Rows of Great Yarmouth: An interview with Red Herring Press

Juliet talks to poet and writer Lotte L.S. about Red Herring Press, which Lotte set up in 2020 to print, publish and distribute local writing in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. They discuss what Red Herring Press does; how it grew out of the COVID-19 lockdown; Lotte’s idea of ‘amateurising professionalism’ and the advantages of working outside a literary market; how cheap commercial rents and lack of affordable housing shape the Press, and the town’s arts scene more broadly; the Press’ Creative Writing workshops and publications; their membership model and how other local groups use their space; the town’s relationship with Norwich, a designated UNESCO City of Literature with the National Centre for Writing and the famous Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia; Great Yarmouth’s past as a fishing town, its recent history of deindustrialisation and migration, and how their publications draw on this; and Lotte’s long essay An Economy of Starlings (2024), responding to the election of Rupert Lowe as a Reform MP in 2024, and foundation of the far-right Restore Britain.

To subscribe to Red Herring Press and/or buy their publications, go to https://www.redherringpress.org/

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