• What are independent publishers doing differently to the “Big Five” multinationals?
• What are the benefits and challenges of working with small presses?

Chaired by Emma Cummins, panel celebrates the innovation of indie publishing in the UK and Ireland, with insights into fiction, non-fiction and poetry. 

Our panellists include Kevin Duffy, co-founder of Bluemoose Books, an award-winning publisher based in West Yorkshire, novelist Jamie Guiney, author of The Lightning, Blathnaid Healy, co-founder of Irish non-fiction publisher Full Set, and poet Matthew Rice, whose book-length poem plastic was recently published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. 

Meet the panelists

Kevin Duffy is the co-founder of Bluemoose Books, an award-winning independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. Kevin and Hetha Duffy established Bluemoose in 2006. As a ‘family’ of readers and writers they’re passionate about the written word and stories. Described by the Guardian as “a small but mighty literary hit factory”, Bluemoose won the Northern England Small Press of the Year award in 2023 and 2025. Bluemoose titles have been translated into 14 languages and two of their books, The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers and Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession, have been adapted into BBC TV series.

Jamie Guiney is a literary fiction writer from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. His work has been nominated for numerous awards, including Best Small Fictions, Saboteur Awards Best Short Story Collection (shortlist), Irish Short Story of the Year (longlist), Best in Rural Writing Contest (shortlist). He has also been nominated five times for The Pushcart Prize. Jamie's short stories have been published internationally and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Jamie is a graduate of the Faber & Faber Writing Academy and his work has been backed by the Northern Ireland Arts Council through several Individual Artist Awards. He is the author of two books: The Wooden Hill and The Lightning.

Blathnaid Healy is the publisher and co-founder of Full Set, a non-fiction independent book publisher.  Blathnaid is an EMMY award-winning editor and former media executive with BBC News, CNN and Mashable. Before starting Full Set, Healy was BBC News executive editor for audience growth, social media and generative AI. Prior to the BBC, Blathnaid led CNN’s team of international journalists and editors across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, producing content for digital platforms. She was the founding editor of the award-winning As Equals series. In 2024, she graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an Executive MBA.

Matthew Rice is from Belfast. His debut collection, The Last Weather Observer (Summer Palace Press) was included on the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s top ten books of the year in 2021. He holds a PhD from the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s where he is currently the Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow. His new book, plastic, is published by Fitzcarraldo in the UK and Soft Skull in the US.

Emma Cummins is Associate for Belfast Book Festival 2026. She formerly worked for the Guardian Bookshop, Guardian Faber and Guardian Masterclasses. Emma has been shortlisted for Fish Publishing’s Short Memoir Prize, won a Tyrone Guthrie Centre Writers’ Bursary, and was recently selected by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature and The Linen Hall, Belfast, for the writer development programme Island of Many Voices. Her writing has been published in The Quietus, The Guardian, Open Democracy, Flash Art International and Aesthetica.