Tonto Press is celebrating its first birthday with a free collection of short stories. Literature North East speaks to founders Paul Brown and Stuart Wheatman about a year in which they launched a company, published five books featuring more than 40 new writers, established a unique range of creative writing courses and writers' services, website, blog and newsletter, encouraged new writing submissions, and much, much more...

Why did you start Tonto Press?
(SW) I met Paul on the MA Creative Writing course at Northumbria Uni. We were probably the only people who already had books published and we would discuss publishers, agents and all the usual frustration that goes with being a writer. Tonto was born out of those conversations. The basis was that we wanted to do for writers what we wished publishers would do for us. Not just that, we wanted to provide opportunities for new writers and help them on their way, rather than dismissing anyone who didn't have an agent. Both running businesses, living in the same area, being writers, and having the same goals spurred us on - we knew we could create something that would mean a lot to the region. There's a lot of great talent in the North East and we want to work with established writers and see new writers make a name for themselves too.

Where did the name come from?
(SW) There was never a decision-making conversation for the name of the company. We just both knew it would be Tonto something. In a discussion in the pub, we'd been talking about our aims for a publishing house and composing a wish list of traits for the perfect publisher. During that meeting, and for reasons that we can't remember, we talked about Tonto. So in coming up with a company name, Paul emailed me a few logo ideas and neither of us questioned the name because it was natural. We talked about publishing and Tonto... Tonto Press. Easy! It was later when we discovered it meant 'wild one?, so we should change the story to fit that.

What's different about Tonto?
(SW) Hmmm... as a company, we are trying to offer more than 'traditional? publishers. We introduced writing courses this summer. It was an intensive week, covering every base, which included a very honest overview of how publishing works and the realities of being a writer. We are both college lecturers in the subject, so that's one element that makes us different (see our website for courses in 2007). There is also an ongoing critique service - both of these elements work because we know the industry from the writing, teaching and publishing point of view and can share our knowledge of them in a positive way.

I think our nurturing side sets us apart too. We are interested in developing writers, new writers, first-timers and promoting these writers in their own right, not just through what we've published with them.

What's a typical Tonto publication?
(SW) Hopefully nothing we do is typical! Certainly I'd say we are interested in refreshing and original work. Our first anthology (supported by the Arts Council) had some very dark, comic stories and submissions to our second anthology have also been very dark. But that's all been dictated by the writers themselves - so far we haven't thrown any particular constraints in, other than 'entertain us?. We're building up some great relationships with writers we have a lot of respect for and so we're starting to notice themes in their submissions or certain styles and characters that we find appealing. There are a few writers I look forward to hearing from and it's satisfying to see them coming back to us. All of our books have been by new and emerging talent, so I think that's a typical Tonto thing.

Your list combines commercial non-fiction, like the pub guide, and new fiction from up and coming writers. How do these two elements fit together?
(PB) Seamlessly! It was always our intention to publish non-fiction alongside fiction, while maintaining our goal of developing new writing. For some reason, non-fiction doesn't seem to be considered quite as 'worthy? as fiction, and certainly we've had received some negative comments for publishing a 'pub guide?. Our response has been: pick up a copy of The Burglar's Dog and take a look at the quality of the writing. We've worked with some great writers this year, and technically Mark Jones is as good as any of them. Our Alan Shearer book, Wor Al, was a great opportunity for fanzine and blog writers to get their work into print, and it also enthused a lot of new writers to pick up a pen. It created around 30 new published writers. Another consideration is that is is often easier to market and sell non-fiction, so our non-fiction books help fund our fiction titles.

How was the response to the Tonto New Novelist competition?
(PB) Huge, especially for a tiny company with limited resources. We received around 400 submissions, from all around the world, and it took us about two months longer than planned to get through them all. We eventually came up with a shortlist of eight novels, and faced a very difficult decision because we felt we could have published all of them. In the end we chose to publish Johnny Lonely by Pete Tanton, but we hope to work with the other shortlisted writers in the future.

How did the Christmas Short Stories anthology come about?
(PB) It was partly to thank everyone who has supported us in 2006, and partly to help spread the word about Tonto Press, our projects and authors. We invited the writers we've worked with over the year to send us a festive story, and then selected the best for the anthology, which we decided to give away completely free via our website. It's a great way to showcase their talents, and hopefully they'll benefit from it, just like many of them did from the original Tonto Short Stories. And hopefully readers will enjoy it and come back to Tonto in the future!

And what have you got planned for your second year?
(SW) We're running the More Tonto Short Stories anthology at the moment, which will be published early next year.

As Paul mentioned, we have just signed Pete Tanton as our first New Novelist. We'll be developing the piece with Pete over the next few months and looking to publish towards the end of the year. There were other writers involved with the New Novelist project we also want to discuss future work with.

Non-fiction-wise, we are working with Stephen Miller, three-times gold paralympic medallist, on his autobiography. He has an amazing story to tell and has been sending us draft chapters that he's managed to write outside of his hectic training and competing schedule. We're also running writing courses next year - we've got our usual writing weeks along with Character and Getting Published workshops. There are a few other projects we're developing at the moment too, but as with everything, they rely on funding. Short stories were what started the ball rolling, so it is something we want to develop further and really concentrate on as the company grows.

Tonto Christmas Stories, featuring stories by Luke Watson, Stephen Shieber, Jolene Hui, Phil Jell, Pete Tanton, Rosalind Wyllie and Steve Wheeler, is available to download free, from www.tontopress.com/christmas.