A Brief Chat with Bluemoose Books
Bluemoose Books is an award-winning independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. Kevin and Hetha Duffy started Bluemoose in 2006 and as a ‘family’ of readers and writers, they’re passionate about the written word. Stories are transformative and as publishers, they delight in finding great new talent. They don’t have the heft of a London publishing house, with the millions of pounds to promote their writers, but they do manage through innovative marketing to get their books into high street bookstores and reviewed in the national press. If you’re looking for orange-headed celebrity books, you’ve probably come to the wrong place. But if you want brilliant stories that have travelled from Hebden Bridge, across the border into Lancashire, down to London, across to Moscow, Sofia and Budapest and into the United States, Australia, India, Colombia and Greenland, Iceland and Bosnia Herzegovina, then Bluemoose is the publisher for you.
Hello, Kevin. Who is your favourite author?
The author I go back to more than most is PG Wodehouse, but I love, Sjon, Barry Hines and early Robert Rankin and, of course, the whole Bluemoose family of writers.
What is your favourite book?
A Kestrel For a Knave by Barry Hines.
What made you start the press?
To find and publish new writers and stories from working-class and disadvantaged backgrounds.
What is the best advice you can give people who are considering submitting work to Bluemoose?
Write what you want to read.
Thank you, Kevin, for those short and straight-to-the-point answers!
Bluemoose Books produces some of the best and most innovative books in the north of England and beyond. Panenka by Rónán Hession was short-listed for The An Post Irish Novel of The Year 2021 and also for The British Book Awards Book of The Year. Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession has been chosen by Dublin, UNESCO City of Literature, as Book of The Year 2021. It was short-listed for The Booksellers Association, #BooksAreMyBag awards, The An Post Irish Book Awards, emerging writer. The Kerry Group Irish Novel Award 2020. The Dalkey Literary Awards, emerging writer 2020. The Society of Authors McKitterick Prize 2020 for a debut by an author over 40 and The British Book Awards 2020, debut of the year. The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers won the world's leading literary prize for historical fiction, the £25k Walter Scott Prize in 2018. Ghost Signs by Stu Hennigan has exploded onto the non-fiction scene and rocked people’s perspectives about the state of modern Britain. Bluemoose has bought these and many other great novels into the world and you should seek out their books as soon as you can.
Thank you for reading this month’s Brief Chat.
Elliot