I can’t believe I’m here, you have to think, then chuckle softly, which is kind of apt because I’m not.

Longbarrow Press is delighted to announce the publication of Hemisphere by Pete Green: a long poem in a short book.

Hemisphere tells the story of a circular voyage which proceeds from the Hebrides around the north Atlantic, Alaska and Siberia, then finally back to Europe. Along the way, the protagonist visits a doomsday seed vault, a giant qwerty keyboard, a boundary between Tuesday and Wednesday, the world’s largest island on a lake on an island on a lake on an island, two pubs and an Arctic coffee bar. These are all real locations on an impossible journey. Hemisphere is also a meta-travel narrative which poses questions about who has permission to practise ‘place writing’, and explores the power of imagination to push back against our ongoing personal lockdowns.

A beautifully produced 48-page ‘short book’, with illustrations by Abi Goodman, Hemisphere is available now from Longbarrow Press. You can read the opening section (‘North Uist’) here, and a further section (‘Vladivostock’) on the Creative Writing at Leicester site. Join us for the online launch of Hemisphere on Thursday 2 December, with readings and commentary by Pete Green; click here to register through Eventbrite (the event is free to attend).

You can order Hemisphere by clicking on the relevant PayPal link below (major debit cards accepted – no PayPal account required).

Hemisphere
48pp
£6.00

UK orders (+ £1.70 postage)

Europe orders (+ £4.50 postage)

Rest of World orders (+ £6 postage)

‘How can you write about Nunavut if you’ve never been there? For that matter, how can you even go there if you suffer from anxiety about flying or sailing? What if you can’t afford a ticket, or you can’t get away because of your family or your job?’  In a new post for the Longbarrow Blog, Pete Green considers the ‘literature of place’, and the (frequently privileged) ‘social composition of its authorship’, and explores alternative approaches to place writing. Click here to read ‘The confessions of a virtual tourist, or how and why I wrote Hemisphere’.  ‘There are for us, it seems, so many competing futures. So many glances this way or that, and so many story––––lines … leading away … The only certainty is: places exist for us only as long as there are people to breathe them.’  Mark Goodwin also considers questions of access to ‘place’, and the ‘unpeopled’ landscapes of lockdown, in a new text for the Longbarrow Blog, which accompanies a film-poem co-created with Henry Iddon. Click here to read (and watch) ‘All at Once’.

Following a successful residency at the Winter Garden in summer 2018, the Sheffield Independent Publishers Pop-up Shop returns to the Moor Market (The Moor, Sheffield, S1 4PF) between 1 – 14 December (opening hours: 8.30am–5pm, Mon-Sat). This two-week ‘retail residency’ brings some of the city’s most innovative and exciting independent presses together under one roof, including And Other Stories, Longbarrow Press, The Poetry Business and Vertebrate Publishing. The pop-up shop will include poetry, fiction, outdoor books, international literature, and much more. A not-to-be-missed opportunity to see and buy some beautiful editions, and to meet the publishers involved.

If you can’t make it to the Moor Market, you can still order direct from us throughout December; the last day to order books for Christmas delivery (to UK addresses) is Friday 17 December (if you’re in Sheffield, it’s Sunday 19 December, as we’ll be delivering these orders on foot). We can gift-wrap your orders and/or send them to a different UK address at no extra cost; simply email Brian Lewis at longbarrowpress@gmail.com with the details. Click here for a full list of our current hardbacks and to order titles. We also offer Longbarrow Gift Certificates (ideal for those last-minute presents); click here for details.

Images: Brian Lewis, Abi Goodman, Henry Iddon