UK Poetry Publishers Anvil & Carcanet to Merge

According to The Bookseller, UK poetry publishing houses Carcanet (located in Manchester) and Anvil (Greenwich) will merge: Carcanet will assume full responsibility of the Anvil list. The publishers intend to "publish from Manchester 'the most diverse world poetry list in the United Kingdom'." More:

Greenwich-based Anvil Press Poetry and Manchester-based Carcanet were founded in the late 1960s (1968 and 1969) and originated from poetry magazines, New Measure and Carcanet respectively. They have each operated under the direction of their founders, Peter Jay at Anvil Poetry Press and Michael Schmidt at Carcanet, for over four decades. The two presses have many common attributes and share authors and as well as an international outlook, and commitment to translation and to Anglophone poetry from around the world.

The companies said there were no implications for staff in the merger since "last man standing" at Anvil, Peter Jay, is retiring to turn his attention to writing and translation projects. Carcanet's founder Michael Schmidt told The Bookseller: "We've always exchanged notes and and really been quite close - and never quite competing as it's complementary - so it's been a very natural process.

[...]

Carcanet produce between 30 and 45 new titles a year, while Anvil’s smaller operation publishes between six and 10.

Between them, Carcanet and Anvil have six Nobel laureates and more than a dozen Pulitzer Prize-winners. Carcanet's poets last year won the Forward Prize and the T.S. Eliot Award, and as a press it has received the IPG Alison Morrison Diversity Award and was shortlisted for the Inkubate Trade Publisher of the Year Award and the Bookseller Best Independent Publisher Award. [...]

And more at The Bookseller.