Welcome to Offa’s Press
Offa’s Press is dedicated to publishing and promoting the best in contemporary West Midland poetry and poets. It will do this through a series of publications and performances where the watchword will be ‘good on the page and good on stage’.
Offa’s Press is eclectic in range. It receives some development funding from Arts Council England and is run as a co-operative by a number of regional writers and poets with Simon Fletcher the Editor / Manager.
For information about current submissions please go to the submissions page for further details. Please browse this website for further news and events and please support Offa’s Press by buying its products and attending events.
Thanks to Cherry Doyle for all her work in compiling this
celebration of 10 years of Offa’s Press!
Offa’s Press Advent Calendar
Offa’s Poets on the BBC
Kuli Kohli was interviewed by Rahil Sheikh of the BBC earlier this year and the article about her life was posted 30 August. It was read by more than a million people and created much interest. If you want to have a read click on: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53749629
Kuli also appeared on BBC1’s Sunday Morning Live, in September. If you missed it there’s a chance to catch up on iPlayer for the next 12 months.
Pamphlet Submissions
Offa’s Press is delighted to announce that we shall be publishing the following pamphlet collections this autumn:
John Sewell’s ‘Hokusai’s Passion’, Michael W. Thomas’s ‘Under Smoky Light’ and Marion Cockin’s ‘The Wednesbury Mangle Theory’. We also intend to bring out Nick Pearson’s ‘Barista’.
Thanks to all who sent in work and we hope you won’t be too down-hearted as the standard was very high indeed. And thanks, again, to Arts Council England for its support.
Getting Out and About
The ‘In the Sticks’ project has been extended to the end of March 2021 and a new virtual workshop has just been posted on the site. We encourage all of you to go for a stroll on Cannock Chase and/or visit the Wyre Forest to write something from your observations or the poetry prompts provided.
You could also have a go at the ‘autumn leaf’ quiz for which the prize is a copy of Simon Fletcher’s The Cherry Trees of Wyre. Good luck!
We have already been sent some excellent poems and you can read some of these at:
offaspress.co.uk/in-the-sticks
You can, of course, continue to support us by signing up for some online mentoring, or the postal reading service, or by purchasing products from our online shop.
Poet Laureate!
Congratulations to Emma Purshouse on being appointed poet laureate of Wolverhampton for 2019-21. This is great news for Emma, poets in the city of Wolverhampton, and Offa’s Press and we wish her all the very best.
Shortlisted!
Congratulations to Emma Purshouse whose collection “Close” has been short-listed for the Rubery International Book Awards, 2019.
Shortlisted!
Congratulations to Nellie Cole on being short-listed for the Saboteurs’ Award for Best Pamphlet, 2019, for Bella.
Recommended!
The Poetry of the Black Country, Jane Seabourne’s Our Beautiful Scars and The Poetry of Staffordshire have recently been selected as ‘Recommended Reading’ by West Midlands’ librarians under the ‘Poetry on Loan’ scheme. Among other books listed are Wendy Cope’s Anecdotal Evidence and Simon Armitage’s The unaccompanied so this is great news for Offa’s Press.
Poets on Loan
Emma Purshouse, Jane Seabourne and Jeff Phelps have been selected by ‘Poetry on Loan’ (ACE-funded) as ‘postcard poets’ in West Midlands’ libraries for 2019-21.
“This is great news and will be a wonderful show-case for Offa’s Press and the poets themselves,” commented manager Simon Fletcher.
New Titles Available Now
Under Smoky Light
by Michael W. Thomas
Hokusai’s Passion
by John Sewell
Barista
by Nick Pearson
The Wednesbury Mangle Theory
by Marion Cockin
Emma Purshouse talks to the Black Country Arts Foundry about editing The Poetry of the Black Country.
Read the interview here…
Emma Purshouse interviews Win Saha
Read the interview here…
The view from Offa’s Dyke, photo by Dave Finchett.
Why the name Offa’s Press?
Offa was king of the Mercians back in the late 8th century and forged what we call the West Midlands from his power-base at Tamworth. He ruled over much of England and was known as Rex Anglorum or king of the English. Offa’s Dyke he had built as a border with the Welsh. Offa was also an internationalist having friendly ties to the French king Charlemagne.
