I could give you all the facts – names, dates, places, relationships – of my family history, and you would fall asleep quickly. I know this because I would drop off into a deep slumber myself in the telling. And yet, hidden in the dry folds of this history, there was a story to be…

So long, 2021. We really hope that all of your Christmas and New Year plans haven’t been totally sabotaged by the most unwelcome of guests, Corona, and that you’ve been able to spend some quality time amid friends and family (and books and booze, of course!). Strange as everything may have been, we have thoroughly…

Happy 30-Days-After-Halloween Forgive me for bringing up ghosts in the wrong month, but I was battling some seriously scary deadlines in late October. Now that it’s mid-November, I have a lull from work and more time to dwell on the dark side. My house is a very small, middle-aged cottage that turned 60 this year.…

November, where did you come from?! First thing’s first, we would like to once again thank all of those who have pre-ordered Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm for their patience. The printing landscape has never been so backlogged, and as a small press we sadly don’t get prioritised for any front-of-the-queue treatment. Scandalous, we know!…

September has been a big month here at Blackwater Press for two reasons: The first is that we’ve (finally) published a book! I Piped, That She Might Dance by Iain MacDonald exists in hard copy at last … in Scotland, at least … We didn’t realize what an impact Covid-19 has had on the book…

Hello:) You’ve likely run across a few of these pieces before, advising prospective authors on what to do and what not to do, and most of them are very useful indeed! But we thought that instead of repeating what you might have already read, we’d try and think of a few slightly more particular things…

Updated: Jul 30, 2021 Tuscawilla Farm is the ancestral home of two families: the Knights and the Carys. Our forthcoming title – Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm – gives a history of the families and their work between about 1860 and about 1960. The book originated as a pile of handwritten stories on legal tablet…

Blackwater Press is, so far as we know, one of two publishing companies with its own tune. The tune was found in manuscript 353 from the Montagu Music Collection, Boughton House (“Blackwater” from GB-Ketmmc 353, c.1720, The Montagu Music Collection, Boughton House. By kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry KBE…

We are thrilled to welcome our brand-new team member, Vivien Williams. One of the many fantastic things about Vivien is that she is fluent in not one, not two, but FOUR languages ( and she is working on adding two more to her repertoire). This is a huge perk for us as we can now…

Complete this sentence: I CHANGED MY LIFE FOR… Think about it, and we’ll all come up with a different answer. I, Vivien Williams, changed my life for bagpipes. I know, it’s as absurd as it sounds. And yet it’s true (and also an excellent conversation starter, I will have you know). I’ve been writing and…