About Hawberk Press

“Have you no ambition to be rich?” I asked, smiling.
“My one ambition is to be the best armourer in the world,” he answered
gravely.

– Robert W. Chambers, The Repairer of Reputations

Hawberk Press is an independent publisher of genre-defying speculative fiction. Our mission is to delight adventurous readers with bold, unconventional stories, not constrained by genres or trends.

We love reading strange, dark fiction - stories that are hard to pigeonhole, that provoke a sense of unease or ambiguity, but also leave you wanting more. Is it Fantasy? Science Fiction? Horror? Thriller? Any and all of the above, in combination, without worrying about fitting into clear genre boxes. (If you’d like to see some examples of the sorts of stories we’re talking about, check out the list at the bottom of this page.)

And we think there are plenty of readers out there looking for the same sort of thing. 

So that’s what we’re going to do: to publish the sorts of stories we love to read, the way we think they should be published. How are we going to do this? By working with exciting authors, paying them fairly, supporting them in the long term, and empowering them to write their best work. By publishing a small number of books, and making them beautiful. By sticking to our niche - strange, dark, genre-defying fiction - so you know what to expect from a Hawberk story.

We’re starting in late 2026 with the release of audio drama series The Pallid Mask (in collaboration with Alternative Stories), inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ seminal 1895 classic The King in Yellow, which you’ll be able to listen to for free on your favourite podcast app. 

After that, we’ll be continuing into 2027 with a new anthology of short stories, again inspired by The King in Yellow, featuring a host of fantastic authors.

Keep an eye out on hawberkpress.com and our social channels for more details - of authors and stories, visuals, inspirations, and more - as and when we can share them.

Check out our Author commitments, Principles, and Team pages to find out more.

Sign up to our mailing list and we’ll send you a sampler featuring excerpts from some of our upcoming stories. 

Can't see the signup form? Sign up here.

Want to know the sorts of books we absolutely love, and wish we could have published? Here are a few of our favourites:

  • The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
  • Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
  • The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
  • The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
  • Peter Fehervari’s Dark Coil
  • Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
  • Leech by Hiron Ennes
  • Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden