We are Forest Publications
Welcome! Forest Publications is a collection of writers and creatives supporting all things weird, wonderful, and, above all, creative! Like our parent collective The Forest, we are an organisation run by volunteers who are passionate about the literary arts.
We believe in collaboration. We publish works that have a bold vision and we want to be involved with projects that are interdisciplinary and bring people together.
Our goal is to create a platform for creatives and give them a positive publishing experience. We want to foster a friendly experience of community where all creators are welcome to showcase their vision, and where readers are happy to consider their work.
We are open to all creatives everywhere, UK-based and international, as our team is from around the world.
A Brief History of The Forest
The Forest once said, “Forest is people. People is Forest. You is people. You is Forest.”
The Forest was a volunteer-run, collectively owned, arts and events space masquerading as a vegetarian café. The Forest once said, “The café powers The Forest like a battery powers a torch, except the light from the torch is art and music. But the battery isn’t toxic, and you can eat it.”
The non-profit began as a pop-up in August 2000 with the notion that a space in Edinburgh should exist where artists and activists could participate in the Fringe festival and take refuge from it. Noting the ever-increasing commercialism of the Fringe, The Forest made a promise that it lived by for nearly 25 years — events and workshops would always be free to organise and to attend. From this simple credo, a community and collective grew. The Forest once said, “We Work For Free So You Can Play For Free.”
And there was much play. In various premises The Forest housed art galleries, gig spaces, dark rooms, screen printing access, box wars, rehearsal spaces, a hairdressers, hack labs, artist studios, all subsidised by the work of thousands of generous volunteers.
Over the years, Forest founded a record label, a publishing house, and the Forest Fringe. Forest produced notorious parties and Happenings, garnered awards and news coverage, and occasionally attention from the police (we never had a bomb in The Forest). It also produced life-long friendships, marriages and even human babies. The Forest closed permanently in the pandemic of 2020, but lives on in the people who knew it.