Arachne Press

Arachne Press is based in London and was setup by Cherry Potts and specialises in short form fiction across the genres.

Their latest publication, ‘This Poem Here’ is a personal poetic response to the Covid crisis from Rob Walton.

Arachne Press are represented in the trade by Inpress Books. For enquires please contact rebecca@inpressbooks.co.uk

Website: www.arachnepress.com
Shop: www.arachnepress.com/shop
Facebook: @ArachnePress
Instagram: @arachnepress
Twitter: @ArachnePress

In their own words…

When did you start publishing?

Arachne Press has been spinning stories since 2012.

What made you want to start an independent publisher?

Sheer rage! I fell out with my publisher (breach of contract, money, sigh) and took back my books, but didn’t want to just self publish, and with a second redundancy in 5 years looming, I decided to take the plunge and publish other people too.

Arachne Press aims to be inclusive in the way we commission and to ensure writers from marginalised communities have the opportunity to get their work published. We have a particular affinity for disabled writers and writers from the LGBT community.

What genres do you specialise in?

Arachne specialises in short form; mainly publishing anthologies and collections of short stories and poetry, but we also publish fantasy fiction, young adult fiction and have even produced a photographic portrait book. We are open to most things except romance, erotica and horror.

Where are you based?

Arachne Press is based in London, UK.

Do you have a submission window, if so when?

We have regular calls for submissions to poetry and short story anthologies. We are currently seeking submissions of poetry and short stories from deaf or hearing impaired writers and from UK writers with BAME heritage, for two new anthologies. The submission window for these closes on 14th April.

Submissions are also open for our annual Solstice Shorts Festival. The theme for this year is ‘Climate Crisis: time is running out’ and submissions are open to everyone until 21st June.

What is your submission procedure?

All relevant details for how to submit to Arachne can be found at https://arachnepress.submittable.com/submit. We also share news of all our submission calls on the Arachne Press blog.

Who are you?

I am Cherry Potts – owner and founder. I run Arachne Press with occasional help from other creatives from across the publishing industry. I often collaborate with guest editors too, which ensures a range of voices are represented in our anthologies.

What was your background in the book industry before this venture?

I worked in a bookshop for a year straight from school – Christopher Foss in Baker Street, and for a couple of years, for Lewisham Libraries. Then I got my first publication as a writer, and did what we would now call ‘work experience’ with the publisher ½ day a week, which ought to have put me off, but somehow didn’t; and for a while I was on their advisory board.

Having been published several times, and with this broad understanding of what happens to books after they are published I thought I knew what I was doing! Joining the IPG was a big help in disabusing me of that, but everyone I have been in contact with from printers to distributors to other publishers have been wonderful. I feel quite grown up now, after eight years. Actually that’s about right isn’t it – traditional apprenticeships were seven years – there must be something it that!

Talk about some of your books if possible, upcoming, favourite?

I’m very proud of This Poem Here a poetry collection we have just published by Rob Walton (25 March 2021). At the start of lockdown, Rob was responding to the anxieties and absurdities of the Corona Virus crisis by writing poetry. He published a lot of these poems on social media, as real-time responses to the latest news. Watching and enjoying them from afar, I approached Rob to publish them as a book. We were in conversation about this project when Rob’s dad sadly died from Covid. The poems in the collection then took a radical turn, delving into rage, sorrow and grief. The result is a collection that leaps from laughter, to tears, to biting political commentary. I can’t imagine a more appropriate collection to have published in this ‘you-couldn’t-make-it-up’ era.