The River Light founder on overcoming ‘darkness’ to launch new non-fiction press
In the wake of her husband’s death, Lucy Melville set up The River Light Press – and found that it helped her to rediscover her sense of self.
A new non-fiction press has been founded by former Peter Lang group publishing director Lucy Melville and Cheryl Robson, with the financial backing of Cheryl and Steve Robson, founders of Aurora Metro Books. The River Light Press will publish "heavyweight" but accessible books with a focus on diversity, and it is a "dream come true" for Melville after an "extremely dark period".
In May 2023, Melville’s husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died just six weeks later. "He died in the house in front of my son," she said. "It was so shocking and so fast. I’ve got three kids, and our youngest was still at school sitting exams. It was just a whirlwind of sadness and none of us could really believe it was happening."
Melville, who spent 14 years at the international academic publisher, found solace in work and parenting after her husband’s death. "I really focused on my kids. My parents are still alive, so I’ve never been through what they’ve been through. The first funeral they attended was their own father’s," she says. "When I wasn’t focusing on my kids, I was focusing on my job. I threw myself into work, partly as a coping mechanism, but also because that company, like many others, is facing challenging times."
Having taken only a week of compassionate leave in July 2023, and with all three of her children having left home for university and work, Melville said that by the beginning of 2024 "delayed grief" was starting to catch up with her. "It was delayed grief, and the realisation that I was working flat out, perhaps not always necessarily agreeing with everything I was working on. I was very lucky. I had a supportive CEO, and I told him in friendship that it was time to leave." Melville, who is based in Oxford, left Peter Lang in October 2024 having taken voluntary redundancy.
"None of us have a crystal ball. I’ve learned the hard way that all the things you plan for in life can change really quickly. But it’s not going to stop me from trying as hard as I can to be that change," said Melville. She took stock of her life and decided to place an advert in the Independent Publishers Guild bulletin and "was swamped with offers". Through the advert she met the Robsons, who own an existing set of presses under the umbrella of Aurora Metro, based in south-west London.
Melville said: “We met, we talked, and they said: ‘Let’s launch a press together. You can do it. We will back you financially, so you don’t have to do any of the investment.’ This was amazing, because I didn’t want to have to take out a mortgage on my home. They have backed me all the way. We’ve launched the company. I’m now a director. I’m a shareholder with equity, and they are putting up the money, and I am creating this new press."
Melville and Cheryl Robson are now starting to acquire non-fiction titles. "It’s a non-fiction imprint. It’s playing that very fine balance – and I do appreciate it’s a very fine balance – between books that have good weight to them. These are heavyweight books written by people with real credentials," she says. "They might be academics, or they might be journalists and writers who have developed a strong brand identity in terms of the subject matter. But they’re written for the discerning reader, not for other academics or scholars. They’re not purporting to be scholarly books, but they are purporting to be heavyweight nonfiction but written accessibly in a lively way."
Continues...
The River Light Press is so named because of "the river that connects us. Oxford and Richmond are on the same stretch of water and light is the meaning of my name. Lucy comes from the Latin Lux for light". Melville’s work is supported by Cheryl Robson, plus "a small team of other people" from Aurora Metro who support with marketing spend, publicity, advances and contracts for authors. Melville says she is "incredibly grateful" for their financial backing because she is "the only person now responsible for three young adults who are all in higher education", which is "a lot of responsibility".
Melville says a big focus on acquisitions for The River Light Press will be "reaching writers and audiences that are often marginalised". This is good news in a week that has seen the announced closure of The Good Literary Agency and the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump roll back the US government’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
"The anti DEI rhetoric is beginning to build and gain traction. You see it politically, but you also then begin to see it filtering through in social media, filtering through in discourse. Look, it’s all about debate. It’s all about healthy debate. This press, River Light Press, will be an open space for championing new voices," said Melville, pointing out that Cheryl Robson has "always been big on women’s voices, on underrepresented writers, diversity and inclusion". Indeed, Robson was shortlisted for a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Diversity Awards in 2019.
Melville said: "We’re really trying to create a press here with a bold vision, but it’s a vision very much about inclusivity. If you have a good, lively topic to discuss, I will champion you. I will be your partner."
She might be full of enthusiasm for her new venture, but she said leaving Peter Lang felt like a huge risk. "When I left [Peter Lang], the number of comments and support and tributes that flowed in from a global base of authors and series editors and business partners was so uplifting in some of the darkest days where I was thinking: ‘Am I doing the right thing? Am I crazy? Why have I chosen to leave a job with a very decent salary, and a job I know well, when I’m facing so much upheaval?’ But I knew it was the right thing to do."
River Light Press is currently in the process of acquiring its first titles, and Melville plans to hold launch events later this year in Oxford and Richmond. "Out of a dark and difficult period, personally for me in my life, where everything changed. I lost my husband, I effectively lost my role of 14 years, my children all left home, and I thought, gosh, I have got to reinvent myself. I always dreamt of having my own publishing company, and here we are."
