Announcing the next two books from Banshee Press
Bebe Ashley by Matthew Thompson
Rosamund Taylor by Ger Holland
We are delighted to announce the next two books from Banshee Press, due later in 2025: Harbour Doubts, a second collection of poetry by Bebe Ashley; and Filly, the debut novel-in-verse by poet Rosamund Taylor. Many thanks to the Arts Council, whose support makes it possible for us to bring these incredible titles to readers.
Harbour Doubts by Bebe Ashley
July 2025, poetry
Every morning I check the kettle for slugs.
In the downstairs hallway, on warmer mornings,
the brocade wallpaper peels from the walls.
On colder nights, it crinkles and cracks appear.
In the right light, I can sometimes see a silver trail
winding along the crevices of the knotted treads.
Bebe Ashley’s prizewinning second collection charts the poet’s efforts to qualify as a British Sign Language interpreter. Intershot with enquiries into the nature of language as it is spoken and signed, and the process of leaving and finding home, Harbour Doubts tangles with the burning desire to communicate in the isolation of a late capitalist, post-pandemic world. Bringing together meditations on language as mediated through sound, sign, vision, and film, this exciting sophomore collection cements Bebe Ashley’s reputation as a fearless experimenter.
Bebe Ashley lives in Northern Ireland and works at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. Her debut collection Gold Light Shining was published by Banshee Press in 2020, and her recent work appears in Granta, The Stinging Fly and Modern Poetry in Translation. In 2023, Bebe received the Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment (Text), and in 2024, she received a British Council Fellowship.
Filly by Rosamund Taylor
October 2025, novel-in-verse
Everything about Mrs W was wide –
her shoulders, her breasts, her chin.
She mainly wore blazers
and dark brown boots, though once,
for Halloween, she dressed
as Charlie Chaplin with a moustache
and bowler hat. Her swagger
made my thighs clench.
Filly is a gripping and genre-bending coming of age story centred on Orla, who is discovering her sexuality in the hostile and misogynistic world of Ireland’s school system. When her friend Muireann rejects her advances, she turns to her charismatic English teacher Irene Wall for a love affair both passionate and annihilating. Written with Taylor’s trademark earthy lyricism, Filly is an exploration of intergenerational love and trauma, and an explosion of queer joy.
Rosamund Taylor is the winner of the Telegraph Poetry Prize 2023, The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2020 and the Mairtín Crawford Award for Poetry 2017. In 2023, her debut collection of poetry, In Her Jaws (Banshee Press 2022), was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize for a First Collection and the Yeats Society Poetry Prize, and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. Her essays have appeared in The Irish Times and The Stinging Fly, and her poetry has featured in Butcher’s Dog, Magma, Mslexia, The Rialto, Poetry Ireland Review, and BBC Radio 4.
