WELCOME to VOLE Books – (aka Dempsey & Windle)
About us — an update...
We are Janice Dempsey & Dónall Dempsey. Both of us write poems. In 2016 we officially set up Dempsey & Windle as a small independent publishing concern, dedicated to publishing poetry.
In 2013 we had begun a series of in-person poetry reading/performance events in Guildford, calling it THE 1000 MONKEYS. We also began to publish anthologies of poems by friends and fellow poets who had read at our events. When in 2015 individual poets began to ask us to publish their work, we set up our website and social media accounts as Dempsey & Windle and we began advertising ourselves as publishers of poetry pamphlets in January 2016. In 2020 we began publishing longer collections under a new imprint, VOLE Books. We chose the new name as an anagram of LOVE — we love books, poetry (and, of course, endangered little furry animals).
During the pandemic in 2019, we made The 1000 Monkeys events into Zoom online readings, enabling us to host English-speaking poets all over the world, in addition to our local contacts. We still host these and they are still free to sign up to and attend. So we have operated a kind of ‘cottage industry’, which has depended on the health of both of us — we don’t employ staff.
Sadly, in 2025 we had to suspend our publishing activities because in the spring of that year Dónall underwent major surgery for a malignant cancer and he is still being treated with chemo for it. While he is undergoing the debilitating processes of chemo, we can’t commit to the kind of schedules and deadlines that professional publishing entails. We have retained this website, with pages of information about all the books we’ve published, but we’re not dealing with sales except to pass enquiries on to authors about their books. We are still occasionally producing pamphlets and collections for other writers, using the ISBNs that we invested in as VOLE Books, but we are not able to take on submissions by authors we haven’t previously dealt with, so please don't submit manuscripts to us until we invite submissions again.
We are Janice Dempsey & Dónall Dempsey. Both of us write poems. In 2016 we officially set up Dempsey & Windle as a small independent publishing concern, dedicated to publishing poetry.
In 2013 we had begun a series of in-person poetry reading/performance events in Guildford, calling it THE 1000 MONKEYS. We also began to publish anthologies of poems by friends and fellow poets who had read at our events. When in 2015 individual poets began to ask us to publish their work, we set up our website and social media accounts as Dempsey & Windle and we began advertising ourselves as publishers of poetry pamphlets in January 2016. In 2020 we began publishing longer collections under a new imprint, VOLE Books. We chose the new name as an anagram of LOVE — we love books, poetry (and, of course, endangered little furry animals).
During the pandemic in 2019, we made The 1000 Monkeys events into Zoom online readings, enabling us to host English-speaking poets all over the world, in addition to our local contacts. We still host these and they are still free to sign up to and attend. So we have operated a kind of ‘cottage industry’, which has depended on the health of both of us — we don’t employ staff.
Sadly, in 2025 we had to suspend our publishing activities because in the spring of that year Dónall underwent major surgery for a malignant cancer and he is still being treated with chemo for it. While he is undergoing the debilitating processes of chemo, we can’t commit to the kind of schedules and deadlines that professional publishing entails. We have retained this website, with pages of information about all the books we’ve published, but we’re not dealing with sales except to pass enquiries on to authors about their books. We are still occasionally producing pamphlets and collections for other writers, using the ISBNs that we invested in as VOLE Books, but we are not able to take on submissions by authors we haven’t previously dealt with, so please don't submit manuscripts to us until we invite submissions again.
