Associated Presses

Test Centre

Test Centre Publications, an independent publishing house and record label based in Hackney, London, was run by Jess Chandler and Will Shutes from 2011 to 2018. Test Centre's varied output ranged from spoken-word vinyl LPs to debut poetry collections, experimental fiction, anthologies, interdisciplinary projects and an annual magazine of new writing, Test Centre.

At the end of 2018, Test Centre split into two separate entities: Will Shutes' bookdealing and occasional publishing business now operates independently as Test Centre Books, while Prototype was established by Jess Chandler as a new independent publishing house, building on the Test Centre aesthetic.

House Sparrow Press

Though run as a separate and independent entity, House Sparrow Press functions as an imprint of prototype, and is run by prototype founder Jess Chandler (Publisher and Editor) along with writer and curator Gareth Evans (Editor).

Formed in 2016, House Sparrow Press is, in the best and multiple senses of the word (it is hoped) an ‘occasional’ venture. It seeks to publish creatively committed, collaborative works both at a time that is relevant and for reasons that feel compelling. It is drawn to manuscripts of hybridity, titles that might elude conventional publication over concerns of form or scale. It also believes in a modesty of style (but never of ambition) and a fecundity of ideas. Its moniker (drawn from its first venture) celebrates a creature that was once ubiquitous and yet is now threatened. The idea of a bird inhabiting and inspiring a place of residence also feels resonant. This is what the best books do too. There are wings at work here. In short, Emily Dickinson was right (again) when she observed that ‘hope is the thing with feathers’.

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