The Deixis Press Weekly - Issue #56

Bing bong, book babes,

How was your Christmas? Your new year? I hope everyone had a restful festive season and a non-eventful storm Isha.

In exciting press news—and, to clarify, I mean this is exciting specifically for the press, not for the reader, but the main focus of this newsletter has always been Figuring Out What The Hell I’m Doing As A Publisher And Dragging You, The Interested Reader, Along This Adventure With Me—we have joined the Indie Press Network.

The Network was created by the apparently indefatigable Will Dady (Renard Press’s founder), and it has rather brilliantly brought together a bunch of [NOTE TO SELF BEFORE SENDING: I need a kindly, sympathetic but brutally true epithet here that applies perhaps most strongly to myself, maybe “dumbasses”?] who have started small presses in THIS economy. Now we are all up in each other’s Discord sharing tips about distributors and printers and prizes and our fantasies about dismembering Gardn . . . wait, no, that last one is just me.

Even if you’re not a bookseller, you might like to go to this page to see what indie gems are upcoming in the near future. Don’t forget: the only reason any of us do this work is because we love books and authors, so have a look around there secure in the knowledge that what is there is created and produced with care and love, for probably next to no profit, apart from that which profiteth the soul. (lol, imagine if I still had a soul. Onward!)

But here’s a treat! In exciting FOR YOU news, Deixis Press is welcoming two new authors in 2024!

Chloe Turner

Chloe’s book Blue Hawk is her first novel, and it is set in the steep-sided Chalford valley near her home in Gloucestershire. It’s the gorgeously imagined and meticulously researched story of a young woman who takes over her father’s cloth business in pre-industrial England—and the societal pressures she faces as a result. I’ve loved this book since I first read it some time ago, and I’m so lucky to be the person who now gets to publish it.

Chloe’s short stories have been widely published, including in Best British Short Stories 2018. Her debut collection, Witches Sail in Eggshells, won the 2020 Saboteur Award for Best Short Story Collection. You can follow her on Twitter @TurnerPen2Paper.

William Parker

William’s book The Last Doorbell is a novel-memoir about Ben, a young gay man who, after some time as an escort, meets an aristocrat and becomes hopelessly entangled with not only the man but also his family. It’s fascinating, touching, funny, and maybe even a little scandalous.

William has written about Ben before in his novel The House Martin, and now it’s time for Ben’s continuing story. Again, I’m really fortunate to be this book’s publisher, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

That’s probably enough for now—we have a third book coming out later in the year, too, but I’ll leave you on tenterhooks for that one. What could it be?! Feel free to speculate.

Yours,

Angel