Origins

Influx Press was conceived, with immaculate taste, after several pints in an old Hackney boozer. Gary Budden and I (Kit Caless) had been watching the demography and geography of our borough change faster than a hipster's haircut. We were plastered and ranted about how current literature in London wasn't picking this up quick enough. A sliver of silence fell between us, a sudden moment of lucidity emerged and Gary suggested we publish a book of stories about Hackney.

I don't think we really knew what that meant at the time, but what followed was a long process of gathering stories and poems from writers we admired, open submissions and some talented friends. We took the manuscript to some publishers but the subject matter was deemed too niche. It was after this we decided to set up a press to publish the book. It turned out it wasn't too niche and sold really well! Off the back of the success of Acquired for Development By, we published a poetry collection and this year we have two more paperback books and four eBooks coming. We even have a desk in a shared office and a jar of freeze-dried coffee that we put on expenses.

What do we stand for?

Because we don't like sitting down. ZING! *tap tap*… Hello, is this thing on?

Namely what we term Site-specific literature, that is, writing that has a specific location. Be that Hackney, the Kent coast, public transport or the ghost estates of the dead Celtic Tiger.

We want to build a catalogue of books that delve deeply into precise areas of our culture and physical space. We look for deep maps, geofiction and writing that blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction. At Influx we think that fiction and fact are not so set apart as people would believe. We like to create a factual environment from a fictional perspective. Stories sometimes tell us more about a place than the environment we see in front of us.

We're interested in writing that addresses issues of gentrification, social cleansing, the battle between private and public space, wild nature in urban settings and liminal spaces.

Gary, for his sins, loves ornithology. My interests lie in how peaty my whisky is.

Who we publish?

Acquired for Development By features writing from the likes of Lee Rourke, Siddartha Bose, Molly Naylor, Gavin James Bower and illustrations from Laura Oldfield Ford. There are also a number of brilliant pieces from lesser-known writers such as David Dawkins, Andrea Watts and Nell Frizzell.

Life in Transit is an acerbic, but ultimately uplifting poetry collection by Sam Berkson, an veteran of the performance poetry scene and agitator for a better world. We love Sam's work, absolutely love it.

Our next anthology Connecting Nothing with Something, due August 2013 is set in the south east coast of England. It features writers such as Salena Godden, Travis Elborough, Katrina Naomi, Rowena McDonald, Chimene Suleyman and Dan Cockrill. We're excited about this collection as it moves us away from our previous London focus.

Following the coastal anthology will be a novel by Gareth E Rees, who writes a popular blog called the Marshman Chronicles and illustrated by Ada Jusic. Marshland - Dreams and Nightmares at the edge of London, is the history of the east London marshes told through fictions, deep maps, drawings, sketches, reportage, rumour and psychedelia. We feel this book is really pushing the novel in new directions.

At the same time as these paperback releases we are producing our first short eBook series of essays based on place. These eBooks will be released monthly from August onwards and later collected into a paperback.

Novelist Joe Stretch is writing about a walk from the old Maine Road stadium in Moss Side to the new, gleaming Eithad Stadium in Manchester. Lee Rourke and Tim Burrows are traveling from Southend-on-Sea to Walthamstow and back. Urban geographers Emma Cummins and Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau are writing about the abandoned new housing estates in Ireland, exploring the ghosts of capitalism. Poet Polar Bear and academic Chris Prendergrast are writing about the impact of the Bull Ring shopping centre on the Birmingham psyche.

More essays will follow, but we want to make sure these ones work first!