Death of workers whilst building skyscrapers is a small publishing press established in Manchester in 2018 founded by Lucy Wilkinson. Specialising in poetry, fiction and essay in the experimental calibre. The majority of our publications are hand sewn and bound, occasionally publishing mass market paperbacks.

I have no prescribed idea about what I like to publish. For me, the beauty is in serendipity, waiting for a person to send me a manuscript or coming across a piece of work and feeling a connection to it.

Frustrated and unsatisfied working in a bar, I started the publishing press in 2018 as a means to self-publish a novella, ‘blues not worth bad skin’ that I wrote after the breakdown of a relationship whilst living with the ongoing grief of having a terminally ill father. The book had been stuck in a drawer and I felt a calling to share it. I was overwhelmed by the costs to print a book and I remember being sat on a bench outside a printers and bindery in Cheadle, thinking “I’m just going to do it myself”. I went home that day, borrowed £40 off my dad, and went to the art shop to buy some bookbinding supplies. I had no clue whatsoever. After practicing and practicing for a few months, reading books, websites, and watching videos on bookbinding, I felt confident enough to hand bind my book, as well as a small chapbook of poems by my sister and a friend. I made fifty copies of each and then went to local bookstores and asked if they would stock them and they did.