Today is the 20th anniversary of Swan River Press.
I started the press in 2003 almost as an afterthought. The first few publications were palm-sized, hand-sewn chapbooks, written by myself and illustrated by Duane Spurlock, Jeff Roche, and Meggan Kehrli (who still designs our hardbacks). The idea was pretty simple: I wanted to write a ghost story to send to friends and family at Halloween, a bit like a greeting card, but far more elaborate. The result was The Old Tailor & the Gaunt Man, a tale that was published in Ash Tree Press’s award-winning anthology, Acquainted with the Night. This chapbook was followed by The Snow Came Softly Down, which I issued the subsequent year for the yuletide season.
Right from the start, as I mentioned earlier, I jotted “Swan River Press” on the copyright pages of these publications, not really intending to make a serious go at publishing. And yet here we are. If you want to know why I chose Swan River Press as a name, there is an entire blog post about it.
These chapbooks were followed by three series of booklets, A5 in size, some staple-bound and others hand-sewn. There was the Haunted Histories Series, which allowed me to work with a few contemporary writers whose stories I’d been enjoying at the time, while the Stoker Series and Le Fanu Series were ways to stretch my editorial, design, and research skills a bit more. Why the format change from chapbook to booklet? Well, the chapbooks took an inordinate amount of time to create. If you’ve got one, you’re lucky! The booklets were easier to do as they didn’t require as much precise cutting and folding. I won’t be doing chapbooks again any time soon.
By 2010 I’d published Swan River’s first hardback book, Rosalie Parker’s debut collection, The Old Knowledge. Both Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker of Tartarus Press, have been instrumental to Swan River over the years, not only for their friendship, but also for their sage advice and guidance as I made the shift from handcrafted publications to something more substantial. Old knowledge indeed! But really, isn’t that the way these things should work?
Swan River’s hardback line initially focused on contemporary writers, but gradually started to incorporate classic reprints as well as unearthing Irish works of supernatural and fantastic literature. I was keen on working with writers I admire, as well as the press being able to accommodate the explorations I was making into Irish genre writing. I’ve found more than enough material to be excited about and to keep us going . . .
While much writing made it into the hardback publications, not everything could be given such treatment. Inspired by Tartarus Press’s journal Wormwood, in 2013 I launched The Green Book, a journal dedicated to stray writing concerning Irish gothic, supernatural, and fantastical literature. Which means this year is our journal’s 10th anniversary.
Swan River Press operated from Rathmines since the beginning, first from a flat on Leinster Road, and then a small house on Alma Terrace. In October 2022 I moved to a small cottage down a quiet lane in a less frequented quarter of Dublin’s city centre. I’ve named the cottage Æon House after the mystic poet and painter A.E. (George William Russell). In addition to his own writing, I’ve always admired his talent as a publisher, editor, and facilitator, one who fostered writers and the literature they produced. Not a bad patron saint. A portrait of A.E. (by William Orpen) now hangs in my office, just beside the original riverine head artwork by Duane Spurlock that we now use as our logo.
I’m truly grateful for the opportunities the press has given me over the years; the privilege to publish the books I have, to work with writers, artists, editors, and designers, to say nothing of the readers who give me a reason to continue publishing. I’ve made many friends and my life has been greatly enriched by all this. It’s hard to overstate the impact of people turning up on your doorstep the way they have mine.
I just wanted to take the opportunity with this blog post to thank all of you for the support you’ve shown over the years. I’ve always striven to produce the highest quality I’m capable of offering, and I’m fairly certain the Swan River team, past and present, has maintained that these past two decades. It’s not always been easy. There has always been hard work and certainly much sacrifice. Whatever the case, here we are. There’s more work to be done. I’m prepared to carry on. And I promise I’ll get around to writing a bibliography one of these days.
While we’ll all have our favourites, below is a list send in by some of our longtime readers. If you’d like to send me your list, please do and I’ll add it to this post.
Thanks again, folks! You’ve no idea how much this milestone means to me.
Brian J. Showers
Æon House
31 October 2023
Ross Byrne, Ireland
Here’s to Swan River Press, raising a glass of Kilbeggan to you guys, many more! Top Five would be:
1. The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson)
2. Green Tea (J. S. Le Fanu)
3. Uncertainties V (ed. Brian J. Showers)
4. Agents of Oblivion (Iain Sinclair)
5. The Death Spancel (Katharine Tynan)
John Birchall, United Kingdom
Many congratulations, Brian. It is always exciting when you announce a new title and the production standards have been consistently superb. Very difficult to choose five, but looking at the shelves these seemed to leap out:
1. Strange Epiphanies (Peter Bell)
2. Earth-Bound (Dorothy Macardle)
3. The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson)
4. Ghosts of the Chit -Chat (ed. Robert Lloyd Parry)
5. Dreams of Shadow and Smoke (eds. Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers)
Jason E. Rolfe, Canada
Here are my top-10 favourites (in no particular order):
1. Dreams of Shadow and Smoke (ed. Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers)
2. The Lure of the Unknown (Algernon Blackwood)
3. Insect Literature (Lafcadio Hearn)
4. The Satyr & Other Tales (Stephen J. Clark)
5. Uncertainties V (ed. Brian J. Showers)
6. Bending to Earth (eds. Maria Giakaniki and Brian J. Showers)
7. Leaves for the Burning (Mervyn Wall)
8. The Pale Brown Thing (Fritz Leiber)
9. Earth-Bound (Dorothy Macardle)
10. The Silver Voices (John Howard)
Franco Ivaldi, Italy
1. The Anniversary of Never (Joel Lane)
2. The Far Tower (ed. Mark Valentine)
3. Strange Epiphanies (Peter Bell)
4. Here with the Shadows (Steve Rasnic Tem)
5. You’ll Know When You Get There (Lynda E. Rucker)
Anabel Portillo, United Kingdom
1. Green Tea (J. S. Le Fanu)
2. A Flutter of Wings (Mervyn Wall)
3. Bending to Earth (eds. Maria Giakaniki and Brian J. Showers)
4. The Sea Change (Helen Grant)
5. Old Hoggen (Bram Stoker)
Bonus Track: Old Albert by our fearless leader
Alex Blakk, Italy
I favorite the classic Goth and in Italy doesn’t exist a Le Fanu collection, really appreciate that with the CD too! The hard cover editions are really amazing! Wonderful job!
1. Green Tea (J. S. Le Fanu)
2. Reminiscences of a Bachelor (J. S. Le Fanu)
3. Leaves for the Burning (Mervyn Wall)
4. The House of the Borderlands (William Hope Hodgson)
5. Insect Literature (Lafcadio Hearn)
Andrew Sherwell, United Kingdom
Congratulations, Swan River Press. Twenty years old. Damn impressive and testament to the astute vision and hard work of editor, chief cook, and bottle washer, Brian J. Showers. Of consistently high literary merit, each publication from SRP is also a thing of beauty that deserves, indeed begs, to be read. Not many publishers can say that. But there in lies the problem, at least when it comes to this particular exercise, choosing my five favourite SRP releases. My first list featured seven choices. My second, nine, but only three that had made the first list. Things got truly out of hand as I blazed through the third, fourth and fifth versions. At the limit of frustration, and rather cross with myself, I made a discovery. There were only three selections that made each list. Many made several, but only three made them all. So, here you have it, my three favourite Swan River Press publications. Definitely.
1. Agents of Oblivion by Iain Sinclair, illustrations by Dave McKean (May 2023)—Mad and maddening, Agents of Oblivion is classic Sinclair. Equal parts headache inducing and enlightening, fact and fiction, fun and hard work. I’ve read it three times since it came out and I’m still not sure I’ve got anywhere near the bottom of it. Love it.
2. The Satyr by Stephen J. Clark (July 2015)—The only SRP paperback that I own. I’m still kicking myself I didn’t get the hardback; I don’t know what came over me. I often find myself thinking about the tales told within—strongly evocative of time and place with a post-decadence (is that a thing?) feel.
3. The Green Book 19 edited by Brian J. Showers (Bealtaine 2022)—The Green Book is always a fascinating read but this one is my favourite. The Celtic Literary Revival links most of the articles and in particular, the gently messianic influence of A.E., George William Russell. Fascinating insights into his life and times, and directly responsible for me spending too much money on books from the period, books which I had hitherto not known I needed quite so badly.
Happy Birthday, Swan River Press, and thank you. Cake?
[In 2014, for the bicentennial celebration of Le Fanu’s birth, my friend Catie made spectacular green tea cupcakes. – BJS]
Tommy Atkinson, United Kingdom
So many wonderful books to choose from but my absolute favourites:
1. Ghosts of the Chit-Chat (ed. Robert Lloyd Parry)
2. Eyes of Terror (L. T. Meade)
3. Munky (B. Catling)
4. Curfew (Lucy M. Boston)
5. The Satyr (Stephen J. Clark)
Keep up the good work!
Daniel McGachey, United Kingdom
1. The Sea Change (Helen Grant)
2. Strange Epiphanies (Peter Bell)
3. Curfew (Lucy M. Boston)
4. Ghosts of the Chit-Chat (ed. Robert Lloyd Parry)
5. The Pale Brown Thing (Fritz Leiber)
All resonate to some degree with my more Jamesian interests (or obsession?) . . .
James Everington, United Kingdom
1. Uncertainties 5 (ed. Brian J. Showers)
2. You’ll Know When You Get There (Lynda E. Rucker)
3. The House On The Borderland* (William Hope Hodgson)
4. The Dummy (Nicholas Royle)
5. Treatises On Dust (Timothy J. Jarvis)
* I feel that, for the sake of my weird fiction street-credibility, I must say of course I’d already read this before I ordered from you, I just wanted a decent edition rather than the dodgy one I had, as I consider it an utter masterpiece.
David Johnson, United States
Thank you so much for the gift you’ve shared with me, all of these stories, all of this art, music, the ideas, the connections. Finding Swan River Press some five or six years ago has been incredible! It’s definitely shaped my idea of what I want from a small press and who and what I read in general. The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson) was my first, I got it from Jon Mueller’s shop, Within Things. I’d never read any version of it before, but reading Swan River’s production with Jon’s soundtrack in my earphones on repeat was transportive.
My five favourite books I’ve read in the catalogue (The House on the Borderland stands apart) are as follows:
1. The Dark Return of Time (R. B. Russell). Forget about The Club Dumas, this is much more satisfying biblio-noir!
2. The Unfortunate Fursey and The Return of Fursey (Mervyn Wall). Monks in trouble is my favourite micro genre! Great satire as well. Munky (B. Catling) is a very close runner up!
3. Selected Stories and Seventeen Stories (Mark Valentine). Yeah, yeah, these are two different collections. It’s hard to read just a little Valentine though. Once you start . . .
4. Curfew & Other Eerie Tales (Lucy M. Boston). This stuff is just somehow superior!
5. Now It’s Dark (Lynda E. Rucker). This short collection references and alludes to everything from Christina Rossetti to H. P. Lovecraft, all of my favourite things!
5.1 The Satyr & Other Tales (Stephen J. Clark). So cinematic, such great imagery, written and otherwise.
5.2 The Far Tower (ed. Mark Valentine). Okay I’ll stop.
5.3 The Pale Brown Thing (Fritz Leiber). Now I’m done.
Below are my top five most excited To-Be-Read volumes:
1. Longsword (Thomas Leland)
2. The Scarlet Soul (ed. Mark Valentine)
3. Here with the Shadows (Steve Rasnic Tem)
4. The Silver Voices and Written By Daylight (John Howard)
5. Lucifer and the Child (Ethel Mannin)
But starting tomorrow, I’m gonna dive into November Night Tales (Henry C. Mercer)!
Mick Curtis, United Kingdom
Swan River Press has always been a beacon of quality in the sometimes murky world of publishing. My top five:
1. The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson)
2. Ghosts of the Chit-Chat (ed. Robert Lloyd Parry)
3. The Sea Change (Helen Grant)
4. Leaves for the Burning (Mervyn Wall)
5. The Anniversary of Never (Joel Lane)
Patrick Petterson, Norway
Five titles that showcase Swan River Press’ love and care for the classic ghostly & weird alongside a keen eye for brilliant, contemporary authors that keep the genre fresh and exciting. Here’s to another 20 years of Swan River Press!
1. Strange Epiphanies (Peter Bell)
2. Green Tea (J. S. Le Fanu)
3. The Sea Change (Helen Grant)
4. Selected Poems (A.E.)
5. The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson)
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