Shoestring Press, based in Nottingham, was established by John Lucas in 1994, since when it has published over 400 titles, including poetry, novels, short stories, literary essays and works of criticism. Tonight you can hear from eight poets whose most recent books came out in the last two years:

Key to the Highway, (Shoestring Press 2021) is Chris Hardy’s fifth collection. His fourth, Sunshine At The End Of The World, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2017. Chris is one third of “the most brilliant music and poetry band in the world” according to Carol Ann Duffy: LiTTLe MACHiNe, who perform their settings of poems at literary events in the UK and abroad.

Shoestring has published three books of Judith Wilkinson’s poetry: Tightrope Dancer (2010), the illustrated pamphlet Canyon Journey (2016), with artwork by Ditty Doornbos, and In Desert (2021), which came out of more than a decade of illness; and five translated collections of contemporary Dutch and Flemish poetry. Her translation of Toon Tellegen’s Raptors (Carcanet, 2011) was awarded the Popescu Prize.

John Mole has received the Gregory, Cholmondeley and Signal Awards. His most recent collections of poems, all from Shoestring, are Gestures and Counterpoints (2017), Gold to Gold (2020) and Thin Air (2021), a pocket-book selection of anecdotal poems, consisting of observations, meditations, reminiscences and anticipations originally posted online in Plague20 Journal, where they responded to developing circumstances during the pandemic.

Kathleen Bell has published two poetry pamphlets: at the memory exchange (Oystercatcher, 2014), shortlisted in the Saboteur awards, and Do You Know How Kind I Am (Leafe Press 2021) – a twenty poem sequence exploring responses to lockdown and other Covid-19 restrictions. Disappearances (Shoestring 2021), which features a variety of verse forms and voices, from medieval times to the present day, is her first full length collection.

Neil Fulwood’s Shoestring Press collections are No Avoiding It, Can’t Take Me Anywhere and Service Cancelled (2021). He has also published three books of film criticism, two pamphlets, and he co-edited with David Sillitoe the tribute anthology More Raw Material: work inspired by Alan Sillitoe. He curates Open Book, a monthly poetry/spoken word night at the Organ Grinder public house in Nottingham.

Janet Montefiore’s books include Feminism and Poetry (1987, 3rd edition 2004), Men and Women Writers of the 1930s (1996), Arguments of Heart and Mind (essays, 2002), and Rudyard Kipling (2007). Since her first short collection In a Glass (1979), her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals, and in 2016 Shoestring Press published her book of 50 sonnets, Shaping Spirits 1948–66, followed by Disposing of the Clothes (2019).

Hubert Moore became a writing-mentor at ‘Freedom from Torture’ and a visitor of detainees at Dover Removals Centre, experiences which have informed much of his work in the past 20 years. The Bright Gaze of the Disoriented (Shoestring, 2014) included Hosing Down, joint winner of The McLellan Prize and highly commended in the 2015 Forward prize. His most recent book is Owl Songs (Shoestring, 2021)

Merryn Williams was the founding editor of The Interpreter’s House. Among her many books, she has three poetry collections published by Shoestring: The First Wife’s Tale, Letter to my Rival and The Fragile Bridge: New and Selected Poems, and has edited three anthologies for the press: The Georgians 1901–1930, Poems for Jeremy Corbyn, and Poems for the Year 2020: Eighty Poets on the Pandemic.