Labello Press - Independent Publisher of Short Fiction
On June 30 2011, after he fell, my 80 year-old father Leonard A. Koval was placed on life support. He never woke again. The abruptness of his death, especially because we lived in different countries and I wasn't able to be there, left me devastated. My life changed. Turned around. Everything that came in the time before wiped clean. I was left staring into the void of another blank page.
While the idea to begin a Small Press had been floating around in the back of my mind for years, his death was the catalyst to launch Labello Press, an independent publisher based in Ireland.
As a published author, playwright and artist continually trying to break through the armoured doors of agents and publishers, I am overwhelmed with not only the difficulty of this enormous task, but with the staggering (and confusing) amount of online publishing options available to writers.
Although I have invested time and energy writing a blog, that's as far into online publishing as I'm prepared to venture. I cherish books, real books, paper, print, and binding. So, the desicion to create real books that will live on in this technology-dominant era made sense.
The aim of Labello Press is to publish beautiful books, the first of which will be our annual anthology"Gem Street", containing unique, well-written and thought-provoking previously unpublished short stories. We are looking for writing with guts and honesty. Humour is appreciated. Simplicity is foremost. Bravery is key.
We honour and respect the commitment, hard work and frustration that is a part of every writer's journey and want you to know that we value every submission we receive.
In conjunction with this publication, we will award the Leonard A. Koval Memorial Prize to the three stories which most reflect the ethos of Labello Press, as stated above. In addtion, we will award prizes to the short-listed stories included in the anthology. We believe, as my father did, in fairness and equality. We do not hold ourselves above and certainly do not believe in "better than."
We like to think of it as "different to."
Please join us on this adventure.
Deborah McMenamy
While the idea to begin a Small Press had been floating around in the back of my mind for years, his death was the catalyst to launch Labello Press, an independent publisher based in Ireland.
As a published author, playwright and artist continually trying to break through the armoured doors of agents and publishers, I am overwhelmed with not only the difficulty of this enormous task, but with the staggering (and confusing) amount of online publishing options available to writers.
Although I have invested time and energy writing a blog, that's as far into online publishing as I'm prepared to venture. I cherish books, real books, paper, print, and binding. So, the desicion to create real books that will live on in this technology-dominant era made sense.
The aim of Labello Press is to publish beautiful books, the first of which will be our annual anthology"Gem Street", containing unique, well-written and thought-provoking previously unpublished short stories. We are looking for writing with guts and honesty. Humour is appreciated. Simplicity is foremost. Bravery is key.
We honour and respect the commitment, hard work and frustration that is a part of every writer's journey and want you to know that we value every submission we receive.
In conjunction with this publication, we will award the Leonard A. Koval Memorial Prize to the three stories which most reflect the ethos of Labello Press, as stated above. In addtion, we will award prizes to the short-listed stories included in the anthology. We believe, as my father did, in fairness and equality. We do not hold ourselves above and certainly do not believe in "better than."
We like to think of it as "different to."
Please join us on this adventure.
Deborah McMenamy
