Hazel Press newsletter: Spring 2023
Riding westwards - 'Watershed’ launch - Birth of a foal - Elms on the Hazel Blog - Oxford Real Farming Conference - Maggie Wang on the radio
We have recently returned from a West Country trip where we visited bookshops and writers who we hope to work with. Hazel Press is based on Daphne’s farm near Cambridge in the east and this was her first foray west to where Sara (Hazel’s commissioning editor) lives and works.
One of our greatest delights was calling in at Astor’s Bookshop & Art Materials in Chagford on Dartmoor, which opened in new premises a couple of months ago. It’s owned by Tucker and Chantal Sorrell who also have a smallholding and run the Beehive farm shop and cafe in the Square. The linkages between books, land and food meant that we were always going to love the place, but we were truly captivated.
Tucker describes it as a community space and actively encourages lengthy browsing - it’s in a building which was once the old bank and the safe room has been turned into a deeply comfortable reading room. The whole shop area has been beautifully redecorated with natural wood shelving, William Morris willow bough wallpaper as re-coloured by Ben Pentreath, and papers by Cambridge Imprint. The choice of titles is excellent, as is the lighting to read them, being bright without dazzle.
We didn’t spend all our time indoors - one of the many highlights was riding on horseback over the moors. Our friends Charlie and Chris Wareing at Brendon Manor Stables on Exmoor organised a magical and misty ride around Farley Water. We wove between lichened hawthorn trees following the rocky stream. Coming back across the hill, a merlin flew over our heads. This was particularly special; these small, dashing falcons are rare and Exmoor is one of their last strongholds.
Pre-order Watershed by Ruth Padel
As countries are engulfed by floods and rising seas, Ruth Padel’s new collection of poems, Watershed, celebrates the numinous power of water while exploring the depths of our capacity to deny the climate crisis. What lurks in the underwater caverns of our unconscious to give denial such potency? Padel considers “the nightmare of a psyche so dry it is resistant to rain / the water falls straight through / like a love you never noticed.”
Yet there’s always the sparkle of hope, summed up by a lamp created out of saltwater by an indigenous community to light their night fishing. Philosophy, psychology, myth, laughter and pain, Watershed is a celebration of fluidity, illuminating the mystery of water in its unceasing flex and flow.
You can pre-order your copy direct from us at Hazel Press.
Watershed is being launched at the London Review Bookshop at 7pm on 16 March, when Ruth will be in conversation with Sean Borodale. (Please book tickets here). You might like to know that we have a few copies left of Sean’s pamphlet Re-Dreaming Sylvia Plath as a Queen Bee, which was one of the first four books we published when Hazel Press began three years ago.
Birth of a foal (and back to Exmoor again)
‘I could see the immense yet silent effort going into the birth. Mares in labour make no sound because that could draw a predator’s attention when they are most vulnerable.
I sat in silence with her, following her every breath. Within three minutes the foal was born, shrouded in the cloudy membrane of her foetal sac.’
In February, photographer Tricia Gibson shared her beautiful photos of pedigree Exmoor ponies on the Hazel blog. She has spent years observing the free-living herds that live on the unenclosed moorland slopes of Dunkery Beacon in Somerset, often walking more than 20 miles a day.
‘It’s physically hard work walking the moor, especially in harsh weather, with my rucksack packed with camera, water and flapjacks to keep me fuelled. I used to wear a pair of tightly-laced walking boots, but have recently discovered fell runners’ hybrid boots, which are much lighter and grippier. Walking fast between groups of ponies keeps me warm and fit on the rugged moorland ground.’
You can read more about Tricia’s relationship with the ponies and the landscape they inhabit here.
New on the Hazel blog
We publish a new piece on the Hazel blog at the beginning of every month. Since our Winter newsletter in December, we’ve posted Tricia’s article, three poems by Nicola Healey on seasonal brevity, regeneration and renewal, and for March, writing and watercolours from woodworker Robert Somerville’s notebooks.
Robert works outdoors on his smallholding using hand tools:
‘I love the soft, milky light of late February and early March. It is beguiling and fragile – and then the wind picks up and everything changes.’
Eco-publishing and the Oxford Real Farming Conference
In January we attended the Oxford Real Farming Conference and hosted a discussion about eco-publishing with Piers Torday, chair of the Authors and Illustrators Sustainability Working Group. Historically, publishing lags far behind other industries when it comes to reducing carbon emissions and environmental impacts. You might be stunned to know that if you factor in all parts of the publishing supply chain, including distribution, the total annual global emissions exceed those of the airline industry! But this can change: We believe that writers, publishers, readers and educators have a responsibility to use our collective voice to inspire and transform.
Listen to Maggie Wang talk about her poetry and the extinction crisis
Last autumn we published Maggie’s debut poetry collection, The Sun on the Tip of a Snail’s Shell. Shortly before her 21st birthday, she was interviewed by The Cultural Frontline on BBC World Service Radio. Maggie told the BBC’s Tina Daheley why she was drawn to creating poems highlighting the extinction of animals and plants. The programme was billed as ‘women artists making waves” and also featured Danupha Khanatheerakul, the 20-year-old Thai rapper known by her stage name Milli, and Afghan singer songwriter Elaha Soroor. You can listen to the full episode here on BBC Sounds.
thank you for reading,
Daphne and Sara