Skip to content

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 Poets on the BBC

Kuli Kohli was interviewed by Rahil Sheikh of the BBC recently and the article about her life was posted last Saturday, 30 August. It was read by more than a million people over the weekend: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53749629

Next Sunday, 6 September, Emma Purshouse will be exploring the Black Country and its poetry to discover why contemporary writers in the region are still using dialect in their work in episode 4 of ‘Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets’ on BBC Radio 4 at 4.30 pm. Includes work from Kuli Kohli and the late Dave Reeves. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mbq5

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, a virtual poetry workshop on Cannock Chase, is being extended to the end of August. We encourage all of you to go for a stroll on the Chase and/or write something from the poetry prompts provided.

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.

The Poetry of Worcestershire and Ripening CherriesOffas Press - New Titles for 2019

New Titles Available Now

The Poetry of Worcestershire

Edited by Michael W. Thomas & Simon Fletcher

Ripening Cherries

Edited by David Bingham & Simon Fletcher

September

by Cherry Doyle

Close

by Emma Purshouse

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…

 

banner_image

The view from Offa’s Dyke, photo by Dave Finchett.

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.

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.