Sad Press is run by Jo Lindsay Walton and Samantha Walton. We mainly publish poetry chapbooks by individual authors.
Sad Press was set up either in 2009 or 2014, it’s not clear. Sad Press is based in Brighton, Bristol, and Edinburgh. We are not open to submissions, sorry!
Support Sad
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Reviews
A few reviews and other things related to Sad Press books. If you have written a review, or if you want a review copy of something, get in touch.
- Vahni Capildeo’s Odyssey Calling, reviewed by Azad Ashim Sharma at Spam Plaza
- Vahni Capildeo, Odyssey Calling, reviewed by Chris Edgoose
- Frit, Familiars, and Understudies for Air, reviewed at Sabotage Reviews
- Helen Charman, In the Pleasure Dairy, reviewed by Katie Lewis Hood at Spam Plaza
- Helen Charman talking about ‘In the Pleasure Dairy’ at The Poetry Society
- Jennifer Cooke, Apocalypse Dreams, reviewed on The Contemporary Small Press
- Notes on Apocalypse Dreams at Intercapillary Space
- Jennifer Cooke interview, talking about Apocalypse Dreams
- Robert Kiely, Killing the Cop in Your Head, reviewed in the TLS
- Daisy Lafarge, Understudies for Air, discussed in Eric Gregory Award ‘How I Did It’ article
- Maria on Daisy Lafarge, Understudies for Air
- Daisy Lafarge, Understudies for Air, in The White Review’s Books of the Year
- Lila Matsumoto, Allegories from my Kitchen, reviewed on Sabatoge Reviews
- Nicky Melville, Abbodies, mentioned in The Scottish Review of Books
- Nicky Melville, Abbodies, reviewed in Hix Eros
- Nicky Melville, Abbodies reviewed on Sphinx
- Nicky Melville, Abbodies chosen by Sam Riviere for The White Review‘s books of the year
- Nicky Melville, Abbodies Cold: SPECTRE reviewed in Adjacent Pineapple by Colin Herd
- Maria Sledmere, nature sounds without nature sounds, reviewed in Amberflora by Bethany Mitchell
- Sam’s choice then chosen by The Poetry Foundation, or something
- Eley Williams, Frit, reviewed at Adjacent Pineapple
- Eley Williams, Frit, reviewed in The London Review of Books
- Alice Tarbuck, Grid, mentioned by Christina Neuwirth
- Imogen Cassels, Arcades, chosen by Joanna Lee in National Poetry Day 2018: Poetry for a Change
- Imogen Cassels, Arcades, featured at The Writing Squad
- Tom Betteridge, Body Work, blows away SPAM
- SPAM reapproach more cautiously and Imogen Cassels, Arcades blows them away again
- Roz Kaveney, Catullus
- Roz Kaveney, Catullus reviewed by Antony John for Tears in the Fence
- Roz Kaveney’s Catullus and Adam Roberts’s Wodwo Vergil also reviewed in Marble (print only)
- Ellen Dillon, Sonnets for Malkmus chosen by Mauricio Baiocco for Spam Deep Cuts 2019
- Sad Press co-founds the Bristol and Bath Small Publishers’ Gathering
- Books ‘n’ Pieces reports on the Bristol and Bath Small Publishers’ Gathering
Printers
Printers we work with:
- Earthbound (Riso)
- Minuteman Bristol (Digital)
- Edinburgh Copy Shop (Digital)
- Ingram Spark (PoD)
Where Else
You can access digital copies of most out-of-print titles by subscribing to our Patreon.
There are also copies of most titles in the UKI legal deposit libraries and at the MayDay Rooms Radical Poetry Archive in London. The Scottish Poetry Library and the National Poetry Library also have some titles.
Trade
Booksellers, we would love to hear from you. If you’re based in the UK, we’re typically happy to provide an introductory package for free, to see if these things sell from your shelves. If they do, then we’re normally happy to offer a whopping 70% discount for firm sale or 10% discount for sale-or-return, with free P&P for orders over £10.
If you’re not based in the UK, get in touch and we can figure something out.
By the way: we don’t intend to normalise that 70% figure, which we know is way too much for most small presses. It’s just that we’re in a position to subsidise this a little, because we like to see our books on shelves and we want to support independent bookshops (who in turn support small presses more broadly, through stocking titles, creating event spaces and generating vital vibes).
2022
2022 is going to be A QUIET YEAR for Sad Press. We won’t be open to submissions or starting anything new. We’ll still be writing things on envelopes and going to the post office. Patreon payments will be paused each month (except when Jo forgets). We will have mothballs for eyes. With our mothball eyes we’ll be focusing on other things. We’ll be back, probably.
Not Poetry Or Is It
See also Sad Press Games.
Contact / Follow
There’s a contact form here or we’re on Twitter and Instagram.