About
Paper Swans Press is an independent publisher of poetry and flash fiction, founded in 2014. We publish anthologies and individual pamphlets as well as online projects, such as our annual Advent Calendar.
Run by Sarah and Annie, we host an annual single-author pamphlet prize where the winner is chosen by a guest judge (most recently we have enjoyed the talents of Richard Skinner, Carrie Etter and Carole Bromley).
We like to explore a variety of publishing avenues, each encompassing our original ethos of publishing poetry by both established and up-and-coming poets. We are very proud of our Anthology of Young Poets, featuring the work of teenage writers, some of whom have gone on to have their own collections published.
Although we mainly deal with poetry, Paper Swans also publishes flash fiction, a writing medium which both Sarah and Annie adore.
Paper Swans Press is keenly involved in projects/events in our local community. We published an anthology based on our local museum and featuring the poems of local poets, with all proceeds going to to the museum shop.
Our founder, Sarah, set up the inaugural Tunbridge Wells Poetry Festival in 2018. Passing the baton of running it to the local Poetry Society stanza, Paper Swans runs poetry workshops for children at the festival and is also looking to expand to adult workshops.
We also worked with the National Trust’s Sissinghurst Castle, running a competition on the ‘poetry of roses’ and publishing an anthology of winners, many of whom performed at an evening recital, in the rose garden at Sissinghurst.
In 2017, Elisabeth Sennitt Clough’s book, Glass, won the Saboteur Award for Best Pamphlet and our book, The Chronicles of Eve, was shortlisted for the Best Anthology award.
Since 2014, we have published 13 anthologies, 10 individual pamphlets and 1 rogue novel!