Persaud and Leach launch short literary fiction specialist

Author Hannah Persaud and former publishing executive Andrew Leach are launching a new imprint for short literary fiction.

Seventy2One will be the literary arm of Massive Overheads Productions, a creative co-operative set up by Leach with filmmaker and photographer Alec Bowman Clarke.

It will focus on short literary fiction, novellas, short story collections and other brief works. It will be run jointly by Leach and Persaud, whose debut novel The Codes of Love was published by Muswell Press in 2020.

Leach has a 25-year media career, working in television, radio, events, brand consultancy and publishing. He led a management buyout of publishing agency Mediamark, developing the company's magazine portfolio into brochures and books and was m.d. for six years before selling the business. He is also a published writer who has worked in book retail.

Describing the imprint's ethos, he said: "The word short is important here. Just as a great movie can be over inside two hours, so a brilliant novel does not need to resemble a house brick."

Persaud added: "The maximum length we'll publish is 70,000 words, with a minimum requirement for any story of a thousand words, hence the name. We shall be publishing literary fiction that reflects the age in which we live."

Seventy2One's first book will be Sunburnt Saints, slated for before Christmas, is an anthology of short stories focused on the environment and the climate emergency, featuring both established and emerging writers.