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Images from Charms Against Jackals
extract from the Foreword Two Rivers Press is a
Reading production, the brainchild of Peter Hay, one of the town’s
most creative champions. Born in 1951, Pete grew up in Stockport
and came to Reading in 1971 to study fine art at the university.
The Press grew out of Pete’s delight in this underloved town
and its sacred spaces. In Adam Sowan’s words: Pete believed
in Reading, and his enthusiastic publication of local books and
maps can be seen as part of a quiet campaign that a number of us
have been waging for years – to prove that the town exists,
lives, happens, and is by no means to be confused with Anywhere.’ Gradually, and with great
success, two Rivers meandered away from its territorial roots and
into more purely artistic arenas. National poetry competitions and
zealous marketing brought published poets, writers, artists knocking
on Pete’s door from all over the land, and with them came literary
acclaim and TLS reviews. Artists who had barely heard of Reading
thus keyed in obliquely to the strange, defiant passions that the
town arouses, and took Pete’s vision to a discerning audience
nationwide. Yet much of the best-selling work is still Reading-based;
it is appropriate indeed that one of Pete’s last publications
was Adam Sowan’s The Holy Brook, and Idiosyncratic and delightful
survey of the town’s third and least-known waterway.
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