...was set up in 1998 with an aim to publish books for young people. Books that gave an over-the-shoulder glance towards the traditional while, at the same time, being entertaining in contemporary ways. Books in which young people could recognise themselves and a world they wanted to lose themselves in. Books that would also draw on the best traditions of beautiful and historic literature.

The imprint was inspired by the best traditions of indie anything, with echoes of all those shallow bays where odd individuals and little groups sought to do something a bit different. Its name came from knowing what it's like to get or give a book as a present, that packaging of some small part of one's self and saying to someone in all sincerity, here you are, it's for you, a gift.

Love Writes

Embarrassing or what! A crush I can’t cure, love poems I can’t stop writing. No-one must ever, ever know. And no-one does — er — not until my oh so young adult friends decide that EVERYONE online should read my romantic verses.

Why do friends think they know what’s best for your love-life?

For a while it feels like the world’s laughing at my soul. But wait. Maybe there’s a way out of the embarrassment ... the school’s hottest actor guy is reading them. And he’s a poetic spirit, surely. Can my next words win me this mad, bad, dangerous romance? Or is that first crush always just too deeply tangled to ever let you go?

What happens when your dignity is gone? How do you find your voice when your words are being stolen? And what’s next in my doomed romantic comedy of a teenaged life? The maddest, saddest Valentine’s party — the sacrifice for a friend my loved-one loves. Silent suffering, foolish hopes … or (just maybe) faith in myself and that deliciously longed for triumph.

Join me, Chloe Owen, for this crazy year on the gooey side of poetry and the troubled side of love.