Hiraeth Press is a publisher with a mission.
Poetry is the language of the Earth — not just poems but the slow flap of a heron’s wings across the sky, the lightning of its beak hunting in the shallow water; autumn leaves and the smooth course of water over stones and gravel. These, as much as poems, communicate the being and meaning of things. Our publications are all poetry, whether they are poems or nonfiction, and reflect the ideal that falling in love with the Earth is nothing short of revolutionary and that through our relationship to wild nature we can birth a more enlightened vision of life for the future. We are passionate about poetry as a means of returning the human voice to the polyphonic chorus of the wild.
We publish a wide range of books that deal with our relationship to the Earth and the revitalization of an ecologically viable spirituality fit for the planetary era. Although we specialize in poetry we also produce non-fiction books as well, such as the award winning The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality by Jason Kirkey and the Courting the Wild series edited by Jamie K. Reaser.
The Welsh word hiraeth encapsulates the spirit by which we strive and that the books we publish hope to inspire. A direct translation of the word might be something like “intense longing to belong,” though a more literary reading and a look at its role in medieval Welsh poetry reveals that it is a deep longing of the soul for one’s original homeland. Here at Hiraeth Press we believe that our collective human homeland are the still-wild places of the Earth. We long for a more ecologically and spiritually sane world and believe passionately that poetry is a form of activism on behalf of the more-than-human world.
Environmental Responsibility
At Hiraeth Press, we want to walk our talk. We endeavor to be as environmentally sustainable as possible, and will continue to raise our standards as we are able. All of our titles are printed by Lightning Source, Inc., the leading industry provider of Print on Demand books. This means that unlike traditional publishers we do not print thousands of copies of books in advance, thus ensuring that every book printed goes directly into the hands of a reader. This saves paper. Furthermore, all of Lightning Source’s books are printed on paper with chain of custody certification from the Forest Stewardship Council, Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. This ensures that, in every step of the process, from the tree to the reader’s hands, that the paper our books are printed on has come from sustainably managed forests. We also recognize that these certifications are imperfect at best and, wherever possible, better and more responsible choices will always be made. We want to be on the forefront of a dialogue about what the publishing industry will look like in an ecologically sustainable future.
About the Publishers
Jason Kirkey is an author, poet, and the founder of Hiraeth Press. He grew up in the Ipswich River-North Atlantic Coast watershed of Massachusetts. Inspired by the landscapes in which he has lived — the temperate forests and old mountains of New England, the red rocks and high desert of Colorado, Irish hills and sea — his work is permeated with an ecological sensibility. Whether poetry or prose, Jason’s words strive toward consonance with the ecosystem. He has written four volumes of poetry, including Estuaries and a nonfiction book, The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality. Jason is now working on his second nonfiction book and a graduate degree in conservation ecology. He lives in the Piedmont of North Carolina.
L.M. Browning grew up in a small fishing village in Connecticut where she began writing at the age of 15. A longtime student of Religion, Nature and Philosophy, these themes permeate her work. Raised a Catholic, she studied both the Traditional and Apocrypha doctrine before her spiritual search crossed into the other religions of the world, compelling her to investigate: Judaism, Tibetan Buddhism, Celtic Earth-Based Spirituality and Shamanism. Browning is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet. In 2010 she penned a three-title contemplative poetry series: Oak Wise: Poetry Exploring an Ecological Faith, Ruminations at Twilight: Poetry Exploring the Sacred and The Barren Plain: Poetry Exploring the Reality of the Modern Wasteland. Also in 2010, Browning became a partner at Hiraeth Press. She is an Associate Editor of the bi-annual e-publication, Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics. In addition, she is Founder/Lead-Editor of Homebound Press, an imprint of Hiraeth Press, devoted to fiction. Balancing her love of writing with her love of learning, she is currently working for a degree in Philosophy through The University of London External Programme.
J. Kay MacCormack is the editor for Hiraeth Press’ semi-annual publication: Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics. Besides editing and writing, she studies and researches emotion in the disciplines of psychology and anthropology. Previously, she lived for four years in North Wales, UK, where she studied Welsh language and literature before returning to make her home in the Neuse River basin of North Carolina. She discovered written language at the age of three and has been writing ever since, merging her love of people, places and psychology together in the form of poetry and prose. A bioregionalist, Ms. MacCormack’s main artistic interests center around the human-place relationship.
We donate 1% of our yearly profits to an Eco-Charity. The 2012 charity is the International Appalachian Trail.