I couldn’t do any of this without you


News

It often goes without saying that publishing houses, even small ones like Barclay Press, wouldn’t be much without writers. And because it goes without saying, we forget how much writers matter – how much you matter. So almost every morning this week, I’ve been starting my work with a reminder: I couldn’t do any of this without you. I wouldn’t be able to order and arrange and publish and distribute your words if you hadn’t already done the work of thinking and writing and revising and risking. So much risking! Thank you so much for the work you do. I couldn’t do any of this without you. […]

This feels like good news


News

Barclay Press and its various imprints released thirteen titles in 2018. That’s nearly three times as many titles as in 2017 and more than six times as many as in 2016. But in the larger scheme of things, Barclay Press remains a small press (which, for the record, includes any U.S. publishing house with less than $50 million in sales). Small presses fill the gaps that larger publishers neglect, and we focus on work that might not be considered profitable enough to make it at a better-known house. That’s why you matter to me. You’ve entrusted your work to our care, and that’s a big deal. Thank you! […]

I love your book, and I appreciate you


News

I was meeting with a writer this week, and she suggested that a newsletter for writers might be a fun and efficient way to keep you informed about what’s happening with your book while giving you some behind-the-scenes insights into how we operate, what we’re up to, and where you and your work fit into the bigger picture here at Barclay Press. So this is that newsletter (the first of many), and I’d love to hear from you as to whether the information below is helpful. Thank you for the work you do! […]

Why Ice Cream Trucks Play Christmas Songs


Catalog, Collection

A gentle wind blows through Paul Jolly’s poems, uncovering the gaps in our knowledge, our presumptions and assumptions, the spaces in which humor, creativity, and magic are born. The stories seem familiar, but the wind-blown words, unjumbled by Jolly, no longer say exactly what they’re supposed to. Alice escapes from a pack of Disney scouts. […]

Love Is Deeper than Distance


Catalog, Collection

Poems of love, death, a little sex, ALS, dementia, and the widow’s life thereafter. Our love songs have no shadows. We dare not acknowledge the deep love that can coexist with loss. But in this timely and timeless collection, Peg Edera offers what we didn’t know we needed: a proposal in the dark, a squad […]

As Clean as a Bone


Catalog, Collection

Emmett Wheatfall’s As Clean as a Bone is a collection for both the heart and the mind, a collection seasoned with the vital and invigorating salt of poetry and of wisdom. This remarkable book questions history, memory, culture. Its poems don’t just talk: they wrestle with experience, they debate, they think and play, they sing […]

Through Honest Moments


News

Life is what it is, regardless, always a gift: Last August, Bill Denham approached me with an idea: a small book of autobiographical and deeply personal poems that might speak to people, “even if they did not know the particulars of my life.” I told Bill I was interested, but I had a problem. Barclay […]

death will come


Catalog, Collection

Click here for Bill’s interview with Henry McCarthy. In death will come, poet Bill Denham attempts what is nearly impossible, coming to terms with the approaching end of life without nostalgia or sentimentality. And in this collection, he succeeds, offering his astonishing gift to the world, a testament to a life lived, suffered, and loved in […]

Because of This


Catalog, Collection

While teaching English in China, Jim Teeters received a copy of the Tao Te Ching from a student. Jim writes that he was drawn to Lao Tzu’s ancient meditations on what it means to be a human instrument guided by the power of the right way. Drawing on his Quaker experience of submission to the […]

Close to the Ground


Catalog, Collection

Ordinary grace disguises itself in faded irises, traffic signs, convoluted “meetings for worship for business,” and the funny things small children say—the grace of God hidden in the ordinariness of life. This grace hovers close to the ground. In her exploration of this grace, Nancy Thomas takes us on a personal journey with four sections. […]