Inpress Books

Two new collections for fans of Haiku

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 15:15:48 +0100

Japanese export / gone global – waiting for one / then two come along!

Hundreds of years old, and now practised all over the world, the Japanese art of haiku is poetry in its sharpest, most crystalline form. What these poems lack in length they make up for in a kind of playful riddling, a precise handling of language that is instantaneous yet vivid, simple yet filled with hidden depths.

They're like Sudoku with words, or poetry's version of brain-training – they can provide a moment of brief respite, or live long and puzzling in the memory.

Our Sweet Little Time (Iron Press) takes us through a year in the life of poet Hamish Ironside, and expands on the more conventional themes of haiku – nature, the changing of the seasons – to include the comings and goings of daily adult life, and the arrival of his baby daughter. It's by turns serene and considered, stark and brutal, but ultimately warm and reaffirming.

The Wisteria's Children by Sarah Lawson (Hearing Eye) features 100 largely unpublished haiku – some traditional, some quirky in their wordplay. Kaleidoscopic in focus, we follow the poet on trips to the theatre, on the Tube, across Scotland, Italy and even to Senegal. She takes great joy in exposing the nonsense that often lies beneath our civilised world. And, as both of these books do, she seems to firmly subscribe to the theory that

A haiku lies flat / on the page – but the best ones / get into your mind.

You can read more about Hamish Ironside's Our Sweet Little Time here, or buy it here.

And The Wisteria's Children is available to buy here.

Inpress editors and poets in the Lake District, this weekend

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:12:58 +0100

Resolution and Independence, a season of events featuring Inpress publishers and poets, begins at The Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere this Saturday, 31st October 2009. Our guest publishers will be literary magazines The Rialto and Modern Poetry in Translation, who will introduce their poets Emily Wills and Sasha Dugdale.

Resolution and Independence is a series of three special events that aim to foreground the importance of smaller publishers in bringing innovative and dynamic poetry to the modern reader. The events will introduce audiences to the editors behind the scenes, and to some of the poets they are currently championing. Each event will have a different focus, guiding the audience through the various stages of poetry publication, and should prove of interest to readers and aspiring writers alike.

In his poem “Resolution and Independence”, Wordsworth encounters an Old Man who speaks with what could be a picture-perfect definition of poetry itself: “Choice word, and measured phrase; above the reach / Of ordinary men”. We're looking forward to celebrating all that fits in with just such a description.

31st October 2009: Independent Poetry Magazine Publishing
Featuring The Rialto and Emily Wills; Modern Poetry in Translation and Sasha Dugdale

5th December 2009: Independent Poetry Pamphlet Publishing
Featuring Smith Doorstop and Michael McCarthy; Tall Lighthouse and Emma McGordon

13th February 2010: Independent Poetry Book Publishing
Featuring Flambard Press and Kelley Swain; Arc Publications and Brian Johnstone.

All events start at 2pm, and tickets are priced at £4 each or £10 for all three events. For more details, visit The Wordsworth Trust or call 01539 435544. Events will be held in the stunning reading room of The Jerwood Centre.

Three Men on the Metro call in at BBC World Service

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:10:51 +0100

Poets Andy Croft and Bill Herbert, two of Five Leaves’ Three Men on the Metro, can be heard talking about their adventures in Moscow on the latest edition of The Strand, the daily arts bulletin on the BBC World Service.

To listen to the broadcast, click here.

Three Men on the Metro brings together the weird and wonderful exploits of poets Andy Croft, W.N. Herbert and Paul Summers as they journey from the Newcastle Metro to its Moscow counterpart. With only a tatty copy of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat – a cult classic in the Soviet Union – for company, the trio soon become the typical idealists abroad: lost underground and going in circles. The poetry that follows is inspired by their two weeks adrift in a foreign land, in a Metro system as renowned for its stunning artwork and architecture as it is for its trains.

Buy it here.

Michael McCarthy's Prize-Winning Collection Now in Stock

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:10:45 +0100

The Smith Doorstop Poetry Competition is one of the UK's most prestigious prizes and the winner of last year's competition, Michael McCarthy, who works as a priest in North Yorkshire, publishes his second full collection this month. At the Races was selected by competition judge Michael Longley and you can read a sample poem here.

Michael McCarthy grew up on a farm in West Cork, Ireland. His first poetry collection Birds’ Nests and Other Poems won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. He is also a children’s author whose books have been translated into seventeen languages.

"What I love about Michael’s poetry is the extraordinary specific detail, the pictures painted by the juxtaposition of words. It sings with a poetic intelligence. It moves me: the people, the memories, the vividness of detail." – Sinead Cusack

"There’s a country where you’ll have the wit to name a field the cabbage garden; there’s another where you’ll name the living water nothing more than Cold Hill Pond; and there’s this pair of old incorrigibles, lost, not lost, in conversation. There’s a life lived there and here and always among people, mostly poor, apostles. There’s a parishful of poems: a circle of small shells / their ears to the ground. Any moment / now, the waters break. You wouldn’t want to miss it." – Gillian Allnutt

You can also buy pamphlets by first stage winners Sally Goldsmith, Anna Woodford and Carole Bromley from Inpress for just £4 each.

New to Inpress: Pomona Books

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 11:11:35 +0100

Set up five years ago by Times' writer and author, Mark Hodkinson, Pomona is resolute in publishing beautifully-produced literary gems. Each book is framed in a distinctive house-style dreamed up by feted designer/typesetter, Christian Brett. The list has attracted respected writers such as Armitage, Hunter Davies, Ian McMillan, Barry Hines and many more. "We manage to get writers of this calibre,'' explained Mark, ''Because they know we're committed to making fantastic books that look and feel great and are, above all, interesting to read.'' Incidentally, poet Ian McMillan is Pomona's publisher-at-large, always on the look-out for new titles and writers.

The books' subject matter is incredibly varied - from a biography on Elizabeth Smart by her son, Christopher Barker, to a memoir by Boff Whalley of Chumbawamba. ''I think the best publishing houses are built on the taste of one or two people and to hell with committees or marketing strategies,'' said Mark. ''If I love a book and believe in it, we'll publish it.'' As well as commissioning new work, Pomona has brought back into print several books including Barry Hines' The Price of Coal and Looks and Smiles; Clancy Sigal's Zone of the Interior; Ray Gosling's Sum Total and Trevor Hoyle's Rule of Night. ''These were books that deserved a resurrection,'' said Mark. ''I'd read them growing up and wanted to share them all over again with another generation.''

Mark has published two of his own books - Believe in the Sign which made the long-list for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2007 and the novel, The Last Mad Surge of Youth, which received wide acclaim in the summer of 2009.

Forthcoming in 2010 is an extensive hardback biography of JD Salinger; a childhood memoir called Down the Figure 7 by Trevor Hoyle; a biography of the controversial fitness figure, Lotte Berk and the first book by Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian. ''I know the list is varied and everyone says it's bad business sense not to specialise but that's how I believe books should be - lots of topics and ideas. My long-term aim is that people will recognise the design of a Pomona book and buy it almost on trust, knowing that we've taken great care in how it's presented and put together. When I was younger I used to look for the penguin symbol on the spine of books and buy them on that alone. I want people to do the same when they see our blue P.''

Start buying Pomona Books here.

Happy National Poetry Day!

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 12:12:26 +0100

We are a poetry nation and to prove it, poetry lovers all over the country are celebrating, reading and buying new poetry today. Join in by reading our special National Poetry Day edition of the Inpress newsletter, and buy titles today by Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy and other leading contemporary poets. The theme of this year's celebration is Heroes and Heroines and you can see below what some of our editors said when we asked them who their poetry heroes are.

Jan Fortune-Wood, editor of Cinnamon Press
"My idea of a favourite poet changes with every new selection of books I read or edit. My big favourites tend to be US poets, but right now I'm in awe of the work of Philip Gross in his collaborative title I Spy Pinhole Eye (with artist Simon Denison) – always subtle and layered, never didactic – his work is meditative, playful and profound – poetry that bears reading again and again."

Michael Mackmin, editor of The Rialto
"My first thought is John Berryman, whose 'Homage to Mistress Bradstreet' I think is an absolute must read poem for everyone. Alternatively I could burble on for years about how fantastic Tennyson, Wordsworth, Chaucer and Shakespeare are..."

Check out the National Poetry Day website to find out what's happening near you and to start celebrating!

Cinnamon Press and Biscuit Publishing at Ilkley Literature Festival

Fri, 2 Oct 2009 10:10:17 +0100

Event Date: 04/10/2009

In an era of publishing multinationals and cynical marketing, small presses are the ground-breakers. Come and listen to poets Jean Harrison, Sue Vickerman, Bob Beagrie and Sue Wood, representing two dynamic, and successful ‘indies’, Cinnamon Press and Biscuit Publishing. Cinnamon biscuits will be served!

Ilkley Literature Festival, Ilkley Playhouse Wildman, 5.30-6.30pm, free. Tel: 01943 816 714.

Buy Cinnamon Press titles here.

Elastic Press Scoops Best Small Press Award

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:16:14 +0100

We’re delighted to announce that Elastic Press have won the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Small Press 2009.

The British Fantasy Awards have been awarded annually by the members of the British Fantasy Society and the attendees of their annual convention, Fantasycon, since way back in 1972.

This is the second time that Elastic have picked up the award – the first one came in 2005 – and brings their total number of BFS Awards up to five: the team also won the prestigious Anthology Award for three years running between 2005 and 2007. The latest of these went to Extended Play, a collection of ten stories exploring the power and influence of music as a springboard for fiction.

To watch Elastic Press founder Andrew Hook collecting the award, along with the rest of the ceremony, click here.

Buy Extended Play here.

Flavour of the Month: Cinnamon Press Joins Inpress

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:14:46 +0100

September has really flown by, and the days of darkness at home-time and cocoa before bed are approaching fast. And what better way to ring in the shorter days and longer nights than with a touch of Cinnamon. Just added to our catalogue are offerings from Welsh publishers Cinnamon Press – throwing yet more fantastic poetry, prose, and even photography into the mix.

Holly Howitt’s The Schoolboy brings together elements of Salinger, Burgess and Easton Ellis in a startling portrait of a disturbed adolescent mind. A debut work of strikingly raw energy and pitch-black humour, it tells the story of young Nick as he falls into the wrong crowd in his last year at school.

Truth Games by Bobbie Darbyshire tells the tale of a swinging mid-Seventies London, and a group of friends playing a dangerous game of secrets, lies, and open marriages. Fast and funny, this novel strips bare the post-Pill hedonism of one long hot bed-swapping summer.

Shelagh Weeks’s Up Close is the story of one family’s rapidly unravelling life together. In a sincere and moving account of family dysfunction, a holiday in North Wales unfolds through the varying perspectives of parents Owen and Jan and their three children, as relationships are made and broken, and resolution is sought and hopefully found.

Finally, I Spy Pinhole Eye represents an astonishing collaboration between award-winning poet Philip Gross and widely-acclaimed photographer Simon Denison. Always in dialogue with one another, the two media combine to produce a visual poetry of ideas, and an art-book to savour.

Three Men on the Metro - calling at Durham

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:12:13 +0100

Event Date: 20/11/2009

Andy Croft, Bill Herbert and Paul Summers will be talking about their poetry tour around the Moscow Metro system - a madcap journey inspired by Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, itself a cult classic in the old Soviet Union.

Colpitts Poetry, Alington House, 4 North Bailey, Durham. 8pm. Info: www.colpittspoetry.co.uk

Buy it here.

Jewish Culture and the East End

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:11:58 +0100

Event Date: 15/11/2009

Join Five Leaves at a day event looking into Jewish Culture and the East End.

Five Leaves specialises in material that provides an insight into the socio-cultural workings of East London: such titles include The Streets of East London, East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914, and East End 1888, all by William J. Fishman.

Toynbee Hall, E1. 1.00-5.00pm. Info: www.jewishsocialist.org.uk

Author Berlie Doherty at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:11:48 +0100

Event Date: 17/10/2009

Berlie Doherty, twice winner of the Carnegie Medal and author of A Beautiful Place for a Murder, will be appearing at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival this October.

A Beautiful Place for a Murder, published by Five Leaves, tells the story of a murder suspect's frantic attempts to clear his name, and is a treat for young adults and grown-ups alike.

The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, 2.30pm. Tickets: £4.00. Info: www.cheltenhamfestivals.com

Buy it here.

Three Men on the Metro comes to Ilkley

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:11:37 +0100

Event Date: 08/10/2009

Join poets Andy Croft, Bill Herbert and Paul Summers on a magical mystery tour aboard the Moscow Metro system, as they provide their own poetic update to the adventures of Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

Ilkley Playhouse Wharfside. 9.00pm. Free, no ticket required. Info: www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk

Buy it here.

Launching The Lost Sister with author Russel McLean

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:11:30 +0100

Event Date: 01/10/2009

Join Russel McLean and the gang in the Drouthy Neebor's downstairs space as they celebrate the launch of The Lost Sister, the second novel to feature gritty Dundonian private eye J McNee.

Drouthy Neebor's downstairs space, 142-146 Perth Road, Dundee. 7.30pm. Free - collect your invitation from Dundee Waterstones. Tel: 01382 200 322.

Buy it here.

Three Men on the Metro - Take a Tour of the Moscow Underground!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:11:07 +0100

Event Date: 01/10/2009

Join Andy Croft, Bill Herbert and Paul Summers at Newcastle University as they take a poetry tour round the Moscow Metro system.

The talk coincides with the Five Leaves release of Three Men on the Metro, a journey from the Newcastle Metro to the Moscow Metro. Armed only with a battered copy of Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (a cult classic in the Soviet Union), poets Andy Croft, Bill Herbert and Paul Summers are soon lost underground. Like their predecessors on the Thames, they are completely out of their depth, idealists abroad, adrift in a very foreign medium.

University of Newcastle, room tbc. 12pm. Free. Info: info@fiveleaves.co.uk

Buy it here.

Anvil Press Hammers Out Five New Titles

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:11:00 +0100

All this late-summer good weather can’t last forever, so here at Inpress we’re very excited to be adding five brand new titles from Anvil Press to our catalogue. As well as poetry from acclaimed British author Peter Dale, there are also translated works from as far afield as France, Germany, the U.S. and China to get stuck into as the colours turn and the cold rolls in!

Into the Deep Street: Seven Modern French Poets 1938-2008, translated by Jennie Feldman and Stephen Romer, brings together a collection of contemporary French poetry from the likes of Jean Follain, Philippe Jaccottet and Gilles Ortlieb, and celebrates a French poetic tradition of challenging authority and defying labels.

More translated poetry arrives in the form of Ruth and Matthew Mead’s Word for Word: Selected Translations from German Poets. Featuring the likes of Heinz Winfried Sabais and Johannes Bobrowski, this is a uniquely personal introduction to the translators’ favourite works, and a fascinating era for German poetry.

David Hinton’s translation of The Selected Poems of Wang Wei offers up a celebration of one of the foremost poets in China’s 3,000-year poetic history. Both philosophically profound and easily accessible, these imagistic masterstrokes won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation in 2007.

Closer to home, Peter Dale’s Local Habitation: A Sequence of Poems features an ethereal, multi-vocal journey through themes of love, memory and loss, and represents a nuanced exploration of the poetic form. Finally, Rejoicing: New and Collected Poems gathers together six decades of writing by Stanley Moss, one of America’s finest poets, in a body of work that is adventurous and engaging, colourful and wise.

Studio Sale: Anita Klein

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:10:47 +0100

Event Date: 10/10/2009

The weekend of 10-11 October sees a much-anticipated studio sale of paintings, drawings, prints, stained glass and ceramics by Anita Klein - whose works can be found in our Five Leaves publications Anita Klein: Painter Printmaker, and Anita Klein: Italian Angels.

82 Tressillian Road, London, SE4 1YD. Sat/Sun 12-5pm. Info: www.anitaklein.com

Buy Anita Klein: Painter Printmaker here.

Buy Anita Klein: Italian Angels here.

Five Leaves author Russel D. McLean in conversation with Alexander McGregor

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:09:57 +0100

Event Date: 24/09/2009

Russel D. McLean, author of our Five Leaves titles The Good Son and The Lost Sister, will be talking to Alexander McGregor (The Law Killers) at the University of Dundee.

The Good Son is a brutal, critically-acclaimed crime drama that boasts both a fast-paced, tightly-honed plot and an expert grasp of characterisation. Private investigator J McNee is forced to confront his own demons as he sets out to solve a vicious spate of murders in the Scottish city of Dundee.

The Lost Sister is the second outing for Dundee private eye J McNee, and sees him drawn into the hunt for the missing god-daughter of a very local and very well-connected hardman.

Tower Building, University of Dundee, 7pm. Tickets £3 from Dundee Waterstones, 35 Commercial Street. Tel: 01382 200 322.

Buy The Good Son here.

Buy The Lost Sister here.

Andrew Duggan talks about his debut novel, Scars Beneath the Skin

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:10:12 +0100

Event Date: 22/09/2009

Flambard author, Andrew Duggan will be taking part at a live literature night called 'Word Soup' in Preston. The 'live lit' is organised by the Preston Writing Network, who promote and develop emerging and established writing talent in Preston and the wider North West.

Scars Beneath the Skin is a dark modern love story set against the anxieties of our uncertain world and is Andrew's first novel which was published in April of this year.

The Continental, South Meadow Lane, Preston, PR1 8JP, 8pm. £3. Tel: 01772 499 425.

Buy it here.

Read Andrew's blogs here.

The Poetry Business is The Book Depository's Publisher of the Week

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:10:04 +0100

In keeping with the 'of the month' tradition of late, we are delighted that our member publisher The Poetry Business is The Book Depository's Publisher of the Week. You can read the beginning of the interview below:

The Poetry Business publishes books, pamphlets and audio under the Smith/Doorstop imprint, and publishes literary magazine The North. It also runs Writing Days, the Writing School and the original Book & Pamphlet Competition.

To read the full interview click here.

Buy The Poetry Business titles here and the current issue of The North here.

Interview with Jayne Joso on The Book Depository website

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:09:47 +0100

You can now find an interview with one of our authors, Jayne Joso, on The Book Depository's website.

In the interview, the author talks about her first novel, Soothing Music for Stray Cats. It’s a real insight into the reasons and influences behind this tale of chance companionship, suicide and Samurai philosophy.

Joso also talks about her other writing projects, the importance of music and literature in her own life, and her ongoing fascination with all things architectural.

And remember, you can always find out more about Jayne Joso in our Author Blogs section.

Buy it here.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week: 14th-18th September 2009

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:14:49 +0100

Today, Monday 14th September marks the beginning of Book Blogger Appreciation Week (BBAW). For anyone out there who enjoys reading book reviews just as much as – if not more than – the books themselves, this should be a real treat.

BBAW is now in its second year, and aims to recognise all the effort put in by book bloggers worldwide in the continuing “promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading.”

Bloggers of all shapes and sizes are invited to register their own blogs so they can actively participate in the week’s events.

Here on the Inpress website, you’ll find a wealth of blog entries from our own authors, where they discuss their work, their busy schedules and everything else under the sun. Click here to read our Author Blogs.

For more information on BBAW, and to see the winners when they are announced, visit BBAW.

Poems of Oktay Rifat short-listed for The Corneliu M Popescu Award for European Poetry in Translation

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:11:45 +0100

Poems of Okay Rifat by Oktay Rifat, translated by Ruth Christie and Richard McKane has been shortlisted for The Corneliu M Popescu Award for European Poetry in Translation 2009.

The prize is open to collections of poetry published between 1 June 2007 and 31 May 2009 which feature poetry translated from another European language into English.

For half a century Oktay Rifat occupied a leading position in the vanguard of Turkish poetry. Despite his popularity and fame he rarely appeared in public, preferring the private life of an ordinary family man and content to work as an attorney while continuing to write.

The 2009 prize is being judged by poets Stephen Romer and Elaine Feinstein and the winner will be announced in November.

Buy it here.

Kevin Fegan - poetry reading

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:09:23 +0100

Event Date: 17/09/2009

Kevin Fegan reads from Let Your Left Hand Sing, his long dramatic poem of migrant stories.

These are the stories of migration – the story of a Jamaican woman who remembers the Anansi stories of her childhood; of the Hindu woman who likens her native Poona to her new home in Leicester; of the woman from the Sudan “who was eight when the soldiers came”; of the Ukrainian who has lived in exile for fifty years; and of the prisoner who has stayed in seventeen towns but never set foot in one of them.

Kevin Fegan is also a migrant, from an Irish family who came to the Midlands for want of work. His story is here too.

Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus, Nottingham NG1 5AF, 6pm. £6. Tel: 0115 941 9419.

Buy it here.

Five Leaves author short-listed for 2009 ITV Crime Thriller Awards

Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:12:08 +0100

Rod Madocks' novel, No Way to Say Goodbye, has been short-listed for the 2009 ITV Crime Thriller Awards. His book is in the running for the John Creasey “Fresh Blood” Dagger section for first novels.

Five Leaves is one of only two independent publishers across the fifteen books chosen for the three awards being judged, and the only small publisher whose book has been selected.

Rod Madocks' book is a haunting and sinister novel that explores love, loss and the pursuit of an obsession. It is set in an unnamed East Midlands city, though it would not be too hard to guess which one, and partly in the hidden world of the maximum security asylum. Leading Nottinghamshire crime writer Stephen Booth said “If you want a glimpse into what really goes on inside a secure psychiatric hospital... this is the book for you.”

Rod Madocks said “I am thrilled to be nominated for this award. It is satisfying to be recognised by other crime authors. John Creasey himself was a remarkable author, noted for his versatility and productivity. It is said that he wrote 600 novels. A fitting if somewhat daunting inspiration for a new author with one novel to his name!”

The winner of the Awards will be announced on ITV3 on Wednesday 21st October.

Buy the book here.

The Guardian hails John Murray 'an undiscovered treasure'

Sat, 5 Sep 2009 12:12:27 +0100

This Saturday's edition of The Guardian includes a review of John Murray's new novel The Legend of Liz and Joe by esteemed critic Alfred Hickling. Born in West Cumbria and still living in the county, Murray has published a collection of stories, Pleasure, for which he received the Dylan Thomas Award in 1988 and six novels, including the Booker-longlisted Jazz Etc in 2003.

Hickling says that in this latest book "Murray is at his best when analysing the inertia of the local dialect." You can read the full article here.

"One of the best comic writers we've got, the only natural heir to Flann O'Brien." - Jonathan Coe, The Observer

John Harvey at Reading Festival of Crime Writing

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:16:50 +0100

Event Date: 12/09/2009

Five Leaves author, John Harvey will be reading at the second Reading Festival of Crime Writing. This three day event features author talks, activities and workshops.

John Harvey is the author of ten Charlie Resnick novels, the first of which, Lonely Hearts, was named by The Times (London) as one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century. In 2007 he was awarded the British Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Sustained Excellence in Crime Writing for his title Flesh and Blood.

Waterhouse Room, Reading Town Hall, 4pm, £4/£5, Tel: 0118 960 6060.

Buy John Harvey titles here.

Alcemi is The Book Depository's Publisher of the Week

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 09:09:28 +0100

In keeping with the 'of the month' theme, we are also delighted that our welsh publisher Alcemi is The Book Depository's Publisher of the Week. You can read the beginning of the interview below:

Alcemi believes in publishing success stories, kept on a human-scale. Editor Gwen Davies has deep experience of developing new fiction writers such as Richard Gwyn, Rachel Trezise and Tristan Hughes, who have gone on to make their name worldwide with publishers like Doubleday and Picador, while Alcemi has already had a taste of prize-winning, with Gee Willliams' Salvage being shortlisted for the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and Fflur Dafydd named as the Oxfam Emerging Writer of the Year at Hay 09, for her novel Twenty Thousand Saints.

To read the full interview click here.

Buy Alcemi titles here.

Derek Ansell talks about Workout - the Music of Hank Mobley

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 10:10:50 +0100

Event Date: 05/09/2009

Among the great American modern jazz saxophonists, Mobley had been the most unjustly neglected – the truly forgotten man. Yet he played and recorded prolifically with the greatest legends of his era such as Miles Davis. His best recordings are classics, characterized by an instantly identifiable sound and style, and constant musical inventiveness. But his loner personality made him his own worst enemy, many of his records remained unissued in his lifetime, and he died forgotten and destitute.

Expect Ansell to reflect and highlight Mobley’s instantly identifiable sound, style and inventiveness, and also the fascination into his loner personality.

Borders Bookshop, Newbury, Berkshire, Telephone: 01635 38034.

Buy it here.

Brian Johnstone is SPL's Poet of the Month

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:16:37 +0100

From the 1st September, we are delighted that Arc author Brian Johnstone will be the Scottish Poetry Library's Poet of the Month.

Previous poets of the month have included Jen Hadfield, Roddy Lumsden, Edinburgh Makar (that's the city poet laureate) Ron Butlin, Robert Burns, Andrew Philip, Rob MacKenzie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kathleen Jamie and founder director of the SPL Tessa Ransford. SPL wanted Brian to be their Poet of the Month in celebration of his new collection - The Book of Belongings. On top of that it's in recognition of his huge contribution to the Scottish poetry scene in general, and in bringing StAnza (Scotland's International Poetry Festival which he co-founded in 1998) to an international stage.

Brian said: 'It's great being chosen as the poet of the month by the Scottish Poetry Library - not only is it an institution I love, it's housed in one of the country's most wonderful buildings and staffed by a fabulous group of people. I couldn't think of a better honour for the appearance of my new book.'

Brian will be officially launching his new book at the SPL on 7th October, more details to follow.

You can buy The Book of Belongings here.

Visit SPL's site here.

A Turkish literary evening with Richard McKane

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:11:22 +0100

Event Date: 02/09/2009

Richard will be reading from his translation of Nazim Hikmet's Beyond the Walls: Selected Poems, with Moris Farhi and Alev Adil. Introduction by Lucy Popescu. There's a friendly cafe bar that serves Turkish food/drinks/cocktails.

Richard McKane has translated over 20 books from both Russian and Turkish. The first collection of his own poetry Amphora for Metaphors was published in New York and London in 1993 and his Turkey Poems was published bilingually in Istanbul. Whilst continuing to translate, he also works as an interpreter at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, in London.

The Sugar Lounge, 145 Stroud Green Road, London, N4 3PZ. 7.30pm, Free. Tel: 0207 281 5095.

Buy Richard McKane's titles here.

Summer issue of The Rialto now available

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:13:13 +0100

The latest issue of The Rialto features three new poems from award winning poet Simon Armitage and four new poems by Alan Brownjohn, about Ludbrooke, a ‘rather dubious alter ego’.

Well known names included in this issue are Gerard Benson, Martyn Crucefix, David Holbrook, David Morley, and Ruth Silcock. At the other end of reputation it has Ray Marshall’s first poem to appear in print. There’s the first part of Joanna Clark’s sequence Sonnets For Colin, also two rhymed pieces, refreshing, sardonic, from Helena Nelson and Alan Dixon. 53 poets, 30 are female, 23 male.

Lorraine Mariner writes about herself and Jessica Elton, the central character in her first collection, and Jessica Elton responds. Rennie Parker looks at the cost of becoming a poet and Emily Wills remembers U A Fanthorpe.

Published three times a year since 1984, The Rialto is a beautifully produced magazine that takes risks, publishing a wide range of poets and styles, from eminent international names to emerging new writers. Be quick to order as the last issue (66) is sold out.

Buy Issue 67 here.

Trespass Magazine launch of ‘Americana’

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:12:08 +0100

Event Date: 26/08/2009

Trespass Magazine celebrates the launch of the 'Americana' issue by travelling North to share the love in Leeds this month, and then caps off the festivities in London. An evening of music from Peter Scott-Presland doing cabaret and Romy Northover performing alongside her co-creator Kiera Fox as part of the performance art duo ‘Constantinoplex’. Join them as the This Is It II band (for one night only!) will also be playing for their Michael Jackson Sing-along.

A vast array of literary talent includes:
John Stiles, Sabrina Mahfouz, Heather Taylor, Henrietta Cullinan, Stephanie Petrik, Agnes Meadows, Jacqui Saphra, Anna McKerrow and more.

Trespass is a quarterly arts and literary magazine. This is a classy, beautifully designed magazine packed with brilliant artwork, fiction, and poetry.

The Enterprise, 2 Haverstock Hill, Camden, London, NW3 2BL. Tel: 020 7485 2659.

Buy Trespass here.

Arts Council funded IRON anthology

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:16:20 +0100

Thanks to a successful bid for Arts Council England funding, IRON Press will be publishing an anthology of new comic poems next year. Peter Mortimer of IRON Press has given the job of editing the anthology to Eileen Jones. This will be her first time in such a position. Having written a few comic poems in her time, however, she more than understands the process.

Her first poem, Misunderstood Mystic, about the pitfalls of practising meditation at school (…When I transcend they have the face / to call it 'staring into space'), was published in 'Jackie' in 1968. She is convinced funny poetry really matters, and not just 'in difficult times'.

Comic anthologies published for adults in the last 10-15 years don't contain much new writing, she feels. Old favourites endure, and these volumes also revive and preserve obscurer gems by poets better known for more solemn writing. But new comic poetry is happening, Eileen asserts, and not just from well known comic verse specialists – other established poets include humorous poems in their collections, and comic poems feature in poetry slams and in radio broadcasts, and as a small but welcome part of the content of poetry magazines, competition anthologies and poetry websites.

So the writers of new and seriously funny poems are out there and hopefully they're looking for a new showcase.

'New' will be defined as unpublished, or with a publication date no earlier than 1990 and Eileen will be looking through recent collections and magazines, as well as seeking submissions from new and established writers. Poetry written for performance will be considered, providing it works just as well on the page.

Publication is planned for October 2010 and Eileen is looking forward to the forthcoming comic content. The submission criteria will soon be on the IRON Press website. Included poets will be paid.

To purchase IRON Press products, click here.

Are you on Facebook? Become a fan of Inpress to keep up to date

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:15:11 +0100

Our recent news has covered information on our newsletter and blogs about e-books. To keep up with technology, we are now passing on this information online through our Facebook page. Facebook lets people communicate with each other from the comfort of their sofa, bed or desk and is currently being touted (along with Twitter) as an important tool in the progression of the publishing industry.

Inpress has had its own Facebook page for some time, but it appears a lot of publishers are now embracing the online world in a bid to reach more people. Arc, Aflame, Banipal, Comma, Rialto, Egg Box, Elastic Press, Hearing Eye, The Rialto and Smith Doorstop all feature on Facebook in the form of an account, a group or a fan page. This means a quarter of our member publishers have seen the benefits of the social-networking site.

Our number of fans grows by the week, meaning we can provide up to date information on news, events, new titles and current topics to more and more people. Using Facebook means we have the opportunity to link up with some of our publishers through the page instantly; meaning information is readily available on a more informal level.

To see the coverage our member publishers have on Facebook, simply search for them here. (You need your own account to sign in).

You can become a fan of Inpress’s page here.

Jayne Joso at the Shell Chester Literature Festival

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:10:37 +0100

Event Date: 16/10/2009

Soothing Music for Stray Cats is influenced by songwriters from Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen to Noel Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft. Mark is preoccupied by the thought that listening to the wrong music can lead to wrong thinking and maybe wrong ways of living. So develops the idea of listening to music and reading books that soothe the soul.

“Soothing Music for Stray Cats may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels.” Times Literary Supplement

Oddfellows, 20 Lower Bridge St, Cheshire, CH1 1RS. Book - 01244 405605

Ticket details: October 16th, 1.00pm. £5 Includes Tea and Cakes

You can buy Soothing Music for Stray Cats here

Available courses from The Poetry Business

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:12:49 +0100

To aid the progression of the contemporary literary world, The Poetry Business are currently offering two writing courses. One of the courses is a residential held in partnership with Arvon (Feb 2010) and the other is the fourth Writing School (for published poets looking towards a second collection).

The residential course (in partnership with the Arvon Foundation) is held at Lumb Bank in Hebden Bridge and will run from Monday 8th to Saturday 13th February, 2010. It is a carefully-designed week of writing exercises and demanding but hugely enjoyable assignments. The tutors are Ann & Peter Sansom. The course will run from Monday 8th to Saturday 13th February, 2010. Information on how to apply can be found here.

Additionally, The Poetry Business is offering an intensive course of study, workshops and peer-led discussion, over 18 months for up to 12 selected poets.

The Writing School is an Arts Council initiative aimed at more established poets. A customised form of the MA that Peter Sansom taught for ten years, it is a highly-structured advanced course, which depends upon the seriousness, experience and commitment of the writers who take part. It will be useful to any poet who needs direction and well-informed peer support; and particularly to those who themselves teach writing and wish to reassess their own practice.

Applicants will normally have published at least one collection, but exceptions may be made, especially where work has appeared widely in magazines. There will be nine Writing School days, beginning in the Winter of 2009 and covering an 18 month period. Closing date for applications is 25th September. Information on how to apply can be found here.

The Poetry Business was founded in 1986 in Huddersfield. It publishes books, pamphlets and audio under the Smith/Doorstop imprint, and publishes literary magazine The North.

You can buy Smith/Doorstop (The Poetry Business) titles here.

Inpress Customer Newsletter now bi-monthly

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:14:36 +0100

Following the success of our last newsletter, we’ve now decided to send out two newsletters each month: which means double the news, offers and sneak previews for you.

If you have already signed up, you will have received our latest issue today, 13 August, featuring our title story ‘Marvellous Magazines from Inpress’. The Rialto, The London Magazine, Banipal and The North all feature, but that’s not forgetting the eight other leading literary magazines you can buy directly from us.

Often the first step in a writer's career is to achieve publication in one of these subscriptions, so you will often find household names published side by side with new talent. The North, for example, described as 'excellent' by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, launched the careers of Simon Armitage and Ian McMillan. The current issue, The North 43, is the biggest single issue of the magazine ever and features some 70 poems by 37 poets.

Our magazines cover areas of interest from poetry and prose to visual art and criticism. You can either take out a one or two year subscription or simply purchase individual issues. Issue prices range from £4.00 to £10.00.

To receive a copy of our newsletter, email newsletter@inpressbooks.co.uk.

You can subscribe to, or buy a specific magazine issue from our collection here.

Literature for International Youth Day

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:11:40 +0100

Today, 18th August, marks the annual International Youth Day (IYD), which is an awareness day designated by the United Nations. This day is an opportunity for young people and others to draw attention to youth issues worldwide. Concerts, workshops, cultural events, and meetings involving young people will take place around the world today. Inpress offers a large collection of both children’s books and literature for young adults.

Big and Clever by Dan Tunstall, published by Five Leaves deals with the trials of two young lads attempting to find their own identity. The harsh reality of growing up is also highlighted in Nick’s Blues. Here our protagonist Nick Harman, is trying to find out who he really is, this time amidst the backdrop of London gangs and his father’s suicide.

A selection of children’s literature can be found here and you can buy Five Leaves titles here. For more information on The United Nations Programme, visit their website here.

Wordsworth Trust plays host to Josephine Dickinson and Jeremy Over

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:12:31 +0100

Event Date: 25/08/2009

Josephine Dickinson will be reading with Jeremy Over, including poems from Night Journey, at the Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage, Grasmere. In this new collection, Josephine Dickinson’s poems move out towards the cosmos and inwards on a journey of transformation – the ‘night journey’ of the title. Between the first poem’s imagery of the moth chrysalis and the shape-shifting spells of the last, each poem or sequence has at its centre a movement towards epiphany.

The long central sequence of Elegies follows the journey of a grief. But the tone of this collection is ultimately ecstatic, its dominating influence one of light. The poet questions the equation of ‘night’ with ‘darkness’. Night assumes instead the nature of a lover, host to dreams and what is beyond the ordinary senses.

Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere. You can book tickets here.

You can buy Josephine Dickinson books here.

The London Magazine – New Owner Kick-Starts New Era

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:10:25 +0100

The London Magazine is delighted to announce the arrival of Dr Burhan Al-Chalabi, the new owner as of 1st July 2009. He has stepped in to see the magazine to greater prosperity. Sara-Mae Tuson, after a brief hiatus from the magazine, has been re-hired as part of a bid to continue the work she began last year. “It’s an exciting time for the magazine,” says Tuson. “With Dr. Al-Chalabi’s business acumen and energy we hope to see the magazine into a new era of prosperity and really cement our position as one of the oldest and most well regarded literary publications in the UK.”

With that in mind they are kick-starting August with an extra thick bumper issue full of articles, reviews and features. With the theme ‘Science’ celebrating the various anniversaries relating to Darwin, Ruth Padel discusses humanising the great naturalist through her work. The Poet on Politics this issue is Michael Blackburn, whose incendiary piece dissects the Thatcher legacy and her natural heirs, Labour’s Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson. The London Magazine also launches the first of Matthew Scott’s literary anniversaries column as he discusses Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers and Wordsworth’s The Convention of Cintra. Reviews are of Futurism at the Tate, Mark Gertler at the Whitechapel Gallery, John Agard’s Clever Bones and Ruth Padel’s Darwin: A Life in Poems, while Nicholas Royle looks at directorial debuts in his film column…and much more.

To mark this, there will be a launch event for the August/September issue on 11th September at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London. The evening starts at 7:30pm, and for a £3 ticket, you will get the opportunity to experience: Tobias Hill, Tania Hershman, Jacqui Saphra, Katy Evans-Bush, Alison McLeod, Mario Petrucci, Sarah Fletcher, Valreie Jack, Matthew Scott, Guy Ware, Maggie Butt, Richard Barnett, Robyn Bolam, Bernadette Cremin and more…

You can buy the August/September issue here.

You can subscribe to the magazine here.

We're off to Edinburgh Book Festival

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 15:15:13 +0100

With 17 days, 750 events, 800 authors, and over 40 different countries represented, Edinburgh International Book Festival claims to be the largest celebration of the written word in the world, and we believe them. 2009 is the 25th anniversary of the festival and Inpress will be there this month, in Charlotte Square Gardens, looking to meet Scottish booksellers and publishers.

Although obviously an international festival, scottish history, literature, culture and society are thoroughly recognised and celebrated. Scotland's newest creative talent will be showcased, with a chance to see the finest unpublished writers from across the creative writing schools of Scotland, supported by the Scottish Government's Edinburgh Festival's Expo Fund. Indeed, some of their work is likely to feature in the bookshops soon. On Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th August, the festival gives you the opportunity to meet these talented new authors. This is not to be sniffed at when you consider J. K Rowling was invited to the Book Festival in 1997.

Among many, many others, Carol Ann Duffy will be there, providing her work for consumption on two days. On Saturday 15th you can witness the poet laureate reading her poetry at the RBS main theatre. Additionally, the fairy tale magic of her The Lost Happy Endings, set to John Sampson’s music at the Corner Theatre, can be enjoyed on Monday 17th. The latter event sold out quickly, so there’s another opportunity to witness her prose and romantic spirit the day after. Tickets can be bought here.

Alan Bilton reads at the Edinburgh Fringe

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 12:12:01 +0100

Event Date: 06/08/2009

Borne out of Bilton’s early fascination with train journeys and silent films, we can understand the eerie, surreal and gripping depth of The Sleepwalkers’ Ball. Set in an unnamed Scottish city, like the Edinburgh stage of Alan’s reading, we are taken on a charismatic tour as he dips in and out of the lives of the characters, feeding off the mystery of train journeys. The novel is constantly shrouded by the presence of a castle, meaning we are never far from gothic elements. Like the silent films he loved, fear and comedy are closely linked to immense effect.

Blackwell’s 53-63 South Bridge, Edinburgh. 6pm. Book - 0131 226 0000

You can buy The Sleepwalkers’ Ball here.

Robert Conquest's Penultimata in Daily Telegraph

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 11:11:26 +0100

‘Emotion recollected in tranquility’ is an attitude to poetry taken by Wordsworth, a figure that influences Robert Conquest’s latest batch of poetry, Penultimata. Charles Moore’s review in today’s Daily Telegraph emphasises the point that in his old age, Conquest has the luxury of composure and hindsight resulting in ‘fine poetry’.

Probably better known as a highly important British historian, Conquest is a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union, most notably for The Great Terror in 1968 which documented Stalin’s purges.

As a result of fighting in the Second World War, and working in Bulgaria afterwards as a press officer, he witnessed the gradual rise of Soviet Communism, becoming completely disillusioned with its ideas in the process. His writing over the years has helped to condemn such feeling.

Penultimata is a far cry from such historical work as The Great Terror. At 92 years young, Conquest’s ability to look back adds depth and poignancy to situations, and his best poetry here is about young love. In the Daily Telegraph, Moore talks of Conquest’s Hardy-esque language, with pieces alluding to relationships and loss, in atmospheric settings of the moon and sea. The collection has been available since June, you can buy it here.

August Cheer from Inpress

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:10:47 +0100

As July grinds to a rainy end, we look forward with relish to the release of our new August books. With poetry from The States and from France, plus an exciting South American novel, there are plenty of great books to keep us cheery, whatever the weather.

Well Versed is an anthology of poetry featured in John Rety's popular Morning Star column. A weekly source for quality poetry with a socialist leaning, the Morning Star now boasts the longest-running weekly poetry column of any national newspaper. Andy Croft, poet and editor of Smokestack Books has reviewed the book in the left leaning paper.

If you are a subscriber to our newsletter, you'll know that Brian Johnstone's Book of Belongings is our book of the month. This poetry collection is about seeing what is concealed or hidden, whether in the remote theatres of war or the demons of the past. Brian Johnstone is the director of StAnza poetry festival in Scotland.

Also New for August
- The Skiers by Jill Bialosky. Whittling down her three American collections, and adding some new pieces, The Skiers deals with issues of love, motherhood and death.
- Natural Selection by Cecilia Szperling traces the trials of young, drug influenced characters in Buenos Aires. A cross between Trainspotting and Factotum perhaps?
- Cold Spring in Winter by Valerie Rouzeau is a startling collection of many intertwining voices, translated from French by Susan Wicks.
- Their Mountain Mother by Edmund Prestwich is a long, single poem about South Africa in the 19th century.

Launch of Night Train by Sean O'Brien and Birtley Aris

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:10:10 +0100

Event Date: 31/07/2009

Night Train, is the first new collection from Sean O'Brien since he won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Forward Prize in 2007. This beautifully produced book is presented as a poet-artist's sketch-cum-notebook, in collaboration with artist Birtley Aris. It is also available as a limited edition signed hardback.

The launch event will include a performance from Sean O'Brien and the exhibition will run from 31 July to 1 September.

Night Train is a world of steam-trains, platforms and railway landscapes glimpsed by night, with a buried tale of love and madness. What also makes this collection so special is that the text as well as the artwork is hand drawn.

Exchange Cafe, Queens Hall Arts Centre, Hexham, 7.30pm. Ticketed event. For more information visit Queen's Hall.

Buy it here.

The Legend of Liz And Joe in Wednesday's Independent

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:11:12 +0100

Perusing the Review section of The Independent shall reveal a welcome and deservedly glowing piece on John Murray’s The Legend of Liz and Joe. A serial Flambard Press writer, Murray has had his supporters for some time.

Scanning through his back catalogue of material reveals descriptions invariably centred on the funny and fantastically gripping. The ‘Dystopian fantasy is a comic feast’ that William Palmer leads his piece with in The Independent, certainly does not belie what we have been accustomed to. Murray has published a collection of stories, Pleasure, for which he received the Dylan Thomas Award, in 1988, and six novels, Samarkand, Kin, Radio Activity, Reiver Blues, John Dory and Jazz Etc. John Dory won a Lakeland Book of the Year Award in 2002, and Jazz Etc. was long listed for the Man-Booker Prize in 2003.

The Legend of Liz and Joe, his latest effort, is full of the twists and turns we can expect of Murray, along with the keen observational eye for human nature (the ‘life’s custard pies’ as Kate Saunders of The Times has it), witnessed in the likes of John Dory. Whether it is a shrewd eye for modern life, or the ruthless, comic, yet dystopic satire of Radio Activity and Murphy’s Favourite Channels, Murray is a writer who never seems to run out of ideas or acclaims.

Buy John Murray books here.

You can also listen to John reading from his book, along with an interview here

War and Poetry

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:14:36 +0100

‘It is a poet’s responsibility…to bear witness’ Carol Ann Duffy says, quoting Plato. It was a stubborn alliance to this maxim with the MP expenses poem that made her first words as poet laureate so pertinent. Now, with a little help from some friends, she turns her attention to events in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With the introduction to the Guardian’s war poetry serialisation last Saturday, Duffy makes the point that war has always been ingrained in the minds of poets and poetry. However, she reminds us that 21st century war and the manner in which it is written about has changed. Among Duffy’s contemporary writing army is Jane Weir, an Anglo-Italian and joint winner of the first Jackson Dawson award in 2003. Her first collection The Way I Dressed During the Revolution (Templar Poetry, 2005) was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex New Writers Award (2006). She has been widely published by Templar Poetry and more recently, her second collection Before Playing Romeo was launched at the Wordsworth Trust Summer Poetry Readings at Grasmere in October 2007.

Her poem Poppies features towards the end of the war collection and is a powerful and evocative poem about loss. The piece’s mix of end stops and enjambment, decorated throughout with beautifully descriptive language, makes a fitting end to Duffy’s collection. Sean O’Brien, writer of Night Train also features with his questioning and ironic Of Course If I Can Help in Any Way.

An evening of poetry and harp at Bluebell Bookshop

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:17:13 +0100

Event Date: 01/08/2009

Special evening of poetry and harp music with poet Josephine Dickinson and well-known harpist, playwright and performance impresario Rebecca Sharp - some pieces performed together, and some separately. The two last performed together at the Wordsworth Trust in 2006.

Night Journey by Josephine Dickinson
In this collection, Josephine Dickinson’s poems move out towards the cosmos and inwards on a journey of transformation – the ‘night journey’ of the title.
Between the first poem’s imagery of the moth chrysalis and the shape-shifting spells of the last, each poem or sequence has at its centre a movement towards epiphany.

Bluebell Bookshop, Angel Lane, Penrith. 7.30pm, Free but donations welcome. Tel:
01768 866660.

Buy it here.

Forward Prize Shortlist Announced

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:12:45 +0100

Created in 1991, the Forward Poetry Prizes for best collection, best first collection and best individual poem are a highly respected celebration of contemporary poetry. With winners to be announced at Somerset House in London on 7th October, this year’s Forward Poetry prize is fast approaching. The Guardian has already heralded a ‘strong’ shortlist, which Inpress is keeping a close eye on.

The award for Best First Collection is sure to be eagerly fought out, with Lorraine Mariner being among the nominees for her recent collection Furniture. The London-based poet, whose day job is at the Southbank’s Poetry Library was on the list for Best Single Poem in 2007 for Thursday and must be delighted to feature again. Her first pamphlet, Bye for Now, was published by The Rialto in 2005 and effectively combines contemporary British cultural references with an easily readable, flowing poetic style. Fingers crossed that her entry for this year also does well as she seeks to beat off opposition from the likes of Australian Emma Jones, and New York-based Meghan O'Rourke.

Included on the shortlist for best collection are Peter Porter who, at 80, is a veteran contributor to Poetry London. Porter’s 18th collection Better Than God is on the shortlist alongside Hugo Williams (for West End Final), both of whom contributed to Acumen: Issue 50.

Launch of The Legend of Liz and Joe

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:11:15 +0100

Event Date: 24/07/2009

Cumbrian author John Murray launches his new comic novel The Legend of Liz and Joe tonight in Cumbria. Published by Flambard Press, John will be reading extracts from the book and signing copies, and there will be a glass of wine too in the ticket price of £3, refundable off price of book if purchased.

The Legend of Liz and Joe
Joe Gladstone’s North Cumbrian gourmet guesthouse is losing a packet, not least because of the unusual requirements he makes of his would-be guests. Meanwhile, his wife Liz has embarked on her first extramarital affair at the age of seventy, and has started having spiritual visions. John Murray’s latest comic extravaganza features a wild dialect epic, as well as some diverting table talk about the ethics of eating and drinking.

Bookcase, Castle St, Carlisle. 7.30pm, £3. Tel: 01228 544560.

Buy it here.

John Harvey at Harrogate Crime Writing Festival

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:15:52 +0100

Event Date: 24/07/2009

Be afraid, be very afraid! Each July, the picturesque Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate hosts one of the biggest crime writing festivals in the UK: this year featuring Five Leaves author John Harvey, writer of the acclaimed Charlie Resnick crime novels. Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, established in 2003, sets the scene for authors, publishers, agents and fans to gather together and discuss contemporary crime writing in a series of debates, seminars and on-stage interviews.

Harvey’s event, Music to Murder By, asks what part music plays in crime fiction. Can it be a character in itself, or is it just a lazy way of creating atmosphere, and can the anorak get in the way of the author? Four admirers of different types of music – John Harvey and Martyn Waites (jazz ancient and modern), Dreda Say Mitchell (reggae) and Cathi Unsworth (punk) – discuss what their favourite sounds bring to the murder party with MOJO magazine’s Andrew Male.

This year’s festival not only features Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger recipient John Harvey, but also festival favourite and best-selling author Val McDermid, veteran writer Reginald Hill and Lee Child, author of the ‘Jack Reacher’ series. This is just a small selection of what’s on offer this year. Visit Harrogate Crime Writing Festival for the full programme.

The event Music to Murder By, featuring John Harvey, takes place at The Crown Hotel, Harrogate on the 24 July at 5pm, £8. Book here.

Buy John Harvey titles here.

Lesley Saunders: Launch of Her Leafy Eye

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:15:03 +0100

Event Date: 26/07/2009

Two Rivers Press author Lesley Saunders will launch her new book Her Leafy Eye, at Rousham Gardens. This is a book of poems inspired by these eighteenth century gardens, vividly illustrated by artist Geoff Carr.

Her Leafy Eye
A poet and an artist/garden designer collaborate to catch the spirit of the Rousham Gardens. The text and computer-generated illustrations are in a shifting three-way dialogue with each other and with the culture of ‘landscape’. Familiar features such as a rill, a dovecot, espaliers and a walled garden all make an appearance – though these turn out to be simply the leaping-off point for a grand tour of the imagination.

Rousham Gardens, Oxfordshire. 1.45pm for 2.15pm. Tel: 01869 347 665.

Buy Her Leafy Eye here.

Deborah Kay Davies to feature on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:15:42 +0100

Deborah Kay Davies, Wales Book of the Year 2009 winner, is to be interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour this Wednesday 22nd July. Davies won the coveted £10,000 prize with her first collection of short stories, Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful, published by Parthian. Fellow short-listed writers included Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch and Gee Williams.

Davies is not the first Inpress author to appear on the airwaves recently. Russell Margerison was interviewed on Talk Radio Europe about his wartime memoir Boys at War and Anvil poet Martina Evans discussed her work at the Listowel Writers' Week in Co. Kerry. Both of these interviews were broadcast in June. Listen to them here.

About Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful by Deborah Kay Davies:
Set in the eastern valleys of south Wales from 1970 to the present day, this collection relates the history of Grace and Tamar, their volatile childhood, disruptive coming-of-age and dubious maturity. The book is part novel, part fantasy, part social history. More than anything it tells dark, universal tales about how utterly strange it is to be human.

Buy Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful here.

The Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition 2009/10

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:23:13 +0100

The Poetry Business is now inviting entries for its 23rd Book & Pamphlet Competition.

The competition was established in 1986 and is now recognised as an important event in the poetry calendar. It has been judged by poets such as Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage and Michael Longley; and previous winners have gained PBS Recommendations, been named PBS Pamphlet Choice and shortlisted for the Forward and T S Eliot Prizes. Many, including Mimi Khalvati, Michael Laskey, Daljit Nagra, Catherine Smith and Moniza Alvi, have gone on to earn national reputations.

Entrants are invited to submit a short collection of poems (up to 24 pages). Four of these are selected as first stage winners, and the poets offered pamphlet publication and a share of £1,000. Winners may then submit a longer manuscript for the overall prize of book publication.

This year's judge is Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate and Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The postal entry fee is £20 (for Friends of the Poetry Business and subscribers to The North magazine) and £25 full price. A £1 surcharge is applied to entries submitted online via The Poetry Business website.

The deadline is last posting on 29 November 2009.

For full conditions of entry and an entry form, visit The Poetry Business or email: office@poetrybusiness.co.uk.

Buy Smith/Doorstop (The Poetry Business) titles here.

Two Rivers Press ‘Poet’s in the Garden’

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:13:52 +0100

Event Date: 22/07/2009

Two Rivers Press poets will be performing at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading. The event will feature a great line of poets, including: Ashley Harrold, Susan Utting, Joe Butler and Kate Noakes.

The Wall Menders
Kate Noakes explores themes of environmental damage and renewal. She uses imagined narratives to suggest options, to us, for repairing the planet, and relearning how to live in harmony with it. This is earthy poetry - rooted in the land - that looks at skills we have forgotten, and real food. Kate’s work chimes with some important social themes, but this is poetry of subtlety, rich in its song and imagery.

Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road, Reading, RG1 5EX. RSVP Event. Tel: (0118) 378 8660.

Buy Two Rivers Press titles here.

The Lowdham Book Festival, featuring authors from Five Leaves

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:12:37 +0100

Event Date: 15/07/2009

The Lowdham Book Festival, taking place in Nottinghamshire started in 2000. This year's festival will feature the launch of John Harvey’s new title, Minor Key. Five Leaves’ writers Stephen Booth, Dan Tunstall, Claire Tulloch, Nicola Monaghan and Ron Madocks will also feature. Visiting writers include; Roger McGough, Jackie Kay, Gillian Slovo, Carol Drinkwater, Miranda Seymour and Karen Maitland, with Ian McMillan and Kaye Umansky in the children’s programme.

The festival runs from 15th- 27th July 2009.

The Lowdham Book Festival, Lowdham, N14 7BE. Tel: 0115 966 3219.

Visit Lowdham Book Festival here.

Buy Five Leaves' titles here.

Banipal and Moroccan Poets at the London Review Bookshop

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:12:33 +0100

Event Date: 13/07/2009

Three distinguished Moroccan Poets Hassan Najmi, Ouidad Benmoussa and Siham Bouhlal celebrate the vibrancy of Moroccan poetry today with readings from their work in Arabic, French and English, assisted by Iraqi poet and novelist, Sinan Antoon and translator and writer, Lulu Norman.

Q&A session after the readings, and Middle Eastern refreshments.

Banipal 35 will feature new translations of works by all three poets and will be on sale on the night.

London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, London, WC1A 2JL, 7pm, £6/£4 concessionary price.

Buy Banipal 35 here.

Limited Editions - exclusive from Inpress

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:10:07 +0100

Inpress is delighted to announce exclusive limited edition books from some of the finest poets and authors in the country. Published by Anvil, Carol Ann Duffy’s earlier title The World’s Wife is a beautiful and luxurious limited signed hardback edition of the book which brought her to a wider readership than any other contemporary poet. These are fables for which she is now famed, the witty and touching monologues in the voices of women, historical and mythical, talking about their men. Duffy’s William and the Ex-Prime Minister is also available as a signed limited edition. This pamphlet is filled full of humorous and occasional poems.

Night Train, a limited edition signed hardback, is the first new collection from Sean O’Brien since he won the TS Eliot Prize and The Forward Prize in 2007. This beautifully produced book is presented as a poet-artist’s sketch-cum-notebook, in collaboration with artist Birtley Aris. Night Train is a world of steam-trains, platforms and railway landscapes glimpsed by night, with a buried tale of love and madness. What also makes this collection so special is that the text as well as the artwork is hand drawn.

Minor Key celebrates John Harvey’s 70th birthday with a limited edition signed hardback, sure to be a collectors’ item. He uses his 101st book to explain his attachment to jazz, his once adopted city and the Polish detective that made his name. This book contains four Resnick short stories, a Soho based jazz story which gives the book its title and a smattering of jazz poetry. John Harvey has written a sequence of ten Charlie Resnick novels, the first of which was named by the Times as one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the last Century. He holds the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for his career achievements.

Buy The World’s Wife here.

Buy William and the Ex-Prime Minister here.

Buy Night Train here.

Buy Minor Key here.

Reading of The Ram in the Thicket by Adrian Brown

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:10:43 +0100

Event Date: 14/07/2009

A dramatic reading by three voices of Adrian Brown‘s epic poem The Ram in the Thicket, published by Hearing Eye.

The Ram in the Thicket narrates in humanistic, non-pious terms and in sensual blank verse the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. A suspenseful adventure story concerned with the extreme demands a religion can impose, the poem raises social and philosophical issues relevant to the world situation today: such issues as the balance between faith and reason, between a leader and the governed masses, between principle and pragmatism. It uses a language both recondite and racy, deploying the full vocabulary resources of the English language.

Westminster Reference Library, 35 St Martin’s Street, London, WC2H 7HP, 6pm, free. Tel 020 7641 5250

Buy it here.

Inpress at Ledbury Poetry Festival

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:38 +0100

Ledbury Poetry Festival, which Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has called "a rare, genuine joining of place, poetry and people" is about to enter its final weekend of events, with Inpress publishers Anvil, Banipal, Poetry London and Smokestack all featuring poets.

Ros Barber, published by Anvil, is often compared to Philip Larkin in her deft use of rhyme and meter. Her latest collection Material, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. See her perform on Friday 10 July at Burgage Hall, 2.30-3.30pm, £8.

Banpial will be launching two books at the festival this weekend. Amjad Nasser is a Jordanian poet who has lived in London since 1987, where he is managing and cultural editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily newspaper. Nassar will read from Shepherd of Solitude: Selected Poems, his first collection to be published in English, on Saturday 11 June at Burgage Hall, 12.45-1.45pm, £8. Sargon Boulus’s posthumous collection Knife Sharpener, will be launched with a showing of Samuel Shimon’s short film of the poet talking about his poetry on Saturday 11 June at Burgage Hall, 12.45-1.45pm, £8.

The Summer issue of Poetry London launches tonight 9 June at Burgage Hall, 8pm, £8 with readings by featured poets Chase Twichell and Paul Farley. And the festival finale on Sunday 12 July will feature American poet Frank Reeve, accompanied by jazz duo John Lake and Phil Paton at Burgage Hall, 7.45-8.45pm, £8. Reeve will read from The Blue Cat Walks the Earth, published by Smokestack.

For more information, visit Ledbury Poetry Festival website.

Buy Material here.

Buy Shepherd of Solitude: Selected Poems here.

Buy Knife Sharpener here.

Buy Poetry London here.

Buy The Blue Cat Walks the Earth here.

Dutch focus for new issue of Banipal Magazine

Tue, 7 Jul 2009 14:14:01 +0100

We are always excited to see the latest issue of Banipal, the magazine of modern Arab literature. Banipal 35, which has just arrived in the office, presents ten talented authors who live in the Netherlands and Belgium and write in Dutch, and whose origins include Morocco, Palestine and Iraq. All ten, explains guest editor Victor Schiferli in his introduction, are making important contributions; their “new and energetic voices” having enriched and broken “the mould of Dutch literature, taking up themes that had never before been explored”. Featured authors include Ramsey Nasr, the new Poet Laureate of The Netherlands, and Moroccan poet Hassan Najmi.

Buy it here.

Elastic Press Author Wins Major Short Story Prize

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 09:09:21 +0100

Cult science fiction writer Chris Beckett has won this year's Edge Hill Short Story Prize - the UK's only award for a short story collection by a single author. The judges chose his book The Turing Test, with its tales of robots, alien planets, genetic manipulation and virtual reality over collections by Anne Enright, Shena Mackay, Ali Smith and Gerard Donovan.

Chris was presented with the £5,000 prize and a specially commissioned painting by Liverpool artist Pete Clarke, at a ceremony held by Edge Hill University on Saturday evening, 4 July, at the Bluecoat centre in Liverpool. He was also awarded the £1,000 Readers' Prize. Anne Enright won the second prize, worth £1,000, for her collection Yesterday's Weather published by Vintage.

This year's judges were James Walton, journalist and chair of BBC Radio 4's The Write Stuff; author and 2008 winner Claire Keegan and Mark Flinn, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Edge Hill University.

Read this feature on The Guardian's website. And buy the book here.

Summer's here, and so are our new July titles

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 15:15:09 +0100

The team at Inpress Towers are very pleased to launch new poetry collections from two leading contemporary poets this month. Night Train by Sean O'Brien documents the Forward and T.S. Eliot Prize winner's love of steam trains, platforms and railway landscapes. This is O'Brien's first collection since becoming the first poet to win 'the double' in 2008.

Home is the long-awaited new collection by the esteemed poet and translator Michael Hulse. Expect a collection that's tender and emotional, yet charged with intellectual energy.

Cumbrian novelist John Murray launches The Legend of Liz and Joe; a comic tale of an eccentric husband and wife who run a gourmet guesthouse in the Lake District. There's also new poetry in translation from Luxembourg's Anise Koltz, Russia's Regina Derieva and India's Kunwar Narain.

Inpress Customer Newsletter Launches Today

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:14:55 +0100

Here at Inpress, we've been working away to put together our customer newsletter. Each month we’ll be sending book lovers news about our publishers, competitions and special offers directly to their inbox. We need interesting snippets, factoids and opinions for our newsletter: so please send the Inpress team your reviews of our books, or just details of your favourite independent bookshop.

To find out why John Murray’s The Legend of Liz and Joe has been named the Inpress book of the month, discover which new poetry collections the Inpress team have put forward as their personal picks, and sign up to our newsletter, simply email: newsletter@inpressbooks.co.uk

Poetry and Jazz at the Morden Tower

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:11:45 +0100

Event Date: 10/07/2009

Poetry and Jazz at the Morden Tower with legendary US poet Frank Reeve.

As a young man Frank Reeve drove combine-harvesters in the Midwest wheat fields and worked as a longshoreman on the Hudson River docks. In the 1960s he worked in Moscow and translated for Robert Frost when he met Nikita Khrushchev. On his first visit to Tyneside, he will be reading from his new book The Blue Cat Walks the Earth, backed by jazz duo John Lake and Phil Paton.

The Morden Tower, Back Stowell Street, West Walls, Newcastle, 8pm, £2

Buy The Blue Cat Walks the Earth here

Armed Forces Day - 27 June 2009

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:15:02 +0100

The first Armed Forces Day is taking place on Sunday 27 June. This special day honours the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community – from currently serving troops to Service families and from veterans to recruits.

From this year on, Armed Forces Day will be held annually on this day. The Historic Dockyard Chatham will host the first national Armed Forces Day event, which will be complemented by hundreds of events in towns and cities across the UK.

The event has been described as 'phenomenally important' to British servicemen by the Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth.

Visit Armed Forces Day, for more information on how you can get involved.

You can also read the brave story of Russell Margerison, who decided to join Bomber Command as a teenager in Boys at War. He writes of the dangerous but strangely unreal world of a mid-upper air gunner with 625 Squadron, sitting high in the turret of a mighty Lancaster bomber over occupied Europe, wrapped in several layers of clothes and awed by the destructive beauty of the scene below.

Buy Boys at War here

Visit the author's website here

Poetry readings from Hearing Eye

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:10:24 +0100

Event Date: 05/07/2009

Lucy Hamilton will launch her new pamphlet, Sonnets for my Mother at Torriano Meeting House. Poets from the floor are also welcome.

Sonnets for my Mother is one of six new pamphlets published by Hearing Eye in 2009.

Hearing Eye is a small independent press established in 1987. One of their distinctive features is that they keep all their books in print, a policy now abandoned by most publishing houses. They also work very closely with the individual authors on both the production and presentation of their work.

Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX, 7.30pm, £5/£4/£3. Tel: 020 7267 2751

You can buy Sonnets for my Mother, part of the Hearing Eye Pamphlet subscription here

AJ Duggan talks about his debut novel at Simply Books in Cheshire

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:10:42 +0100

Event Date: 24/06/2009

Flambard author A.J. Duggan will be reading, signing and doing a question and answer session to promote his debut novel Scars Beneath the Skin tonight.

Scars Beneath the Skin
Karl Dresner makes a decision he will come to regret and finds himself caught up in a bomb blast in London. The doctors repair the scars on the outside but Karl is left a lonely, withdrawn man, living in a private abyss and filling his nights with empty sex. Scars Beneath the Skin is a dark modern love story set against the anxieties of our uncertain world.

Simply Books, 228 Moss Lane, Bramhall, Cheshire, SK7 1BD, 7 - 8.30pm. Tel: 0161 439 1436

Buy Scars Beneath the Skin here

David Constantine’s Frieze is the Guardian's poem of the week

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:13:31 +0100

David Constantine’s Frieze has been named by Carol Rumens as the Guardian’s poem of the week. The classically-inspired poem comes from Constantine’s new collection, Nine Fathom Deep, which is published by our friends over at Bloodaxe Books. Constantine, who co-edits the literary magazine Modern Poetry in Translation with Helen Constantine, is renowned for the intensely humane perceptions expressed throughout his work.

In Frieze, Constantine shows how life’s beauty and suffering can be closely entwined, as an elderly woman - 'frail as the moon in daylight' - encounters a group of horses beside an estuary. Read this stunning poem at The Guardian's website.

David Constantine lives in Oxford. His Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books) was published in 2004. Under the Dam, a collection of short stories, was published in 2005 by Comma. His latest collection of poetry is Nine Fathom Deep (Bloodaxe Books, 2009).

Buy the latest issue of Modern Poetry in Translation here

Freelance opportunity with The Rialto

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:10:18 +0100

The Rialto is one of the UK's leading contemporary poetry magazines and in 2010 celebrates its 25th anniversary. Recently they has diversified to publish books, several of them award winning collections; and to take part in readings and workshops.

Editor Michael Mackmin is seeking to recruit a freelancer to work on a number of areas including marketing and audience development, events and sales. Additionally s/he will help build key partnerships and liaise with poets published by The Rialto to ensure maximum exposure and sales.

For more details, visit Rialto Job

Buy The Rialto here

Afterwards by Robert Conquest to feature in this week's edition of The Guardian

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:10:30 +0100

Afterwards by Robert Conquest will feature as the Saturday poem in this week’s edition of the Guardian. The poem comes from Conquest’s seventh collection of poetry, Penultimata, published by Waywiser Press in June 2009.

Robert Conquest stresses poetry’s relationship to the phenomenal universe — in particular to landscape, women, art, and war. His entirely individual poetic voice, gives us disturbing fictions, emotive landscapes, vivid erotica, off-beat humour, historical sufferings — and even odd demons, planets and philosophies.

Buy it here

Teen Read Expo 2009

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:13:00 +0100

Event Date: 24/06/2009

A festival for readers and writers, featuring author talks, performances, workshops, displays and competitions. Including Five Leaves author Dan Tunstall reading from his new young adult fiction Big and Clever. Dan also debates football fiction with fellow author Bali Rai.

“…Ten times better than the usual teenage crap. It's about the lifestyle that wannabes like The Streets and Guy Ritchie can only dream about.” — Bali Rai

De Montfort University Student Union Level 1, Leicester, 10am – 6pm. Tel: 0115 969 3597

Buy it here.

Two Rivers Press - Whiteknights Studio Trail

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:10:32 +0100

Event Date: 20/06/2009

A walking trail of artists' studios in the university area of Reading. Caversham poet Kate Noakes will be reading from The Wall Menders at 2.30-3pm on the Sunday afternoon.

Reading University Campus, Free, 20-21 June

Buy The Wall Menders here

Parthian author wins Wales Book of the Year 2009

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:09:43 +0100

Parthian author Deborah Kay Davies has been announced as the winner of the Wales Book of the Year award 2009, the premier award for Welsh writing. Davies, with her first collection of short stories, Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful clinched the £10,000 prize from fellow short-list competitors Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch and Gee Williams.

About Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful by Deborah Kay Davies:
This is no ordinary random collection of short stories. Here each brief narrative stands on its own yet forms part of a continuous and powerful sequence.

Set in the eastern valleys of south Wales from 1970 to the present day, it relates the history of Grace and Tamar, their volatile childhood, disruptive coming-of-age and dubious maturity. The book is part novel, part fantasy, part social history. More than anything it tells dark, universal tales about how utterly strange it is to learn to be human.

Buy the book here

June Issue of The North, now available

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:12:10 +0100

The latest and largest ever edition of poetry magazine The North has been published.

Edited by Ann Sansom and Peter Sansom, issue 43 features 70 poems by 37 contemporary writers, including Roy Fisher, Mimi Khalvati and Paidraig O’Morain. Amongst the wide variety of modern poetry, this latest issue features articles by John McAuliffe and Bernard O'Donoghue on Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Davidson on learning Peter Didsbury by heart and Neil Curry on Edward Thomas. Readers will also see the return of the magazine’s feature favourites: ‘Blind Criticism’ and ‘Poets I go Back to’, in addition to poems by the winners of the 2008/2009 Book & Pamphlet Competition.

Buy it here

Smith Doorstop Book & Pamphlet Competition 2008 winner announced!

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:13:45 +0100

Congratulations to Michael McCarthy, the overall winner of the Smith Doorstop Book and Pamphlet Competition with his entry At The Races. His full-length collection is due to be published this Autumn, and will be available from Inpress. Pamphlets by Sally Goldsmith, Anna Woodford and Carole Bromley, the three first-stage winners, will be available to buy here from July.

McCarthy grew up on a farm in West Cork, Ireland. His first poetry collection Birds’ Nests and Other Poems won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. His children’s books have been translated into seventeen languages. He works as a priest in North Yorkshire.

Smith Doorstop Book & Pamphlet Competition 2009/10 will be launched next month. Details will be announced on their website here.

Acumen Poets at the Bath Poetry Café

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:13:28 +0100

Event Date: 13/06/2009

GUEST READERS: Sean Elliott (who will read from his new Acumen pamphlet Waterhouse and the Tempest), William Oxley (reading from his new book Sunlight in a Champagne Glass), Danielle Hope (whose long-awaited new book is due to be published in September 2009). Also reading are Sue Boyles, Rose Flint, June Hall and Linda Saunders.

Open mike competition for poems written and read - judged by Acumen editors.
Patricia Oxley will hold a short Q&A session about editing the magazine.

Acumen publishes a varied and impressive list of poets and critics. The magazine is also known to be on the lookout for the new and unknown of all ages - in the search for fresh talent and quality work.

Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institute, Queen’s Square, Bath, 7pm. Tel: 01225 312084

Buy Acumen here

An evening of poetry in translation

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:10:56 +0100

Event Date: 11/06/2009

ARC Publications invites you to an evening of readings hosted by Shanta Acharya.

Readings by:
Jean Boase-Beier (translator of Between Nothing And Nothing by Ernst Meister)
Francis Jones (translator of Camp Notebook by Miklos Radoti)
Martin Sorrell (translator of Words Have Frozen Over by Claude de Burine)
Anne-Marie Glasheen (translator of At the Edge of Night by Anise Koltz)
Timothy Adès (translator of 33 Sonnets of the Resistance by Jean Cassou)

Lauderdale House, Highgate Hill, Waterlow Park, London, N6 5HG, 8.00pm, £5/£3. Tel: 020 8348 8716

Buy Shanta Acharya's Numbering Our Days' Illusions here
Buy Between Nothing And Nothing here
Buy Camp Notebook here
Buy Words Have Frozen Over here
Buy 33 Sonnets of the Resistance here

Anthony Browne announced as new Children’s Laureate

Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:13:23 +0100

Author and illustrator, Anthony Browne, whose works include Gorilla, Zoo and Willy, has succeeded the poet Michael Rosen as the new Children’s Laureate. Former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who awarded Browne with his Children’s Laureate medal and £15,000 bursary said that Browne’s “pictures and stories give deep and immediate pleasures, while also insisting that we – children and adults – return to them. And when we return, we have a gradually expanding sense of discovery”.

Here at Inpress we are delighted that Browne has declared that he would like to encourage more children to enjoy reading and books, especially picture books and we strongly agree with Anthony Browne that “picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older”. Geoffrey Trease’s classic Bows Against the Barons, has been re-issued by Five Leaves, with illustrations from award winning illustrator Kate Greenaway. First published in 1934, Bows Against the Barons is an excellent example of how, as Browne asserts, children’s picture books “leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader’s imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book”

Buy Bows Against the Barons here

Five Leaves title shortlisted for prestigious 'Dagger' award

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 15:15:53 +0100

Speaking of Lust by American writer Lawrence Block, published by Five Leaves based in Nottingham, has been short-listed for the 2009 Crime Writers Association Short Story ‘Dagger’. Block’s book is in the Crime Express series of novellas and comprises four tales of lasciviousness and their fatal aftermath. The series is edited by Nottingham writer David Belbin who met Lawrence Block at a book event in America.

Lawrence Block’s novels range from urban noir to urbane effervescence. He was executive story editor for the TV series TILT. Several of his novels have been filmed. He is a past president of the Private Eye Writers of America and won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, together with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

Buy Speaking of Lust here

Listen to some of our authors speak about their books online now!

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 11:11:06 +0100

Thanks to current technology, you can now listen to some of our authors speaking about their current books on your computer.

Hear Russell Margerison speaking about his current book, Boys at War, published by Northway on Talk Radio Europe here and Anvil poet Martina Evans speaking about her work at the recent Listowel Writers' Week in Co. Kerry here.

Russell Margerison lives in Pleckgate, Blackburn with his wife Bette. In his book, Boys at War, he begins by describing the harsh realities of gunnery school, then on to operational training, crash landings, bombing raids and the daily fear of never returning alive. His role was to keep a lookout for enemy fighters and to take a shot at them if they gave him the chance. Buy his book here.

Martina Evans (b. 1961) grew up in Co. Cork. She trained as a radiographer at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, and moved to London in 1988. Her first collection of poems, The Inniscarra Bar and Cycle Rest appeared in 1995. Buy her books here.

John Harvey – talk and reading

Thu, 4 Jun 2009 11:11:52 +0100

Event Date: 16/06/2009

John Harvey uses his 101st book to explain his attachment to jazz, his once adopted city and the Polish detective that made his name. Minor Key celebrates John Harvey’s 70th birthday with a limited edition signed hardback, sure to be a collectors’ item. This book contains four Resnick short stories, a Soho based jazz story which gives the book its title and a smattering of jazz poetry.

"John Harvey's roll continues; no-one in Britain is writing better crime fiction" - The Times

Datchet Library, Montague House, 8 Horton Road, Datchet SL3 9ER. 7pm. Tel: 01753 545 310

Pre-order Minor Key here

Flambard author John Murray’s Radio Activity shortlisted for Best Cumbrian Fiction Book Ever

Wed, 3 Jun 2009 13:13:43 +0100

First published in 1993, and re-issued as a Flambard Modern Classic in 2004, Radio Activity was immediately hailed by the critics as a comic tour de force, and listed in both the Spectator and Independent Books of the Year. Judge Kathleen Jones explains why she selected Radio Activity, saying it is a novel rich in 'regional character and dialect' and that its 'energy and irreverence' made it a clear choice for the Best Cumbrian Fiction Book Ever Shortlist. The winner is to be announced at the Lakeland Book of the Year Awards on 7th July.

John Murray was born in West Cumbria and now lives with his wife and daughter in Brampton, near Carlisle.

To vote for Murray and Radio Activity click here

Buy Radio Activity here

James Harpur Poetry Reading

Tue, 2 Jun 2009 09:09:50 +0100

Event Date: 04/06/2009

Anvil Press poet, James Harpur, winner of the 2009 Michael Hartnett award, will be reading from his fourth collection of poetry, The Dark Age.

The Dark Age includes intimate responses to love, birth and death, and explores faith and vision in searching and unsentimental terms. James Harpur's powerful poetry gives a new perspective on the travels and travails of early Irish saints and on the Syrian pillar hermit St Symeon Stylites. In these and other poems – about the Book of Kells, a monk and his 'star-timetable’, and translations from Boethius – Harpur’s lyric gift finds moments of illumination and grace in the ordinary as well as the miraculous.

James Harpur has published three previous books of poetry and a translation of Boethius’s poems entitled Fortune’s Prisoner. Awards for his poetry include the 1995 British National Poetry prize, and bursaries from Cork Arts, the Arts Council, the Eric Gregory Trust and the Society of Authors. His non-fiction books include Love Burning in the Soul, an introduction to Christian mystics. He has held residencies at the Munster Literature Centre, Cork, and Exeter Cathedral. He lives in Co. Cork.

The Woodstock Bookshop, 23 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxon, OX20 1TH, 7.30pm, Tel: 01993 812760

Buy The Dark Age here

Independent Bookshop of the Year Award

Tue, 2 Jun 2009 09:09:28 +0100

The British Book Industry Awards took place in Cambridge last night, the only awards to honour all sectors of book business. One award particularly struck Inpress’ fancy, the Independent Bookshop Award. Providing sales and marketing for independent publishers across the UK, independent booksellers remain an important affiliation for Inpress. Maia Bristol, of sponsors The Independent Alliance, comments on the 'added extras' that make independent booksellers so valuable to Inpress: “The more obvious criteria are met, and overtaken, by all the added extras which they offer; the innovative events, the loyalty cards, the engagement with the digital world, unique responses to environmental issues and involvement with communities, and all from within the limitations of often a very small square footage”.

The shortlisted independent bookshops were:
Cogito Books (North and Midlands)
Forest Bookshop (Wales and South West)
Hayling Island Bookshop (South)
Hungerford Bookshop (London and South East)
Yeadon’s of Elgin (Scotland)

Congratulations to Hungerford Bookshop, whose “bookselling excellence, great event management and successful – and profitable – involvement in their local community” merited them the winner of the Independent Bookshop Award.

Kate Noakes at Caversham Open Studios

Mon, 1 Jun 2009 12:12:16 +0100

Event Date: 06/06/2009

Caversham poet Kate Noakes will be reading from her new poetry book The Wall Menders, published by Two Rivers Press.

The Wall Menders explores themes of environmental damage and renewal. Kate Noakes uses imagined narratives to suggest options, to us, for repairing the planet, and relearning how to live in harmony with it. This is earthy poetry - rooted in the land - that looks at skills we have forgotten, and real food. Kate’s work chimes with some important social themes, but this is poetry of subtlety, rich in its song and imagery.

17 South View Avenue, Caversham, Reading, Sat 6th/Sun 7th June, 3pm

Visit Caversham Open Studios

Buy The Wall Menders here

Wales Book of the Year 2009 - shortlists announced

Mon, 1 Jun 2009 08:08:45 +0100

Parthian author, Deborah Kay Davies is one of the shortlisted authors for The Wales Book of the Year 2009 – the premier award for Welsh writing. The announcement was made at the Guardian Hay Festival in the presence of Jane Hutt, Minister for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills.

The awards, worth £10,000 to the winners, are presented to the best books of the year in the English and Welsh language.

The shortlist is:

Deborah Kay Davies, Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful
Gee Williams, Blood etc
Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Not in these shoes

Grace, Tamar and Lazlo the Beautiful by Deborah Kay Davies
This is no ordinary random collection of short stories. Here each brief narrative stands on its own yet forms part of a continuous and powerful sequence.

Buy Grace, Tamar and Lazlo the Beautiful here

Are you reading our blogs?

Fri, 29 May 2009 16:16:38 +0100

Read the debut blogs from reader in residence Yvette Hawkins, and new intern Bea on the Inpress website here.

You can also read our author blogs, in particular a recent posting by Richard Evans here. Other recent author blogs include postings by Kelley Swain and Chris Keil.

Blogging is a way of sharing thoughts and ideas with people online.

Daniel Kane and Jeff Hilson Poetry Reading

Thu, 28 May 2009 11:11:17 +0100

Event Date: 29/05/2009

On 29th May, former American Studies lecturer Daniel Kane is returning to the University of East Anglia to read from his new collection, the funny, edgy and risk-taking Ostentation of Peacocks, published by Norwich-based Egg Box Publishing. Alongside Daniel will be fellow poetic ornithologist, Jeff Hilson, whose acclaimed sequence Bird Bird was published this year by Landfill Press. The readings will be introduced by Egg Box editor and publisher Nathan Hamilton, and followed by a discussion with the poets introduced by Telegraph critic and Landfill editor, Jeremy Noel-Tod.

Daniel Kane was born in New York City and grew up in Manila; Mexico City; London; Tenafly, New Jersey; and New York City. He is currently a senior lecturer in American literature at the University of Sussex. His poetry has been widely published, most recently in the London Review of Books.

Jeff Hilson is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Roehampton University. He runs the Crossing the Line reading series in London, and is the editor of The Reality Street Book of the Sonnet, described by Ron Silliman as 'flat out the best book of its kind I have ever seen'.

University of East Anglia, Room A3.02 (Arts), Norwich, NR4 7TJ, 6pm. Tel: 01603 456 161

Buy Ostentation of Peacocks here

Amanda Love Darragh's translation receives the 2009 Rossica Prize

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:14:17 +0100

Congratulations to Amanda Love Darragh, whose translation of Maria Galina's novel Iramifications, published by Glas, received the Rossica Award for excellence in Russian to English Literary Translation on Monday, 25th May. In an award ceremony held at the London Review Bookshop, Iramifications was announced the winner of the competition, which was described by judge Robert Porter as ‘challenging, exciting, and bodes well for the future of Russian literature and Russian studies in English speaking countries.’

"Humor is the most difficult quality to convey in translation, but Galina found in Amanda Love Darragh her perfect interpreter. The English version of Iramifications is as pleasurable to read as the Russian original." The Moscow Times

Buy Iramifications here

E1: A Journey through Whitechapel and Spitalfields

Tue, 26 May 2009 10:10:43 +0100

Event Date: 04/06/2009

A launch will take place in London for E1: A Journey through Whitechapel and Spitalfields by John Bennett, which is published by Five Leaves.

From Mile End to Whitechapel and on to Spitalfields, John Bennett presents the hidden gems and the well known sites of the core of London’s East End.
John Bennett has been photographing the East End for the last thirty years. He works in London as a despatch driver. He is descended from Huguenots and Sephardic Jewish East Enders. He lives in north London.

Eastside Bookshop, 166 Brick Lane, London, E1 6RU, 8.30pm Tel:0115 969 3597

Buy E1: A Journey through Whitechapel and Spitalfields here

Fflur Dafydd scoops the Oxfam Hay Emerging Writer Prize

Mon, 25 May 2009 11:11:13 +0100

Congratulations to novelist and singer-songwriter Fflur Dafydd, who was announced as the winner of the Oxfam Hay Prize for Emerging Writers on Saturday, 23rd May.

Fflur’s first novel in English, Twenty Thousand Saints has received fantastic and wide-ranging reviews including in The Guardian, Diva magazine, Western Mail and Prospect magazine, where it was 2009’s pick of the year. Hay Festival director Peter Florence has been a consistent and vocal advocate of the novel, describing it as, 'the most compelling novel I’ve read in years; a love story, a thriller, and a profound meditation on language and identity... [Fflur Dafydd ranks alongside] Sarah Waters, Kate Atkinson and Zoe Heller [in representing] the blossoming and triumphs of a whole new generation of young women writers.”

Buy Twenty Thousand Saints here.

Flambard authors reading at Manchester Central Library

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:10:31 +0100

Event Date: 03/06/2009

John Baker and Andrew Duggan, both Flambard authors, will be talking about the writing process and John will be reading from his current novel Winged With Death at Manchester Central Library.

Winged with Death
In 1972, 18-year-old Ramon Bolio arrives by ship in the heat and dust of Montevideo, Uruguay, and finds a country on the brink of dictatorship. As Ramon finds friends within the resistance movement and marvels at the beautiful girls, the world around him is changing rapidly. Then one night he discovers the tango and begins the long process of becoming a Milonguero – a master of the dance.

Manchester Central Library, St. Peters Square, Manchester, M2 5PD, 6.30pm
Tel: 0161 236 1995

Buy Winged with Death here.

Pre-order Scars Beneath the Skin here.

Anvil Poet, Dennis O'Driscoll to receive an honorary doctorate in literature from University College, Dublin

Mon, 18 May 2009 14:14:28 +0100

Dennis O'Driscoll, who is published by Anvil Press will receive an honorary doctorate in literature from University College, Dublin on Tuesday 16 June.

Dennis O’Driscoll was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland in 1954. He has written eight books of poetry, three chapbooks and a collection of essays and reviews. He has also edited and compiled contemporary quotations about poets and poetry, and has published a book of his dialogues with Seamus Heaney.

His books by Anvil are: Exemplary Damages, Long Short Story, New and Selected Poems, Reality Check and Weather Permitting.

Buy Dennis O'Driscoll books here.

Smith Doorstop Book & Pamphlet Competition 2008, first-stage winners announced!

Mon, 18 May 2009 11:11:48 +0100

The first-stage winners in the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition have now been selected by Michael Longley, they are:

Anna Woodford, Party Piece
Sally Goldsmith, Uncertain Birds
Michael McCarthy, At the Races
Carole Bromley, Skylight

Pamphlet will be available mid June and books will be available mid July.

Anna's pamphlet Trailer, published by Five Leaves in 2007, is a sequence of poems about her Eastern European family history and was the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice.

Buy Trailer, here.

Inpress is now on Facebook!

Fri, 15 May 2009 13:13:23 +0100

Are you on Facebook? If so, visit our page and become a fan!

Inpress facebook page provides up to date information on news, events, new titles and current topics.

Facebook is a social networking website where users can join various networks organised by city or workplace to connect and interact with other people. Their moto is 'giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.' This is especially important in the digital era that we live in!

A recent article on Times Online The Facebook poets: ten rising stars of British Poetry, shows that more people are using digital means to share stories and talent. One of the featured poets is Emily Bell, whose poems can be found in The Rialto Magazine.

Join Inpress on Facebook.

Launch of FRONTIERS, the Spring issue of Modern Poetry in Translation

Thu, 14 May 2009 16:16:21 +0100

Event Date: 04/06/2009

FRONTIERS, the Spring issue of Modern Poetry in Translation will be launched on 4 June. There will be readings by contributing poets and translators, followed by discussion.

Every issue of MPT crosses frontiers. Contributions come in from all over the world. Copies go out world-wide. Whatever their subjects, the translations themselves, out of many languages, cross frontiers of space and time.

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, 111 Isledon Rd, London, N7 7JW, 7pm, free. Tel: 020 7697 7777

Buy the book here.

15 years of Two Rivers Press

Wed, 13 May 2009 11:11:10 +0100

An exhibition to mark 15 years of Two Rivers Press is taking place at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading. The display at the University of Reading Special Collections Services features nineteen publications from the University’s special books collections, four of which are displayed with related original artwork and rubber stamps from the Press’s own archive. The exhibition is on until 29 May.

Further details here.

Buy Two Rivers Press books here.

Poetry reading from Hearing Eye

Tue, 12 May 2009 16:16:37 +0100

Event Date: 17/05/2009

June English and Heather Wilson-Queen will be reading poetry at Torriano Meeting House. Poets from the floor also welcome.

Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX, 7.30pm, £5/£4/£3. Tel: 020 7267 2751.

June English was born in Dover, Kent in 1936. As a mature student, she read English and History at the University of Kent, followed by an MA in Humanities. Her first collection of poetry, Counting the Spots, (Acumen 2000), was short-listed for the BBC ‘New Voices’ programme. The Sorcerer’s Arc was published by Hearing Eye in 2005.

Buy a June English book here.

Martin Edwards Event at Crimefest, Bristol

Fri, 8 May 2009 16:16:46 +0100

Event Date: 17/05/2009

Flambard author Martin Edwards, author of Dancing for the Hangman, will be appearing alongside Simon Brett, David Stuart Davies and Meg Gardiner and this year's Bristol Crimefest.

Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TA, Tel: 0117 9255100.

See the Crimefest website.
Buy Dancing for the Hangman here.

John Harvey at Ambit Magazine Reading

Thu, 7 May 2009 09:09:48 +0100

Event Date: 12/05/2009

John Harvey, author of Nick’s Blues takes part in an Ambit Magazine Reading in London.

The evening also includes poetry from Anthony Suter, prose from Nicholas Royle and an introduction by Dr Martin Bax.

The Bath House, 96 Dean Street, Soho, London, W1 3TD, 7pm. £5 or £4 concs.

Buy the book here.

Further details here.

2009 Edge Hill Short Story Prize - shortlist announced

Wed, 6 May 2009 11:11:46 +0100

The shortlist for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize was announced yesterday, 5 May. The annual prize, which was launched by Edge Hill University three years ago, is the only competition in the UK for the best short story collection by a single author. The prize is co-sponsored by Blackwell bookshop.

Elastic Press author Chris Beckett joins Anne Enright and Ali Smith on the shortlist. His short story collection The Turning Test was published in 2008 by Inpress member Elastic Press and is available for immediate dispatch.

Buy the book here.

Boys at War to be serialised in the Mail on Sunday

Fri, 1 May 2009 14:14:33 +0100

Boys at War, published by Northway was serialised in the Mail on Sunday for three weeks in May 2009. A hardback edition will be available in October.

Russell Margerison writes of the dangerous but strangely unreal world of the air gunner, sitting high in the turret of a bomber over Europe, wrapped in several layers of clothes and awed by the destructive beauty of the scene below. His role was to keep a look out for enemy fighters and to take a shot at them if they gave him the chance.

”He describes himself as an ordinary working-class lad from Lancashire, but there was nothing ordinary about the courage he and his comrades displayed night after night over occupied Europe . . This is a fascinating wartime memoir that deserves a wide readership.” — Mail on Sunday

Buy the book here.

Visit the author's website here.

Launch of Soothing Music for Stray Cats by Jayne Joso

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:15:26 +0100

Event Date: 01/05/2009

Published by Alcemi and set in London, Soothing Music for Stray Cats tells the story of friendship, altruism, songwriting and Samurai philosophy.

Jayne Joso has written extensively on Architecture, including for Architecture Today magazine, and on Japanese arts & culture. Her first children’s book, How Do you Feel? was recently published by Benesse in Japan, and her first play, China’s Smile, commissioned for China’s Children’s Day, enjoyed a long theatre run and was later televised.

The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1JB, 7.30pm. Tel: 020 7580 1585

Buy the book here.

Spring issue of Banipal now available

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:10:51 +0100

The first issue this year is devoted to fiction writers from all over the Arab world - from Egypt and Iraq, from Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Syria, and from Saudi Arabia.

Banipal is an independent literary magazine showcasing contemporary authors and poets from all over the Arab world in English translation. It was founded in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Iraqi author Samuel Shimon.

Buy the new issue of Banipal here.

Launch event for three Five Leaves' young adult novels

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:16:06 +0100

Event Date: 07/05/2009

An event will take place to launch three Five Leaves’ young adult novels: Big and Clever by Dan Tunstall; Drowned by Claire Tulloch, a novel of family secrets set in Ireland and Love Lessons by David Belbin, on a teacher-pupil relationship. This launch will be followed by a discussion on writing for teenagers.
In association with Leicester Writers’ Club.

The Small Hall, Leicester Adult Education College, Wellington Street, Leicester, LE1 6HL, 7pm, free. Tel: 0116 233 4343.

Click here to buy Big and Clever

Click here to buy Drowned

Click here to buy Love Lessons

Carol Ann Duffy expected to be confirmed as the next Poet Laureate

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:11:47 +0100

Britain's most widely read living poet, Carol Ann Duffy, has been put forward to the Queen for approval as the next Poet Laureate, according to a report today at The Independent Online.

Outgoing Laureate Andrew Motion is quoted as saying the following about his likely successor: "I would be profoundly pleased if Carol was to take on the role as I think she would be magnificently good at it. She's an absolutely wonderful writer and I think that because no woman has had the role, having Carol would give the whole thing a great glamour and appeal."

Carol Ann Duffy's first four collections were published by Anvil Press. Click here to read more about Carol Ann and to buy Standing Female Nude, Selling Manhattan, The Other Country and Mean Time.

Andy Croft launches his new collection, Sticky

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:11:37 +0100

Event Date: 13/05/2009

The word stikhi means poems or verses in Russian. It comes from the Greek stikhoi, meaning lines of words - or soldiers. Sticky is a book of poems about an age of imperial slaughter already sticky with blood and lies, about the stuck and the sticky, the straight and the crooked.

Armed with only a pile of spooky sticks and a sticky file of spooks, Andy Croft sets
off in search of the Land of Righteousness. He gets the wrong end of the stick in
Vulgaria and finds himself in a sticky situation in Mudfog. When he meets the ghosts of Brecht and Baron Munchausen by the banks of the river Styx he realizes he can’t stick it any more. Poetry for the pessimistick.

The Lit and Phil, Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE, 7pm, free. Tel: 0191 232 0192. library@litandphil.org.uk. See the Lit and Phil website.

Buy the book here.

Wendy Robertson launches Knives at Hexham Book Festival

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:14:57 +0100

Event Date: 29/04/2009

This month County Durham-based Wendy Robertson, will launch her new book of short stories inspired by female prison inmates.

Some of these stories have been published in magazines, newspapers and anthologies, one has, surreally, been transformed into a Manga comic. They are collected in book form for the first time and bring together a dozen tales inspired, as the author herself puts it “by the consummate experts on the darker side of experience.”

Hexham Book Festival, Queen's Hall, Hexham, NE46 3LS, 7pm, £2.50. Tel: 01434 652 476

Visit Hexham Book Festival

Click here to buy Knives

Debut author Jayne Joso reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:14:00 +0100

Debut author Jayne Joso has received a great review in the Times Literary Supplement this week. Published by Alcemi and set in London, Soothing Music for Stray Cats tells the story of friendship, altruism, songwriting and Samurai philosophy.

“Studded with slang... a mockingly funny London novel... [its author]... well placed to note the vagaries of mixed-up, mixed-race Britain. Soothing Music for Stray Cats, named after an album of retro doo-wop and swing by the Liverpool singer-songwriter Edgar 'Jones' Jones, may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels.” Ian Thomson, TLS

Famous London landmarks are heavily featured in this novel, including the South Bank on the cover page and Nelson's Column.

Read the full review here.

Buy Soothing Music for Stray Cats here.

Larissa Miller Reviewed in the Saturday Guardian

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:09:06 +0100

Writing in this weekend's Guardian (18th April), Charles Bainbridge praises the "concise, delicate poems" in Larissa Miller's collection, Guests of Eternity. He goes on to say that "Miller's poems are remarkable for their directness and apparent simlicity... her extraordinary lyrics seem to conjure the experience of a whole generation."

Arc Publications gained a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Guests of Eternity. The book is translated by Richard McKane and introduced by Sasha Dugdale. Larissa Miller will be reading at events in the UK this autumn. Keep checking the site for more details soon.

Read the full review here.

Buy Guests of Eternity here.

Launch event for the Well Versed anthology published by Hearing Eye

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:11:19 +0100

Event Date: 01/05/2009

Well Versed anthology features poems from the Well Versed column in The Morning Star newspaper.

Well Versed's editor, John Rety, will introduce readers from the anthology and there will be an opportunity to meet Richard Bagley, Assistant Editor of The Morning Star, and other members of the team.

Art Works Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 3AT, 6.30pm, free. Tel: 020 7278 3009

Visit Art Workers Guild

Anita Klein on Tuscany: the inspiration for her book and exhibition at Bankside Gallery

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:17:07 +0100

Event Date: 29/04/2009

The Sydney-born artist talks about her book Italian Angels: a new set of 50 full colour paintings inspired by Tuscany, to tie in with a major exhibition at Bankside Gallery in April 2009.

"Star of the show for me is the spare, knowing, subversive and comic work of a young painter called Anita Klein.”— Godfrey Smith, Sunday Times

Bankside Gallery, 48 Hopton Street, London (next to Tate Modern), 6pm, £8.
Tel: 0207 928 7521

Click here to buy Italian Angels

Spring issue of The Rialto now available

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:15:33 +0100

Spring issue of The Rialto now available

Latest issue of the leading UK poetry magazine featuring new poems by Les Murray, Philip Gross, George Szirtes and Alison Brackenbury. Plus translations of Joan Magrit and Pedro Serrano by Anna Crowe and prose from Catherine Smith.

THE RIALTO is a poetry magazine that sets its bar perennially high. The formula is simple but effective: exceptional poetry and lots of it… The Guardian

“The only poetry magazine I can think of that truly gives poetry the time and space it deserves.” Simon Armitage

Buy the new issue of The Rialto here .

Wendy Robertson launches Knives

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:15:22 +0100

Event Date: 09/04/2009

This month County Durham-based Wendy Robertson, will launch her new book of short stories inspired by female prison inmates.

Wednesday 22 April, Bishop Auckland Town Hall, Market Place, Bishop Auckland, 7.30pm, free. Tel: 01388 602610

Visit Bishop Auckland Town Hall

Click here to buy Knives

Katrina Porteous reads new work at newly opened Morpeth Library

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:14:49 +0100

Event Date: 16/04/2009

To mark the re-opening of Morpeth Library following the 2008 floods, leading North East poet Katrina Porteous will be reading from her forthcoming collection. Katrina Porteous is a poet, historian and broadcaster. Her particular interests include the inshore fishing community of the Northumberland coast, and the cultural and natural history of that area.

Thursday 16th April, Morpeth Library, The Willows, Morpeth, NE61 1TA, 7.30pm, free. Tel: 0845 600 6400

Visit Northumberland Libraries

Click here to buy titles by Katrina Porteous

Natasha Perova, founder and publisher of Moscow-based GLAS in London

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:12:54 +0100

Event Date: 23/04/2009

Moscow-based publisher Natasha will give an overview of Russia’s vibrant contemporary literature at the Pushkin House, London.

5A Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2TA, 7.30pm, free. Tel: 020-7269-9770

Visit Pushkin House

See more Glas titles

Publisher of the Week: Northway Books

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:09:46 +0100

Northway Books specialise in books about jazz music. Northway began operations in 2000 and, concentrating mainly but not exclusively on British jazz, has been able to publish books which would not be considered commercially viable by larger publishers. They provide a cultural framework for all jazz enthusiasts.

Forward Groove presents a survey of recorded jazz from its beginnings to the present day, seeking to show how its musicians always reflected contemporary issues in their music: from mass migration and the struggles against racism, to a hatred of war, the assertion of internationalism and the aspirations towards a fair and just world. Searle looks at attempts to resist racism through music, including the Civil Rights movement in the US and the continuing fight against racism in the US and Britain.

See more Northway titles.

Publisher of the Week: Naked Punch

Mon, 6 Apr 2009 15:15:18 +0100

Naked Punch is an engaged review of contemporary art and thought. Founded in 2002 by a group of young London-based thinkers, it is the spontaneous collaboration of thinkers and artists residing in different cities in the world. Before being a magazine, a container of material or a "cabinet of objects", it is a shared understanding, a shared feeling of unease, a shared concern, and a shared sensitivity. Naked Punch is the embodiment of its contributors' breath.

Click here to see more issues of Naked Punch

Naked Punch's website

Don Paterson and Josephine Dickinson at Live Poetry

Sun, 5 Apr 2009 10:10:33 +0100

Event Date: 05/04/2009

Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. A prolific and versatile poet, his work ranges from sonnets to postmodern narratives; from meditations on identity and masculinity to savagely funny satire. Don has won the Forward Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. He is poetry editor for Picador.

‘It’s a long time since I’ve been knocked sideways by a book of poems, but the life, energy, verbal precision and inventiveness of Don Paterson’s Landing Light kept me awake at night.’ – A.S. Byatt, New Statesman

Josephine Dickinson has been profoundly deaf since the age of six. Despite this, she spent many years teaching music, before moving to rural Cumbria where she now lives. Her poetry presents a rich symbolic world in which mythology meets politics, and domestic imagery meets the forces of the natural world. Josephine is a spellbinding reader of her work. Tonight she will read from her new book, Night Journey (Flambard, 2008), in which she combines her interest in astronomy with her grief after the death of her partner.

‘Josephine Dickinson’s poems are exceptionally original. Hers is a vision edged with mystery and rendered with arresting, occasionally breathtaking craft.’ – Michael Donaghy

Buy Night Journey here

Live Theatre, Broad Chare, Newcastle upon Tyne, 7.30pm, £7/£5. Tel: 0191 232 1232. Live Theatre Website

Publisher of the Week: Modern Poetry in Translation

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:10:43 +0100

MPT was founded by Daniel Weissbort and Ted Hughes in 1966 and is a journal with an international reputation for the wide range of poets and translators that it presents and for stimulating serious and lively discussion about the art of translating poetry. The magazine was relaunched under the editorship of David and Helen Constantine in 2004.

Click here to see more issues of Modern Poetry in Translation

Modern Poetry in Translation's website

Chris Searle launch event for Forward Groove

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:14:47 +0100

Chris Searle will talk about his new title Forward Groove , a survey of recorded jazz from its beginnings to the present, showing how its musicians always reflected in their music the issues of their day; from mass migration and the struggles against racism, to a hatred of war, the assertion of internationalism and the aspirations towards a fair and just world. Searle looks at attempts to resist racism through music, including the Civil Rights movement in the US and the continuing fight against racism in the US and Britain.

Bookmarks Bookshop, 1 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3QE, 6.30pm, free

Rob Madocks Launches No Way to Say Goodbye

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:09:57 +0100

Event Date: 25/03/2009

No Way to Say Goodbye is a first novel, many years in the making: a unique, insider's picture of life within a maximum security hospital. RSVP to info@fiveleaves.co.uk

Bromley House Library, Angel Row, Nottingham, 7pm, free entry.

Buy the book online from Inpress

Remembering the Miners' Strike: Launch of The Dirty Thirty

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:15:32 +0100

Event Date: 21/03/2009

In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the miners’ strike, Housmans will be holding a book launch for The Dirty 30 - an oral history of the Leicestershire Miners who struck throughout the entire dispute, written by Dave Bell and published by Five Leaves.

The event will also be a party for the London Support Groups who worked tirelessly through the strike. Housmans' own contribution was the creation of Canary Press which published a series of books about the strike, and the shop was a base for miners and collected many pounds for the strikers. The Canary Press titles will be on sale at the party.

Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, London, 6.30pm, free

See the Housmans website

Buy The Dirty Thirty here

Publisher of the Week: The Library of Wales

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:11:53 +0100

The Library of Wales specialises in keeping the English-language literature of Wales alive. They publish a range of handsome books including prose and poetry, essays and fiction, anthologies and memoirs, drama and journalism.

Poetry 1900-2000 edited by Meic Stephens
This remarkable anthology features the work of 100 Twentieth Century Welsh poets. Every decade of the century is featured, as is almost every part of Wales: urban, industrial and rural. Poets include David Jones, R. S. Thomas, Gillian Clarke, Robert Minhinnick and Gwyneth Lewis.

Click here for more titles from The Library of Wales

Kevin Cadwallender launches Dances with Vowels

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:13:07 +0100

Event Date: 16/04/2009

Kevin Cadwallender makes a welcome return to the North East to launch his latest book of poems. Dances with Vowels collects the best of the poetry he has written in the last twenty-five years. Kevin Cadwallender now lives in Drubhinge, Scotland. Angry, funny and surreal, Dances with Vowels has a heart that beats for its native North East. Lewd and clear.

Thursday 16 April, Lit & Phil, Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, 8pm, free. Tel: 0191 232 0192

See the Lit and Phil website.

John Baker Launches Winged With Death at York Literature Festival

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:10:07 +0100

“One of Britain’s most talented contemporary crime writers.” — The Times

In 1972, 18-year-old Frederick Boyle arrives by ship in the heat and dust of Montevideo, Uruguay. Equipped with only a phrase book, a few pesos and two volumes of philosophy, he immediately changes his name to Ramon Bolio. Uruguay is a country on the brink of dictatorship and as Ramon makes new friends and marvels at the beautiful girls, the world around him is changing rapidly. Then one night he encounters the music and dance of the tango and begins the long process of becoming a Milonguero or master.

Looking back on this time many years later, Ramon finds himself at the heart of the suspicious disappearance of a teenage girl. He reflects on the threads that link the past to the present, of the mistakes and decisions made that shape a life into what it is. Winged with Death is a novel about time and tango and revolution, abduction and denial.

Author of the acclaimed Sam Turner crime series

The Mariott Room, York Central Library, Library Square, York, 6pm, Free entry. Tel: 01904 655631

Visit John Baker's blog

Buy Winged With Death from Inpress

Iron Press is our Publisher of the Week

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:13:33 +0100

IRON Press has been championing new writing since 1973, and is committed to discovering the best new talent in the North-East, the rest of the country and sometimes the world. IRON publish single collections of poetry and fiction, international anthologies and contemporary plays. IRON Press is also the United Kingdom's leading publisher of Haiku.

Visit the Iron Press website.

Knives sees Wendy Robertson's short stories published together for the first time. Novelist Wendy Robertson spent three years working with female prison inmates and the results reflect the author’s take on the recoverability of the human spirit. From plunging cat burglars, hallucinating old ladies, gender bender confessions, and women seeking fleshpot escapes, these short stories expand Robertson’s already considerable reputation.

David Belbin Launches The Pretender

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:10:02 +0100

Event Date: 26/03/2009

David Belbin (The Pretender, Five Leaves) in conversation with Brigid Rose (The City of Lists, Crocus) and Chris Killen (The Bird Room, Canongate) about the first novel... including readings from their own work.

Thursday 26th March
Waterstone's Bookshop, Bridlesmithgate, Nottingham, 7pm, £3 redeemable against any purchase on the night, from Waterstone's. Tel: 0115 9484499

Buy the book online from Inpress

ANVIL PRESS poetry reading Tuesday 3 March, 6pm

Tue, 3 Mar 2009 10:10:28 +0100

Event Date: 03/03/2009

The two translators Ruth Christie and Richard McKane will be reading
from:

Nazim Hikmet: Beyond the Walls (978-0-85646-329-7), £11.95. Nâzim Hikmet’s poetry combines passion and simplicity with sophistication, producing work of enduring significance. To read more about this title click here

Poems of Oktay Rifat: (978-0-85646-370-9), £11.95. For half a century Oktay Rifat occupied a leading position in the vanguard of Turkish poetry. Click here to read more about Rifat's poery.

Please come along and join us on: Tuesday 3 March, 6pm — Free entry

Room T 101
School of Oriental and African Studies
30 Russell Square
London
WC1 0XG

HEARING EYE is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 2 Mar 2009 15:15:09 +0100

Hearing Eye is a small independent press established in 1987. One of our distinctive features is that we have kept all our books in print, a policy now abandoned by most publishing houses. We also work very closely with the individual authors on both the production and the presentation of their work.

In recent years, Hearing Eye Pamphlets, Songs from the Flats by Anna Robinson and The Beating of Wings by Linda Black have been selected as Poetry Book Society Pamphlet recommendations.

The Torriano Meeting House in north London is home to a thousand poetry readings. It is celebrating twenty-five years of survival by putting three visual artists in residence. For more details on readings in 2009 click here. Torriano Meeting House is here

Recently published books include Reckoning by Jack Stanley, On the Lookout by Jeremy Kingston, Caret Mark by Mary Michaels and Uneasy Relations by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs. Forthcoming books include Witness Statement by Nick Blair. Click on the images for further information.

Anvil Press presents 'The Anvil Sisters', a powerful evening of poetry

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:12:08 +0100

Event Date: 06/02/2009

THE ANVIL SISTERS — “A neopolitan ice-cream for the soul.”

More individual than the Andrews sisters, better looking than Macbeth's 'weird sisters', and more spell-binding than the witches of Eastwick, Anvil’s feminine three team up to
deliver an evening of powerful poetry.

Greta Stoddart’s debut collection At Home In The Dark won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2002; her second collection Salvation Jane was shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards 2008. “In its mix of dramatic poise and control, Stoddart’s writing is cool enough to warm the heart of any creature.” — David Wheatley, Times Literary Supplement.

Ros Barber’s latest collection, Material, received a Poetry Book Society
Recommendation. Her debut How Things Are On Thursday, drew comparisons to Larkin. “Barber’s special distinction is that she has succeeded in writing a collection which grants as much to the general readers as it does to the devotee of contemporary poetry.” — Kate Keogan, PN Review

Martina Evans combines a novelist's gift for creating compelling narratives and capturing conversational idiosyncrasies with a poet's ability to condense and refine. Previous collections include All Alcoholics are Charmers and Can Dentists Be Trusted?
“Evans's great skill is in knowing how much to put into a poem. She has a talent for selecting only the most resonant memories, for not over-icing the cake of sentiment.” — Michael Duggan, PN Review

When: Friday 6th March, 7pm. Entrance £5

Where: The Betsy Trotwood,
56 Farringdon Rd, Clerkenwell,
London, EC1R 3BL
www.thebetsey.com

Exile from Exile: Contemporary Jewish Exiled Writers

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:15:34 +0100

Event Date: 21/03/2009

With Gregorio Kohon, the Argentinean exiled writer and Predrag Finci, the Bosnian exiled writer. Hosted by Jennifer Langer, editor of four anthologies of exile literature including If Salt Has Memory: Contemporary Jewish Exiled Writers, Five Leaves, 2008. Buy the book here.

Saturday 21st March
Spiro Ark Centre, 25-26 Enford Street, London W1
7.30 pm
Click here for the Spiro Ark Website

GLAS NEW RUSSIAN WRITING is our featured publisher this week

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:11:13 +0100

A showcase for the literary landmarks of the past decade Glas is the most comprehensive source on contemporary Russian literature in translation — a must for libraries, students of world literature, and all those who love good writing. Glas embraces practically all the major names and trends in current Russian literature. Most of the authors appeared in English for the first time in Glas and some of them were later picked up by publishers in other countries. Based in Moscow Glas is a "joint venture" of UK and US translators with Russian editors and critics, who believe that the great Russian literary tradition lives on. GLAS has been described as:

"Glas is a first-rate series, well planned and very well translated. Anyone interested in Russia and good writing should seek it out." — London OBSERVER

"GLAS gives us a sense of Russian literature in motion. If it cannot perhaps mercifully convey fully what it is like to live in Russia at present, GLAS at least gives us a taste of what it is to be a reader there." — Times Literary Supplement

MINUS - a novel, by Roman Senchin. Born in 1971, Senchin grew up in Siberia and recently moved to Moscow. He is one of the most talented and expressive spokesmen for his generation and a leader of the so-called “New Realism”. He has five novels and many short stories to his name and has won several prestigious literary prizes. His work has been translated into German, French and other languages. Buy MINUS here

Naked Punch presents the Hip Hop Dossier

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:10:05 +0100

This special edition online publication explores various issues embodied within the cultural practice of Hip Hop, from consolodation and expression of national, racial and artistic identity, to gender conceptions, the transnationalisation and commercialisation of Hip Hop and the poetics of Freestyling.

Download free from the Naked Punch website.

From the archives of The North...

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:16:09 +0100

We are excited to report that our friends at The North have been browsing through their back issues for lost poems by our best-loved writers.

Visit The North's website to read Esther's Creative Writing Block by Carol Ann Duffy. The poem was published in the magazine's very first issue, back in 1986.

And with an alumni including Simon Armitage, Ian McMillan and Moniza Alvi, we're sure there will be plenty more poetic gems to come.

PBS Recommendation for Guests of Eternity by Larissa Miller

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:15:37 +0100

Arc Publications have gained a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Guests of Eternity, the translation by Richard McKane of Larissa Miller's poetry.

Introduced by Sasha Dugdale, the book spans Miller's poetic output from the 1960s to the millennium. Guests of Eternity is a presentation, in chronological order, of poems written (but not published) in the three decades preceding glasnost, as well as the final decade of the twentieth century.

Larissa Miller will be reading in the UK this autumn. Keep checking this site for event details. Buy the book here.

Book Launch of Darwin's Microscope by Kelley Swain

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:14:02 +0100

Event Date: 25/02/2009

Darwin’s Microscope reflects the life and influence of Charles Darwin, who was born on 12 February 1809. Swain uses the microscopic ‘lens’ as a metaphor for viewing the world with secular wonder, revealing greater meaning in looking deeper – even to the cellular level. Darwin’s Microscope brilliantly shows how science and poetry complement and enlighten each other, to the point where they become nearly inseparable.

Kelley Swain is a freelance writer living in London, England. She graduated in 2007 with an honours degree in English/Creative Writing and a minor in Environmental Studies, then carried on to complete the Munson Institute for Maritime Studies summer graduate program. She is involved with the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment ASLE-UK, the British Society for the History of Science BSHS, and the British Society for Literature and Science BSLS.

At Grant Museum of Zoology, University College London, 7pm to 9pm.
See the Facebook page for this event.

Book Launch - A Portrait of the Arsonist as a Young Man - 19th February

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:15:25 +0100

Creative Writing Lecturer, Andrew McGuinness will launch his debut novel A Portrait of the Arsonist as a Young Man at Waterstone's (Rose Lane), Canterbury on Thursday 19 February at 7pm. The event is free and open to all. However, booking is advisable, please contact Waterstone's, on 01227 452354

Come and hear Andrew give a short reading from the novel and enjoy a free glass of wine. Andrew will also be signing copies of the novel, which is set in a fictionalised Canterbury.

A Portrait of the Arsonist as a Young Man has been described as:

“Witty and intriguing” — Scott Pack, The Friday Project

“Fluid and stylish, highly readable and enjoyable. A sustained achievement.” — Will Mackie, Flambard Press

“A distinctive voice...lyrical...a very enjoyable plot.” — Bookbag

It is also Big Issue Book of the Week, read the review here

FLAMBARD PRESS is our featured publisher of the week.

Mon, 9 Feb 2009 11:11:25 +0100

Flambard is an independent press publishing poetry and fiction. Established in 1990, Flambard has a history of nurturing new and neglected writers from Britain and beyond. Our contemporary list continues to grow in innovative and challenging directions, while the Flambard Modern Classics series demonstrates our commitment to the rediscovery of books that have been overlooked by the mainstream. Peter Bennet, whose new collection of poetry, The Glass Swarm, was shortlisted for the 2008 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry. This follows on from its selection as the Poetry Book Society's Choice for its Autumn 2008 quarter, the first time a Flambard book has received such an accolade from the PBS. The Glass Swarm, Flambard's hundredth publication, was published on 18 September and confirms Bennet’s growing reputation as one of the best and most engaging poets writing today. Buy it here

February 12th 2009 is the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Darwinists will be interested in Kelley Swain’s debut collection of poetry, Darwin’s Microscope, which brilliantly shows how science and poetry complement and enlighten each other, to the point where they become nearly inseparable. Darwin’s Microscope, will be published by Flambard this month. Click on the cover image to buy.

ELASTIC PRESS is our featured publisher of the week

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 12:12:50 +0100

Elastic Press is a small publishing house dedicated to showcasing the talents of previously published independent press writers. We produce small print run, high quality, single author short story anthologies in a variety of genres with the intention of raising the profile of writers who are looking to consolidate their reputations within the independent press and beyond.

Collating previously published material with unpublished stories these anthologies are destined to become an invaluable introduction to those writers deserving significant exposure. For the reader they offer the taste of something new, a step away from mainstream publishing towards an innovative world where only nothing is quite as it seems.

Andrew Humphrey the author of Other Voices picked up an award in the East Anglian Book of the Year competition, which was held at Jarrold's in Norwich. Other Voices slides through the genres of urban horror, science fiction, crime and slipstream. Andrew Humphrey follows up his acclaimed first collection, Open The Box, with another twelve stories of loss and abandonment, fear and greed. Click on the image to buy.

Sarah Broughton, Fflur Dafydd and Penny Simpson are Mslexia's Women to Watch

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:15:30 +0100

An article by Susie Wild about the strength of Welsh women's writing in the latest issue of Mslexia has highlighted the debut novels of three Inpress authors as 'ones to watch'.

Sarah Broughton's Other Useful Numbers (Parthian), Fflur Dafydd's Twenty Thousand Saints (Alcemi) and Penny Simpson's The Banquet of Esther Rosenbaum (Alcemi) were each singled out in the article, which argues that the home-grown scene in Wales is thriving. An assertion that we are very happy to agree with.

Susie Wild is also soon to become an Inpress author: her debut collection of short stories will be published later this year by Parthian.

Inpress is looking for a Publisher Services Officer

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:08:22 +0100

Job Description

Salary: £18,000 to £22,000 (depending on experience)
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Reports to: the Managing Director

Principle purpose of the post: You will be responsible for representing our members' interests and the effective delivery of our services to them. You will ensure the effective marketing of our members’ titles to a broad national and international audience, through direct mail and digital channels. You will support the Managing Director in shaping the business and increasing the sales and profile of our member publishers. This job offers an ambitious, clear-thinking and practical graduate or second jobber the opportunity to take a key position in a growing organisation.

Key functions: web development, marketing, publicity, finance and administration

Key Tasks
• Updating and developing the Inpress website
• Representing the company at trade fairs, literature festivals and other events
• Writing copy and preparing Advance Information Sheets
• Management of monthly financial information
• Maintaining and administering online databases
• Office management

The closing date for applications is: 9am on Monday 16th February
Interviews will be held on: Monday 23rd February

To download the full job pack please visit the 'About Us' page

Mike Barlow - Pamphlet Choice for the PBS Winter selection

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:11:36 +0100

Mike Barlow's Pamphlet, Amicable Numbers, published by Templar Poetry and one of the winners of the Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Competition has been selected as the Pamphlet Choice for the PBS Winter selection.

His first collection, Living on the Difference (Smith Doorstop), won the Poetry Business Competition in 2003 and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Aldeburgh prize for best first collection. His second collection, Another Place, was published by Salt in 2007.

‘Mike Barlow is a poet of relationships, intimate and neighbourly, a clear sharp eye and a steady gaze, keeping a look-out for us.’
— Michael Laskey

Buy Amicable Numbers here.

EGGBOX launch at the Hungarian-Cultural Centre, London WC2

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:15:20 +0100

Event Date: 21/01/2009

The Hungarian Cultural Centre, in association with Egg Box Publishing
cordially invites you to celebrate the publication of Budapest to Babel by Agnes Lehoczky.

The collection of poems and young author will be introduced by George Szirtes, poet, and Nathan Hamilton, poet and publisher.

There will be free wine... (and books to buy)!

When: Wednesday 21st January at 7:00pm
Venue: Hungarian Cultural Centre, 10 Maiden Lane
London WC2E 7NA

RSVP:

E: press@hungary.org.uk
T: +44 (0)207 240 8448
F: +44 (0)207 240 4847
M: +44(0)7792369441

More information (including downloadable map) here: Curiosa Hamiltona

Facebook Event Posting:
Facebook

Allison McVety and Susan Utting at Manchester Central Library

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:15:24 +0100

Event Date: 25/01/2009

Allison McVety and Susan Utting at Manchester Central Library, Friday 25th January

Allison McVety's poems have appeared in The Times and The Forward Book of Poetry 2008 and have been broadcast on Radio 3. In 2007 she completed an MA in poetry at Royal Holloway, University of London where she was awarded the PFD Poetry Prize. Her first collection The Night Trotsky Came to Stay (Smith/Doorstop, 2007) is based on her family history during World War II.

"Alison McVety's first book shines. It signals the opening of a career of a writer from whom we can expect wonders." David Morley

Susan Utting has taught poetry at Reading University since 1993 and was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship. Her work has won many awards including a Poetry Business Prize for Something Small is Missing (Smith/Doorstop, 1999) and the 2007 Peterloo Prize for her poem "Under the Blue Ball". Her most recent collection, Houses Without Walls, was published last year by Two Rivers Press.

"These are intelligent, wittily passionate poems. Susan Utting has an eye for real and telling details..." David Constantine

Venue: Committee Room, Manchester Central Library, St. Peters Square, Manchester
Time: 1pm to 2pm
Price: free

For more information please contact Libby Tempest on 0161 234 1981 or see the excellent Manchester Lit List blog
here.

Click here to buy The Night Trotsky Came to Stay by Allison McVety and here to buy Houses Without Walls by Susan Utting.

CRIME EXPRESS is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:09:35 +0100

CRIME EXPRESS (imprint of Five Leaves) books are neatly produced A6 paperbacks with "French flaps" - long crime stories, short novellas - call them what you will - coming in around 100 pages.

Crime Express books are perfect for a train journey or a (very) long bath. The writers range from long established crime writers like Stephen Booth and John Harvey to writers from other genres, like Nicola Monaghan, trying crime fiction for the first time. The series is edited by David Belbin.

Books to watch out for include hard-boiled Edinburgh and Newcastle crime by Allan Guthrie and Ray Banks; Lawrence Block on lust, and a non-fiction Crime Express special on the films of Raymond Chandler novels. Crime Express is a numbered, and eminently collectable series!

KILLING MUM by Allan Guthrie: Using a tanning salon as a front, Edinburgh-based Carlos Morales runs an operation that arranges contract killings. Slight snag: his hit man’s in jail and won’t be out for a while. So when an anonymous – and very generous – payment arrives on account, Carlos decides to take the job on himself. He’s a pro. It can’t be that hard. But once the ‘mark’ is revealed, Carlos is forced to re-think his plans. This is no longer business - it’s personal - because the ‘mark’ is his mother…

“Blacker than a dog’s guts.” — Pulp Pusher
“Guthrie’s control of this dark material is sheer wizardry.” — the Scotsman

Poet in the City and Desert Blues Event - 26th January

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:14:34 +0100

Event Date: 26/01/2009

Poet in the City is delighted to be working with Kings Place in King's Cross, the new home of Guardian News and Media. This spectacular new building includes performance spaces, galleries, restaurants and a book shop. The charity will be holding a whole series of exciting events in Hall One at Kings Place during 2009.

The Desert Blues event is taking place from 6.30pm on Monday 26th January 2009 in Hall One at King's Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG.

Poet in the City is a registered charity committed to attracting new audiences to poetry, making new connections for poetry, and raising money to support poetry education, in particular the placing of poets in schools. .

This unique event will feature an evening of great poetry and amazing global sounds reflecting on the disquieting effects of humankind on the environment.

Chaired by Lucy Duran, leading ethno-musicologist and presenter of BBC Radio 3's World Routes, and featuring:

Patience Agbabi, renowned poet and performer, whose entertaining but hard-hitting work ranges widely over contemporary themes.

Melanie Challenger, a young poet whose first published collection, Galatea, was shortlisted for the 2007 Forward Prize, and who spent the winter of 2007-8 in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey.

David Constantine, distinguished poet, writer and translator, his latest collection Something for the Ghosts was published in 2002. He is also an award-winning poetry translator, writer and novelist and is co-editor of the literary journal Modern Poetry in Translation mptmagazine.

There will also be readings of the work of other poets from around the world, including Bewketu Seyoum from Ethiopia, Joao Jesus de Paes Loureiro from Brazil, and Wulf Kirsten from Germany.

The evening will feature music from world-jazz ensemble the Adriano Adewale Group. Adewale is an Afro- Brazilian percussionist and composer whose new international quartet features Adewale on percussion and vocals; Nathan Riki Thomson on double bass, flutes and kalimba; Marcelo Andrade on sax, flutes and rabeca; and Kadialy Kouyate on kora and vocals. Rooted in the musical traditions of Nigeria, Angola and Brazil and infused with contemporary European classical and jazz styles, their sound is a truly global fusion of influences, and their live performances and debut album SEMENTES have met with rave reviews.

Please note that this is a paid and ticketed event.

How to buy tickets: Booking now open online, by phone or in person from the Kings Place box office:

Tickets cost £9.50 if booked online via www.kingsplace.co.uk
Otherwise tickets cost £11.50. Box Office 0844 264 0321 (local rate)

For enquiries relating to your booking please contact tickets@kingsplace.co.uk. To check ticket availability please use the online booking service.

Torriano Nights - a Festschrift for John Rety - Wednesday 21st January

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:22:48 +0100

Event Date: 21/01/2009

Everyone who supports the Torriano meeting house and Hearing Eye Publications is invited to the formal Launch of:

TORRIANO NIGHTS – A Festschrift for John Rety
47 contributors, 112 pages
edited by Phil Poole
Publisher: Acumen
ISBN 1-873161-20-4
Price £7.00. Special offer 2 copies for £10

It will take place at the Barbican Library in London on Wednesday 21st January at 7 for 7.30pm

Hylda Sims will introduce and contributors will read fromTorriano Nights to celebrate the work of John Rety, poet and publisher and founder in 1982 of Torriano Meeting House.

Refreshments will be served at 7.00pm

Tickets free of charge available in advance from Barbican Library on 020 7638 0569

It would be great to see you there if you can make it but if you can't get to the launch please consider buying the book by post. The book costs £7 for one copy or £10 for 2 copies.

To secure your copy/copies send cheques (along with your name and address) to: P. H. Poole, 39 Buxton Rd, London N19 3XX

COMMA POETRY is our featured publisher of the week

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:11:11 +0100

Established in September 04, Comma Poetry is a new venture set up to repeat the success of sister publisher Comma Fiction, to discover and promote the best in new British poetry, as well as to support established poets, through anthologies and single poet collections.

Comma Poetry is not interested in carrying the flame of modernism in the poets it publishes, nor in excluding work because of the schools or traditions that inform it. Comma Poetry will strive to keep in touch with the textures of contemporary experience, without denying the wide, far-reaching context that the craft of poetry always finds itself in.

Dangerous Driving by Chris Woods

This second collection from Chris Woods sees a richer and deeper exploration of key themes: the human exchanges at the heart of his practice as a doctor, the stresses placed on the modern fathers by a growing family, the impulse towards self-exile and isolation, as well as the means by which even the greatest losses can be survived.

York Library - storytelling for adults

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 09:09:10 +0100

Event Date: 31/01/2009

The latest in York Libraries' series of storytelling events for adult audiences takes place at the end of this month. Lost in Translation! with Peter Chand and Shonaleigh will be the next event in the very successful Telling Tales series, on Saturday 31 January, 7.30 pm at York Central Library.

Shonaleigh and Peter Chand are two of Britain's most exciting and accomplished Storytellers. They have created an innovative performance piece based around stories they have collected from their respective Jewish and Indian backgrounds. Shonaleigh has previously performed in York at York St John University and at the York Literature Festival.

The fate of the kingdom lies in the hands of two men. Can Jakov and Pardesi put aside their differences and reach the magical city of Lutz- a place where men forget who they are? When two ancient cultures walk side by side, only one question remains: Are the healing properties of Chicken Soup really more effective than Lamb Biryani?

Tickets priced at £5 (including a glass of wine) are obtainable from York Central Library helpdesk, tel 01904 552815. Or visit: yorklibrary

Greta Stoddart shortlisted for the Costa Prize

Mon, 5 Jan 2009 14:14:46 +0100

Greta Stoddart's collection Salvation Jane (Anvil) has been shortlisted for the poetry category in the Costa Book Award. The judges said: "Honest, observant poems from a collection which is both wonderfully unsettling and deeply life-affirming."

At the heart of many of the poems in Salvation Jane lies an apprehension of things being lost or destroyed - whether a child or an illusion, faith or the very earth we live on. The world changes, too, when someone enters it. Greta Stoddart's poems of motherhood are intense double-edged celebrations; as grief has its consolations, so joy is rarely entire.

The winner of the £5,000 prize will be announced on Tuesday 6th January 2009.

Buy Salvation Jane online: here

The short list in full:

* For All We Know by Ciaran Carson (Gallery Press)
* The Broken Word by Adam Foulds (Cape)
* Sunday at the Skin Launderette by Kathryn Simmonds (Seren)
* Salvation Jane by Greta Stoddart (Anvil Press)

BETWEEN THE LINES is our featured publisher of the week

Mon, 5 Jan 2009 11:11:54 +0100

Between The Lines was founded in 1998 and publishes unusually wide-ranging and unusually deep-going interviews with some of today’s most accomplished poets.
Some would deny that any useful purpose is served by putting to a writer questions which are not answered by his or her books. For them, what Yeats called ‘the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast’ is best left alone, not asked to interrupt its cornflakes, or to set aside its morning paper, while someone with a tape recorder inquires about its life, habits and attitudes.
If BTL does not not share this view, it is not because we endorse Sainte-Beuve’s dictum, tel arbre, tel fruit – as the tree, so the fruit – but because we understand what Geoffrey Braithwaite was getting at when the author of Flaubert’s Parrot had him say: "But if you love a writer, if you depend upon the drip-feed of his intelligence, if you want to pursue him and find him – despite edicts to the contrary – then it’s impossible to know too much."

Seven American Poets by John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Anthony Hecht... An informative, entertaining, candid and occasionally surprising panopticon of a book.

Poetry in the Crypt 2009

Mon, 5 Jan 2009 10:10:30 +0100

Event Date: 31/01/2009

The next Poetry in the Crypt is on

Saturday January 31st at 7.30 p.m.

featuring:

Brian Docherty
Anna Robinson
Hylda Sims

Admission £4 (£3 concessions)
Poets from the floor welcome
Proceeds will support work with orphans and HIV positivewomen in Igatpuri, India

Poetry in the Crypt takes place in the Neighbourhood Centre which is a grey building beside St Mary’s Church on Upper Street, London N1, midway between Angel and Highbury & Islington tube stations. Buses 4, 19, 30 and 43.

Naked Punch Magazine launches new Asia edition.

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:12:57 +0100

Naked Punch was founded in 2002 by a group of young London-based thinkers, The magazine is an engaged review of contemporary art and thought. Essentially a federal, "non-institutional" project, it is the spontaneous collaboration of thinkers and artists residing in different cities of the world. Before being a magazine, a container of material or a "cabinet of objects", it is a shared understanding, a shared feeling of unease, a shared concern, and a shared sensitivity. Naked Punch is the embodiment of its contributors' breath.

The Naked Punch Collective working with People's Resistance and United Front produced - during the November Emergency - in Pakistan a special edition in solidarity with the lawyers movement in Pakistan. The Asia edition is available as a free download in .pdf format from here: NPAsia

Notes from the Underground

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:22:36 +0100

Notes from the Underground (NFTU) is London’s new creative writing freesheet. It aims to provide the very best in new short stories, cartoons, poems and non-fiction in every issue. 100,000 copies of each issue are distributed outside major central London tube stations and through bookshops and art galleries in London and beyond. More details about NFTU can be found here: NFTU

In December 2008, Arts Council England provided funding for a partnership between NFTU and Social Spider. As part of this partnership, Social Spider will be responsible for compiling a monthly live literature listings section in NFTU from February 2009 onwards. This section will include details of upcoming live literature events including: poetry readings or performances, short story readings, book or magazines launches, discussions with authors and other spoken word events.

If you’d like an event that you’re organising to be listed, please send Social Spider the following details: Name of event, List of readers/performers, Venue address, Venue directions, Start time, Finish Time, Cost of tickets/entrance, Contact phone number/email address, A short description of the event (up to 50 words) – the aim of NFTU’s listings section is broaden interest in live literature so the aim of this description is to explain your event to people who may not have attended a similar event before.

Please note in order to protect the contact email address from spammers - if you'd like to promote your events in Notes from the Underground, then please use the 'contact us' form on the website to ask us for details and we'll email them to you.

The deadline for submission of information on events in February 2009 and the first week of March 2009 is Monday January 12th 2009. If you want to send if information about events taking place during the rest of March and April that will also be appreciated as it will enable us to plan ahead. There is no charge for listings but as space is limited and there are lots of events going on we can’t promise to include we receive but we’ll aim to include a broad range of events over the course of the year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our website visitors

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:11:35 +0100

Inpress is closed now for Christmas, but orders will be fulfilled by individual publishers after the break for Christmas and Boxing Days. Our distributor, Central Books will be open between Christmas and New Year and a full service to our customers will be resumed on Friday 2nd January.

We will pick up any order queries during this period and respond to you as soon as we possibly can.

Meanwhile, enjoy the festive season and thank you for your custom and support during 2008.

The Inpress team!

The Present Absent Mahmoud Darwish

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:11:28 +0100

Mahmoud Darwish, the great Palestinian poet died on Saturday 9th August 2008 following complications arising after major heart surgery carried out in America. He was just 67 years old.

He never stopped writing and performing his poetry which has inspired thousands upon thousands of people of all ages and nationalities and will surely continue to inspire them. He is one of the most renowned, respected and loved poets of today's world - a poetic giant who became the voice of Palestine, of Palestinian loss and exile and in later years, its voice of conscience.

On his own death, Darwish wrote, addressing himself:

"Let us go you and I, on two paths: You, to a second life, promised to you by language in a reader who might survive the fall of a comet on earth. I, to a rendezvous I postponed more than once, with a death I promised a glass of red wine in a poem".

Banipal 33 is a tribute to his life and legacy.

TORRIANO POETRY COMPETITION 2009

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:15:10 +0100

Hearing Eye is delighted to announce that the Torriano Poetry competition deadline has been extended to 31st January 2009

First Prize £250 Second Prize £150 Third Prize £75

Adjudicators: Nancy Mattson & Mike Bartholomew-Biggs

The winning poets – first, second and third – will be offered featured readings
at the adjudication celebrations on Sunday, 1st March 2009. These will be held
at Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Avenue, Kentish Town, London NW5.

The winning poems will also be featured in Brittle Star magazine.

Proceeds to Torriano Meeting House Support Fund

No entry form required

Rules

Poems up to a maximum of 40 lines each to be typed on a single side of A4 paper.
Poems should not have been previously published.
Poems after or in the style of another poet should be so marked
A separate sheet of A4 should contain the titles of poems, name, address an email and phone number of entrant
Entry fees: £3 one poem, £5 for two, £10 for five.
Cheques payable to the Torriano Support Fund

Entries to: Diana Baggs, 1 Havelock Road,Walmer, Deal, Kent CT14 7TE

ARC PUBLICATIONS is our featured publisher of the week

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:13:10 +0100

Arc Publications was founded in 1969 by Tony Ward, who remains its Managing Editor. Over thirty years later, operating from a converted textile mill on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border in the North of England, the press still adheres to its founding principles of introducing the best of new talent to a UK readership, including voices from overseas that would otherwise remain unheard in this country.

Now publishing upward of 20 titles a year, Arc’s list is a mix of new and established writers from the UK and abroad, with special emphasis on the work of Commonwealth poets writing in English, and the work of overseas poets in translation. With the input of a distinguished editorial team, Arc works hard to ensure that its publishing policy, and its publications, remain exciting and vibrant, offering the very best in contemporary poetry.

There's an excellent profile of Mourid Barghouti, whose Midnight and Other Poems has recently been published by Arc, in Saturday's Guardian.

"...you have to strike a balance, not sacrificing the aesthetics for your readership. I hate the terms 'resistance poetry' or 'exile poetry'. We're not one-theme poets. A moment of joy or misery is juxtaposed by its opposite. There's no one face; I see both."

Read the full article, click on the cover image.

Peter Bennet shortlisted for T S Eliot Prize

Tue, 9 Dec 2008 17:17:03 +0100

Peter Bennet, whose new collection of poetry, The Glass Swarm, was selected as the Poetry Book Society's Choice for its Autumn 08 quarter, has now been short-listed for the 2008 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry.

This is the first time a Flambard book has received such an accolade from the PBS. The book, Flambard's one hundredth publication, was published on 18 September and Peter will be giving readings from it in the autumn, dates to be announced.

AFLAME BOOKS is our Publisher of the week

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 11:11:03 +0100

Aflame has a mission: to bring you the finest world fiction in English translation. We reach out from the UK to writers in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East and overcome barriers of culture and language so that you can experience their passion and originality. We are proud of our focus on what was once called the Third World and is now described as the Warm World. But fine writing is universal - and our quest is not limited by borders. Put simply, we are the library of the global village.

THE AUTHOR of the best-selling chronicles of Egyptian life, Taxi, has been invited to participate in the first Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature. Khaled Al Khamissi will be one of about 60 international writers attending this prestigious event. It will take place in Dubai in February 2009 and will be the first festival of its kind on this scale in the Middle East.

Children of the Jago

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 10:10:20 +0100

Children of the Jago - Ken Worpole, author of Dockers and Detectives joins London historian Sarah Wise for a discussion on London writing, especially Alexander Baron

When: Wednesday 10 December: 7.00pm
Where: Pages of Hackney Bookshop
70 Lower Clapton Road, Clapton, London E5 0RN

£3 admission including wine

Anita Klein Monoprints Exhibition

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 10:10:14 +0100

Five Leaves, publisher of Anita Klein: Painter, Printmaker and Anita Klein: Italian Angels[/i], advises that there is an Anita Klein monoprints exhibition at Advanced Grahics until the 20th December - Admission Free.

When: From now until 20th December
Where: Advanced Graphics, 32 Long Lane, London
Times: Open Tuesday-Sunday 10am-6.0m

For more info see: [url=http://www.advancedgraphics.co.uk[advancedgraphics[/url]

Five Leaves Event at New End Theatre

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 21:21:00 +0100

When: Sunday 7 December – 7.30pm

Where: New End Theatre, 27 New End, Hampstead, London NW3 1JD.

Catch this exclusive rehearsed reading of Bernard Kops' latest play, Whitechapel Dreams starring the playwright himself, along with actors Ruth D'Silva, Edward Halsted and Gunnar Cauthery. Directed by up-and-coming director, Sam Leifer.

For more info. see: newendtheatre

Tickets £5, Box office 0870 033 2733

Launch of The Attraction of Onlookers

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:20:51 +0100

When: Friday 5 December 2.00pm

Where: National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff
For further info visit: museumwales

Parthian Books are delighted to announce the opening of Shimon Attie's exhibition at the National Museum and the launch of his book The Attraction of Onlookers.

Alcemi is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:20:41 +0100

Alcemi is an imprint of Y Lolfa, best known on home ground for its Welsh-language fiction list. Editor Gwen Davies’ background is as fiction editor for fellow Inpress member Parthian, with whom she shares an independent spirit, ambition and commitment to nurturing new writers.

Alcemi's authors are drawn from the writers of Wales. A small proportion of the list is allocated to adaptations from Welsh-language novels. The emphasis is on discovering and developing new talent. Alcemi aims to offer its authors wide opportunities aside from direct publication (eg advice on author bursaries, international festival participation, the chance to teach) and the imprint provides a supportive artistic team.

The featured title is Liminal. Relationships – father and youthful son; son and elderly mother; fiancés, lovers; colleagues - none are immutable. This novel shows those thresholds of choice, those liminal moments and places where a door may open onto another world, or at the very least, another way of relating to the one we have.

“Evocative... Chris Keil’s writing, which is limpid and often arrestingly vivid, has a charged quality that conveys the mysteries pulsing behind the everyday surfaces of things.” - the Guardian

OXAM gala fundraising poetry event - 2nd December

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:10:54 +0100

Event Date: 02/12/2008

Oxfam is holding a gala fundraising poetry event for Christmas:

When: Tuesday 2 December 2008, 7pm
Where: Oxfam Marylebone Books & Music shop, 91 Marylebone High Street (near Baker Street tube).

It’s an impressive and entertaining line-up:

Joe Dunthorne
Phil Hancock
A.F. Harrold
Nancy Mattson
Niall McDevitt
David Prater (from Australia)
Peter Robinson
Julian Stannard

Admission is free. Those wishing to attend are requested to rsvp by contacting Martin Penny at 0207 487 3570 or oxfammarylebone@hotmail.com. Donations will be most welcome.

ARC PUBLICATIONS launch Tuesday 25th November

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:13:03 +0100

Arc Publications invites you to the launch of Guests of Eternity

by the outstanding Russian lyric poet Larissa Miller

When: Tuesday 25 November 2008, 7.00 for 7.30 pm

Where: The Pushkin Club, Pushkin House, 5A Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2TA. Nearest tube stations: Holborn / Tottenham Court Road

Larissa Miller will be reading from her new book with her translator, Richard McKane

Admission £5 or £3.50 concessions - Further information on 0207 269 9770

Modern Poetry in Translation readers in for £1000 Prize!

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:11:00 +0100

One Modern Poetry in Translation reader could win £1000 in a competition to write a poem about your home town.

The closing date is almost upon us (31st December 2008) in this annual competition run by United Press, to encourage more people into writing poetry.

“It’s free to enter, and the aim of the competition is to encourage more people to try writing poetry, It’s great therapy and a great way of expressing yourself,” said Peter Quinn, Managing Director of United Press.

This annual competition was won last year by Stephanie Spiers of Stafford who wrote a poem about her local river. The previous year’s winner was Jerry Beachill, who wrote a poem about village life near Rotherham, and previous to that, the winner was Owen Lowery who wrote a poem about Billinge, his home town.

To enter the competition send up to three poems of 160 words and 20 lines each to:

United Press Ltd
Admail 3735
London, EC1 1JB

Or you can check out the website at www.unitedpress.co.uk or phone 0870 240 6190

Found in Translation

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:13:31 +0100

The Showcase Before the Tour

When: Monday, 24 November, 3pm
Where: Soho Theatre Studio
21 Dean St, London W1D 3NE

In partnership with Oxford Playhouse and in preparation for our 2009 tour. Queer poets, performers and playwrights from Bermuda, South Africa, France, Uruguay, Canada and the UK will be taking over Soho Theatre Studio this coming Monday.

Word/percussive performance duo Amphibia (Andra Simons and Stephane Roul) dance through the dark side of growing up under the Bermuda sun, Akkas Al-Ali hones in on human rights and sexuality in the Muslim World, poet and musician Sandra Alland (one of the winners in our 2008 Writing Competition) and Y.Josephine stretch the limits of language and our imagination with a guitar and a megaphone, Alan C. Smith brings us his biblically inspired series "black cats, cocks and other idols" and Shaun Levin turns a tale of cruising, glitter, tree climbing, and happily ever after.

Tickets are £5. Click here to book.

The Waywiser Press is our publisher of the week

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:09:13 +0100

The Waywiser Press, a small independent company, based in London, was founded in late 2001, and started publishing in 2002. It is managed and edited by Philip Hoy.

Waywiser specialises in the publication of modern poetry in English, but are also interested in publishing books belonging to other genres. Thus, in 2002, they published Neil Berry's Articles of Faith, a study of the editors behind Great Britain's leading intellectual journals, from Francis Jeffrey to Karl Miller. Waywiser have also published works of fiction, drama and criticism.

Richard WIilbur, one of Waywiser's authors won the 2006 LILLY PRIZE in the U.S. The $100,000 award is one of the largest prizes for Poetry. "We can only hope that Wilbur is granted another decade, and another book as fine as 'Mayflies'." — Alan Sullivan

WRITING RE:CONNECTED

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:10:06 +0100

The New Writing Partnership - Promoting, Developing and Celebrating New Writing

When: Monday 24th November 2008
Where: Epic, Norwich (see link below)

As a coda to New Writing Season 2008 programme of conferences and workshops, The New Writing Partnership, in collaboration with Amb:IT:ion, is organising a half-day ‘thinkshop’ about Writing Re:connected -- you are invited to take part. Our focus for will be: 'What could we, as literary organisations, be looking to offer or cultivate in light of current digital media trends?' and ‘What impact will the developments in digital media have on what we, as organisations in the literature sector, offer the writers, readers and other partners with whom we work?’

The event will take place at Epic, Norwich, between 12:30pm and 6:15pm, on Monday November 24th, 2008. You are invited to join the debate. PLEASE RSVP to confirm attendance.

ANVIL PRESS presents Ros Barber and Joe Winter reading at Waterstone's Brighton

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:09:55 +0100

When: Thursday 20th November at 7.00 p.m.
Where: Waterstone's Brighton

Tickets £3, available from the shop and redeemable against purchase of the books on the night.

Ros Barber will be reading from her new collection of poems, Material. Joe Winter will aslo be reading from his new Rabindranath Tagore translations, The Golden Boat.

Further details: 01273 206017

TWO RIVERS is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:14:19 +0100

Two Rivers Press has rightly been described as 'one of the most characterful small presses in the country'. Now in its twelfth year, the press is a cooperative, with a growing reputation for bold design and illustration combined with distinctive new writing. Two Rivers Press is strongly rooted in the Thames Valley, Reading in particular, and many of our titles deal with aspects of the area's history. Two Rivers Press stands for the best in small independent publishing, and we intend to continue to surprise and entertain readers who love unusual books written and designed with imagination, wit and flair.

Two Rivers Press won the Cultural Contribution Award at the Pride of Reading Awards last week hosted by Chris Tarrant.

Oscar Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol in France shortly after his release from Reading, the only new work that he published after that time. He left England never to return and was not allowed to see his two sons again. The experience of gaol devastated him.

POETRY ‘IN’ THE CRYPT...

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 14:14:25 +0100

Where: Is in the Neighbourhood Centre next to
St Mary’s Church, Upper Street, Islington

When: Saturday November 15th at 7.30 p.m.

Featuring:

Michael Bartholomew-Biggs
Graham Kings
Hugh Underhill

Michael Bartholomew-Biggs is a recently-retired mathematician still pursuing a career as a poet. His new collection Tell It Like It Might Be (Smokestack, 2008) celebrates and questions the value of human imagination which can nourish faith, hope, mystery and love but also spins webs of private fears and guilt and coins the easy lie or terrible falsehood. These poems deal with illusion and delusion, lovers’ deceptions and lying dossiers endorsing war. But beware of scepticism: sometimes the implausible is also true.

Graham Kings is vicar of St Mary’s, Islington and his support has been invaluable in enabling Poetry in the Crypt to continue into its 10th year. Graham is also a poet and his new book Signs & Seasons (Canterbury Press, 2008) uses poetry – along with art, story and humour – to engage with life’s most difficult questions and challenges. Drawing on the shape of the Christian year, it blends ancient Christian insights and contemporary understanding to create a ‘spiritual travel kit’ – see: signsandseasons

Hugh Underhill lives in Bedford. He taught English at universities in Hong Kong and Melbourne and his publications include criticism, short stories and four poetry collections. His latest book, Found Wanting (Smokestack, 2008) pursues the poetry of the material world. It attends to the sometimes fragile, sometimes tenacious, nature of relationships and is rooted in the belief that living acquires meaning through commitment and choice. His poems also consider how all artists are, in a double sense, ‘found wanting’.

Admission £4 (£3 concessions)

Poets from the floor welcome

Proceeds will support work with orphans and HIV+ women in Igatpuri, India

The Neighbourhood Centre is a grey building beside St Mary’s Church on Upper Street, London N1, midway between Angel and Highbury & Islington tube stations. Buses 4, 19, 30 and 43. For more information contact nmattson@sampo.plus.com

ANVIL PRESS presents Dennis O'Driscoll in conversation with Seamus Heaney

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 14:14:11 +0100

Date: Monday 10 November, 7pm

Venue: Wyndham's Theatre
Charing Cross Road
London
WC2H ODA

Widely regarded as the finest poet of his generation, Seamus Heaney is
the subject of numerous studies - but no book-length portrait has
appeared until now.

To mark the publication of Stepping Stones Seamus Heaney and Dennis
O'Driscoll are in conversation with Mark Lawson about Heaney's life and
work. The event will open and close with Heaney reading from his work.

The event will be recorded for Front Row on BBC Radio 4 and signed copies
of Stepping Stones will be available for purchase.

Prices: £12, £10, £8 (Follow link to book:
SteppingStoneswithSeamusHeaney

About Stepping Stones:

Through his own lively and eloquent reminiscences, Stepping Stones retraces the poet's steps from his early works, through to his receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature and his post-Nobel life. It is supplemented with a large number of photographs, many from the Heaney family album and published here for the first time. In response to firm but subtle questioning from Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney sheds a personal light on his work (poems, essays, translations, plays) and on the artistic and ethical challenges he faced, providing an original, diverting and absorbing store of reflections, opinions and recollections.

Dennis O'Driscoll's poetry collections with Anvil are:

New and Selected Poems 978-0-85646-373-0, £11.95
Reality Check 978-0-85646-402-7, £7.95
Exemplary Damages 978-0-85646-350-1, £7.95
Long Story Short 978-0-85646-256-6, £7.95
Weather Permitting 978-0-85646-315-0, £7.95

Inpress Launches new loyalty scheme for Website purchasers

Thu, 6 Nov 2008 14:14:36 +0100

Today we're delighted to announce that we've just gone live with a new loyalty scheme for regular purchasers. If you've bought books from Inpress before, you log in from the new 'YOUR ACCOUNT' menu at the top of the page. If you cannot remember your original password you can ask for it to be re-sent.

There is a new discount scheme for those who've ordered more than once and if you recommend the site to a friend (or friends) and the friend (or friends) orders a book, you may choose a free book from a regular selection that changes every month.

You can also view your order history, choose additional delivery addresses, view your discount levels and so on.

This is our way of saying thank you to the people who've been regular supporters of Inpress over the last four years.

Launch of MPT - The Big Green Issue

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:10:41 +0100

Modern Poetry in Translation warmly invite you to join them at the launch of MPT Series 3, Number 10 - THE BIG GREEN ISSUE

Date/Time: 6.30pm, Thursday 6 November 2008

Venue: Daunt Books, 112-114 Holland Park Avenue, London W11

We hope to see you there. David and Helen Constantine

THE ROCKINGHAM PRESS is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:10:24 +0100

David Perman set up The Rockingham Press in 1991 to champion new and neglected poets and also Middle East poetry in translation. Since then Rockingham has published, on average each year, five paperback collections (always including a first collection) and one or two pamphlets.

Middle East titles have included MODERN TURKISH POETRY (a Poetry Book Society recommendation), MODERN PERSIAN POETRY and works by Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar and Oktay Rifat.

One of Rockingham's finest poets, Lotte Moos, died on 3rd January 2008 at the age of 98. She was a remarkable person and an outstanding writer. David Perman is writing a biography of Lotte and there are plans to publish her short stories, and to republish her Collected Poems.

T S Eliot Prize for Poetry - shortlist announcement

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:09:27 +0100

Congratulations to Peter Bennet, author of The Glass Swarm (Flambard Press) who has been short-listed for the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry.

Andrew Motion, Chair of the judges said: “Like my fellow judges Lavinia Greenlaw and Tobias Hill, I’ve felt privileged to be involved in this year’s T S Eliot Prize – the most prestigious poetry prize in the country. The ten books on the shortlist are all significant achievements in themselves – richly imagined, formally enterprising, emotionally intelligent and importantly varied. They also bear witness to the vitality of contemporary poetry as a whole, and make the prize an occasion for general congratulation.”

The winner will be announced on Monday 12 January 2009, the award ceremony will be held at Skinners’ Hall, where the Chair of the judges will announce the winner and Mrs Valerie Eliot will present the winner’s cheque and prizes for the shortlisted poets.

THE RIALTO is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:10:47 +0100

THE RIALTO is not only the UK’s leading independent poetry magazine. It's also a publisher with a fine reputation – one of it’s first collection titles, Outswimming the Eruption by Allan Crosbie, was shortlisted for the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize in September 2006.

THE RIALTO is where you’ll find the poets you should be reading – international names alongside established writers or poets at the beginning of their careers.

This weeks key title is Developing the Negative by Emily Wills, The Rialto's latest publication, which will be available from November. Emily has had previous success with her wonderful collection Diverting the Sea. In the words of U.A. Fanthorpe, ‘Emily Wills’ gift lies in choosing quite ordinary things and seeing through them into strangeness…’

WRITING RE:CONNECTED - MONDAY NOVEMBER 24 2008

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:13:33 +0100

WRITING RE:CONNECTED

MONDAY NOVEMBER 24 2008

The New Writing Partnership, in collaboration with Amb:IT:ion, invite you to take part in a half-day ‘thinkshop’ about Writing Re:connected. The focus will be on literary organisations and the impact of digital media.

The event will take place at Epic, Norwich, between 12:30pm and 6:15pm, on Monday November 24th, 2008. You are invited to join the debate. PLEASE RSVP Nathan Hamilton: nathan@newwritingpartnership.org.uk to confirm attendance and for details of the timetable.

POETRY INTERNATIONAL 2008

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:09:57 +0100

Rema Hammami and John Berger reading from their translation of Mahmoud Darwish's poem Mural and discussing

Palestine - Modern Poetry in Translation Series 3, Number 9

with David Constantine

7.30pm, Friday 24th October
Queen Elizabeth Hall
South Bank
London
Tickets £10 www.southbankcentre.co.uk, 0871 663 2586

SMOKESTACK Book Launch - 28th October

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:15:18 +0100

Smokestack Books invites you to the book launch of Mike Bartholomew-Biggs' Tell it Like it Might Be

Venue: Little Angel Theatre, Dagmar Place, Islington
Date & Time: Tuesday 28th October @ 7pm

Come along with some friends, we look forward to seeing you Tuesday evening.

WOLF IN THE EGG BOX

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:21:23 +0100

When: Saturday 25th October, 7.30pm, Jurnets Bar, Wensum Lodge, King Street.

FEATURING: James Byrne, Nathan Hamilton, Clare Pollard, Paul Stubbs and introducing new Egg Box poet, Agnes Lehoczky, whose book, Budapest to Babel has just been published.

We will also be featuring one lucky reader from the manuscript consultation sessions held by James Byrne and Clare Pollard earlier in the day.

This is a FREE event. In association with Wolf Magazine, Cafe Writers (who are kindly letting us borrow their PA) and New Writing Partnership. But please do be prepared to buy some books: Egg Box titles and copies of Wolf Magazine will be on sale.

This event is part of the NEW WRITING SEASON 2008 series of events and workshops in Norwich during October and November. Please visit the New Writing Partnership website for more information.

THE LONDON MAGAZINE is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:12:10 +0100

First founded in 1732, The London Magazine appeared for 53 years as a counterbalance to The Gentleman’s Magazine.

Today The London Magazine continues its illustrious history, giving space to the best and brightest of writers, artists and commentators working in London and farther afield. Nobel Prize winners and unpublished writers, renowned artists and neglected poets have graced the pages of The London Magazine with equal welcome.

Our most recent issues have included some of today’s best writers, such as Nicholas Royle, Penelope Shuttle, Anne Stewart, Tim Turnbull, Trevor Hoyle, Annie Freud, Roddy Lumsden, Graham Buchan, Leah Fritz, John Hartley Williams, Todd Swift, Martyn Crucefix, Tim Cumming, Andy Brown, Neil Curry and many more…

Consistently on the pulse of the literary scene, The London Magazine is a meeting place for the day’s greatest minds.

Anvil Press Poetry celebrates 40 years of publishing

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:18:41 +0100

We hope that you may be able to join us on Wednesday 29 October to celebrate 40 years of poetry publishing by Anvil, and the launch of three new books:

Ros Barber's second collection, Material; Joe Winter's selected translations from Tagore, The Golden Boat; and -- forty years on from his first English collection -- the Venetian poet Aldo Vianello's Selected Poems, a bilingual edition with translations by Richard Burns,Peter Jay and Linda Lappin.

The event is from 6.30–9 pm, at:

The Melton Mowbray
18 Holborn, London EC1N 2LE
(opposite Chancery Lane tube)

Five Leaves Events this week

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:18:38 +0100

Tuesday 14 October – 8.15pm

Sibyl Ruth will be taking part in a Birmingham Book Festival event at B'ham Conservatoire. She'll be reading and discussing her translations of poems written by her great-aunt Rose Scooler, who was an inmate of the Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt.

Tickets: 0121 303 2323. Info: http://www.birminghambookfestival.org/

Wednesday 15 October – 7.00pm
An evening with Bernard Kops, reading from his East End books
Housmans Bookshop, Kings Cross, London
Free, refreshments
Info: www.housmans.com

Friday 17 October – 6.30 for 7.00pm
Five Leaves’ poetry evening in Camden United Reformed Church with Penny Feinstein, Naomi Jaffa and Adrian Buckner.
Info: info@fiveleaves.co.uk

[b]Saturday 18 October 10.00-7.00pm]/b]
Anarchist Book Fair, Queen Mary and Westfield College London. Five Leaves bookstall. www.anarchistbookfair.org

Smokestack Books is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:18:29 +0100

Smokestack aims to keep open a space for what is left of the English radical poetic tradition in the twenty-first century. Smokestack champions poets who are unfashionable, radical, left-field and working a long way from the metropolitan centres of cultural authority. Smokestack is interested in the World as well as the Word; believes that poetry is a part of and not apart from society; argues that if poetry does not belong to everyone it is not poetry.

This week's key title is Dances with Vowels by Kevin Cadwallender
Angry, funny and surreal, these poems explore the world of the underdog, the world of the crawling from beneath the boot, the world of turning over clouds to find the silver lining and scraping graffiti on its cumulus underbelly. Dances with Vowels has a heart that beats for its native North East. Lewd and clear.

Below is an extract from This Tyne

the gramophone in the Crown Posada
scratches out George Formby
whose wife never let kiss his leading ladies,
but I would kiss you.
We drift along the quayside like untethered bo
touching, barging, jostling ,
Your faith is unsinkable.
We are slow mourners
heads low up Dog Leap Stairs
pausing to forget to kiss
under the viaducts at Castle Keep
and deep into the day and into our pockets
we drink in one corner
or another of The Bridge Hotel.
This Tyne that flows like ale over dreamers.....

Launch of Twenty Thousand Saints, plus Burum - 9th October FREE

Thu, 9 Oct 2008 16:16:10 +0100

Alcemi invite you to a launch of Twenty Thousand Saints

Date: Thursday 9th October, 7.30pm
Venue: Dylan Thomas Centre, Maritime Centre, Swansea
Admission: FREE

Trio from Burum will perform cool fusion of jazz and traditional tunes. Singer-songwriter and novelist Fflur Dafydd will read from her first novel in English, set on Bardsey Island, published by Alcemi. Bar and book signing. RSVP: Gwen Davies on gwen@ylolfa.com

SEE YOU THERE!

Two events this week from HEARING EYE

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 10:10:30 +0100

Mary Michaels reading at The Barbican - Monday October 6th

Mary Michaels will be reading from her Hearing Eye new pamphlet Caret Mark at the Barbican Library on Monday 6th October at 7.30pm. For a free ticket call 020 7638 0569.

John Rety and David Floyd at Church End Library - Wednesday October 8th

John Rety, David Floyd and Torriano Poets will be reading at Church End Library, 24 Hendon Lane, N3 1TR on Wednesday 8th October. This is a free reading in celebration of (but not on) National Poetry Day. The event runs from 7.30pm until 9pm - open mike session and refreshments. Free admission.

SMITH DOORSTOP is our featured publisher of the week

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 09:09:42 +0100

Smith Doorstop (The Poetry Business ) is a small independent publisher of contemporary poetry, it was founded in 1986 by Peter Sansom. We publish books, pamphlets and audio-cassettes.

"A small but enterprising publisher talent-spotting marvellous new poets." — The Independent

LIP by Catherine Smith. SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2008. A litany of dangerous pleasure, in this book there are no safe words.

Five Leaves Event at Poetry Cafe + Music!

Sun, 5 Oct 2008 18:18:14 +0100

Date: Monday 6 October – 7.30pm
Venue: Poetry Place, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2
Cost: £4.00
More Info: www.exiledwriters.co.uk

Gregorio Kohon (Argentina), Moris Farhi (Turkey), Bart Wolffe (Zimbabwe) and editor Jennifer Langer read from If Salt Has Memory: Jewish exiled writers – plus singer and guitarist Sharon Malyan (Zambia).

Introducing Alcemi

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:18:45 +0100

Inpress is very pleased to announce that Welsh publisher, Alcemi, an imprint of Y Lolfa and based in Aberystwyth has joined as our newest member. Alcemi publishes fiction and is keen to bring new Welsh writers to the attention of the wider world. Their two newest titles - due for publication next month are Twenty Thousand Saints and The Untogether.

You can find out more about Alcemi under our 'publishers' menu on the website.

RAGGED RAVEN is our featured publisher this week.

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:10:18 +0100

Ragged Raven Press was founded in 1998. Its first title was the critically acclaimed 'Bare Fists', a non-fiction book about bare-knuckle prizefighting which was subsequently bought and published by HarperCollins in the UK and Overlook Press in the USA. Ragged Raven has since concentrated on poetry, producing individual collections and an annual anthology.

“One of my favourite presses, I have a Ragged Raven imprint in lounge, study and loo.” — Abi Hughes-Edwards, The New Writer

A small press with an excellent eye for picking gems. — Coffee House Poetry

When Pigs Chew Stones: The ninth poetry anthology from Ragged Raven Press presenting a selection of poems entered for their annual poetry competition.

An evening with ROBERT MITCHUM - Friday, 3rd October - 7.00pm

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:15:24 +0100

Author of Oh Dad! A Search for Robert Mitchum, Lloyd Robson, will be raising a glass to Mitchum, relating some of his own experiences researching the book, and introduce a special screening of Cape Fear at Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA. Fri 3 Oct, Talk 7pm, Film Screening 8.30pm. Tickets £6.00/£4.00 Concs

For more details, and to buy a ticket contact:
T: +44 (0)117 9172300 / 01
E: boxoffice@arnolfini.org.uk
www.arnolfini.org.uk

PARTHIAN is our featured publisher this week

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:14:38 +0100

Parthian has been publishing innovative fiction drama and poetry in Wales for ten years. We aim to promote new talent and bring exciting new authors to as wide an audience as possible. While we focus on Welsh fiction, the image of Wales our list constructs is dynamic, contemporary, and inclusive of different cultural groups.

Raymond Williams: A Warrior's Tale
Dai Smith's new biography concentrates exclusively on the first 40 years of his subject's life. It's special intention is to prove by the daunting extensiveness of its family research, and by its unique access to Williams's own archive, that Willams never even thought of himself as a critic, least of all one mired in the occupational spite and nastiness of the English faculty at Cambridge University. No, Raymond Williams wanted to be a playwright. He wanted to be a novelist.

COULD YOU BE OUR NEW MANAGING DIRECTOR?

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:13:20 +0100

Following the current MDs decision to retire at the end of this year, Inpress is seeking a new Managing Director to take the business through its next phase of development and growth. We're looking for a forward-looking professional with significant publishing or book-selling experience, able to lead the business effectively and work closely with member publishers and partners. In return, we offer a competitive salary and rewarding challenge.

Key skills required include: business management, leadership, long-term planning and strategic thinking, online marketing and website development, expertise with MS Office applications and design packages.

Inpress provides sales and marketing services to a range of specialist independent publishers and represents their interests to the book trade and wider audiences. Established in 2002, Inpress receives an annual grant from Arts Council England

The Inpress office is in Ealing, West London but working arrangements are flexible. For further details, a copy of the job description and person specification, please contact:

Ms Imelda Quinn
Inpress Limited
Northumberland House
11 The Pavement
Popes Lane
London W5 4NG
Email: mail1@inpressbooks.co.uk

NAKED PUNCH is our publisher of the week

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:10:01 +0100

Founded in 2002 by a group of young London-based thinkers, Naked Punch is an engaged review of contemporary art and thought. Essentially a federal, "non-institutional" project, Naked Punch is the spontaneous collaboration of thinkers and artists residing in different cities of the world. Naked Punch aims to lodge itself in between so called 'high academic' discourse and the dubbed down gibberish of all too many publications aimed at "the general educated reader". All too often it seems impossible to pick up a journal without either being utterly baffled by an obscure argument resting upon an army of footnotes or down right disappointed when faced with yet another 'Science vs. Religion' paper.

Read Naked Punch for yourself and tell us what you think!

Modern Poetry in Translation event at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, - 24 October

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:09:53 +0100

On Friday October 24th at 7.30pm MPT will be holding an event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank).

John Berger, David Constantine and Rema Hammami will talk about PALESTINE, the April issue of the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation, and the importance of poetry in translation. John Berger and Rema Hammami will read their translation of Mahmoud Darwish's poem Mural. There will be a short film by John Berger of a story by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Khanafani to open the evening.

John Berger's new book From A to X: A Story in Lettersis published by Verso and has just been longlisted for the Booker Prize. David Constantine's new poetry collection Nine Fathom Deep will be published in 2009 by Bloodaxe.

Tickets £10.00 - see: www.southbankcentre.co.uk 0871 663 2586 in person Royal Festival Hall 10am-8pm daily

Contact Details:
w: http://www.mptmagazine.com
t: +44 (0)1865 244701

HEARING EYE book launch at the Poetry Cafe 11th September

Tue, 9 Sep 2008 09:09:58 +0100

Hearing Eye invites you to share wine and nibbles at the book launch of SUNFLOWER EQUATIONS by June English

Date: Date: Thursday 11 September 2008 7.00pm

Venue: Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9BX

GLAS is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 8 Sep 2008 14:14:15 +0100

A showcase for the literary landmarks of the past decade Glas is the most comprehensive source on contemporary Russian literature in translation — a must for libraries, students of world literature, and all those who love good writing. "The writing in Glas offers startling evidence that the great Russian literary tradition lives on." — AMERICAN BOOKSELLER

REQUIEM FOR THE LIVING — This novel is a philosophical parable in which the hero's unique abilities and alienation underscore the distinctive Caucasian culture and their strict code of honour.

It is the life story of an orphan boy nicknamed Alone who grows up alone in a mountain village in North Ossetia. With his unordinariness he causes chaos and despair in a hitherto peaceful community, leaving the inhabitants changed and resentful about the consequences of the events that he has set in motion, and questioning the nature and the basis of their traditional existence.

Alone first strikes his fellow villagers' imagination and becomes the talk of the village at the age of ten, when he returns to the owners one of the horses stolen by his relatives. Thus he not only avoids the traditional savage punishment for his family's guilt but also becomes the sole owner of the household abandoned by his foster family who fled beyond the mountain pass to save themselves from the imminent blood feud. Soon Alone finds an ingenious way of providing himself with all the necessities without tilling the land personally, for which he is too young anyway, and practically turns his neighbors into his farmhands. Naturally, the villagers dislike him for being so clever and different and, moreover, being invariably fortunate in all his undertakings...

Event at Waterstone's, Canterbury

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 17:17:34 +0100

Arc Publications is delighted to announce that Katherine Gallagher, author of Circus Apprentice and Tigers on the Silk Road, will be reading at Waterstone's on Thursday 4th September 2008, at 6.30 p.m. June English and John Whitworth will also be reading from their works.

Venue: Waterstone's, Rose Lane, Canterbury.
Further Info: 01304 380 866

West London Literary Festival

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 17:17:28 +0100

Arc Publications is pleased to announce that on Tuesday 2nd September 2008, at 6.30pm, Michelene Wandor will be appearing at the WEST LONDON LITERARY FESTIVAL.

Michelene Wandor is the author of The Music of the Prophets and Musica Transalpina

Venue is:Central Library, 103 Ealing Broadway Centre, London W5 5JY
Time:6.30 p.m.

For more information see: ealing.gov.uk

Smith Doorstop is our Featured Publisher this week

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 17:17:06 +0100

Smith Doorstop (part of The Poetry Business) based in Sheffield, run an annual book and poetry competition, see:
poetrybusiness. They also publish some very good poetry titles.

The North a twice yearly poetry and prose magazine is also published by The Poetry Business. This week we are featuring issue 41 which contains some significant articles on the works of Ted Hughes.

An evening o Poetry and Song - 11th September

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:19:27 +0100

The Venezuelan Embassy & the Venezuela Information Centre present:
An evening of Poetry and Song/una peña literaria revolucionaria

In celebration of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and in commemoration of the Popular Unity government in Chile

Date: Thursday 11 September 2008 7.00pm

Venue: Bolivar Hall, Grafton Way, Central London (closest stations Euston or Warren Street Tube)

Poets:

Harold Pinter, Eduardo Embri; Carlos Reyes and Maria Eugenia Bravo (Chile), and from the UK: Alexis Lykiard, Chris Searle, Dinah Livingstone, Paul Summers and Andy Croft and special guests from Venezuela.

Musicians:

Joe Wilkes; Andy Smythe; Mauricio and Laura Venegas with Rachel Pantin of Quimantu; RubenH of Landing Sky.

Contact: Venezuela Information Centre, PO Box 56210, London, N4 4XH or telephone: 0207 250 0132; email: info@vicuk.org

The 2008 Saif Ghobash Banipal Award for Arabic Literary Translation,

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:19:22 +0100

In announcing the 2008 Saif Ghobash Banipal Award for Arabic Literary Translation, the Banipal Trust pays tribute to the author of the winning translation, Mahmoud Darwish, who tragically passed away on 9 August.

By unanimous decision of the judges, Marilyn Booth, Aamer Hussein and Bill Swainson, with non-voting chair Roger Allen, the 2008 award goes to Fady Joudah for his translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry collections in The Butterfly’s Burden, published in a bilingual edition by Bloodaxe Books in the UK, and by Copper Canyon Press in the USA, the latter being short-listed earlier this year for PEN America’s poetry in translation award.

The runner-up is Ghassan Nasr for his translation of the late Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s last novel, The Journals of Sarab Affan, published by Syracuse University Press.

A third submission won commendation – the translation by Nancy Roberts of Salwa Bakr’s The Man from Bashmour, published by The American University in Cairo Press.

The Award Ceremony is hosted by the British Centre for Literary Translation, the Arts Council and the Society of Authors and takes place as follows:

Monday 29 September, The Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London SE1.
6.30 pm: Readings by the translators from the prize-winning translations
8.00 pm: Presentation of the Translation Prizes by Sir Peter Stothard, Editor, Times Literary Supplement
followed by The 2008 Sebald Lecture on the Art of Literary Translation
Louis de Bernières speaking on “A Day Out for Mehmet Erbil”.

Parthian Books is our Featured publisher this week

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:19:09 +0100

Parthian has been publishing innovative fiction drama and poetry in Wales for ten years. Their aim is to promote new talent and bring exciting new authors to as wide an audience as possible. While the main focus is on Welsh fiction and the image of Wales the list construct is dynamic, contemporary, and inclusive of different cultural groups.

Home to an Empty House is a frank tragicomedy about ordinary people living against the backdrop of an industrial Wales that is quickly falling away, never getting what they want, but finally realising what it is they need. The author, Alun Richards, was born in Pontypridd in 1929 and spent time as a Lieutenant Instructor in the Royal Navy His output was prodigious. It included six novels, two collections of short stories, plays for stage and radio and adaptations for television includingThe Onedin Line. His sensitive biography of his close friend, Carwyn James, appeared in 1984 and his own entrancing memoir Days of Absence in 1985l He died in 2004.

Modern Poetry in Translation - EVENT at Southbank, October 24th

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:15:09 +0100

John Berger, David Constantin and Rema Hammami will talk about PALESTINE, the April issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, and the importance of poetry in translation. John Berger and Rema Hammami will read their translation of Mahmoud Darwish's poem Mural. There will be a short film by John Berger of a story by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Khanafani to open the evening.

John Berger's new book From A to X: A Story in Letters is published by Verso and has just been longlisted for the Booker Prize. David Constantine's new poetry collection Nine Fathom Deep will be published in 2009 by Bloodaxe.

Tickets: £10, see: southbankcentre 0871 663 2586 in person Royal Festival Hall 10am-8pm daily

Date: Friday October 24th at 7.30pm Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank.

MODERN POETRY IN TRANSLATION is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:12:12 +0100

Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) was founded by Daniel Weissbort and Ted Hughes in 1966 and is a journal with an international reputation for the wide range of poets and translators that it presents and for serious and lively discussion of the art of translating poetry. The magazine was relaunched under the editorship of David and Helen Constantine in 2004.

Modern Poetry in Translation Third Series, No. 10 is dedicated to the beauty, abundance and plight of Mother Earth. This autumn MPT will be truly internationalist. Work from all quarters, out of as many languages as possible, will demonstrate an obvious fact: on Planet Earth we sink or swim together.

Friday 15th to Sunday 17th August - Green Man Festival

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 09:09:51 +0100

Parthian Books is delighted to announce that Rachel Trezise (author of Dial M for Merthyr and In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl) and Matthew Scott (author of Playing Mercy) will both be reading from their works and in conversation with guests as part of the literature programme at the Green Man Festival at Glanusk Park Estate. For further information see: info@thegreenmanfestival.co.uk

Launch of SIX LITHUANIAN POETS

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 09:09:42 +0100

Arc Publications invites you to the launch of the anthology

Six Lithuanian Poets

on Wednesday 13 August 2008, 6.30 pm at the
Gallery at Foyles, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0EB

with readings by

Sigitas Parulskis, Eugenijus Alisanka, Gintaras Grajauskas

Admission free but advance booking essential on
020 7935 9872 or email culture@lithuanianembassy.co.uk
Nearest tube station: Tottenham Court Road

This event is in association with Literature Across Frontiers, Books from Lithuania and the Lithuanian Embassy in London.

Word up Poetry night in Cardigan - Thursday 7th August

Wed, 6 Aug 2008 15:15:54 +0100

Word Up Poetry Night with Ifor Thomas

Castle Café, Cardigan

Prize for best poem on topic of ‘that’s the last time I’ll do that….’

Ifor Thomas has performed his poetry all over the UK from the Golden Lion in Newport, Pembs to the Tunnel Club in London . A winner of the John Tripp prize for spoken poetry, a member of the Wales slam team that beat England on a wondrous night in Bristol, he was short-listed for the Wales Book of the Year in 2006 for ‘Body Beautiful’.

"A real 21st Century voice… the kind of poetic voice we need in these loud times. Listen to it. Listen to it now." - Ian MacMillan

With the financial support of Academi.
Contact Simone for more info – 01559 370517 Simone@simonemb.com
£5 entrance fee.
Open mic sessions; sign in on the night. All welcome!

Forward Poetry Prize - shortlists 2008

Wed, 6 Aug 2008 15:15:46 +0100

Inpress is delighted to announce that Catherine Smith, author of Lip published by Smith Doorstop books has been shortlisted in the best selection category (prize £10k) for the Forward Poetry Prizes this year.

Two other authors writing for Inpress members have been shortlised for the best first collection category (prize £5k); They are:

Fear of Thunder by Andrew Foster, Flambard Press and The Night Trotsky Came to Stay by Allison McVety also Smith Doorstop. There are six finalists in this category and the winners will be announced on the 8th October to coincide with National Poetry Day.

MENARD PRESS is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 4 Aug 2008 15:15:35 +0100

Menard Press, founded as a little magazine in 1969, specialises in literary translation, mainly of poetry. In addition to its literary texts -- original and translated poetry, original and translated fiction, art and literary criticism – the press has published essays on the nuclear issue and testimonies by survivors of Nazism.

Menard Press has acquired copies of the National Gallery catalogue of the show of R.B. Kitaj -- Kitaj in the Aura of Cézanne and Other Masters -- for which Anthony Rudolf wrote an essay. £3 post free.

Chants de L'absence / Songs of Absence by Vigée, Claude

The distinguished French poet, Claude Vigée, wrote a number of poems in verse and prose following the death of his wife Evelyne in January 2007. First cousins, they had been married for sixty years. These powerful and moving poems (along with brief extras from his diaries) are published in this bilingual edition for the first time.

IRON PRESS is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:10:32 +0100

IRON Press has been championing new writing since 1973, and is as committed as ever to the principles of small press publishing. We spurn literary competitions, marketing junkets or overhyped hacks, while continuing our policy of discovering the best new talent in the North-East region, the rest of the country and sometimes the world.

MORTIMER AT LARGE is a selection of the best columns written by Peter Mortimer since 2003, and published weekly in the News Guardian series of newspapers on North Tyneside.

The Mortimer column is unlike any other column in the region, a unique mix of the comic, the satirical, the surreal and the bizarre.

Elastic Press Launch The Turing Test and The Last Reef

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:09:49 +0100

August will see publication of two SF collections by authors whom I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more of in the future: Gareth L Powell, The Last Reefand Chris Beckett The Turing Test. Both have established track records and have been heavily featured in Interzone and other magazines, and these collections collate their strongest material in a formidable showcase of their talents.

The books will be launched on Saturday 9th August from 2-6pm at our old haunt, the Citte of York pub, High Holborn, London.

Everyone is welcome to attend the event where both authors will do a short reading followed by Q&A, with the rest of the time spent chatting in the bar. We're expecting a good crowd, so get there early!

Torriano Meeting House in August

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:09:40 +0100

Below are details of events to be held at the Torriano Meeting House during August

3rd Anna Robinson hosts a Lammas festival, with Fawzia Kane and Diana Tang

Please bring something you grew this summer for a little altar. A druid priest/ess will officiate!

10th Sarah Verrinder, Leora Ronel, Gareth Lewis and Tom McColl, presented by David Floyd

17th John Welch (Collected Poems, 2008) and Sue MacIntyre, presented by Sara Boyes.

24th Paul McLoughlin and Ruth Valentine, presented by Rosemary Norman

31st Timothy Ades and Sarah Lawson, presented by Tom Rubens, who will also read.

Unless stated otherwise, all readings start at 7.30pm and take place at 99 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX - nearest tube Kentish Town - Telephone 020 7267 2751

Admission £5/£4/£3/£2 (according to pocket). Poets from the floor welcome. Wheelchair access.

HEARING EYE is our featured publisher this week

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:12:12 +0100

Hearing Eye is a small independent press established in 1987. One of our distinctive features is that we have kept all our books in print, a policy now abandoned by most publishing houses. We also work very closely with the individual authors on both the production and the presentation of their work.

Desk With A View honours William Carlos Williams’ dictum that everything is fit material for poetry. He has poems on the legacy of Socialism, meditations on nationalism, sex and love, and personal elegies. These poems are informed by literary tradition without being inhibited by it, working in a lively, accessible contemporary idiom spiced by black humour.

Julian Turner and a poetry workshop at Calderdale Library

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:09:20 +0100

As part of the National Year of Reading, Julian Turner will be running a poetry workshop with Calderdale Library on Saturday 19 July for the general public.

Fee £5/£3 concession
Tel 01422 392638 for further information

GLAS is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:14:19 +0100

Based in Moscow Glas is a "joint venture" of UK and US translators with Russian editors and critics, who believe that the great Russian literary tradition lives on.

"GLAS, daughter of glasnost, seems likely to make a significant contribution to the restoration of readers' faith in the editorial independence of contemporary journals. If you cannot find GLAS in the shops, ask for it. This journal deserves wide distribution." — Irish Times

The central theme of Iramifications is the eternal misunderstanding between East and West. Misconceptions and the notion of identity are explored on a journey from Odessa to the symbolic Oriental city of Iram, via the complexity of friendship and the blurring of borders between fantasy and reality. Tales are woven, deserts are crossed and battles are fought. East and West are worlds apart…or are they?

Hearing Eye News and Events

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:13:41 +0100

Hearing Eye now has a new website. The address www.hearingeye.org is the same but the site is new and improved. You can buy Hearing Eye books, subscribe to the Hearing Eye pamphlet series and find out about upcoming readings at Torriano Meeting House and beyond.

Forthcoming events: 20th July Roger Morsley Smith (reading from W.J.Duff's posthumous collection A Part of Truth) and Ruth O'Callaghan, presented by Christopher Morgan

27th July Niall O'Sullivan and Rhian Edwards, presented by Adrian Brown

Inpress Blog is live as of today

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 15:15:41 +0100

We've just launched our Blog! (See top of Home page) Do please join in - we'd love to hear from you. Only one rule - please don't libel or defame anyone - otherwise your views may not be aired!

Flambard Press is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 7 Jul 2008 11:11:27 +0100

Flambard is an independent press publishing poetry and fiction. Established in 1990, Flambard has a history of nurturing new and neglected writers from Britain and beyond. Our contemporary list continues to grow in innovative and challenging directions, while the Flambard Modern Classics series demonstrates our commitment to the rediscovery of books that have been overlooked by the mainstream. We have published many poetry collections, while our fiction has included acclaimed novels by John Murray, Neil Astley and Richard Aronowitz. We strongly support the short story and recent publications have included V. L. McDermid's Stranded. Our Flambard Modern Classics series has brought the work of well-loved Newcastle author Sid Chaplin back into print. Although Flambard now publishes a diverse collection of books from all over the world, we remain especially supportive of writers from northern England.

James Harpur Reading

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 17:17:20 +0100

Anvil Press poet James Harpur will be reading with Matthew Sweeney for the West Cork Literary Festival on Friday 11th July, 1700-1800. Entry FREE at:

Bantry Library
Bridge Street
Bantry
West Cork

Look forward to seeing you there!

Silver Thread Short Story Competition

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:15:16 +0100

People in Action (based in Leeds) are 25 years old and are running their First Short Story Competition - The Silver Thread - to celebrate. The theme is 'silver' and the competition is open to anyone aged over 16.

First prize £250 plus a years subscription to Writing Magazine and Writers News
Second prize – £100
Third prize – £50
10 runners-up prizes of £10

Details of how to enter and a copy of the entry form can be downloaded at: http://www.peopleinaction.org.uk under the 'News' section. All queries to 01132470411 or 07948167677 or email silverthreadstory@live.com

Winners will be published on the People in Action website: www.peopleinaction.org.uk

Breaking Through: London Review Bookshop in association with Banipal

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:14:43 +0100

Four Syrian writers in conversation and performance: Hala Mohammed, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran and Lukman Derky — 7.00pm, Tuesday 8th July. London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, London, WC1A 2JL.

Full price tickets £6. Discounted for LRB & Banipal subscribers £4. Light refreshments will be served.

To book discounted tickets phone 020 7269 9030
To book full-price tickets online, go to http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php?productid=4121

For more information email Banipal on info@banipal.co.uk

Five Leaves is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:14:18 +0100

Five Leaves is a small publisher based in Nottingham whose roots are radical and literary. Their main areas of interest are fiction and poetry, social history, Jewish secular culture, with side orders of Romani, young adult fiction, Catalan and, their latest Crime Express series of flapped- paperback novellas roughly the size of postcards and not much heavier. At less than 100 pages per book, each novella is thin enough to slip into your pocket or purse.

Jews and Sex: From King David to Ron Jeremy (porn star), Jews have taken an interest in sex. But what do we know about the relationship between Jews and sex?
ISBN: 978-1-905512-34-8 Price: £12.99

Elastic Press is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:15:56 +0100

Elastic Press is a small publishing house dedicated to showcasing the talents of previously published independent press writers. We produce small print run, high quality, single author short story anthologies in a variety of genres with the intention of raising the profile of writers who are looking to consolidate their reputations within the independent press and beyond.

Lowdham Book Festival 20th to 28th June

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:10:23 +0100

Where... Lowdham Village, Nottinghamshire

Tickets from: the Bookcase, Lowdham - 0115 966 3219

Featuring:

A weekend of Art, Architecture and Photography themed talks, a Reading Group day, a band of Guardian cartoonists, current affairs with George Alagiah, theatre legend Steven Berkoff, spy expert Ben MacIntyr, literary guru D J Taylor, 1960's music icon Joe Boyd and much, much more!

Discover more at: www.lowdhambookfestival.co.uk

Youth and International Fame

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:10:15 +0100

On Monday 23 June, Rachel Trezise and Lucy Caldwell will be talking to Dr Jeni Williams about how they cope with international fame; how music influences their literature and their experiences since being short-listed for the International Dylan Thomas Prize.

When and where? 7.30pm, Archbishop Childs Hall, Trinity College, Carmarthen.
Tickets: £4/£3 (concessions)

Tickets are on sale at on the upstairs counter at Watersones, Guildhall Square, Carmarthen, or from the box office 01267 676685

Egg Box is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:11:19 +0100

Founded in 2002 and incorporated in 2006, Egg Box's aim is to create opportunities for the nation’s best new writers. True to its name, Egg Box is predominantly a publisher and promoter of newcomers and is interested in good, skillful writing with an edge.

Egg Box is committed to publishing risk-taking, intelligent and entertaining poetry and, eventually, prose from new writers across the world, and to becoming one of the most innovative and influential small independent publishers in the country. Arts Council backing for 2007/08 will help towards this aim.

Chroma Journal Short Story and Poetry Competition

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:12:07 +0100

International Queer Writing
Short Story and Poetry Competition

Entries are now being sought in for this year's Queer Writing Competition. There's over £1,400 in prize money in the Short Story and Poetry categories. Sarah Waters, Robert Gluck, and Betsy Warland are the judges, and Stella Duffy will be judging the Velvet Flash Fiction Prize. There's also a separate prize - The Transfabulous Prize - for the best story by a trans writer or on a trans theme. Download an entry form.

Deadline is Sept 1, 2008, and there's a fee of £5 per entry. For more information see www.chromajournal.co.uk

Radical US Poets UK Tour July 2008

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:11:48 +0100

‘Are you ready for change?’ asks Clinton. ‘Change is coming,’ says McCain.
‘Change we can believe in,’ says Obama. ‘Change the record,’ demand the poets
in these two major new collections of radical poetry from the other USA. Forget
the rhetoric - this is the real poetry of real change.

This Summer Smokestack Books is bringing the radical US poets Martín Espada and Jon Andersen to the UK to promote their new Smokestack collections Crucifixion in the Plaza de Armas and Seeds of Fire.

Espada and Andersen are reading at the following venues:

Wednesday 9 July, 7pm
MIMA, MIDDLESBROUGH
Thursday 10 July, 7pm
THE LIT & PHIL, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
Friday 11 July 1pm
CENTRAL LIBRARY, MANCHESTER
Saturday 12 July, 7.30 pm
SOUTHWELL POETRY FESTIVAL, SOUTHWELL
Sunday 13 July, 11am
LEDBURY FESTIVAL, LEDBURY
Monday 14 July, 7pm
MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY, LONDON

Espada and Andersen are available for interview while they are in the UK.

For more information contact Andy Croft at Smokestack Books
www.smokestack-books.co.uk.

On tour with Oh Dad! and Lloyd Robson

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:11:10 +0100

Parthian Books announces the latest events with Oh Dad! (The search for Robert Mitchum)

18th June - Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea at 7.30 p.m.

21st June - 'Unzipped' at The Fly, New Oxford Street, London - 7.30 p.m.

26th June - Millenium Centre Cardiff at 7.30 p.m.

See www.parthian books.co.uk, contact: info:@parthianbooks.co.uk

Trinity Arts Festival

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:14:54 +0100

Parthian Books announce two great Ffrinj events for the price of one. Buy a ticket for either event and gain entry to both.

Tuesday 10th June - 7pm, Dylan Thomas's Boathouse, Laugharne - £4.00 (including wine and tapas)

Black Beach - Three Catalan plays. Readings in translation of the work of Jordi Coca, Joan Casas and Lluisa Cunille, to be published by Parthian later this year.

and

Wednesday 11th June - 7pm, Dylan Thomas's Boathouse, Laugharne - £3.00 £1.00 concessions/students

Rewind - MA Creative Writing launch their new anthology with readings by the authors.

Crime Express is our featured publisher this week

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 15:15:43 +0100

And now for something(s) completely different: Crime Express, an imprint of Five Leaves Press: Claws, Stephen Booth; The Mentalist, Rod Duncan; Trouble in Mind, John Harvey; The Quarry, Clare Littleford; The Okinawa Dragon, Nicola Monaghan; and coming soon… Gun, Ray Banks; Speaking of Lust, Lawrence Block (all £4.99 each).

Someone probably should have thought of this before — a series of flapped-paperback novellas roughly the size of postcards and not much heavier. At less than 100 pages per book, each is thin enough to slip into your pocket or purse.

RIOT at The Customs House

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 14:14:49 +0100

Customs House, South Shields, 11th-14th June. Tickets £9, £8, conc. £7.00. Box Office (0191) 454 1234

RIOT is Peter Mortimer's highly charged play based round the Yemeni seamen's riot in South Shields in 1930 (which came to be known as the country's first race riot), RIOT premiered at The Customs House, South Shields, in 2005 to large audiences and enthusiastic critical acclaim.

Political, comic, satirical and highly relevant to a modern day UK of racial and religious tensions, RIOT is now revived at its original venue before its UK tour.

"An astounding piece of work. A genuinely brilliant piece of theatre" — Newcastle Evening Chronicle

This production is by Cloud Nine, and to coincide, the text has been published by Five Leaves Publications, ISBN: 978-1-905512-49-2 — Price: £6.99

Jack Stanley and 'Reckoning' - published by Hearing Eye

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 15:15:47 +0100

Jack Stanley will be reading from his new collection on Saturday, 7th June at 7.30 p.m. at Salisbury House, Bury Street, West Edmonton - London N9 9LA

On tour with Oh Dad! and lloyd robson

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 11:11:59 +0100

Come and join the author for book signings and events on Friday 6th June, at:

Waterstone's, Carmarthen - 1.00 p.m.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre Bookshop - 4.00 p.m.
Waterstone's, Aberystwyth - 5.00 p.m

Writer and broadcaster lloyd robson trailed the Eastern Seaboard in search of Mitchum, his poetry, America, a surrogate father, and how to be a man.

"... a bizarre world of autobiography, biography and film history...intriguing!" - Buzz Magazine

Comma Poetry is our Featured Publisher this week

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 11:11:33 +0100

Extract from: Dangerous Driving
by Chris Woods

The Alzheimer Sea

Its motion
erodes memory, drags it
into the ocean.

Eyes brim full
as seas roar through
caves of skull.

The restless flood
casts up broken words
as driftwood.

A strange light
fills a sunken world
each night.

The sea seeks
the land, flows across
cracked cheeks.

No sleep.
just movements of tides,
life-times deep.

New Writing Worlds, 2008, Garden Event - Sunday 15 June

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 11:11:01 +0100

New Writing Worlds will be holding an Afternoon of World Literature at the Bishop's Garden with the RSPB - The Bishop's House Garden, Norwich Cathedral.

Date: Sunday 15 June 2008, 2.00pm-6.00pm. Entrance Fee: £2.50, payable at entrance.

Members of the public and writers can mix and enjoy each other's company in the beautiful gardens surrounding the private residence of the Bishop of Norwich.

In between readings from top class writers there will be a chance to enjoy the garden and browse the stalls. Independent regional publishers will be exhibiting their wares; international visiting authors will be available for book signings and chat, and plants from the garden will be on sale.

There will be readings in the main tent by:

14.15 - 15.00 -- Mark Cocker & Joanna Guthrie

15.15 - 16.00 -- Richard Mabey & Jay Griffiths

16.15 - 16.45 -- Charles Rangeley Wilson

Yellow Mountain Poetry Festival and Event at Purcell Room, South Bank Centre

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:10:43 +0100

The Yellow Mountain Poetry festival is the first ever festival in the UK to present eminent Chinese and English poets, who will share new translations of each other’s work and discuss the different traditions of poetry in the Chinese and English at events in London and Wales.

One of the events is a workshop on Chinese / English Poetry and translation

Date: Friday 6th June
Venue: SOAS University London at G51, Ground Floor, Main Building.
time: 3.00 - 5.00 pm

Chaired by Professor Michael Hock, Head of the Chinese Department and a specialist on Modern Chinese poetry, and Tang Xiaodu, one of the most important Chinese poetry critics today. All poets involved in the festival will attend.

Attendance is free and there is no need to book in advance.

Bluechrome is our Featured Publisher this week.

Tue, 27 May 2008 09:09:27 +0100

Extract from: Tangled Roots
by Sue Guiney

Chapter 1
John: ‘Relativity’

There I stood, staring in the mirror, straightening my good silver tie over my good white shirt, and I said to myself, “In the galaxy of forty-year-old physics professors, you still look pretty damn good.” A full head of, mostly, dark hair. No “middle-age spread.” Looking at me, you would never have known what a mess I was. But it was all a trick, an easily explained physical illusion that had very little to do with so-called reality. And that’s the other thing I was thinking as I stared at myself in the mirror. The silver of the tie, the white of the shirt, the navy blue of the suit – not really colours, but merely variable frequencies of light, speeding from the late June setting sun, through the frenetic molecules of the shimmering glass window, and refracting back off the mirror. That, in essence, was me.

I was late. I was always late. And I only noticed the time just then because I was
wrangling with a cufflink that happened to be stuck under my watch. Let’s face it; time is one of my big issues. On the one hand, you could say it’s my life’s work. I spend most of my days peering at it, poking it and wondering about its existence. I even calculate it on wall-length blackboards. But none of that ever matters because, in the end, I can’t control it. If anything, time usually controls me.

And so it was again on that night. I could already see the wedding guests pulling up in front of the hotel outside the window. I tried to force myself to focus on what I was doing and stop drifting off into space. I tried an old trick I learned back in graduate school, back when my mind was so rarely on the physical world that I often had to fool myself into coming back to so-called reality.” I sang to myself. Old rock ‘n roll songs usually did it, and The Doors was the best. “Break on Through to the Other Side” was especially effective.

So there I was, singing and staring and straightening and drifting when there was a knock on the door. I knew it was Lizzy, even before I heard her call, “Are you ready yet?” Of course, my big sister would be checking up on me. She always did, under normal circumstances. Phone calls several times a week. Regular dinners “just to chat.” Ever since we were kids she used to like to think that I needed her in that way. But although I was often content to have her take care of me – any mundane concern that I could offload onto her shoulders was one less thing I had to deal with myself - we both always knew without actually saying it that it was really Lizzy who needed me. It had been that way since we were teenagers.

I remember opening the door and being shocked...

Poetry in the Crypt - Saturday 31st May at 7.30 p.m.

Fri, 23 May 2008 11:11:06 +0100

Place: Neighbourhood Centre on Upper Street, London, N1, beside St Mary's Church.

Featuring: Robert Vas Dias of Islington and André Mangeot of Cambridge.

See below for more details -- and remember that we welcome readers from the floor. We look forward to seeing you.

André Mangeot has published two collections: Natural Causes (Shoestring, 2003) and Mixer (Egg Box, 2005) and has won prizes in the Bridport and Scottish National poetry competitions. He works for a large regional charity based in Cambridge and is also a member of the poetry performance group The Joy of Six.

Robert Vas Dias, an Anglo-American living in London, is a tutor with The Poetry School and writes on book art and artists’ books, particularly those which incorporate poetry and text. He has published eight collections in the UK and the US. His work has appeared widely in magazines including Ambit, Encounter, Poetry Review, and Stand.

Admission £3 (£2 concessions) Proceeds will support work with orphans and AIDS/HIV+ women in Igatpuri, India

American-Welsh Poetry readings in Aberystwyth on 28th May

Fri, 23 May 2008 10:10:50 +0100

Parthian Books and The Bookshop, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, will be holding an event on Wednesday 28 May at 6.30 p.m.

Meet the Editor of Other Land, David Lloyd and listen to John Dressel,
Joseph Clancy, David Lloyd and Margaret Lloyd reading their work.

The poetry of Other Land deals with the ‘matter of Wales’ and the ‘matter’ of being Welsh-American, developed through divergent poetics and perspectives.

Wine and nibbles provided

Our Featured Publisher this week is Banipal Magazine

Mon, 19 May 2008 16:16:48 +0100

Banipal Magazine produces Arab literature in translation and whilst presenting new and interesting authors in each issue is also looking at new opportunities for development that will encourage a new generation of literary translators.

This year sees the launch of the new International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the launch of Arabia Books and Banipal itself winning the UK Incrwiters 2008 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature (Magazines).

Issue 31 pays tribute to Suhail Idriss, founder of Al-Adab publishing house, and to pioneer Iraqi author Fuad al-Takarli. There is a dialogue from The Visitor, an enthralling, and fast-moving playscript by Lebanese poet, translator and author Paul Chaoul. There's a moving testimony by the late Egyptian author Osama Dinassouri from his posthumously published memoir and a searing short story from Darfur by Sudanese author, Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin.

This issue contains also the first of a three-part series on Syrian literature, together with a large selection of short fiction, poetry and book reviews.

Hearing Eye Event at the Barbican

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:10:23 +0100

Wednesday 21 May at 7.30pm (refreshments served from 7.00pm)

Poets, David Floyd, John Rety and Anna Robinson mark the output of the Hearing Eye press featured in the recent London Libraries Recommends promotion, with readings of their work.

Admission free by ticket from Barbican Library on 020 7638 0569

For more info about the Barbican Library and how to get there see: /Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Libraries/City_of_London_libraries/barbican_lib.htm

BLUE BUS POETRY READING

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:10:18 +0100

From Wales, PARTHIAN BOOKS present

LYNDON DAVIES and GRAHAM HARTILL
plus FRANCES PRESLEY, together with improvised music from
IAN MCLACHLAN

Date: Wednesday 11th June
Time: 7.30 p.m.
Venue: Upstairs, 94 LAMB’S CONDUIT STREET, LONDON WC1
Tickets: £5/£3 (concessions)

Jackie Wills and Poetry in the Countryside

Mon, 12 May 2008 12:12:02 +0100

Jackie Wills has just published her fourth collection - Commandments - and has been appointed as Poet in the Surrey Hills - an innovative new venture between the Poetry Society and the Countryside Agency.

Commandments investigates religion, relationships and the mind. Her poems contain a diverse cast of characters ranging from Fidel Castro, a teenage rapper, a priest, an adulterer, and a seamstress, to girls wearing fairy wings on the Palace pier.

Her poetry draws on the surrealism of every-day objects and this collection identifies crossing points where rules are broken, questioned, or simply, no longer make sense. According to Wills, these can happen at random, anytime and anywhere in the world: digging the garden, watching impala on a scorched savannah or simply walking through the streets of Brighton.

Below is an extract from Commandments:

Her sleepless nights

Giant airbags expand to fill her room,
set off by beer cans kicked against a fence,
fireworks for a distant birthday, a phone.
For every night of sleep or sleeplessness
takes the form of the day it ends. Airbags,
soft, suffocating, press her on a desk -
a pen begins altering her face,
pins stab into every letter of her name.

Her worries refuse a shape. She tries ants,
baby shoes, paces the eroded banks
of that river, past docile, long-horned cows.
Hens scatter as she reaches the shack door.
All she feels is the same absence of air,
a tropical night, filles with wings and claws.

London Magazine celebrates 'Russian' issue

Wed, 7 May 2008 16:16:20 +0100

The London Magazine warmly invites you to celebrate the launch of their “Russian” issue.

The event will take place at Pushkin House, the delightful 18th Century home of Russian culture in London.

Please come and give your support to the ongoing success of TLM and enjoy readings by Mary Michaels, Siriol Troup, Paul Birtill, Catherine Neilan, Richard McKane, Ann Drysdale, Philip Burton, Deirdre Coffey, and Kate Miller.

Event Details:
May 12th
7.30 p.m. - 10.00 p.m.
Entry: £3.00

Venue:
Pushkin House
5a Bloomsbury Square
London
WC1A 2TA

Smokestack Books - Summer tour with Martin Espada and Jon Andersen.

Wed, 7 May 2008 15:15:46 +0100

This Summer Smokestack is organising a UK tour to promote the US poets Martín Espada and Jon Andersen. They will be reading from their books, Crucifixion in the Plaza de Armas and Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other USA on:

Wednesday 9 July, 7.30pm
The Python Gallery, Royal Middlehaven House, Gosford Street, Middlesbrough, TS2 1BB

Thursday 10 July, 7pm
The Lit & Phil, 23 Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE

Friday 11 July 1pm
Central Library, St Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 5PD

Friday 11 July, 7pm
Tullie House, Castle Street, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA3 8TP

Saturday 12 July, 7.30 pm
Southwell Poetry Festival, Southwell Library.

Sunday 13 July, 11am
Ledbury Festival

Monday 14 July, 7pm
Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU

Mercer Simpson - An appreciation of the Man and his Poetry

Wed, 7 May 2008 15:15:02 +0100

(Extracted from Acumen Magazine, issue 60)

I first met Mercer Simpson in a Saffron Walden teashop. He had told me to look out for someone with a mop of dark grey hair, he omitted to tell me about the wide smile. He was 67, a retired Senior Lecturer at the University of Glamorgan, a veteran editor of the Bulletin of the Welsh Academy and incredibly, for such a prolific poet and keen worker for literature, we were discussing his first collection. I was bowled over - a not inappropriate metaphor for cricket nestled close behind poetry in Mercer's pantheon, and just ahead of steam trains and canals. The result of our meeting was East Anglian Wordscapes a sequence of twenty poems with line drawings by a friend, Miriam King. He gave the book an epigraph from his fellow Wales resident, Jeremy Hooker - "some people who no longer live in a particular place still carry it inside them and speak from or through it even when they are not speaking about it." Carrying inside himself particular, lovingly remembered places was one of Mercer's characteristics. Another was a sure feel for words and phrases, handled without self- importance and with humour and a lightness of touch... (David Perman was writing about Mercer Simpson in Acumen.)

Five Leaves Publications - News

Fri, 2 May 2008 14:14:51 +0100

Congratulations to Anna Woodford whose Five Leaves’ Trailer is the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice for spring 2008.

You can find a long interview with Anna and a feature on the pamphlet in the (Newcastle) Journal.

IRON Press event on Tyneside

Thu, 1 May 2008 12:12:06 +0100

Mortimer at Large a collection of Peter Mortimer’s newspaper columns for the North Tyneside based News Guardian series of papers is just published by IRON Press/North Tyneside Libraries, and the author has been giving a series of readings throughout the borough. A review in the Northern Echo referred to "these coruscating columns".

Peter Mortimer has just been booked to appear at Porters Cafe, Tynemouth Station on Saturday evening, June 21, where his reading will be backed up by live music from his son Dylan and Ryan Siddle.

Tickets are £5.00 and can be obtained from (0191) 2586100.

Featured publisher - Mare's Nest

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:14:06 +0100

Here is an extract from Under Southern Stars, by Gunnar Hoydal, translated from the Faroese by Marjun Stewart and Jill Burrows.

A central figure in Faroese cultural life and a major novelist, Gunnar Hoydal has also published short stories, essays, poems and songs. Several of his books, including Under Southern Stars, which was short-listed for the Nordic Literature Prize, have been published in Danish. In 2002 he was awarded the Faroese government's cultural prize.

As he went to say goodbye he could hear the tap-tap of his father's stick.
His father was poking about among the plants growing by the low stone wall bordering the garden. A tame oystercatcher was watching from a safe distance, one eye alert for danger and the other focusing on anything edible the stick might turn up.
There are leeks and briar roses. The lupins are about to flood with colour. The dew cupped in the leaves catches the sunlight. The stick unearths a worm. His father picks it up in his fingers and tosses it to the oystercatcher. He's humming to himself, singing the occasional line out loud. It's the Danish ballad about Irmelin Rose and Irmelin Sun. He straightens suddenly, startles the oystercatcher and it flies off. He sings the last line of the song, about the glory of the world.
He sees his son coming and they settle side by side on the bench just above the old boundary wall in the sunshine, drinking in the warmth and the light. Far below a spit of black rock juts out into the fjord. On the far side of the bay, where the western valley meets the water, lies the gorge and the black headland.
'On a day like today, you can almost hear the river,' says his father.
The fjord shimmers, reflecting the sky. The incoming tide reaches towards the stagnant pools, splashing among the rocks, withdrawing again, exposing the sand. Ripples dance in the sunlight and here and there patches of deep black water seem too dense for the sun to penetrate. In the distance the island - a village surrounded by fields and edged with rocky crags - stretches and yawns sleepily.
There are a lot of boats out on the water today and sometimes they hear the distant sound of an outboard motor as one of them moves off to another fishing ground.
'All I've got left is the fish,' says his father. 'It wasn't always like this. There used to be animals, horses especially.'
'When did I first take it into my head to leave home and go abroad? We had the old village and the research station. I worked there for a while after I left school. The manager was Danish and he wasn't used to a lad asking questions and wanting answers. Everything had to be done his way. But he was a generous soul and used to observe the Danish custom of giving the workers a bit of a treat at Christmas.
'We finished work early on the twenty-second of December, St. Thorlack's Eve and put on our Sunday best. We were invited into the dining room for food and drink. I'd never tasted alcohol before but down it had to go. How it scorched our throats! .....'

Featured publisher - Rockingham Press

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:23:21 +0100

Mrs Valley's War
The Shelter Stories of Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar

The Shelter

...Every so often the sirens would be heard waking, answering each other in sustained screams. And I counted the centipedes of fear on Dartmouth Road. But the voice of the sirens was worse than the strident fear of death. It was a screech that sent out hairs rising from the raised fathoms of de profundis. And on looking up, the sky was an experience in agony. When the sirens slowly fell silent, like old gramophones running down, there came the flying bombs. Sometimes one, sometimes two. Sometimes from the four corners of hell or the navels of the dark. All the buzzing blue above flew into the ears. Then in preordained suddenness the engines of the bombs would stop, and silence, like a sheet of lime; would settle upon streets, houses and people – till they fell nose diving purposively; till true, lived-in houses were scattered sky-high, as if they were so many castles built in the air; till lives went up like flying glass in the performed dominion of death and destruction...