Guest week: Roll away the stone

Here comes everyone!

Hi folks,

I usually steer well clear of politics in all my Valley Press communications – but there’s no way I can start this post without acknowledging what a sad day it is for justice and decency in our world. You don’t need a detailed commentary from me (I recommend this post from

Jay Kuo

instead), but I can’t stop thinking of my “team blue” friends across the pond, how hard they worked in the name of all that is good and just, and how they must feel now.

It’s truly upsetting, and a painful reminder that sometimes, when smart, hopeful people come together and work night and day for an important cause, it can ultimately make no difference at all. That's a tough lesson to learn, and when the dust settles, the toughest thing of all is to pick yourself up and carry on – but we’ll do it, because at the end of the day, there’s nothing else we can do.

I feel I can transition seamlessly from that thought to small press publishing; is that bad?? Here in Scarborough, I’m still being slowed down by the weird health condition I described last month, and I was saddened to read this week that the one-woman dynamo of the Northern small press scene, Isabelle from

Fly on the Wall Press

, is battling some serious burnout of her own. ‘Does it have to be me?’ she asks, crushingly, in the headline, and I think all of us who have pushed a vast, metaphorical boulder up a hill can identify with that feeling.

I’d like to send my thanks – even huger than usual – to everyone who got in touch after I talked about my eyesight issues, and to all of you who have stayed subscribed and waited so patiently for this blog to restart. I am now sitting on no less than five guest posts, which friends and authors of Valley Press have taken the time to write for you, but (to be honest) I have as yet been unable to read, never mind format for the blog. To be clear, it’s not that I’ve lost the ability to read, I’m just needing to strictly ration my time focusing on the screen at the moment, and there were some extremely urgent projects in October gobbling it all up.

However, I’ve now reached a point where there’s nothing on my plate that will be hurt by a few days’ pause, so I’ve decided to devote the next week or so to getting that blog backlog out there. I’m calling it ‘guest week’, and who knows, maybe it will be a regular thing? After that, I might get back into podcasting; this platform is becoming more and more optimised for ‘audio posts’, and that would be a useful way of reconnecting with all of you until things in the eye department get resolved.

Before I send on the guests, I have two more bits of good news – “like the desert needs the rain”, as a wise woman once sang! Previous blog guest Emma Brankin has been longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize with her Valley Press collection Attention Seekers; this is a huge deal, there are only 14 collections on the longlist, and it’s the only UK prize specifically recognising this genre, so this puts Emma’s fantastic work right at the pinnacle where it belongs. Of course, I’ll let you know if she makes it even further.

Meanwhile, Ralph Dartford has just recorded an appearance on Craig Charles’ BBC Radio 6 show, for transmission a week today (the 13th, on the ‘Wednesday I’m in Love’ feature). He is promoting his new Valley Press poetry collection House Anthems, arriving this Friday, for which there is now going to be an accompanying album. More on that soon!

These small triumphs, and the practical and emotional support I received after the last blog, are more than enough to get me pushing that boulder up the hill one more time. Let’s do this! All going well, I’ll see you tomorrow, for a interview I’ve conducted on a subject close to home…