Hard Pressed – Mapping Manchester’s Radical Publishing history

Hard Pressed:
Mapping Manchester’s Radical Publishing history

The story of the city’s alternative publishers of poetry and fiction, 1975 to 2010.

These presses carved out space for what mainstream publishing was (and still is) too afraid of — counter-cultural perspectives of postcolonial post-industrial Britain. We want to make sure the work of these presses, the do-it-ourselves energy that helped a diversity of writers sustain careers, is remembered but more than that appreciated for its contribution to Mancunian literature.

We have done our best to contact writers to get permission to reproduce excerpts of their work here. If you wish for us to query this, please contact us on admin@cultureword.org.uk

Thanks to the Commonword Cultureword team: Amna Bagadi, Peter Kalu, Radhaika Kapur, Ella Otomewo, Mahboobeh Rajabi, Heena Patel and Nina Roach; Martin De Mello, Clare Ramsaran, John G Hall, Dipali Das, Sharon Raymond; Manchester Poetry Library, RAPAR, Fatima Khan, Alex Harvard, Hannah Rustomjee, Fiona Pymont, Kashmir Youth Project, Global Arts CIC, Wythenshawe Library.

This project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery Players.

The presses

Although many independent presses and publications of poetry and fiction emerged from Manchester, the ones we have identified here as part of the Hard Pressed project championed writers marginalised by race, class, gender, sexuality, disability and neurodiversity, often in more ways than one.