From its inception in 2016, Guillemot Press has been committed to the pamphlet form. Nadira Wallace's pamphlet Sidekicks for Clouds, from this year, is a sublime example of what can happen when a careful attention is paid to design and materials. It shows the careful attention Guillemot pays to design and sustainable materials as well as the quality of the poetry and editing. For the cover, a cerulean blue ground is contrasted with a rendering in silvery white of regular collaborator Tony Martin's artwork. This is debossed into its matt surround. Together with the pleasingly weighty text pages and subtly differentiated endpapers, we have a volume in which form and content combine with a graceful ease. The design of Guillemot Press pamphlets tends towards an unobtrusive and elegant minimalism, always allowing the poems room to breathe. But aside from this, Guillemot works hard for their new and young writers. Behind the scenes they’ve begun introducing these new writers to literary agents and making sure they understand about the business aspects of being a poet. This kind of professional nurturing is important to Guillemot Press and it’s rarely done by small press publishers.
