News

Angus at CountryStride
To mark the 100th episode of their truly inspiring podcast COUNTRYSTRIDE, celebrating the landscapes, culture, heritage and people of the Lake District and Cumbria, producer Dave Felton and presenter Mark Richards are inviting fans to join them at a live event in...
Cumbria Life in August
I'm really enjoying the August edition of Cumbria Life and I wonder why I don't get it every month. Whenever I do buy it I know I'll find it packed full of great articles, excellent journalism and awe-inspiring photography. There's so much to read and It sits on our...
WELCOME BACK!
Welcome everybody to our new-look website, designed by Russell Holden at Pixeltweaks in Ulverston. I apologise to followers of Handstand Press who have been unable to access our site on the web in recent months. Since 2020 there has been something of a hiatus, during...
The COVID effect – We’re not giving up!
2020 has been the most most challenging year in the history of publishing. COVID-19 arrived without warning and, in our case, lockdown came at a critical point in the life of Angus Winchester’s book , THE LANGUAGE OF THE LANDSCAPE. We worked hard to have the book...
MY CUMBRIAN LANDSCAPE
Our latest book, THE LANGUAGE OF THE LANDSCAPE – A Journey into Lake District History, has had an enormous effect on the way I look at the landscape in Dentdale, where I have lived for just over twelve years. I will always be an ‘off-comer’, but during that time I...
2020 – A TIME LIKE NO OTHER
It’s hard to post a news update from Handstand Press in such an extraordinary time. The world is in a state of paralysis as we face a pandemic of cataclysmic proportions. Nothing is normal. How could we have guessed as 2020 dawned that we would shortly be facing a...
GONE TO PRINT
Angus Winchester’s wonderful book, THE LANGUAGE OF THE LANDSCAPE, A Journey into Lake District History, has gone to print. It is a satisfying moment – the culmination of at least six months quite intensive work. Publication date is 8th November and we are very much...
PRIZE WINNERS!
Prize Day at the Lakeland Book of the Year Awards 2019 BOOKENDS AWARD FOR POETRY AND LITERATURE. Here we are, Kerry, Kim and I at the Lakeland Book of the Year awards, celebrating our win on behalf of the 93 brilliant poets whose work was published last year in THIS...
2019 – Another busy year
Wonderful news! I hear from the offices of Cumbria Tourism that THIS PLACE I KNOW is on the shortlist for The Lakeland Book of the Year award. I am thrilled to bits. It is a tribute to the talented poets of the county and my fellow editors, Kim and Kerry, that we were...
Poetry Rollercoaster
The events to launch THIS PLACE I KNOW have been a whole lot of fun and utterly inspiring. Any doubts I might have had as to whether this anthology truly represented the spirit of 21st Century Cumbrian poetry evaporated as, at every event from Maryport to Kendal,...
THIS PLACE I KNOW is published
I am thrilled to announce that THIS PLACE I KNOW, A new anthology of Cumbrian Poetry, was published on October 1st. Exciting times! Kerry Darbishire, Kim Moore and I have spent a busy year gathering together the very best contemporary poetry by writers from every...
A Poem and A Pint – Faces of the Poets
It was another wonderful night of poetry in Ulverston on 17th February at A Poem and Pint. The initial regret that the guest poet, Joanne Limburg, had flu and had had to cancel was soon forgotten as the committee stepped up to the microphone. Poems ranged from Mark...