The Emma Press

@theemmapress.bsky.social

small press | big dreams
Birmingham-based independent publisher of poetry, children's books, short-form prose and translations.
www.theemmapress.com

@theemmapress.bsky.social

Our online shop will be closed 22 July - 21 August while I focus on reading our May submissions and have a break! Thank you for your understanding. All postal orders placed after 5pm on 21 July will still go through - I'll just post them out after 21 August. You can still shop via buff.ly/Y2MhXru

Our online shop will be closed 21 July - 21 August while I focus on reading our May submissions and then have a break! Thank you for your understanding. My last posting day will be 21 July. All postal orders placed after 5pm on that date will still go through - I'll just post them out after 21 August. You can still order ebooks & pre-order our next title, too. If you need your books before then, please consider supporting your local independent bookshop or - if you’re a UK customer - ordering via our page on Bookshop.org (we get 10% of any book you order after clicking through this link, not just ones we've published)!
@theemmapress.bsky.social

They're here! The first copies of MILK & MOON-WATER: Charm Poems by Milena Williamson 💫

Printed by Ersatz Nottingham (formerly the Holodeck), these books are a hymn to artisan printing: thick creamy paper & saddle-stitched. And as always so beautifully packaged!
Pre-order here: buff.ly/mMVczuR

The close-up of a book against red wrapping paper. The author's name is leggible: Milena WilliamsonMilk & Moon-water, Poems by Milena Williamson, held up against a black fireplace.
@theemmapress.bsky.social

Just when I thought TEP office couldn't get any hotter...look who showed up: the gorgeous EATING AIR by Suyin Du Bois! 🍜

Illustrated by Reena Makwana, EATING AIR is a mouth-watering book of poems about food, belonging and connection. Pre-orders open: buff.ly/GcHQS4O

@theemmapress.bsky.social

Celebrating this lovely recognition of Mark Ward's MASTERS in Skylight47 with one of my favourite poems from the book - 'The Duel'.

Thank you Ciarán O'Rourke for the review!

MASTERS by Mark Ward - available direct from our website & all good bookshops: buff.ly/zcilDbm

4 The Duel after Philip Core When we wrestle we cease to be separate I touch you intimately like when you took me dancing we two-stepped out into the night forgetting safety our beauty haloed with moonlight the beach ours you wrench me off my feet their eyes changing everything an audience braying your limbs a new context the capacity for joy deadened you’re careful for what is a wrestle if not passion stopped short
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'Charm for a Sudden Stitch', from Milena Williamson's MILK & MOON-WATER 🌸

Written and performed by Milena Williamson; editing and subtitles by Bebe Ashley; filmed, directed and edited by Rhiann Jeffrey. First published by Copper Nickel.

Join us for the online launch: buff.ly/kjHb3Je

@theemmapress.bsky.social

Now out in the wild: AARDVARK DAY by Victoria Gatehouse!
The perfect gift for young naturalists that will ignite a love of poetry, too 🧡
Join us to online celebrate the book's launch TONIGHT with Victoria & illustrator Kate Lucy Foster - all welcome!

7pm, via Zoom: buff.ly/jnMCyXd

Children's hands placing pebbles round a book that say 'out now'.a book surrounded by ivy
@theemmapress.bsky.social

RIP Carol Rumens, 1944-2026 ❤️ 'Nant y Garth' is from Carol's book BEZDELKI, which explores how death isn’t purely loss. Instead, a kind of conversation between two people can be continued through willed acts of memory, whether by rooting through a toolbox or by revisiting well-loved books.

As the bus wound its way up Nant y Garth it was as if the birchwoods either side were gathering height. I heard their choirs amassing: bass, tenor, alto, soprano, entering one by one, like green combers, cliffs of melody, with depths and peaks I couldn’t fully sense, but knew sang gladness – gladness of the wakened branches, and peeled buds, and leaves called to the sun for the first time, to stream into their year – no, their much-less-than year – of darkening grace. I could no more believe the sap insensible than I believe the dead are broken branches, and all their self-songs censored or extinguished.
@theemmapress.bsky.social

"Aardvark Day is wonderful and wonder-full and I loved it." ~ Rachel Piercey

We're thrilled with this praise from Rachel for AARDVARK DAY, the debut children's poetry collection by Victoria Gatehouse🩷

🌿 Order your copy today & receive for publication next week: buff.ly/JsMVKYO 🌿

@theemmapress.bsky.social

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Kwan Ann Tan, author of THE WAITER, *longlisted* for the 2026 Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation Adventure Writing Prize 🎉 🎉 *Available as audiobook & paperback now* We're thrilled to see Kwan Ann's debut here in such good company ~ wish us luck! 💜

The Waiter LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE.Images of 12 shortlisted titles.
@theemmapress.bsky.social

Have we left it too late for our planet? You decide with these poems from AARDVARK DAY by Vicky Gatehouse!

Perfect for KS2 students (Y4-5) exploring living things & their habits, human beings & the environment & poetry 🪴

Available in all good bookshops 14 May 2026 / pre-order: buff.ly/uZuQLN2

@theemmapress.bsky.social

Pre-orders now open for MILK & MOON-WATER ~ Charm Poems by Milena Williamson 💫

A collection of 11 Old English metrical charms – ancient incantations spoken to ward off harm – creatively translated into magical and medicinal spells for the modern reader: buff.ly/mLxxThz

Cover by Maggie Mason

Charm for Unfruitful Land (Remixed) The good news is the wolves have returned to Europe. The bad news is people are killing wolves again. I own no underwear from this island. There is no purely wild place left on this island. I buy wildflower seeds from the dark web. I walk on the earth while there is still time and sprinkle seeds on riverbanks, lawns and graveyards. The smoke pours across borders and becomes the sky. It’s time to buy an air filter and give it a name. I am stuck inside a well and Europe is the silver bucket framed against the sky. We are living in the overlap. We can create clouds from seawater. We drilled into Antarctica to find the most transparent ice. This ice is compressed by other ice so it’s dark down there, dark enough to see neutrinos belly-flop into light.
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