From September 2023, we are exciting to be running a new project where we will put together an Editorial Readers Group made from keen readers in Birmingham and the West Midlands.
The Birmingham Editorial Readers Group will assist our team in reading submissions made to the Emma Press’s August 2023 Open Call. Across 4 sessions from September to November, group members will read up to 25 longlisted submissions across fiction, non-fiction and poetry for adults and children. The group will be supported to engage in discussions to create a final shortlist. Following our usual 2 month period allowing shortlisted authors to submit their final, full-length manuscripts, the group will reconvene in January & February 2024 for 2 more sessions to decide on the book/s The Emma Press will publish next.
Sessions will be led by the Emma Press staff and author Kate Wakeling and will be designed to provide insight into the publishing industry and processes. Guest speakers from Staffordshire poetry publisher Fawn Press, Birmingham author/editor Malachi McIntosh and The Literary Consultancy across the period will give further opportunities to discover different approaches to publishing & editing and quiz local industry professionals.
The project is designed to support more people from the Midlands to engage with publishing. People from Birmingham and the Midlands area are under-represented in publishing, as are Black and Asian people, people from other minority ethnic groups, neurodiverse and disabled people. We hope this project will help address that imbalance and we are passionate about increasing the diversity of perspectives in the publishing industry. All group members will be offered £25 per session to support them to attend.
How to Apply
Applications to join are now closed.
We hope to be able to run more versions of the group in future, depending on the project’s success and funding opportunities. Sign up to our newsletter for first information about applying again and view our News page from September 2023 where we will announce the group members selected.
