https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22362

In order to extend the conversation of our co-edited essay collection on independent Dublin publisher Tramp Press and its authors (forthcoming in spring 2027 with Syracuse UP), we invite contributions that discuss Tramp and other small presses in the context of recent social, political, and cultural transformations alongside contributions on individual Tramp and other small press authors. Perhaps you have read—or intend to read—significant recent contemporary Irish writing such as Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat, Sara Baume’s Seven Steeples, or Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones. Besides being globally successful and critically acclaimed, these books share another element: they were all published by Tramp Press. An independent publisher founded in Dublin in 2014 by Sarah Davis-Goff and Lisa Coen, Tramp’s lean size, relatively brief years of operation, and intentionally small annual output belie its outsized reputation. Tramp’s roster of mostly women writers has won nearly every major Irish and UK literary award (and forced significant changes in Booker Prize submission parameters), it has revived the careers of unjustly neglected writers, both past (through its reissue series) and present, it promotes work not traditionally considered “Irish” (e.g. period science fiction), and it challenges the relatively recent entrenchment of British-owned publishing conglomerates in Ireland. There are many fine studies of contemporary writing and women’s fiction in circulation. Often, however, the subject of who has brought such writing into the public sphere and by which means is omitted. By contrast, this roundtable will ask how writing is funded, nurtured, honed, promoted, and sold, making it of interest to anyone hoping to understand the success and reputation not just of Tramp but of the thriving small press sector in general.

Mary Burke (University of Connecticut-Storrs)

Tara Harney-Mahajan (Caldwell College)