The Emma Press shortlisted in the 2015 Michael Marks Awards
The Emma Press has been shortlisted in the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets for the second year running.
The independent publisher, which was founded in 2012 and is based in Birmingham, has been shortlisted for the Publishers’ Award alongside Eyewear Publishing, Mariscat Press and Smith Doorstop. The winners will be announced at a special dinner at the British Library on 24th November 2015.
The Emma Press poetry pamphlets 2014-15
The Michael Marks Award for Publishers aim to recognise ‘an outstanding UK publisher of poetry in pamphlet form, based on their publishing programme between July 2014 and the end of June 2015.’ The Awards are run by the Wordsworth Trust and the British Library, with the support of the Michael Marks Charitable Trust and in association with the TLS. This year’s judges were Helen Mort (former poet-in-residence at the Wordsworth Trust), Rory Waterman (poet and regular reviewer for the TLS) and Debbie Cox (Lead Curator of Printed Literary Sources at the British Library).
The judges commented: ‘The Emma Press might be responsible for the most beautifully designed and produced pamphlets we saw this year, most of which are written by less well known writers – and ones worth noticing. Complementing their usual series of traditional pamphlets, this year they also started a new set of ‘Art Squares’: large square booklets of poetry and colour illustrations. We admire this publisher’s ambition and imagination, as well as its dedication to supporting new work that deserves it.’
Publisher Emma Wright said: ‘I am thrilled to have been shortlisted in the Michael Marks Awards again. I am very proud of our pamphlet publishing programme and delighted that these four little books – Oils by Stephen Sexton, Rivers Wanted by Rachel Piercey, Myrtle by Ruth Wiggins, and If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women by Jacqueline Saphra and Mark Andrew Webber – caught the judges’ eye.’
The Emma Press recently launched an open call for poetry and prose pamphlet submissions, which closes on 13th December 2015.
Full details of the shortlisted pamphlets and publishers can be found on the Wordsworth Trust website.
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