrates a lot of our children’s books and has a picture book coming out—and is brilliant. So that was finished by someone else. But I feel like that’s more the essay collection series vibe.
JT: Wild Boar’s [cover] we took from the Swedish version, actually. We had to change it slightly because the image was going to cost about £2,500 to reuse. So we just found one for free from Birmingham Museums. It’s quite similar, but better, we think.
GW: That sounds so cheap of us!
JR: No, it’s interesting to know these things, right?
JT: Yeah, often the design is geared around price and availability, and working with people who are emerging. And then—like our authors—we hope it’s been a nice experience for them. And when they start to come up a bit more, they might stay with us for a few more books. And it was the same at Penned in the Margins when I was there. Eventually, your designer, after ten books, can get £800-1000 for a cover, and it’s just not worth the time.
GW: We’ve had at least two, possibly three, authors who—when we acquired the book—have said, “Actually, I know someone. Would you be interested? Is there a budget for a cover? I’d really like to work with this artist if possible.” We just want to be like, yeah, sometimes it’s nice to try. Which I hope—I know this actually sounds like we have no strategy—we do. But I hope, if you’re considering submitting or if you’re writing, it is a hopeful thing. Because, actually, we don’t know what we want. And then we see something—even if it’s not like ‘this’—this is someone that’s engaged with the press, they see what we’re doing, and they’re taking us into a direction we didn’t expect—but let’s try!
JR: And I guess the more successful and better-known the press becomes, you’re going to get all sorts of other types of submissions that may not have considered you before. The kind of submissions you’ll get after Wild Boar might be entirely different, right?
JT: That’s our real hope. And also making our step into translated fiction, which I think… You’re (GW) a translator—I think we probably read, personally, more [translated fiction] outside of work.
JR: I want to touch on translation while we’re on the subject. It’s seeping into a lot of what you’re working on. Was that a natural progression or was that a deliberate choice?
GW: It’s all down to money. In the spirit of being totally transparent--Lawrence Schimel, who is a translator — I don’t know how he does it, he’s an amazing translator, absolutely. I feel like probably in the thousands of books from Spanish—actually between Spanish and English—encouraged Emma to try. And I think she was like, “It’s a lot. It’s not only that we’ve got the investment of the book itself—you’ve got the rights and the royalties [to deal with]” and he was like, “But some countries have funding available. Let me suggest...”
JT: I’m assuming then the countries that had funding available were Latvia and Estonia. A lot of our first children’s books were translations [from there].
Are they a tougher sell? I think they probably are. Obviously, there’s a growing appetite in the country for translated fiction, adult books—I’m not entirely sure that appetite is there for translated children’s…
GW: I’m fresh off a schools project [who] were like, “Can we work with you? Because we’re interested in translated children’s fiction.” I think it’s becoming as much [a thing] as it is for adults. I think people are more aware of translation, so are interested in it. But I think people buy sometimes for the culture—which is a really important audience for us, the people that support the press.
JR: And are you finding that the readership is international as well? Are you finding that these stories are finding their way outside of the UK?
GW: Yes, but then it’s a whole saga with the postal service right now!
|
JT: Yeah. It’s just harder now to get those books to them. We’ve just had a book returned from Canada and then realised—because we just do fast, like, Post Office drop-off—this is quite boring, but it came back and it was returned, and it was also £28 to send it. And then we sent it again because they said they didn’t receive it, so we probably spent £60--
GW: —Sending an £8.99 book! JR: These are the nuts-and-bolts issues of running small presses, right? This is the reality of it. Postage can sometimes massively outweigh a sale. GW: The [latest] board meeting brought it up. They were like, “Why are you spending so much on posting?” Because actually, we have a lot of international orders. And they were like, “You need to charge more.” People won’t buy. So yeah, it comes up every three months at a board meeting. JR: I don’t want to get too much into the money side of things, but it is interesting for us to find out these things. I know you’re Arts Council funded. How much of that, if you don’t mind me asking, is on running costs and how much of that goes towards authors? And are you able to discuss that at all? JT: Yeah. So… none of it. JR: Oh, wow. Ok! JT: The Arts Council at the moment seems geared towards doing things that are sort of participatory and, in place-based stuff. That’s how you get funding. |
|
It used to be much easier for a publisher to apply for funding to publish our next five books because they were reaching an audience. Now, it seems to me anyway, our funded projects are things in the community. We established Birmingham Editorial Readers’ Group— asking community members to join. It’s really great. It’s really fulfilling. We sort of crowbar in, I think, two days a week with me, maybe one day a week with Georgia. But that’s salary and costs. And at the end of the day, you (GW) probably do more than that on the project. And then at the end, you come out not having made any money. Which is in the spirit of not-for-profit Arts Council funding. But also, it used to be easier to make books as the ‘project’. And then you’d be able to sell those books in the future and make some money. So yeah, the funding keeps us ticking along, because it pays a few days of people’s wages, but also adds this whole other bit of work we have to do to get that funding. Which takes away from the books.
GW: Yeah, absolutely.
JR: You’ve recently had books shortlisted for prizes, winning the British Book Awards as well (Finalist for the British Book Awards Small Press of the Year, Midlands). These little wins that are coming through, starting to come thick and fast now, do they have a greater impact than just publicity, do you think? Do you feel like they’re bringing new stories to you? Are authors finding you more, maybe?
JT: I don’t think it hurts with authors finding you. We will open for short story collections this summer, because Malachi McIntosh won the [Edge Hill Short Story] Debut Prize, and it feels kind of cruel not to, almost. And I think it’s a good thing for us to find authors. And it’s nice to be in those sorts of conversations and those events every so often. But you do tend to feel like the small ones. We’re still the small ones there.
GW: Yeah. Some of the conversations are like, “Oh, a 300k print run?” I’m like, “no, just 300. 300 actual prints.”
JR: It’s all about this—what we’re all about—demystifying the industry a little bit. And especially getting a room of people who are interested and want to ask questions and maybe want to submit some work. Just knowing that, you know, “Oh, they’ve won a prize, that must mean they’re really good.” But does that feed back into the work? I guess that’s always the important thing: does it feed back into the work?
GW: Exactly. As you (JT) said with Malachi, I think it’s like, “Oh yes, we’ve done this. We can do it again,” or “We’ll try this.” And when you think about authors finding you, what’s been gratifying for me at least is how many authors that we have published—even a while ago—see it and write to us. We say that we try to give them all the care that they’d get at a bigger press. And I think that kind of ongoing contact… You know, when you’re not in publishing, and I say this as someone who came into publishing very late, it really feels like a closed club. [Awards are] all little things that people can interact with—either via social media or via a newsletter. I love it when people read the newsletter!
JR: Yeah, I I think once you’re in, [the book industry] feels quite welcoming. But yeah, it’s harder to see behind the curtain sometimes.
GW: I think it’s just so much—and I say this as someone who was trying to submit things as a translator—that if you’ve not come from a writing background and you look at a bigger publisher site… and I understand, they would be inundated, but it’s like: “We only accept submissions via an agent.” So, okay, well, what does a translation look like? Okay, but how do I get an agent? And how do I do that? So it’s actually just quite nice, even if there’s a 1 in 250 chance or less of [us] taking it, I can understand why you’d send to a smaller press.
JR: It’s about the larger ecosystem as well, right? You know, working with small presses. Kevin at Bluemoose talks about this quite a lot—how sometimes small presses are used as launchpads into a larger career or towards a larger publisher for some writers. Have you felt that? I know some of your authors have gone on to other publishers. Do you feel like that is a useful place—or a useful device—for a small press to be?
JT: I think so. I mean, yeah. Now we’re into novels—who knows? If Wild Boar was swept up for a huge amount, then maybe you’d be frustrated. But we haven’t had the kind of financial frustration of people going elsewhere, which I think happens. I don’t know--
GW: – One or two things have been stolen!
JT: But no, it’s not really frustration—you’d just like people to tell you, I suppose. That’s the only downside. And we don’t work with agents at all. So we know we exist for that. And that’s what it should be, I think. I always fly the flag for writers to go to indie publishers, because it can be a launchpad—or you might just find that you’ve found a really nice home for your work, and then you want to stay. There are plenty of authors that publish with the same indie publisher plenty of times and then go to another indie publisher and then maybe they get picked up and get shortlisted for the Booker Prize on their 15th novel—and then get swept up.
GW: I was thinking of Jan Carson with us. She’s been picked up by much bigger publishers and she has novels and bigger short story collections with them. But she came to us for Postcard Stories 1 and then came back again to do Postcard Stories 2. I think our focus is definitely on supporting emerging authors, but also, some of the bigger—I’m thinking of The Untameables actually, a children’s book—some of the bigger publishers just weren’t interested in it. And we’re like, “We are!”
JT: Authors with agents, I guess. I don’t know how much or how long an agent persists, really. So The Untameables is Clare Pollard's children’s book. She’s done poetry collections, plays, and novels, and yeah, she said her bigger publishers didn’t want it. Her agent was quite happy to let it go, and we just dealt directly with Clare. So, yeah — there’s that side of it as well.
JR: And there are lots of pros for working with small presses, right? It’s not just about finding a home for a book — it’s also about having a really small team and being face-to-face with your publisher, which is quite special. Forming a relationship with your publisher should be crucial regardless of where the book finds its home, but maybe with the larger publishers it’s harder to form that connection. I don’t know.
JT: I always say, would you rather be one of ten books published by your press that year, or one of 10,000? I haven’t had much prize success myself, but I remember at Penned in the Margins, we had a book on the Costa Prize list once. And even then, the book I was supposed to be promoting that month was kind of lost — I couldn’t give it the same attention. I can only imagine what it’s like at big houses, where they’re juggling several shortlisted books, or they’ve timed a release to coincide with a prize season. It’s like those Oscar films — you know the ones released in January are trying to be Oscar films and they’re terrible!
JR: Ha! Yeah… “Terrible book, but won the Costa!”
JT: But yeah, you just get swallowed up. And your book might not get any publicity or space. And you see the author earnings too. Sometimes, even at major publishers, you don’t necessarily make a huge amount from your book. So why wouldn’t you want it to be a nice experience — where you know the people, and you’re working together on something?
JR: Sure.
GW: I know you’d not say that about your (JT) own work, becasue I think you’re far too modest. But I also think the editorial care [at The Emma Press] is amazing. I think even if authors don’t get the sales they might at a much bigger press, they really, really appreciate the care. And going back to Malachi McIntosh winning the Edge Hill Debut Prize — that I think is a great example. James (JT) was with him in London on the night, but we had another event in Birmingham, and when we found out he’d won, it was like a winning goal at a World Cup final. At the Birmingham event, they announced, “Oh, and The Emma Press also has an author up for an award tonight,” and then the message came through that he’d won it — and everyone was cheering. This is what it’s about. That level of support and that level of engagement, where everyone has read the book, knows it, loves it. It’s not a criticism of bigger publishers — they just don’t have the time, or they work very separately. But here, you’ve got the [whole] team behind you.
JR: And, you know, we talked earlier before we started about not being so London-centric. And I think bringing it (The Emma Press) to Birmingham is quite special — being part of this community, supporting creatives from Birmingham. I also want to mention the David Tebbutt internship fund, which was just announced a few weeks ago. Can you tell us a bit about that? Because, again, it’s about supporting local people entering the industry, right?
JT: Yes, it’s run by Creative Access — they’ve got a long track record of placing people who are underrepresented in creative industries into internships. It’s something we’d love to do, but we’ve never had the capacity or funds to pay someone ourselves. This fund came from David Tebbutt — he was Finance Director at Faber — and he left it in his will with the idea of supporting underrepresented people into publishing. It feels important for us especially, because in Birmingham — there’s us, and Nine Arches Press have moved into the city now, and Verve Poetry Press too, and a new publisher, Floodgate — it’s a massive city, but there just aren’t enough opportunities. We get, what, two or three emails a week?
GW: Easily.
JT: People asking for work experience, even though we say everywhere that we can’t offer it. There are just so few opportunities in Birmingham, and the Midlands – which is an incredibly multicultural city – to do those, without having to move to London. So this is really exciting — we’ll have someone in for four days a week.
JR: Have you closed the application yet?
JT: It’s still open until 30th June. Creative Access are handling the whole thing, which is great. We’ll do the interviews but yeah, they’re helping with it all.
JR: Fantastic. So, we’ve talked about some of your highlight titles, the design process, the genres you’ve expanded into over the years. I love that we’ve talked about supporting local communities, and the events you’ve put on. We’ve covered a lot! But before we take a break, and for some questions, I’d love to ask: what’s coming next? Is there a particular book — or two — that you’re especially excited about?
JT: Do you (GW) have one? I know it looks like you’re bursting at the seams--
GW: Oh yeah, I’ve got one! I’m quite excited about Noon! That’s been announced now, hasn’t it? We’ve got a poetry pamphlet coming out in February. It’s by a local Birmingham writer I’d never come across before — Zain Rishi — and it’s brilliant. The poems are very well crafted, but also feel really open. There are stories behind them he’s eager to share. He’s also asked about working with a local artist on the cover, if there’s budget for that — which I love — and I’ve literally just emailed him now to say “yes.” It’s relatively early stages, for a book that’s coming out in February, I should probably be a little further along, but I’m really excited about that.
JT: I feel like I gave The Waiter (Kwan Ann Tan) a really bad sales pitch earlier. I’ll give Inpress a better one tomorrow! But it kind of edges into sci-fi or speculative fiction groups. It’s great. But I’ll mention a couple of books we haven’t talked much about yet, if that’s ok.
GW: I’m so excited about The Waiter— I almost forgot it! We’re working so far ahead, I’m thinking about November and December already.
JT: We’ve got two memoirs coming, two essay collections. One is about a South Asian family who moved to the Alps when she was a teenager. It’s about glaciers — she now works tracking their retreat — but it’s also exploring this time when she moved to this very white, rural area in central Europe. And the other is completely different — a book about one man’s love of power ballads.
GW: I’d forgotten about that one!
JT: I think we’re definitely publishing that. It’s part memoir, part tribute to power ballads. Which I tend to kind of hate — but I love that people love them. And that’s what he’s writing about.
GW: The pitch for that book was great. It was basically, “How many song titles can you work into one narrative?” And he pulled it off — I was sold.
JR: I love that. Maybe we’ll talk more about pitching in the second half — tips and tricks for approaching a press, you know. I’d also love to talk more about what kinds of submissions you’re looking for in the future, what directions you’re excited about. So we’ll save some of that for the second half.
But for now, let’s take a break. Thank you both — that was such an interesting conversation. I teaser, really, for what we’ll be touching on with our group of writers and readers here tonight — but it’s been so interesting. Thank you so much.
GW: Thanks for having us.
(Rapturous applause)
We chose not to record the second half of the evening, as this was a space for emerging writers and audience members – some of whom may be interested in working with The Emma Press – to ask their own questions. To respect their privacy, we’ve decided to close our feature here.
GW: Yeah, absolutely.
JR: You’ve recently had books shortlisted for prizes, winning the British Book Awards as well (Finalist for the British Book Awards Small Press of the Year, Midlands). These little wins that are coming through, starting to come thick and fast now, do they have a greater impact than just publicity, do you think? Do you feel like they’re bringing new stories to you? Are authors finding you more, maybe?
JT: I don’t think it hurts with authors finding you. We will open for short story collections this summer, because Malachi McIntosh won the [Edge Hill Short Story] Debut Prize, and it feels kind of cruel not to, almost. And I think it’s a good thing for us to find authors. And it’s nice to be in those sorts of conversations and those events every so often. But you do tend to feel like the small ones. We’re still the small ones there.
GW: Yeah. Some of the conversations are like, “Oh, a 300k print run?” I’m like, “no, just 300. 300 actual prints.”
JR: It’s all about this—what we’re all about—demystifying the industry a little bit. And especially getting a room of people who are interested and want to ask questions and maybe want to submit some work. Just knowing that, you know, “Oh, they’ve won a prize, that must mean they’re really good.” But does that feed back into the work? I guess that’s always the important thing: does it feed back into the work?
GW: Exactly. As you (JT) said with Malachi, I think it’s like, “Oh yes, we’ve done this. We can do it again,” or “We’ll try this.” And when you think about authors finding you, what’s been gratifying for me at least is how many authors that we have published—even a while ago—see it and write to us. We say that we try to give them all the care that they’d get at a bigger press. And I think that kind of ongoing contact… You know, when you’re not in publishing, and I say this as someone who came into publishing very late, it really feels like a closed club. [Awards are] all little things that people can interact with—either via social media or via a newsletter. I love it when people read the newsletter!
JR: Yeah, I I think once you’re in, [the book industry] feels quite welcoming. But yeah, it’s harder to see behind the curtain sometimes.
GW: I think it’s just so much—and I say this as someone who was trying to submit things as a translator—that if you’ve not come from a writing background and you look at a bigger publisher site… and I understand, they would be inundated, but it’s like: “We only accept submissions via an agent.” So, okay, well, what does a translation look like? Okay, but how do I get an agent? And how do I do that? So it’s actually just quite nice, even if there’s a 1 in 250 chance or less of [us] taking it, I can understand why you’d send to a smaller press.
JR: It’s about the larger ecosystem as well, right? You know, working with small presses. Kevin at Bluemoose talks about this quite a lot—how sometimes small presses are used as launchpads into a larger career or towards a larger publisher for some writers. Have you felt that? I know some of your authors have gone on to other publishers. Do you feel like that is a useful place—or a useful device—for a small press to be?
JT: I think so. I mean, yeah. Now we’re into novels—who knows? If Wild Boar was swept up for a huge amount, then maybe you’d be frustrated. But we haven’t had the kind of financial frustration of people going elsewhere, which I think happens. I don’t know--
GW: – One or two things have been stolen!
JT: But no, it’s not really frustration—you’d just like people to tell you, I suppose. That’s the only downside. And we don’t work with agents at all. So we know we exist for that. And that’s what it should be, I think. I always fly the flag for writers to go to indie publishers, because it can be a launchpad—or you might just find that you’ve found a really nice home for your work, and then you want to stay. There are plenty of authors that publish with the same indie publisher plenty of times and then go to another indie publisher and then maybe they get picked up and get shortlisted for the Booker Prize on their 15th novel—and then get swept up.
GW: I was thinking of Jan Carson with us. She’s been picked up by much bigger publishers and she has novels and bigger short story collections with them. But she came to us for Postcard Stories 1 and then came back again to do Postcard Stories 2. I think our focus is definitely on supporting emerging authors, but also, some of the bigger—I’m thinking of The Untameables actually, a children’s book—some of the bigger publishers just weren’t interested in it. And we’re like, “We are!”
JT: Authors with agents, I guess. I don’t know how much or how long an agent persists, really. So The Untameables is Clare Pollard's children’s book. She’s done poetry collections, plays, and novels, and yeah, she said her bigger publishers didn’t want it. Her agent was quite happy to let it go, and we just dealt directly with Clare. So, yeah — there’s that side of it as well.
JR: And there are lots of pros for working with small presses, right? It’s not just about finding a home for a book — it’s also about having a really small team and being face-to-face with your publisher, which is quite special. Forming a relationship with your publisher should be crucial regardless of where the book finds its home, but maybe with the larger publishers it’s harder to form that connection. I don’t know.
JT: I always say, would you rather be one of ten books published by your press that year, or one of 10,000? I haven’t had much prize success myself, but I remember at Penned in the Margins, we had a book on the Costa Prize list once. And even then, the book I was supposed to be promoting that month was kind of lost — I couldn’t give it the same attention. I can only imagine what it’s like at big houses, where they’re juggling several shortlisted books, or they’ve timed a release to coincide with a prize season. It’s like those Oscar films — you know the ones released in January are trying to be Oscar films and they’re terrible!
JR: Ha! Yeah… “Terrible book, but won the Costa!”
JT: But yeah, you just get swallowed up. And your book might not get any publicity or space. And you see the author earnings too. Sometimes, even at major publishers, you don’t necessarily make a huge amount from your book. So why wouldn’t you want it to be a nice experience — where you know the people, and you’re working together on something?
JR: Sure.
GW: I know you’d not say that about your (JT) own work, becasue I think you’re far too modest. But I also think the editorial care [at The Emma Press] is amazing. I think even if authors don’t get the sales they might at a much bigger press, they really, really appreciate the care. And going back to Malachi McIntosh winning the Edge Hill Debut Prize — that I think is a great example. James (JT) was with him in London on the night, but we had another event in Birmingham, and when we found out he’d won, it was like a winning goal at a World Cup final. At the Birmingham event, they announced, “Oh, and The Emma Press also has an author up for an award tonight,” and then the message came through that he’d won it — and everyone was cheering. This is what it’s about. That level of support and that level of engagement, where everyone has read the book, knows it, loves it. It’s not a criticism of bigger publishers — they just don’t have the time, or they work very separately. But here, you’ve got the [whole] team behind you.
JR: And, you know, we talked earlier before we started about not being so London-centric. And I think bringing it (The Emma Press) to Birmingham is quite special — being part of this community, supporting creatives from Birmingham. I also want to mention the David Tebbutt internship fund, which was just announced a few weeks ago. Can you tell us a bit about that? Because, again, it’s about supporting local people entering the industry, right?
JT: Yes, it’s run by Creative Access — they’ve got a long track record of placing people who are underrepresented in creative industries into internships. It’s something we’d love to do, but we’ve never had the capacity or funds to pay someone ourselves. This fund came from David Tebbutt — he was Finance Director at Faber — and he left it in his will with the idea of supporting underrepresented people into publishing. It feels important for us especially, because in Birmingham — there’s us, and Nine Arches Press have moved into the city now, and Verve Poetry Press too, and a new publisher, Floodgate — it’s a massive city, but there just aren’t enough opportunities. We get, what, two or three emails a week?
GW: Easily.
JT: People asking for work experience, even though we say everywhere that we can’t offer it. There are just so few opportunities in Birmingham, and the Midlands – which is an incredibly multicultural city – to do those, without having to move to London. So this is really exciting — we’ll have someone in for four days a week.
JR: Have you closed the application yet?
JT: It’s still open until 30th June. Creative Access are handling the whole thing, which is great. We’ll do the interviews but yeah, they’re helping with it all.
JR: Fantastic. So, we’ve talked about some of your highlight titles, the design process, the genres you’ve expanded into over the years. I love that we’ve talked about supporting local communities, and the events you’ve put on. We’ve covered a lot! But before we take a break, and for some questions, I’d love to ask: what’s coming next? Is there a particular book — or two — that you’re especially excited about?
JT: Do you (GW) have one? I know it looks like you’re bursting at the seams--
GW: Oh yeah, I’ve got one! I’m quite excited about Noon! That’s been announced now, hasn’t it? We’ve got a poetry pamphlet coming out in February. It’s by a local Birmingham writer I’d never come across before — Zain Rishi — and it’s brilliant. The poems are very well crafted, but also feel really open. There are stories behind them he’s eager to share. He’s also asked about working with a local artist on the cover, if there’s budget for that — which I love — and I’ve literally just emailed him now to say “yes.” It’s relatively early stages, for a book that’s coming out in February, I should probably be a little further along, but I’m really excited about that.
JT: I feel like I gave The Waiter (Kwan Ann Tan) a really bad sales pitch earlier. I’ll give Inpress a better one tomorrow! But it kind of edges into sci-fi or speculative fiction groups. It’s great. But I’ll mention a couple of books we haven’t talked much about yet, if that’s ok.
GW: I’m so excited about The Waiter— I almost forgot it! We’re working so far ahead, I’m thinking about November and December already.
JT: We’ve got two memoirs coming, two essay collections. One is about a South Asian family who moved to the Alps when she was a teenager. It’s about glaciers — she now works tracking their retreat — but it’s also exploring this time when she moved to this very white, rural area in central Europe. And the other is completely different — a book about one man’s love of power ballads.
GW: I’d forgotten about that one!
JT: I think we’re definitely publishing that. It’s part memoir, part tribute to power ballads. Which I tend to kind of hate — but I love that people love them. And that’s what he’s writing about.
GW: The pitch for that book was great. It was basically, “How many song titles can you work into one narrative?” And he pulled it off — I was sold.
JR: I love that. Maybe we’ll talk more about pitching in the second half — tips and tricks for approaching a press, you know. I’d also love to talk more about what kinds of submissions you’re looking for in the future, what directions you’re excited about. So we’ll save some of that for the second half.
But for now, let’s take a break. Thank you both — that was such an interesting conversation. I teaser, really, for what we’ll be touching on with our group of writers and readers here tonight — but it’s been so interesting. Thank you so much.
GW: Thanks for having us.
(Rapturous applause)
We chose not to record the second half of the evening, as this was a space for emerging writers and audience members – some of whom may be interested in working with The Emma Press – to ask their own questions. To respect their privacy, we’ve decided to close our feature here.
|
If you’d like to find out more, support The Emma Press and discover more of their beautifully crafted books, visit their website and explore their latest titles. You can also browse and order a wide selection of their publications through the Opt Indie Books website during this month as we’re offering a range of their books here.
Supporting independent presses like The Emma Press helps nurture diverse voices and keeps vibrant, innovative publishing thriving. We hope you’ll dive in and enjoy them for yourself. |
|
