13th June 2025


“Poets are very proud of this collaborative


and collegiate approach. It often exists in places where there have been hard times – it’s an ethical attitude hardwired into people. Maybe that’s why Sheffield is a city of sanctuary.” The origins of the publisher – and its Smith|Doorstop imprint – date back to Peter’s days as a research assistant at the then Huddersfield Polytechnic. “The Enterprise Allowance was offering £40 per week to get small businesses off the ground, so a lot of arts operations took advantage of that. I started in a Victorian arcade in the centre of Huddersfield, where there was a lovely attic office at a pepper- corn rent. I’m not sure I really had any plans, my own first book had just been accepted, and I knew I loved poems and working with poets.”


We’re more international than parochial in our tastes. The only common factor among our writers is that they love poetry and are widely read


In the 40 years since, it has published more 1 Company Spotlight


Business as usual: Ann and Peter Sansom reflect on 40 years of The Poetry Business


Celebrating its 40th anniversary next year, the Sheffield-based publisher has developed an international outlook, while always staying true to its Yorkshire roots. Tim Relf reports


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special spirit exists among Sheffield poets, according to Ann and Peter Sansom. The couple run The Poetry Business, a publisher and writer-develop-


ment agency, based for the past 15 years in Sheffield. It is a natural home, they say, because the city has such a strong sense of community, not least among its writers. Whether it is poets attending other people’s readings, sharing information and advice or celebrating peers’ successes, everyone is supportive of each other. “That’s a very Sheffield trait,” says Peter ( 2). “We let people into traffic here, rather than pushing our own way in!


than 1,000 titles, including 20 new talents in a Laureate’s Choice series of poets recom- mended by Carol Ann Duffy. The publisher also works with the current Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, who started writing seriously in Peter’s workshops in 1985, and whose first publication was Smith|Doorstop’s inaugural pamphlet, Human Geography. It holds an annual International Book and Pamphlet Competition and runs 100 workshops annually. It also convenes a writing school for published poets, undertakes a wide range of community and collaborative projects, and produces a biannual poetry magazine, the North. This year, it will publish an anthology of the best work from four decades of the North, which, despite its name, includes some of the best-known writers from around the country and, indeed, the world. Making all of this happen is a small but committed team of part-time staff, including Jess Rollitt, the office manager; Pete Hebden, the marketing manager; Matthew Paul oversee- ing guest-tutored workshops; Holly Hopkins, the assistant editor; Keith Lauchlan doing design and production; and the Sansoms’ daughter Katherine in charge of finance. They also have “occasional much-valued interns” from the two Sheffield universities. “All of us working together – underfunded but enjoying what we do,” Ann ( 1) says. “As an independent press, especially in the


poetry sector, you have to constantly reinvent yourself – and this is partly driven by grant- funding considerations,” she adds. “More of our revenue comes from sales than grants, but very few poetry publishers could survive


Northern Powerhouse Focus Company Spotlight


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