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 and friends include Alan Fielden, Rich James, Joseph Haigh, Joe Hales, John Newton. Website photographs are by Liam Chilton.

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.

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Monitor commits to adhering to the Palestinian international call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and to complying with the underlying guidelines for the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

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), East Bristol Books, Five Leaves Bookshop (Nottingham), Good Press (Glasgow), The Hastings Bookshop (Hastings), La Bibliotheka (Sheffield), 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), PAGE NOT FOUND (The Hague), 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.

The 2024 shortlist for the short-form category are Aisha Farr, Remi Graves, Krystle Patel, and Milo Thesiger-Meacham. Remi Graves was announced as the winner of the 2024 prize, and we look forward to publishing their work coal in 2025.