New unbiased press to concentrate on male writers

A creator and critic has introduced a brand new unbiased press that may center of attention on publishing books via male writers.

Conduit Books, based via Jude Cook, will post literary fiction and memoir, “focusing initially on male authors”.

Cook mentioned the publishing panorama has modified “dramatically” during the last 15 years as a response to the “prevailing toxic male-dominated literary scene of the 80s, 90s and noughties”. Now, “excitement and energy around new and adventurous fiction is around female authors – and this is only right as a timely corrective”.

“This new breed of young female authors, spearheaded by Sally Rooney et al, ushered in a renaissance for literary fiction by women, giving rise to a situation where stories by new male authors are often overlooked, with a perception that the male voice is problematic,” he mentioned.

These “overlooked narratives” would possibly deal with fatherhood, masculinity, operating elegance male reviews, intercourse, relationships, and “negotiating the 21st century as a man” – “precisely the narratives” that Conduit hopes to post.

Cook mentioned conversations about poisonous masculinity after the second one election of Donald Trump and the preferred Netflix sequence Adolescence signifies that the “subject of what young men read has become critically important”.

Scott Preston, whose guide The Borrowed Hills was once shortlisted for this yr’s Sunday Times younger writers’ award, mentioned “the question of why boys don’t read, and then become men who don’t read, is a big topic right now, what with the next generation of them simmering with rage online, but it’s a question I’ve been hearing for a long time.

“The topics and themes that appeal to men, particularly working-class men, can sometimes be dismissed as unserious or unevolved. A book press willing to tackle that is a good start but the hard part will be cobbling together an audience out of readers who have become neglected.”

The press is actively on the lookout for a guide to release with, “preferably a debut novel by a male UK novelist under 35”, with submissions open all over the month of May. It will intention to post 3 novels, brief tale collections or memoirs a yr starting in spring 2026.

It “can’t be over-stressed” that Conduit Books “doesn’t seek an adversarial stance”, Cook mentioned. “Nor is the press looking to exclude writers of colour, or queer, non-binary and neurodivergent authors.”

Men have now not all at once stopped studying and writing literary fiction, mentioned Cook – quite, they’re merely “not being commissioned”. He pointed to 2020 knowledge suggesting that 78% of the ones in editorial roles within the publishing trade are ladies.

“Whenever I send out a novel to editors, the list [of names] is nearly all female,” a male agent informed Johanna Thomas-Corr for an Observer piece in 2021. “But it’s not the gender makeup that bothers him, he insists, it’s the prevailing groupthink – the lack of interest in male novelists and the widespread idea that the male voice is problematic,” wrote Thomas-Corr.

The declining prominence of younger male writers has been a subject of dialogue within the publishing trade for a number of years, partially sparked on-line via a Times piece via James Marriott titled “Booker prize 2020 longlist: where are the new male hotshot novelists?”

There has “never been an independent publisher that champions literary fiction by men,” mentioned Cook. “Which is not to say we won’t publish fiction by women in the future – but the emphasis at first will be on male authors. We believe there is ambitious, funny, political and cerebral fiction by men that is being passed by.”

Cook is the creator of the books Byron Easy and Jacob’s Advice. He continuously opinions books for retailers together with the Guardian and TLS, and teaches inventive writing at Westminster University. He mentioned that since pronouncing the brand new press, the reaction “has been overwhelmingly positive, especially from female authors and women who work in publishing”.