The Emma Press Acquires New Poetry Titles by Shasta Hanif Ali and Abbie Day via Community Publishing Project
The Emma Press is delighted to announce the acquisition of two new poetry pamphlets. Ayah by Shasta Hanif Ali and Fancy Dressed Encouraged by Abbie Day will both be published in autumn 2027.
Worldwide rights were acquired directly from the authors by The Emma Press, following submissions to the press’s August 2025 open call. Ali’s and Day’s respective proposals were chosen from over 700 submissions of poetry and prose.
The shortlist and final selections were decided on by The Emma Press Birmingham Editorial Readers Group (BERG), a group of readers with diverse literary interests from across the Midlands keen to gain a practical insight into small press publishing. Across six sessions, the group read and discussed the long list and ultimately selected books for publication. Funded by Arts Council England, the 2025-2025 Birmingham Editorial Readers Group members were Anjem Anwar, Astrid Solace, Avika Sharma, Charlotte Wheeler, Cherine El-Bash, Clare Donnelly, Ella Foster, Elena Gammone, Khakan Qureshi B.E.M, Marwah Tariq, Salmah Abdulsalam, and Vidhi Bhanushali.
Selected by Local Readers
Ayah is a lyrical, fragmentary portrait of the world’s first global migrant domestic workers blended with personal history. Surging to fill the silences in historical archives and contemporary conversations, Ayah explores racism, grief, heritage and care in a series of linguistically fluid and formally arresting poems. Editorial reader Salmah Abdulslam says, “What drew me most to this book was the way it brings forgotten women and histories back into view with such tenderness and care. I’d never heard of these women and this collection opened my eyes; I found myself deeply moved by the lives and sacrifices the pamphlet refuses to let disappear from memory.” Anjem Anwar adds: “This beautiful collection examining the diaspora of language will resonate with many readers.”
Fancy Dress Encouraged is an intimate exploration of the relationship between ourselves and the clothes we wear. Celebrating the ostensibly frivolous, these poems pay serious attention to the sequin, the pocket, the hairband on the wrist, interrogating femininity, sexuality and aesthetics with a bold, often violent, girlishless. Editorial Reader Avika Sharma comments “Abbie Day has the ability to take a concept to the page and weave it deftly with everything else; this exploration of fashion is sewn throughout the themes of identity, misogyny, parenthood and more.”
About the Authors
Shasta Hanif Ali is an Edinburgh poet navigating the legacy of race and heritage; where meditations of memory and language interlace and disrupt. Shasta’s writing has been widely published including Mslexia, Silver Press and Poetry London. Shasta is the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee Poetry 2026. She is a winner of the Edinburgh 900 Poetry Competition 2025 and the Candlestick Press Light Poems 2024 competition. Shasta has written and performed her poetry across theatre, museums, galleries and spoken word stages including in For Us Girls of Colour, Edinburgh Lyceum; Disrupting the Narrative at Push The Boat Out Poetry Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival and with the National Theatre of Scotland. Shasta was recognised as one of Edinburgh’s 100 trail blazing women.
Abbie Day is a poet and salsera. She grew up in Stockport and now lives in Birmingham with her partner. Her poems have been published in Magma #89, Propel #10, Unlost #32 and anthologised by Sidekick Books (2025) and Fly on the Wall Press (2020). She was longlisted for the Brotherton Poetry Prize (2023), shortlisted for Verve’s Poem of the Month (2025) and selected for the Out-Spoken Press Emerging Poets Development Scheme (2024–25). Abbie holds degrees in Creative Writing from the University of Warwick (BA) and the University of Birmingham (MA). She was longlisted in the 2025 National Poetry Competition. Fancy Dress Encouraged is her debut pamphlet.
What They Said
Shasta Hanif Ali said, “Writing from the blue tides of memory, this collection explores grief, identity, and the historical silences surrounding South Asian ayahs. I hope these poems offer a sense of home to anyone navigating loss, remembrance and belonging. I’m absolutely delighted to be publishing this forthcoming book with The Emma Press.”
Abbie Day said, “Fancy Dress Encouraged comes from material inspiration – costumes displayed at V&A and Southbank Centre exhibitions, the glossy pages of print fashion journalism, hidden gems in secondhand clothes shops – so it’s wildly exciting to think about these poems in a physical book, and especially working with such an attentive and creative publisher as The Emma Press.”
About The Emma Press
The Emma Press is an award-winning independent publishing house based in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. It was founded in 2012 by Emma Dai’an Wright and is dedicated to producing beautiful, thought-provoking books, and to making poetry and publishing more welcoming and accessible. The Emma Press publishes poetry and prose for adults and children, with a growing list of translations in all categories, including titles from Chile, Guatemala, Estonia, Indonesia, Latvia, Spain and the Netherlands.
For further information or to request a review copy please contact: hello@theemmapress.com
Shasta Hanif Ali photograph © Haroon Ali | Abbie Day photograph © PhotoHotel / Andi Popa
