GloriaSMH is a new independent press which publishes for you the best poetry and prose from new and established authors. These are usually Australian-born, but not always. Its poetry catalogue, launched in April 2016, is already strong, featuring award-winning, highly respected poets, alongside younger poets.
Co-founder and Publisher is Jacinta Le Plastrier, formerly Publisher at the prestigious John Leonard Press. Co-founder and Associate Publisher is Dr Kieran Le Plastrier, who is also a medical practitioner. Sophie Gaur is the designer.
Each title will be distinctively designed and of high production value, approached as the rare object that a book of best writing is.
As the publication list for 2016-2018 is complete, we will not be considering unsolicited submissions at this time.
“Nothing to be done” is the opening line of Samuel Beckett’s best-known play, Waiting for Godot. Yet, when faced with the German occupation of France and confronted by what the Nazis were doing to his Jewish friends in 1941, Beckett himself joined a Paris-based cell of British SOE (Special Operations Executive) named “Gloria SMH”. “You simply couldn’t stand by with your arms folded,” Beckett said firmly to me.
Gloria SMH was set up and led by a French chemist from the Institut Curie in Paris called Jacques Legrand (code name “SMH”) and the daughter of the Cubist painter Francis Picabia, Jeannine (code name “Gloria”). – SMH is His Majesty’s Service backwards.
Bair, Deirdre, Samuel Beckett: A Biography p312