Today we’d like to introduce you to Satya Bosman.

Hi Satya, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

I started writing poetry in my 20s but didn’t share it very widely. I then took a bit of a break and got more involved with poetry via Instagram in around 2018/19. I made some great friends in the poetry community at that time. I’d share my poems via my instagram account Rainpoetry. I loved joining instagram lives and supporting all the poets in the IG poetry community. I remember being featured on Pack Poetry and that really felt like a moment that maybe I could write. I then suffered a bit of a crisis of confidence and withdrew from writing for a period of around 1 year. My good friend and fellow poet Barry Hollow got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to be featured in an anthology by a writing collective in Bristol. This really boosted my confidence and writing those poems re-engaged me with poetry. I’ll always be grateful to him. In a wonderful twist of fate Barry was the first individual collection we published through Black Cat Press.

I’ve kept learning and growing since then and my first acceptance in a poetry magazine was with Dreich which is a moment I’ll always remember. Sadly Dreich closed their doors recently. A lot of poetry journals, magazines and small presses find it difficult to stay afloat financially, it’s so important to support them when we can.

I realised around that time that it was challenging to get published by traditional publishers if you were not established and that’s when the idea to start Black Cat Press was born. We pride ourselves in offering publishing opportunities to underrepresented writers. We started in 2021 and are going from strength to strength. We hope to be around for many years to come! I couldn’t run the press without the support of my co-editor Catherine Balaq.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

I love the quote from Doris Lessing ‘whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible’. There are always challenges when you start doing something new but I believe if you’re doing it because you love it you’ll find a way through. The main challenge we face is funding. It’s hard to stay afloat and even breakeven sometimes. We’re working towards a more sustainable model to ensure the press keeps its doors open for many years to come.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Black Cat Poetry Press?

We’re a small independent poetry press that was established in 2021. We’ve published 10 titles to date and have a busy forthcoming list for 2025 and 2026. We open for pamphlet (chapbook) submissions every year in October. We focus on pamphlets as the press is small and it is easier for us to sell and promote smaller collections. It’s also a great opportunity for writers to get on the publishing ladder. Our writers often move on to full collections and publishing with well established presses.

We love to publish ecopoetry and I suppose we’re known for that but we’re open to all subjects and publish a wide range of poetry.

We’re proud that we still give opportunities to writers who might need a bit of support to get their manuscripts publishing ready.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?

The environment matters most to me. Nature is wonderful and restorative. We must protect it at all costs. Where possible we donate to nature campaigns. We aim to donate all the profits from our next nature anthology due later in 2025 to the Woodland Trust.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.blackcatpress.co.uk
• Instagram: @theblackcatpoetrypress
• Twitter: @theblackcatpp

Image Credits

Indie Press Network
Daunts bookshop, Oxford (Terrible Mother on bookshelf)
Picture of the Editors of Black Cat Press – Satya Bosman, Catherine Balaq and Ophira Adar