Monitor Books is a publication platform for poetry, etc., founded in 2019. We publish necessary, idiosyncratic writing in bespoke editions.
The press is edited by Rory Cook and Rachael Allen. Designers, friends, accomplices include Alan Fielden, Rich James, Joseph Haigh, Joe Hales, John Newton.
Monitor previously ran Murmur Reading Series, a programme of occasional live events in Manchester and beyond. Monitor is currently running ‘Feature’, a series of events inviting interactions between the worlds of art, poetry, music; ‘Feature’ is organised by Rory Cook and Alan Fielden.
Stockists
London – Arcadia Missa, Burley Fisher Bookshop, BOOKS Peckham, Cafe OTO, Camden Art Centre, The Common Press, Housmans Bookshop, ICA Bookshop, London Centre for Book Arts, London Review Bookshop, Pages of Hackney, Presse Books/Forma HQ, South London Gallery Bookshop, Tenderbooks.
UK – Bookhaus (Bristol), The De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill), Five Leaves Bookshop (Nottingham), Good Press (Glasgow), The Hastings Bookshop (Hastings), Lyall’s Bookshop (Todmorden), Modern Art Gallery Oxford, Penthos and Pathos (Manchester), Peste {AD England} (Manchester), Public House (Birmingham), Rare Mags (Stockport), The Towner (Eastbourne).
EU – a.p. (Berlin), Hopscotch (Berlin), The Library Project (Dublin), Perdu (Amsterdam), rile* books (Brussels), Rotor Books (Leipzig), San Serriffe (Amsterdam).
Submissions
Submissions are currently closed.
Prototype Prize
Monitor is pleased to partner with Prototype and frieze on the Prototype Prize, a new, biennial prize for writers and artists working at the intersections of different literary and artistic forms.
The prize awards £3,000 plus publication by Prototype to the best book-length project by a writer or artist resident in the UK or Ireland. Another prize of £2,000 plus publication by Monitor Books will be awarded to the best proposal for a short-form work. Both prize-winners will have an excerpt of their work published by frieze.
The judges for the inaugural prize are Bhanu Kapil, Tom McCarthy and Elizabeth Price, who will work alongside an editorial board from the publishers.
Submissions will open in January 2024. Find full details here.