Feature The Emma Press
Leaving a huge corporate entit to start poetry focused indie The Emma Press was a bold move, Roger Tagholm reports, but one that has paid off with critical acclaim
Wright stuff
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The Emma Press founder Emma Wright right and editor Rachel Piercey
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OR ONE UK independent publisher, this year’s Market Focus region, the Baltic states, is rather special. The poetry and children’s publisher The Emma Press (TEP) has published books by numer- ous Latvian authors and illustrators, the result of what founder Emma Wright describes as a “rapidly escalating series of nice things which happened in spring 2016”. Lawrence Schimel, publisher at New York indie A Midsummer Night’s Press, knew Wright wanted to start a list of translated poetry for children. He introduced Wright to the team at Latvian Literature, who were in the process of organising a multi-(UK) publisher visit to Riga; she was invited over, and “had a brilliant time on the visit. It really motivated me to bite the bullet and start buying rights. I saw some beautiful books and met some incredibly friendly, talented publishers and illus- trators. What drew me most to the literature scene in Riga was the scale, and what it can achieve: it’s small, but crammed with creative people. Also, what I saw of it mostly seemed to be run by women, which I liked.” Does she detect a particularly Latvian stle, or topic? “I think the writing oſten feels extremely exposed and intensely honest. To a British reader Latvian literature can feel startlingly vulnerable and disconcerting—in a good way. We just might not be used to people sharing such [intimate] thoughts. For example, R B’s Queen of Seagulls, which we’re presenting at the LBF, is a picture book about an incredibly grumpy woman who hates her neighbours and steals food from seagulls... I’ve never seen misanthropy so beautifully captured.” Wright founded TEP in 2012, having previously been Orion’s e-book production controller. It hopes to publish 15–20 titles this year, split between poetry anthologies and pamphlets, single-author children’s books and a small number of prose pamphlets. At LBF she is primarily looking to acquire more children’s poetry, but says she may dip her toe into selling. “I’m
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aware poetry is a tough sell, even without it being trans- lated, but maybe Moon Juice [the list’s top seller; writen by Kate Wakeling and illustrated by Latvian artist Elīna Brasliņam, it won the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education’s Poetry Book Award last year] might pique people’s interest, or Postcard Stories, Jan Carson’s collec- tion of 52 postcard-length stories.” The industry is living through a particularly rich period for indies, which Wright believes is due to advances in technology. “It’s become easier to make books. You can tpeset on your laptop, order a small print run or make an e-book, then sell through a free website. I think the impulse to make books has always been widespread, and it’s just more accessible now.” She’s gratified that its sales agency, Impress, says bookshops are now recognising the TEP name, but says the climate is “hopeful but baffled. Publishing is a weird industry. You can work out how to make a book, but sell- ing it and finding an audience can feel very mysterious for tiny indies.” So what advice would she give some- one thinking of starting an indie? “You can do it! It’s all reverse engineering. Think about what you respond to as a book lover, and then work out how to create that.”
“To a British reader Latvian literature can feel startlingly vulnerable and disconcerting— in a good way. We just might not be used to people sharing such [intimate] thoughts”
Emma Wright grew up in Bracknell and Winnersh in Berkshire, and read Classics at Oxford. After graduating in 2009, she worked as a freelance copywriter and researcher before joining Orion in 2010. She admits that she misses being part of a big publisher’s production department (“a lovely team”) but adds: “I’ve built my own team of five freelancers, so I feel (virtually) part of a merry little band again.” She keeps a notebook with her in which she writes down ideas—”things like ‘poems about the internet’ and ‘performance art piece about running a small press’”—and claims to have survived five years as an indie “motivated primarily by my urgent desire not to have to go back into semi-gainful employment... I am not a good employee”. The best part of being an independent is “being allowed to be an irritant and a loose cannon, and just try things out, sometimes just because I think they might be funny”.
12th April 2018
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