When Maggie Hamand and Jane Havell set up Maia Press two years ago, their model was the Hogarth Press and their goal to allow original writing to see the light of day. Vivienne Menkes is impressed

"ANYTHING WE PUBLISH has to have a distinctive voice." Novelist, journalist and creative writing tutor Maggie Hamand is firm in stating the key tenet of the philosophy underlying Maia Press, the publishing house she set up last year with designer and editor Jane Havell. "We're looking for fine writing that has the ability to take readers into a different world. We're not interested in bland, manufactured stuff," chips in Havell - these two small, determined women make a good double act - "we want really original writing that isn't pedestrian."

Maia is based in the London Borough of Hackney, in what Havell refers to, PC tongue firmly in cheek, as "the multicultural East End". Both she and Hamand work from home, within a stone's throw of each other in a quiet enclave that seems very remote from the rough-and-tumble of nearby Dalston. Halfway between them is a derelict pub, which they dream of converting into Maia's offices. Meanwhile, they lunch authors and journalists at another converted pub round the corner. The ex-Duke of Richmond - it closed down when the publican got life for a gangland killing - now serves excellent food in extraordinary mock-Egyptian décor. "London's most eccentric publishers in 'London's most eccentric dining room'," remarks Havell disarmingly, as she sits with her back to a log fire perched between the knees of huge Tutankhamen-like sphinxes.

In fact, Havell and Hamand are far from eccentric. Both very experienced and the recipient of various awards, they are well aware of the difficulties of marketing and selling, in a celebrity-obsessed market dominated by global publishing conglomerates and chain booksellers, "quality fiction for discerning readers", as their stylish bookmarks and postcards proclaim. Hamand started off in journalism and press office work for voluntary organizations, and has written sixteen non-fiction titles and two novels, plus short stories. Ten years ago she won a prize for the impressive feat of writing a novel in twenty-four hours, cloistered in the Groucho Club. She currently teaches at Morley College and at the Groucho, and has been writer-in-residence at Holloway Prison. Havell has been an editor for over twenty years, handling fiction for Virago and illustrated non-fiction and art books for the likes of Calmann & King and Yale University Press. Having repositioned herself as a designer, she runs her own design and editorial consultancy and packaging business: "Between us we can fulfil all requirements - Maggie does editorial and publicity, I do design and production. But we both look at all manuscripts. We both have to like everything."

Their only eccentricity is to go completely against publishing trends. For a start, they positively encourage authors to become involved. "What we hope," says Havell, "is that they'll feel part of a family. Increasingly, authors don't feel fully engaged with the process if they're with big publishers. They don't feel they can talk to anyone. We fully consult them on covers and so on. We'd never go with a cover the author hated. And anyway, they often have good ideas."

Brainstorming sessions with authors can be highly creative, according to Hamand, who instances recent discussions with acclaimed novelist Michael Arditti, whose very sharp, often black, sometimes heart-rending short stories Maia publishes this spring as Good Clean Fun.

Hamand and Havell see short stories as a key genre - another illustration of their against-the-trend approach. Although so many readers claim to enjoy short stories, big publishers fight shy of them. Arditti's collection was preceded by Sara Maitland's On Becoming a Fairy Godmother, one of three launch titles published last June, of which the TLS proclaimed: "These tales insistently fill the vision." The plan is for each batch of three titles published twice-yearly to contain one short-story collection. Last autumn this slot was filled by Uncut Diamonds: a selection of new writing, mostly by previously unpublished authors and edited by Hamand. The contributors represent a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but all have links with London and collectively offer a view of contemporary life in the capital that attracted a generous Arts Council grant. One reviewer commented: "Buy it and ... you'll be able to say you knew the authors before they were famous." Hamand found some of them as a result of her own work. For instance, Dreda Say Mitchell, the author of Running Hot, an extract from a work-in-progress, attended her writing class. Maia will publish the full novel in October.

How did these two busy women come to found a publishing house? Having met at Christmas 2001 and discovered they shared the view that "the fiction-buying public hasn't gone away but just isn't being catered for", they "started talking", and by March were "scouting around the London Book Fair and doing a 'was-this-viable?' exercise". Deciding that it was, they set up the company in June 2002 and launched their first books a year later, with distribution by Central Books (near-neighbours in East London) and repping by Troika. "It took every minute of those 18 months," says Hamand; though having decided to take no salaries, they were both still doing the day job - as they still are. Their inspiration was Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press: "They continued writing, and Vanessa Bell, who did the artwork, went on painting - and they discovered authors who are now huge names."

The initial press release made no bones about Havell and Hamand's crusading spirit. Headed "New independent publisher challenges the conglomerates", it went on to claim: "... the big publishers are acting as censors of ideas, preventing new, original writing from seeing the light of day. This is a serious loss to our culture." The release also made it clear that not only were the founders not receiving salaries, the writers received no advances, though royalties were above standard. This bold stance attracted considerable media attention. A packed Groucho Club launch heard Martyn Goff ("he's been incredibly supportive") give a rousing speech and, when the first titles were launched at Waterstone's on Islington Green, it was standing room only.

Those three titles were all by respected authors with a track record: Anne Redmon (previously with Sinclair-Stevenson), whose challenging novel In Denial was inspired by her work as writer-in-residence at a large prison; Sara Maitland (ex-Chatto); and Henrietta Seredy (ex-Headline).

Maia's proprietors feel passionately about the books they select. "It would have been awful to think of The Thousand-Petalled Daisy not being published," says Hamand, with quiet intensity, of one of last autumn's titles, a second novel by Welsh-born Norman Thomas - his first, Ask at the Unicorn, was critically acclaimed in Britain and the US forty years ago. It seems almost impossible to believe that this sparkling coming-of-age tale set in India - Thomas's long-term home - is not a young man's book but one whose author is over seventy. Giving it a four-star rating, the Independent's reviewer enthused: "...this novel, both rhapsody and lament, is superb."

Thomas could be seen as a classic case of the neglect suffered by authors who do not fit into the current vogue for novels by young, highly photogenic writers. Another common fate is to be told that their book is too short - a one-size-fits-all approach that means that novels are often inflated beyond their optimum length. Henrietta Seredy had been told that, at 45,000 words, Leaving Imprints needed to be longer. Maia have no such formulaic requirements and could see that "it's the perfect length."

This mesmerizing, poignant novel about a destructive yet often beautiful relationship creates an intense atmosphere that seems unusual in Britain, though it wouldn't in continental Europe. (It's no coincidence that Seredy is half-Hungarian and half-Czech.) Also with something of a "continental" feel is Another Country by Russian-born Hél? du Coudray, republished by Maia last autumn over seventy years after it won an award for the finest novel by an Oxbridge undergraduate.

Hamand noticed at Frankfurt that Maia's books looked more "continental" than those on other British stands, and Havell received many design compliments from Italian publishers. So it isn't surprising that they will soon start publishing translations. The first, due in October, is Oceans of Time by Merete Morken Andersen, bought from Gyldendal after winning the 2003 Critics' Prize in Norway. It is, says Hamand, "a beautifully and quite poetically written novel about an estranged couple who come together when their daughter commits suicide".

Meanwhile, the latest threesome to enter the Maia catalogue includes A Blade of Grass, by South African Lewis DeSoto, who has lived in Canada for decades. This gripping novel (his first, though he has published many short stories and essays) was initially published by HarperFlamingoCanada, as a Phyllis Bruce Book, and appeared in the US last autumn under HarperCollins' Ecco imprint. Set in a border region of apartheid-era South Africa, it paints, via the shifting relationship between two women, one black, one white, a frightening yet lyrical picture of a country torn apart by hatred. Chosen as Bookspan's International Book of the Month, it has won plaudits from reviewers in Canada and in the New York Review of Books; garnered a raft of translation rights sales; and will be published by BCA in Britain.

Anyone who cares about good writing and good storytelling must feel bemused that the conglomerates' literary imprints haven't snapped up British rights to a book as powerful, as beautifully written and as moving as A Blade of Grass - but also elated that Hamand and Havell have had the courage to set up a publishing house that does have room for just such a novel.

Yet there is another side to the picture: according to his agent, Desoto "fell in love with Maia" after visiting their admirably clear website (www.maiapress.com, designed by Hamand's undergraduate son) and feeling in sympathy with the Maia ethos. "Authors know," explains Hamand, "that we really care about their books." "We're trying to do a bit of old-fashioned publishing," adds Havell. This "old-fashioned" approach also appealed to Adam Zameenzad, whose buoyant sixth novel Pepsi and Maria, highlighting the plight of South American street children, is just out. Zameenzad has won the David Higham Prize, been long-listed for the Booker and appeared in many languages. But he instructed his agent that he preferred a small independent publisher and liked the sound of Maia.

Havell admits to surprise that authors and agents don't object to not having an advance, but believes they understand that "in a high advance culture, it only works if you sell at least thirty- thousand copies". Sara Maitland even remarked: "Having no advance incentivizes you!"

One of Maia's "old-fashioned" qualities is an emphasis on producing trade paperbacks that are a pleasure to handle: "We wanted to put all our resources into high production values," explains Havell. "We needed to create a recognizable livery to get ourselves on the map. We aim to produce books that people will keep and re-read. We're fed up with books where the type is too small and too narrowly leaded and we're really keen that the type should be readable and the margins not too skimpy."

The elegant company logo was designed by Derek Birdsall, Havell's design mentor, who famously redesigned the Book of Common Prayer. Having rejected Hamand & Havell ("sounds like estate agents in Hampshire!"), they decided to combine the first part of their first names and adopt the Greek goddess Maia ("also the Greek word for midwife, which is terrifically appropriate"). Birdsall turned the letters VIVW upside down to give the splayed M Havell was after. Such attention to detail, together with an eye for truly original writing, explains why "things have gone better than we'd hoped". A suitably modest appraisal for a pair of committed publishers who "have no grandiose ideas - we are very realistic and just want to grow organically".

[16/Jul/2004]