Pose your questions about the publishing industry to panellists from Hajar Press, The Emma Press, Peepal Tree Press and Tilted Axis.
Hajar Press is an independent and proudly political publishing house run by and for people of colour. Hajar Press publish books by writers of colour with original and transformative ways of seeing, imagining and remaking our world. While people of colour are sidelined both in the notoriously exclusive and hierarchical world of publishing and in many conversations on the left, the press rejects the lukewarm tokenism of ‘diversity’ as a solution. Instead, they seek to address structural inequalities critically, speaking and writing on their own terms and using their voices to attack power―not to create the same elite with browner faces. Community and solidarity are central to the vision of Hajar Press; and their publications aim to challenge, connect and inspire their writers and readers to dream of and create another world together.
The Emma Press is an independent publisher specialising in poetry, short fiction and children’s books. It was founded by Emma Dai’an Wright in Winnersh, Berkshire, in 2012 and is now based in Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, UK. The Emma Press won the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlet Publishers in 2016 and Emma Press books have won the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice Award, the Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work, and CLiPPA, the CLPE award for children’s poetry books.
Peepal Tree Press is a wholly independent company, founded in 1985, and now publishing around 20 books a year. It has published over 300 titles, and is committed to keeping most of them in print. The list features new writers and established voices. In 2009 Peepal Tree launched the Caribbean Modern Classics Series, which restores to print essential books from the past with new introductions. The press’s focus is on what George Lamming calls the Caribbean nation, wherever it is in the world, though it is also concerned with Black British writing of different heritages. The press publishes fiction, poetry and a range of academic and non-fiction titles. Peepal Tree’s goal is to publish books that make a difference.
Tilted Axis is a non-profit press publishing mainly work by Asian writers, translated into a variety of Englishes. Founded in 2015, the press is based in the UK, a state whose former and current imperialism severely impacts writers in the majority world. This position, and those of their individual members, informs Tilted Axis’ practice, which is also an ongoing exploration into alternatives – to the hierarchisation of certain languages and forms, including forms of translation; to the monoculture of globalisation; to cultural, narrative, and visual stereotypes; to the commercialisation and celebrification of literature and literary translation.
The Panellists
Hajar Press — Farhaana Arefin and Brekhna Aftab (Co-Founders)
The Emma Press — Emma Dai’an Wright (Founder)
Peepal Tree Press — Jacob Ross (Associate Fiction Editor)
Tilted Axis — Deborah Smith (Asian Literatures in Translation)
Hosted by York St John University.
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A recording of this event is now available online.
Read about this event on the York St James Creative Writing blog.