As a small press publisher based in Leicester we are committed to publishing the best original, contemporary fiction. We only publish 2-4 titles each year and have published 18 books since we launched in 2010. Here are some of our highlights:
ANTHOLOGIES
We started our adventures by publishing diverse voices in an anthology which marked the third anniversary of The Asian Writer. Happy Birthday to Me brings together a selection of interviews conducted with published writers, and new writing on the theme of celebration.
In 2018 we followed this up with our collection The Asian Writer: a decade of championing British Asian writers, produced to celebrate the publication’s tenth anniversary. It captures the experiences of British Asian writers, through a selection of speeches, interviews and prize-winning, short stories, written by exciting new voices.
In 2016, marking Leicester’s phenomenal Premiership win we published a poetry anthology dedicated to the city with contributions. Edited by Emma Lee and Ambrose Musiyiwa, Welcome to Leicester includes contributions from more than 90 writers and a collection of short stories on the theme of home by local writers in Lost and Found. We channelled our love for food by celebrating new short story writing on the theme of kitchen, jointly edited by Susmita Bhattacharya and Farhana Shaikh.
More recently, we’ve worked with Fiona Linday to publish Family Matters, an anthology of new writing by Leicestershire writers.
NOVELS
We occasionally publish novels. In 2012 we published Bombay Baby by Leela Soma and followed this up with Inspector Bucket and the Beast by Peter Cooper. Bombay Baby earned a national review which as a first outing we thought was brilliant. Both titles sold relatively well and had fantastic launches in their local bookshops. In 2014 we worked with talented writer, Palo Stickland to publish Finding Takri and the following year worked with a duo writing team to publish When Ali Met Honour and American author, Kirstin Ruth Bratt to publish Flying Goats in Agadir. Both titles sought to challenge misconceptions of Muslims and Muslim culture.
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Our love for the short story began in 2012 when we launched The Asian Writer Short Story Prize. It was a resounding success and we launched Five Degrees, our prize anthology at the DSC South Asian Literature Festival at Bush Theatre that same year. We continued to work with this special cohort of writers which included writers Emma Smith Barton, Deepa Anappara and Farrah Yusuf to work on our first literature development project. Beyond the Border was a culmination of months of writing workshops all delivered online.
Since then we’ve published Dividing Lines, our prize collection of 2017 which features short stories on the theme of borders, belonging and boundaries and launched Leicester Writers Short Story Prize. This new national prize has seen us working with more than 40 exceptionally talented writers to date.
In 2018 we published our first single author collections, working with writers CG Menon and Susmita Bhattacharya to publish Subjunctive Moods and Table Manners respectively. We launched our first flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers by Laura Besley during the pandemic, and followed this up with a linked short story collection Kezia and Rosie by Rebecca Burns.