Oh, sorry. WHERE have we been for the last year? It’s a good question. Thanks to the pandemic, Jon and K have been in London, Durham, Derbyshire, Buckinghamshire – all over the shop really.
This has meant an unofficial Sidekick Books hiatus throughout 2020 and halfway through 2021. Like a lot of small presses we’ve looked at the pandemic situation with a furrowed brow, and held off making concrete plans for future projects until now.

What this means is, now we know a little bit more about why we find certain aspects of publishing and, y’know, general moving through the world, especially difficult. That’s information we can work with to make Sidekick Books even better.

There were stacks of excellent readings – many folk really playing with the Zoom format as a new tool for creative performance. Our Sidekick champions were Ian McLachlan (Confronting the Danger of Art, Bad Kid Catullus), Rowyda Amin (We Go Wandering at Night and Are Consumed By Fire, No, Robot, No!), JT Welsch, (Hell Creek Anthology) and Chelsea Cargill (Aquanauts).
Presses featured were: Bad Betty Press, Out-Spoken Press, Stewed Rhubarb Press, Broken Sleep Books, Guillemot Books, The Emma Press, flipped eye publishing, Lifeboat Press, Burning Eye Books, Hesterglock Press, HVTN Press (Haverthorn Press), Hajar Press, Verve Poetry Press and Hercules Editions.
So what’s next?
New books and calls for submissions!
In the grand Sidekick tradition, we’re planning several gorgeous, playful themed collaborative books for release in 2022. Some will be pocket rockets and some will be big old beasts. There will be hidden messages, miniature games, love, hate and inventions aplenty.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or sign up to our mailing list for new submissions calls.

That’s us up to date for now. Thanks, as ever, for your support in these strange times. Onward to new adventures!