Away Publications

A creative partnership

We are delighted to announce that we are linking with Away Publications - a small press founded by Peter Please, journal-writer, wayside traveller, storyteller, sculptor and gardener. Before Awen, there was Away - and Peter has been an inspiration to us. He once said, 'There is no front door into publishing.' Well, his initiative has proved, where there's a will, there's a way!

Having published 10 books (fiction and alternative travel) Peter is changing Away's direction, branching outwards & inwards, with his Concertina Books and other beautifully-made limited editions.

All of Away's titles can be found at:

http://www.peteralfredplease.co.uk/

Peter Please worked in English and Scottish journalism before training as an organic gardener at Findhorn in the mid-seventies. Then he worked for a while in therapeutic gardening. During the 1990s he was a storyteller in schools, museums, and woodlands. He has been made an Honorary Bard by the Druidic Gorsedd of Caer Badon (Bath). He has written novels, and the remarkable Holine trilogy, journals of his wandering and travel, and most recently Clattinger ...

'So this is a playful book of poetic sketches, my own sign/sing/nature of Nature, of twenty-six new words to record what I found. There just aren't enough words to describe the inside moments of our lives - yet all the time I have been looking at the real world, what's in front of me...'

Peter spent a year at Clattinger, Farm a SSSI flower meadow, recording its many quiet treasures in loving detail.

Of Concertina Books, Peter Please says: 'To all friends and supporters, Away Publications is changing. The micro press I established ten years ago featured my quartet of Holine travel books. These were a passionate rather than a commercial statement, and received critical acclaim from the fringe reviewers. The books made me many friends, and yet I felt there was something missing in their production. I wanted the books to be more talismanic, visually charming and quirky. Something which would be a pleasure to touch and to keep. Something more individual, without being too arty and exclusive—and expensive! I wanted to combine the old and the new technologies. I went to many courses last winter on hand-made books and sought out personal mentors, such as the artist Sean Borodale. I had great fun learning to cut papers, fold them with the grain, use kettle stitches to bind them into signatures. So these are my latest offerings—hybrid books combining hand-made features, such as block-printed covers, mould-made papers, with the flexibility of digital-Tec printing.'

 Clattinger: an alphabet of signs from nature

'...I don't know any writer more able than Please to convey us into the stillness, the breathing imminence of what may sometimes be a quite extraordinary byway of the land - fermenting the commonplace into experience we will never forget.' John Moat, Resurgence

This is a celebration of that near vanished type of grassland, the hay meadow. The book grew out of many visits to Clattinger Farm in North Wiltshire, a SSSI nature reserve where I was writer-in-residence for two years, sponsored by English Nature. This a playful book of poetic sketches – prose poems – my own sing/sign/signature of nature. Of 26 new words (with their meanings) to record what I found. There just aren’t enough words to describe the inside moments of our lives – yet all the time I have been looking at the real world of what’s in front of me. The graffiti is developed from my inscrutable handwriting. I exaggerated it until it had a life of its own. The book is a hybrid between the digital printing technology and hand-stitched papers and cover. An arty feel, yet accessible and friendly to open and read.

48 pages/198mm x 238mm ISBN 978-0-9530330-7-2 Published in an edition of 150 with a block printed cover by the artist, Sean Borodale.

Available from Away Publications  http://www.peteralfredplease.co.uk/