"This tragedy should never have happened but it did. We can only hope
that by reading this book, we can actually learn from what lies within and
pray it never happens again."
Lenny Henry on "A Witness For Peace"
This page offers advice to prospective authors about submitting material to the Kates Hill Press and a full list of our writers.
The Kates Hill Press Authors
To access biographical information about authors published by the Kates Hill Press either in print or on the web click
here.
CURRENT LIST OF AUTHORS:
Julie Banner
Brian Dakin
(aka Billy Spakemon)
Irene M Davies
Dud
Dudley
Clarice Hackett
Carol Hathorne
Amy Lyons
Sue McMullen
Carol Midwood
Edna Mitchell
Barry Morris
Tossie Patrick
Samuel Smiles
Raymond Smout
Colin Stokes
Des Stokes
Greg Stokes
Louise Mary Stokes
John Summerton
Martyn Thomas
Sylvia Thomas
Carol Ward
Julia Wareing
PHOTO GALLERY
Irene M Davies, publicity photograph, Express & Star, 29/12/05
Clarice Hackett, publicity photograph, Express & Star, 05/04/96
Carol Hathorne with Carl Chinn at The Mailbox, 14/01/07.
Carol Midwood performing at the Lamp Tavern, Dudley, 25/11/05
Barry Morris reading at the anti war show, the Lamp Tavern, Dudley, 28/04/06
Tossie Patrick at the launch of Tales With A Twist, the Lamp Tavern, Dudley, 05/04/07.
Raymond Smout at the launch of Pocketful of Memories - Coseley, the Lamp Tavern, Dudley, 05/04/07
Billy Spakemon at Tipton Tory Club 21/10/04
Greg Stokes (2nd from right) with Lenny Henry, Mac Cooper and Al Perry, at the Hawthorns, West Bromwich for the filming of Lenny's Britain.
Louise Mary Stokes as 'Kimmy Sue' performing at Walsall Art Gallery, 27/04/07
John Summerton with Carl Chinn at The Mailbox, 17/12/06
Carol Ward at the launch of Happiness Is..., the Lamp Tavern, Dudley, 05/04/07
Julia Wareing, photograph from her book Pocketful of Memories - Acock's Green
ADVICE TO AUTHORS
The Kates Hill Press is a small press bringing out short runs of fiction, social history or poetry on a west midlands theme, or by a west midlands author. We publish rather than do print jobs for people. For all practical purposes, the Kates Hill Press comprises Greg Stokes, and his full time job is in the labs at City Hospital in Birmingham. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts and don't provide a reading service to give feedback on MSS.
If you are a west midlands author, or have written about a west midlands theme, we could be interested in considering your work for publication. Make contact with us in the first instance to discuss your project. However, there can be up to 12 books in progress at any one time and, realistically, it may be a year before we can even look at your work once we've stated an interest in your project. If this constraint is not a problem, please send a synopsis of your project and specimen chapters. Any work submitted should also be available on CD/disc/flashdrive, preferably as a Word document. We are no longer in a position to scan typescripts as this is very time consuming. (The exception to this would be an old M/S being considered as a Black Country Classic)
Above
all please be patient, all this takes time, often, a long time. If we say
we are going to do something, ultimately we will do it. One joker did get
uppity however because we didn't look at poems on his website!
If
the prospect of a long wait does not appeal, there
are several book available to assist people in producing their own books.
We used these titles to help us when we set up the Kates Hill Press.
The books are:-
The
Writer’s Guide to Self Publishing, Charlie Bell, Dragonfly Press, ISBN 0
951350 03 X
Get
Into Print by Christopher Stevens, New Caxton Press, ISBN 1 873898 05 3
You
might also like to bear in mind Poetry Wednesbury who have announced a project where they will desk
top publish an author’s work, producing a few copies.
Again however they would need
the material on CD/disc/flashdrive. Their
address is:-
Poetry
Wednesbury, 25 Griffiths Road, West Bromwich, B71 2EH
Another avenue of self publication which several local authors have used is www.lulu.com
And finally, The Kates Hill Press are publishers in the small press tradition. If we accept you, we publish you, your work will have an ISBN and be placed in the British Library. You will not have to pay a penny, and, unlike most other small presses, you will receive royalties (not much, but literary coin nonetheless), and commission on books you sell. Being published by a small press or self publishing is not to be confused with Vanity Publishing. These are the people who advertise in the press for new authors. They will attempt to extract large amounts of your hard earned cash from you and the Kates Hill Press advise you to avoid them at all costs.