Inpress Books

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

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.

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.

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.

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...