Introducing our 2021 Publishing Programme

After a tumultuous year which saw recognition for our authors by prestigious literary awards and the Press on the London shortlist for the British Book Awards Small Publisher of the Year, followed by the upheaval and uncertainty that have faced us all over the last few months, we’re excited to look ahead to our 2021 publishing programme.

Joelle Taylor will be commencing her one-year tenure as Editor and we’re delighted to announce the five poets who will form her all-women 2021 list. Joelle says:

I want to use my tenure as editor to elevate new voices, unearth buried narratives, look at new ways of conjuring form, of story, and exploring how a community of women can help one another develop as writers and as thinkers. I am delighted to be developing books with 5 poets whose collective work addresses a range of political and personal issues, centring the female experience in the 21st century.

We’ll be publishing books from Lisa Luxx, Leung Rachel Ka Yin, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, Alice Frecknall and Sarah Fletcher. Check out the shiny brochure above to read a little more about each of them.

It’s an honour to publish these poets and we can’t wait to bring you their work.

Epiphaneia by Richard Georges Winner of 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature

Epiphaneia, the third poetry collection by BVI poet Richard Georges, has been announced as overall winner of the prestigious 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.

Georges’ Epiphaneia won out over fiction and non-fiction category winners by Edwidge Danticat and Tessa McWatt, to take home the leading literary award for Caribbean writers and US$10,000 prize. Epiphaneia is the third poetry book to have won the overall prize in the award’s ten year history.

Set in the immediate aftermath of 2017’s Hurricane Irma, the most catastrophic storm to strike the British Virgin Islands, Richard Georges’ Epiphaneia is a collection of rich, transcendental verse. Described by Kaveh Akbar as “astonishing, largely unprecedented … a truly living text”, beyond the loss and devastation that natural disaster brings, Georges’ ideas span beyond the physical world, asking us to consider the ways in which families and communities come together amidst such tragedy.

On announcement of his win, Richard said “it’s a beautiful and humbling honour that I will treasure”. Earl Lovelace, chair of the judges, commented:

“Responses to catastrophe frequently take in evasion or cynicism: despair or glib resolution. Often they confine themselves in the familiar shapes of narrative, lamentation, or outrage.  These poems take no such predictable shapes. It is as if each verse-form were a different lens for viewing the storm and the life in its aftermath. What makes these offerings so poignant is that many of them are lit with the brilliant light of the day-after. That epiphanic light of discovery is Richard Georges’s gift to us. We are delighted to acknowledge this accomplishment by one of the region’s phenomenal generation of younger poets.”

Georges’ Epiphaneia was announced as the Poetry category winner in April 2020 (other shortlisted poetry titles were Honeyfish, by Lauren K. Alleyne (Peepal Tree Press) and Skin Can Hold, by Vahni Capildeo (Carcanet Press) and the judges wrote: “In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, Epiphaneia takes a deep breath and presents us with poems that outlast the storm, but sound the depths of survival and resilience, rather than being content to take refuge in them. Here we are enabled to comprehend disaster with an alertness to complexity that carries us beyond the usual triad of narrative, lamentation, and outrage. Everywhere there is sinuous rhythmic and semantic syncopation . . . in service of a poetic with urgent and palpable stakes.”

Richard Georges is the founding editor of Moko Magazine. His poetry has appeared in The Poetry Review, The White Review, decomP, WILDNESS, Wasafiri, and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collections Make Us All Islands (Shearsman, 2017) and Giant (Platypus, 2018). In 2016 he won the Marvin Williams Literary Prize from The Caribbean Writer and has since been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry. Richard was born in Trinidad and raised in the British Virgin Islands where he lives and works today.

The OCM Bocas Prize is a major international award for literary writing by Caribbean authors. Books are judged in three categories: poetry; fiction and literary non-fiction. The three category winners are then judged by a panel of four judges — consisting of the chairs of the category panels and the prize chair — who determine the overall winner. The overall winner receives a prize of US$10,000. 2020 is the tenth year of the OCM Bocas Prize. Previous winners include Jennifer Rahim for her short story collection Curfew Chronicles (2018); Kei Miller for the novel Augustown (2017); Olive Senior for the short fiction collection The Pain Tree (2016); Vladimir Lucien for the debut poetry collection Sounding Ground (2015); Robert Antoni for the novel As Flies to Whatless Boys (2014); Monique Roffey for the novel Archipelago (2013); and Earl Lovelace for the novel Is Just a Movie (2012). The late Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott was winner of the inaugural prize in 2011, for the poetry collection White Egrets.

Epiphaneia is available now in paperback at £10

For review copies, sales enquiries or further information, please contact Patricia Ferguson at press@outspokenldn.com

Richard Georges' EPIPHANEIA Poetry Winner of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2020

Richard Georges’ Epiphaneia has won the poetry category of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2020.

The OCM Bocas Prize is a major award for literary books by Caribbean writers. Books are judged in three categories: poetry; fiction — both novels and collections of short stories; and literary non-fiction. The three category winners are then judged by a panel of four judges — consisting of the chairs of the category panels and the prize chair — who will determine the overall winner. The author of the book judged overall winner will receive an award of US$10,000. The other category winners will receive awards of US$3,000.

Set in the immediate aftermath of 2017’s Hurricane Irma, the most catastrophic storm to strike the British Virgin Islands, Richard Georges’ Epiphaneia is a collection of rich, transcendental verse. Beyond the loss and devastation that such a natural disaster brings, Georges’ ideas span beyond the physical world, asking us to consider the ways in which families and communities come together amidst such tragedy.

Epiphaneia, the third collection by Richard Georges of the British Virgin Islands, is the winner in the poetry category. The judges write: “In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, Epiphaneia takes a deep breath and presents us with poems that outlast the storm, but sound the depths of survival and resilience, rather than being content to take refuge in them. Here we are enabled to comprehend disaster with an alertness to complexity that carries us beyond the usual triad of narrative, lamentation, and outrage. Everywhere there is sinuous rhythmic and semantic syncopation . . . in service of a poetic with urgent and palpable stakes.”.

Richard Georges is the founding editor of Moko Magazine. His poetry has appeared in The Poetry Review, The White Review, decomP, WILDNESS, Wasafiri, and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collections Make Us All Islands(Shearsman, 2017) and Giant(Platypus, 2018). In 2016 he won the Marvin Williams Literary Prize from The Caribbean Writer and has since been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry. Richard was born in Trinidad and raised in the British Virgin Islands where he lives and works today.

Epiphaneia is available now in paperback at £10

For review copies, sales enquiries or further information, please contact Patricia Ferguson at press@outspokenldn.com