Poetry is a genre that can bring prestige to a publishing house and Poetry Editors are the agents of this cultural influence. But what does it take for a submitted manuscript to become a slim volume in someone’s bookshelves? Discover what makes a manuscript stand out among submissions, how lists are curated, and gain invaluable insight into how poetry collections are brought into the world.
Join Colette Bryce of Picador and Rachael Allen of Granta, in conversation with Stephen Connolly of The Lifeboat Press, as they discuss the ins and outs of poetry publishing.
Colette Bryce has published five collections with Picador, including The Full Indian Rope Trick (2004) and Self-Portrait in the Dark (2008). The Whole & Rain-domed Universe (2014), which draws on her experience of growing up in Derry during the Troubles, received a Ewart-Biggs Award in memory of Seamus Heaney. Selected Poems (2017) won the Pigott Prize for Irish Poetry. Her latest collection is The M Pages (2020). She is also a poetry editor: previously of the journals Poetry London and Poetry Ireland Review, and currently at Picador.
Rachael Allen is the author of Kingdomland (Faber) and co-author of numerous artists’ books, including Nights of Poor Sleep (Prototype), Almost One, Say Again! (Slimvolume), Green at an Angle (Kestle Barton) and Material (Loose Joints). She teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University, is the poetry editor for Granta Books, and her second collection of poems, God Complex, is forthcoming in 2024.
Stephen Connolly is a founding editor of The Lifeboat Press. He worked for No Alibis Bookstore and No Alibis Press for many years and has worked in book and print design. In 2022, he was appointed as the first Festival Curator at Listowel Writers’ Week, the oldest literature festival in Ireland.
