About The Emma Press

Emma Dai’an Wright

founding editor and publisher

Emma runs the business, manages the team, edits and typesets books, illustrates and designs some of the covers, hosts online events, and collaborates with our partners on various projects. When she isn’t working, Emma watches dance and comedy videos, reads fantasy novels, cooks elaborate recipes, and dabbles in sewing. Emma is of mixed heritage, which is important to her but quite complicated to explain; she currently describes herself as British-Chinese-Vietnamese. She divides her time between Riga and Birmingham. She/her.

James Trevelyan

director

James is covering Emma from January 2023 while she’s on maternity leave. In the past he’s worked for poetry organisations, fellow small press Penned in the Margins and Arts Council England. When he’s not working he writes poetry (in fact The Emma Press published his pamphlet of action movie poems in 2016) and is currently trying to get his scripts from page to stage. He has just relocated back to the West Midlands and is looking forward to discovering more of Birmingham and exploring the surrounding roads on his bike. He/him.

Georgia Wall

publishing manager

Georgia helps bring our books into the world by running our calls for submissions and managing in-house product publicity campaigns, as well as assisting with the practical running of our office in the Jewellery Quarter. She is especially enthusiastic about children’s literature from around the world. Georgia also works as a freelance translator and delivers creative translation workshops in schools with the support of The Stephen Spender Trust. She/her.

Lizzie Pearson-Hadley

finance officer

Lizzie works part-time as the EP finance officer, keeping on top of sales and purchase ledgers and paying out advances and royalties to all our lovely authors! She is also responsible for monitoring company cash flow, financial reporting and assisting with year end accounts production. Prior to EP she has worked in a number of finance roles in arts organisations (contemporary art, music and theatre) across Birmingham. Lizzie is studying towards becoming a midwife which is a very exciting and somewhat daunting recent career move! When not working or studying Lizzie loves reading and watching a variety of sports. She is an avid Aston Villa supporter and (an eternally hopeful) England fan. She/her.

Kyaice Hendricks

publishing assistant

Kyaice works closely with Georgia helping to run The Emma Press social media accounts, working on publicity campaigns, in-house marketing, and writing press releases. Though it’s hard to pick just one thing, her favourite part of the job is getting to read unfinished manuscripts and be among the first to see upcoming publications before they hit the shelves. When she isn’t working, Kyaice is studying for her masters in Comparative Literature. In her little free time, she can be found baking, exploring her new home in London, or reading one of the many books recommended by the EP team. She/her

Anne Welsh

production controller

Anne helps to schedule our future titles, keeping them on track for their publication dates. She also maintains their metadata, ensuring they will be easy to discover by booksellers, librarians and other readers. One of the best things about this job is being able to read our new titles – at least in enough depth to give them subject headings! She promises she doesn’t spend all day reading, though, and, in fact she has bought even more titles for her collection of Emma Press books (part of her wider library of poetry and artists’ books). When Anne’s not working for us, or running her consultancy, Beginning Cataloguing, she can usually be found in her garden in the London-Essex borders – pruning, weeding … or reading, of course. She/her.

What are the main challenges we face?

Publishing is a weird old industry. Despite all the exciting, progressive things happening in the book world, the fundamental structures of publishing remain traditional and conservative. This makes it hard for small publishers run by not-rich people to survive (and hard for writers without connections to get noticed and find a platform). It means that we have to think about sales all the time, because sales are what keep us going – both directly, keeping cash flowing, and indirectly, because Arts Council England won’t fund an organisation that has no hope of supporting itself one day. 

However, we believe that the landscape of publishing is changing, in great part due to the effort small presses put into discovering new work, supporting emerging writers, and challenging established modes of production. We work with many different independent artists to produce our beautiful books, and do our best to contribute to a thriving arts ecosystem.

How can you help us?

If you like what we do and want us to keep doing it, please buy a book from us today, from our webshop or from your local indie bookshop. And tell everyone you know about us, and think of us when you’re next buying presents!

We have a gift subscription for young readers too: take a look at our brilliant little Bicki-Books! These are postcard-sized picture books (perfect for tiny hands) translated from Latvian for children, ages 3+. Truly wacky, exciting and fun, you can order the Bicki Books as a monthly subscription or as a bundle all at once!