Orkneyology Press

We are a bibliophile husband and wife team, Tom and Rhonda Muir of the Okney Islands. Orkneyology Press evolved from our website, Orkneyology.com. Curating remarkable stories by means of an independent press has been our ultimate goal since we began the website in 2017.

Orkneyology Press exists to give voice to stories that deserve to be known. Our mission is to rescue and preserve some of these most worthy stories – stories which might otherwise end their days languishing in a stuffy drawer. We’re less interested in sales potential than in the stories themselves.

What we publish: While we are particularly interested in Orkney-themed work, we’re open to good stories of any cultural character. We’re particularly interested in authentic folklore from around the world, and we love unusual memoirs that are deeply place-oriented.

Along with memoir, Orcadian and Scottish history will take a prominent place among our titles, especially lesser-known human stories that usually go unnoticed. We’re fascinated by “small” social histories – small only in the sense that they perhaps lie in the shadows of better-known issues, people and events. And of course, living in Orkney as we do, we plan to indulge in a bit of archaeology.

Fiction isn’t at the top of our list for now, though our parameters are still in a happy state of flux. We’re making it up as we go along, and having a lot of fun.

Orkneyology Press books: We released our first title in December of 2022 and are slowly picking up speed as we get more comfortable with our new tasks. Being a two-person team, and with Tom still working full time, we estimate that we’ll publish about 6 books per year until his retirement.

You can read about some of our “coming soon” books on Orkneyology.com here: https://www.orkneyology.com/orkneyology-press.html

Submissions: We do have an embarassment of riches in terms of wonderful manuscripts awaiting publication, so we can’t take further submissions at the moment. We plan to open cautiously for email submissions in April of 2025, designating the month of April as submissions month thereafter.

About Tom and Rhonda: Tom Muir is a native Orcadian historian, author and storyteller. Rhonda is an American writer, walker and mother of four who moved to Orkney to be with Tom in 2016. You can find more of our story on Orkneyology.com.

The Orkneyology Podcast