Fringe press

In The Times, Ian Macmillan enters the world of the small publishing company.

It's hard to find appropriate language to describe those who run literary small presses, but they are the true heroes of literature, sailing into stormy seas when others prefer the flat, flat calm; they are the grassroots football of literature, playing on muddy pitches in front of small but enthusiastic knots of people, as opposed to the prawn sandwich, big-money Premiership of the mainstream publishers. Maybe neither of these hits the exact spot, but you get the drift.