Inclusivity

Arachne Press want to be inclusive in the way we publish, and we welcome writers from all walks of life. We have a particular affinity for disabled writers and writers from the LGBTQ+ community, because that’s who we are; and we are actively seeking writers from other marginalised communities to share their work with us. To do this we have appointed guest editors to be our ambassadors and to create a range of anthologies.

Our 2021 calls were for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Writers, Welsh Writers (In English and Welsh) and writers from the Global Majority. These resulted in What Meets the Eye, the Deaf Perspective, A470 and Where We Find Ourselves.

We have plans for more targeted anthologies, and we usually have at least one themed anthology which is open to anyone each year, most often as part of our Solstice Shorts Festival. Our strategy is to provide opportunities for writers to show us their skills and their personalities in our anthologies. Anyone we publish like this, who particularly impresses us, may subsequently be invited to submit a longer work for consideration.

Accessibility

For our readers, we are finding ways to make our work accessible. All our books are printed in a minimum 12pt Garamond for ease of reading, and our website uses the simplest format we can find to minimise the amount of code a screen reader has to cope with. Our white on black design maximises contrast without compromising the look too much. Our newsletter also uses very simple templates and is available in text only versions.

We interpret/translate into BSL when we can afford to (we need grant support for this) and our 2021 titles, are available as audio books. We hope to continue with this.