Arachne Press is a small, independent publisher of award-winning short fiction, award winning poetry and (very) select non-fiction, for adults and children. Our first ever YA title was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and our most recent, Zed and the Cormorants by Clare Owen just won the Holyer An Gof YA award, and the Ann Trevenen Jenkin cup for authorship of a book for Children or Young Adults!
We were one of the regional finalists for The Bookseller’s Small Press of the Year!
Quote of the Month:
“There must be something of Prospero in Michelle Penn, because Paper Crusade is utterly mesmeric and captivating.” shoutaboutbooks
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- How to Be a Tarot Card
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- coming soon
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- Routes coming November
How to be a Tarot Card In the Blood Routes
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- A Pocketful of Chalk OUT NOW
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- Out Now
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- on Tour in Wales
A Pocketful of Chalk Paper Crusade A470
We are very grateful for the support we receive from Arts Council England, who have funded us on several ocassions, and helped us limp through the shock of the first lockdown so that we were in a position to apply for funding for daring new projects in 2021!
Books from 2021:
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- Winner Wales Book of the Year Poetry Category
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- Winner Holyer An Gof YA Award
Zed & the Cormorants A Voice Coming From Then
Arachne Press is committed to showcasing talented writing, and treating writers as they would wish to be treated, which includes our approach to inclusive publishing (and events), with BSL interpretation and translation; working with Welsh language poets, moving into Audiobooks, and actively seeking out as wide a range of authors and poets as possible.
Help us fund our BSL translation project, providing ALL the material in our Deaf anthology, What Meets the Eye, as BSL videos.
We run the annual Solstice Shorts Festival of short fiction, poetry and music, always on 21st December, the shortest day of the year, always with a theme of time, and in as many communities as are willing to play. Our high point – so far – was Dusk, which sent a wave of words into the ether across the UK, from Aberdeenshire to Redruth, stopping at 12 sites in total. This is where our interest in working with geographically isolated writers began.
For Solstice Shorts 2021, we invited writers to respond to the growing climate crisis:
We insist on paying our authors for their work, including, when we have funding, a licence for performance. We are also obsessed with making sure that our books look gorgeous, and our designers and artists get proper credit. We print in the UK, on wood-free paper, and try to limit the impact of our books on the environment
We keep fiction (poetry, non-fiction) live, through readings, festivals, workshops and all things to do with writing. (Although this has been strictly online recently, we hope to get back out in the field soon). We have even hosted art exhibitions that relate to our books, and we often have live music at our events too.
Arachne Press is represented by Inpress Books.