We are book-lovers and story-catchers, We are Hollyhock Books
Hollyhock Books
A Letter from Sophia Salazar,
Editor-in-Chief
Hollyhock Books
A Letter from Sophia Salazar,
Editor-in-Chief
Once upon a quiet morning, in a
little house filled with books and the scent of tea, something rather lovely
began.
A whisper of an idea. A notion
that stories could do more than just entertain—they could connect us, comfort
us, and remind us who we are.
That idea became Hollyhock
Books.
Who We Are
We are storytellers.
That's the simplest way to say
it, and perhaps the truest. Before we were a publisher, before we had a name or
a website or any of the things that make a business real, we were just people
who loved stories. People who believed that the right tale, told the right way,
could change something small but essential inside a person.
We established Hollyhock Books
in 2024 with a simple mission: to publish stories that speak to the heart.
Stories that are beautifully told, beautifully made, and filled with joy,
mischief, and magic.
We weren't interested in chasing
trends or publishing books that felt like they'd been assembled by committee.
We wanted voices that felt genuine. We wanted stories that hadn't been told a
hundred times before. We wanted writing that took risks and trusted its readers
to come along for the ride.
And we believed—we still
believe—that children deserve nothing less.
What We Publish
Take a walk through our world,
and here's what you'll find:
From dusty cupboards to wild
gardens. Stories about children who
discover doors where doors shouldn't be, who find magic in ordinary places, who
learn that the world is thinner than it appears.
Runaway pigs and rabbits with
opinions. Characters who refuse to
stay where they're put, who have their own ideas about how stories should go,
who demand to be taken seriously even when they're being ridiculous.
Glitter dragons and
clock-tower girls who sew paper hearts. Creatures
of pure imagination, yes. But also creatures with real feelings, real fears,
real hopes. Because fantasy without heart is just decoration.
Seasons that behave
strangely. Autumns that brood,
winters that hide, springs that need practice before they're ready. The natural
world, in our stories, is never just a backdrop. It's alive, opinionated, and
deeply involved in whatever's happening.
Whimsy with weight. Tales that make you laugh on one page and catch
your breath on the next. Stories that understand that the best kind of magic is
the kind that helps you see the real world more clearly.
Every tale we tell is crafted
with care, rooted in imagination, and stitched together with wonder. We don't
rush. We don't cut corners. We believe that the stories we give to children
should be as well-made as anything we'd give to adults—maybe better, because
children are the most honest audience there is. They know when you're phoning
it in. They can smell a fake from miles away.
The Leap to Audio
But as our second year unfolds,
we wanted to go further.
A book is a beautiful thing.
We'll never stop believing that. There's magic in the physical object—the
weight of it, the smell of the pages, the way it feels in your hands. But we
kept thinking about all the ways stories could travel beyond the page.
We thought about children on
long car journeys, restless and bored, needing something to carry them away.
We thought about parents
exhausted at bedtime, their voices tired, wanting someone else to do the
reading just this once.
We thought about classrooms
where stories could come alive, where voices and music could transform a tale
into an experience.
We thought about anyone, of any
age, who misses being read to—that particular comfort of a voice telling you a
story, letting you rest, letting you just listen.
And so, we created Hocksbox.
What Is Hocksbox?
Hocksbox is our storytelling
space. A place where stories are not just read, but heard, felt, and
remembered.
The name comes from Joules
Young's imagination—a hocksbox being a place where stories are kept safe. A
chest passed down through generations. A box you open when you need to remember
who you are and where you came from.
In practical terms, Hocksbox is
where Joules's stories live. Some in written form, for those who love to read.
Some in audio, for those who love to listen. Some, eventually, in both—because
we believe that different ears hear differently, and a story can be a different
creature depending on how it arrives.
With music, laughter, and the
rustling hush of a turning page, Hocksbox is our way of making sure that,
wherever you are—on a walk, in a classroom, curled up under blankets—the story
is always just a moment away.
We're not audiobook producers in
the traditional sense. We're something more like story-catchers. We take
Joules's tales and we find the sounds that belong to them. The creak of a door
that shouldn't open. The whisper of wind through a garden where seasons
practice. The particular silence that falls when something magical is about to
happen.
We Are Soundmakers
This is a new part of our
identity, and we're still learning what it means.
We are soundmakers. That means
we pay attention to the way stories sound when they're read aloud. The rhythm
of sentences. The music in words. The spaces between them.
We are learning which voices
belong to which tales. Joules writes the stories—that's her gift, and we
treasure it—but she's a writer, not a performer. So we're finding other voices.
Voices that understand what these stories need. Voices that can carry whimsy
without tipping into silliness, weight without tipping into gloom.
We are experimenting with music,
with gentle soundscapes, with the kind of audio that doesn't distract but
deepens. A little something underneath the words, like the soft hum of a garden
on a summer afternoon. Nothing that shouts for attention. Just enough to hold
you in the story's world.
We Are Book-Lovers and
Story-Catchers
This, perhaps, is the heart of
it.
We love books. We love the way
they look on shelves, the way they accumulate like old friends. We love the
smell of them, the weight of them, the way a well-loved copy falls open to
favourite pages.
But we also love what stories do
when they escape the page. When they drift through windows and under doors.
When they find someone who needs them, wherever that someone happens to be.
That's what story-catchers do.
They don't just keep stories safe. They send them out into the world, trusting
that they'll find their way to the right ears, the right hearts, the right
moments.
A Partnership Rooted in
Wonder
None of this would be possible
without the writer at the heart of it all.
Joules Young came to us the way
the best things often do—unexpectedly. A short story posted online, discovered
by chance, read once and then again, and then carried in the mind for days
afterward. "The Girl Who Became Untethered," it was called. About a
child who, after a great storm, simply snapped and drifted away from everything
she knew, sailing through painted skies until, eventually, she chose to come
back down.
That story stayed with me. It
stayed because it understood something true about longing, about change, about
the courage it takes to choose where you belong.
When we finally connected, I
discovered that Joules's first stories weren't written for publication at all.
They were written for a niece and nephew across the ocean—two small children
she'd never met in person, who knew their aunt only through phone calls and
photographs. She wanted to give them something she could hold. Something that
would travel across all those miles and tell them, in a way words alone
couldn't, that they were loved.
That first story was called
"The Remarkable Evening of Oliver Hefflewhistle and the Gingham
Glimmergit." It arrived in an envelope, printed and folded, and soon
became a bedtime ritual. Then another story followed. And another.
That's the kind of writer Joules
is. Someone who understands that stories are not just things we make—they're
things we give. They're love, folded into paper and ink. They're bridges across
distance. They're ways of saying I am here, you are there, and none of
that matters because stories can travel anywhere.
Her work exists in that
beautiful space where whimsy and wisdom meet. It feels timeless, yet utterly
fresh. It has the quality of fairy tales—the kind that feel like they've always
existed, waiting for the right person to come along and write them down—but
it's threaded through with observations that could only come from a
contemporary voice paying close attention to the world.
There's warmth in her work.
Humour, too—the kind that sneaks up on you. And beneath it all, a current of
something deeper: questions about how we find our way, how we stay connected to
the people we love, how we keep believing in magic when the world keeps telling
us to grow up.
Her stories resist easy
categorisation. They're for readers of all ages, though they never talk down to
anyone. They're full of invention and delight, but they earn their emotions
honestly. They're the kind of stories that make you want to immediately share
them with someone else, just so you have someone to talk about them with.
That's the voice we've welcomed
into Hollyhock Books.
This Is Who We Are
Let me say it plainly:
We are storytellers.
We are soundmakers.
We are book-lovers and
story-catchers.
We are Hollyhock Books.
We were founded in 2024, but in
some ways we've been around much longer—in the imaginations of everyone who
ever believed that stories matter. In the hearts of everyone who ever found
comfort in a tale. In the hopes of everyone who ever wanted to share something
beautiful with someone they love.
We publish Joules Young because
her stories are exactly the kind we started Hollyhock to share. Whimsical but
not lightweight. Magical but not escape. Full of wonder, yes, but also full of
truth.
We created Hocksbox because we
believe stories deserve to travel in every way possible. On the page. In the
ear. In the heart.
And we're just getting started.
And This Is Our Story
Every publisher has an origin
story. Ours began on that quiet morning, in that little house filled with books
and the scent of tea. A whisper of an idea. A notion that stories could connect
us, comfort us, and remind us who we are.
That whisper became a
conversation. That conversation became a plan. That plan became Hollyhock
Books.
Now, 3 years later, we're
introducing Hocksbox. We're introducing Joules Young to a wider audience. We're
watching our little story grow into something we never quite imagined.
And the best part?
We're still at the beginning.
There are more stories to come.
More voices to find. More ways for tales to travel. More readers and listeners
to meet. More magic to make.
We hope you'll stay with us
through all of it.
Because this is who we are.
And this is only the beginning
of our story.
With love and wonder,
Sophia Salazar
Editor-in-Chief, Hollyhock Books
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