QUIP – Quakers Uniting in Publications for 25 years and more
It is 25 years ago this Fall that a number of Quaker staff members working as publishers & booksellers decided to come together and start a group to support one another. The name they chose for their organization, Quakers Uniting in Publications [QUIP], reflects an ongoing desire to engage in a process of uniting Friends from different countries and different Quaker traditions through a common activity.
Methods of publishing and attitudes to book and periodical publishing in general have changed rapidly over the years and QUIP is still actively seeking out ways in which it can adapt in order to be most useful and of service to its members. Those members have changed too and now include fewer Quaker staff and more independent publishers, self-publishers and writers.
At the heart of what QUIP does is its annual meeting which maintains a cycle of three US locations followed by one in the UK. The last visit to Great Britain was to Glenthorne in the Lake District in 2007 and in the US venues have included Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon and North Carolina. The annual meeting provides a rich and varied experience for its participants and is vital for connecting people and for gathering information and know-how. It also acts as a base for a dispersed spiritual community, providing mutual support and encouraging dialogue and understanding.
Certainly in our personal experience as convinced British Quakers, coming from a liberal unprogrammed tradition but bringing with us our Christian (one Anglican and one nonconformist) roots, we have learned a lot about what unites us as Friends by talking to Quakers from different traditions and sharing our publications. Membership of QUIP counters any tendency to insularity and we see part of our own responsibility as writers and publishers to encourage Britain Yearly Meeting as a whole to understand its links with worldwide Quakerism and to look outside itself.
QUIP does not only encourage and promote the projects of its own members. In recent years it has also taken on the role of publisher itself, in cooperation, so far, with what is now the Quaker Life committee of Britain Yearly Meeting and with FGC. QUIP's first publication, in 2000, was an edition of George Fox's Book of Miracles, edited by Henry J Cadbury. This was followed in 2005 by Whispers of Faith: young Friends share their experiences of Quakerism, a compilation of writings by Friends worldwide aged from 13 to 20.
QUIP's current exciting publishing project is a book of the same kind being produced by young adult Friends aged 15-35. More details of the QUIP Youth Book and an introduction to the editorial board of young adult Friends from all over the Quaker world can be found at http://www.fgcquaker.org/qy/quipbook .
QUIP maintains a website [ http://www.quaker.org/quip/ ] which is at present being redesigned so that it can develop in the future in whatever ways will help its members most and attract more people and organisations to join.
If you are a Quaker publisher, if you sell Quaker books, if you write as a Quaker in any way, QUIP is the place for you. We want to grow and widen our appeal to more Friends in more of the world than we currently reach. Visit our website and join not just the organisation but our continuing conversation about how best to be ‘Publishers of Truth'.
Gil and Chris Skidmore
Gil and Chris Skidmore have been members of QUIP since 1995 when they began their small desktop publishing business, Sowle Press, from their home in Reading, England. They have both written books and articles on Quaker subjects and Gil has edited two books for Altamira Press, one on 18th century Quaker women's writings and one on Elizabeth Fry.
