Lots of news!

I have lots of lovely news to share right now, and I’m really excited about where Mother’s Milk Books is going!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the next book we’re going to publish is a poetry collection entitled Look At All The Women by Cathy Bryant. I’ve long been a fan of Cathy’s poetry so I’m really pleased that I get to be the publisher who produces her second book of poetry. Cathy is also an accomplished performance poet, and also happens to be a lovely (and very funny) lady so it’s been great to work with her on this collection.

One of my favourite areas of book production is cover design. I can’t quite reveal the cover of Look At All The Women, but I can say that I’ve been working with an amazing mama-artist who has created something simply stunning. We’ll be revealing the final design very soon!

Reviews for Musings and Mothering and Letting Go, by Angela Topping, keep on coming in with Saffia Farr, editor of Juno, recently writing:

“Letting Go is a wonderful anthology of poems reflecting on family life through the generations. They are funny, perceptive and sad. ‘Last Gifts’, about a mother dying, is desperately poignant, with strong emotions portrayed through simple words and phrases. Reading this book reminded me, again, to treasure and enjoy my family as they are now.”

Musings on Mothering continues to get glowing reviews (with 8 out of 10 reviews being ‘5 starred’ on Amazon.co.uk). Lucy Pearce from Dreaming Aloud also recently reviewed the book saying:

“This book is a celebration of motherhood, attachment parenting and breastfeeding. An impressive collection of writing, poetry and art on the theme of motherhood. The talent of the contributors was humbling, and much of the poetry and art truly breathtaking, each expressing in their own unique way the ineffable nature of motherhood. Sensitive, reflective and beautifully compiled – it brought me to tears many times.”

You can read her full review here (which also includes reviews of lots of other wonderful books on mothering).

I also had Diane Wiessinger, co-author of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, contact me recently to say some very complimentary things about Musings on Mothering (which makes me grin from ear to ear since Diane is one of my favourite writers, and of course The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding is one of my favourite books!).

It’s incredibly heartening to be getting these fab reviews, so I hope they encourage you to stop over at a certain store… (that’s The Mother’s Milk Bookshop, by the way (!) where these books are currently on offer) or to visit any one of our fab stockists.

In addition to all this loveliness I’ve been interviewed twice in the past month: over at WriteWords (which is chock-full of useful resources and encouraging words for writers – if you’re an aspiring writer go check them out!) and: Beautiful Misbehaviour. I was delighted to have been asked by Stephanie Arsoska of Beautiful Misbehaviour to take part in her series of interviews on ‘creativity and motherhood’ (other interviewees have been author Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Holly McNish –  so I’m in good company!) and you can read the full interview here.

I’ve been inundated with many great submissions so far (the fairy tale book is almost full now – although there’s still time to submit a short story if you think you have something suitable) and I really hope to be able to make 2014 the year that I publish more than one book! It’s all very exciting, and if you want to be a part of it, do keep tuning in to the blog or say hello on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you again for all your support.