this is not the six word novel

Author Interview: C. J. Daugherty

2012-02-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

Everyone who replies to this topic [no matter where you are in the world] will have their name put into a hat. The name pulled out of the hat will win a copy of CJ's fantastic new book 'Night School.' Hurray!

Please remember to leave contact details in your comment so I can get in touch if you win! [your twitter name, email address etc would be great, or if your post will link to your own blog and I'm able to contact you there, then that's fine.]

CJ was 22 years old when she saw her first dead body. Over the next few years she saw many more whilst working as a crime reporter for newspapers in the US, and later for Reuters wire service.

When she was offered a safe, dead-body-free job in London editing travel guidebooks, she jumped at the chance - leaving all of the blood and gore behind.... well, sort of.

She wrote the first draft of Night School in one long, hot summer. When she finished, her husband and friends insisted she send it to a literary agent, and she was signed by Madeleine Buston at the Darley Anderson Agency. The rest, as they say, is history. Or maybe it’s the future.

Hi CJ! Make yourself at home. Grab yourself a cup of tea. The blurb for this book is brilliant [I've copied it in at the bottom of this interview]. I read the synopsis for it months ago and made a note of the title and release date so I could grab a copy. It didn’t disappoint. So, tell us about how you got into writing.

Thank you! Mmm, lovely tea.

Let’s see. My path was pretty straight forward. I always wanted to be a writer. The only problem was that, in my family, writing was not considered a viable career path. In fact, it’s not really considered a career at all. So to bypass strongly expressed parental opposition, I studied journalism at university. That was considered sort-of a career. When I graduated I got a job writing for a newspaper in a mid-size city for so little money that I began to understand my parents’ objections. Nonetheless, I stayed a journalist for quite a long time. My editors taught me how to write in an approachable way. How to convey a lot with as few words as possible. How to explain a murder in 15 column inches (that’s about 700 words). A life lost, and you’ve got to describe the victim, the witnesses and the circumstances of the crime in 700 words. Let’s just say I learned a lot. And, after that experience, how could I ever be anything but a writer?

What was the first idea to spark ‘Night School’?

My husband grew up in a small town in Surrey and a few years ago I suddenly decided that we needed to live there. When we were trying to decide whether or not to move there, we drove around a lot, checking it out. Late one afternoon, we drove up to a boarding school at the edge of town. It’s in a huge, gothic building behind a big, iron gate, at the end of a curving drive. Sound familiar? The sun was setting behind the building; the shadows were long and dramatic. It was an extraordinary place. That drive happened two years before I started Night School. So I guess that view, that school and that moment must have lingered in the back of my mind, waiting for a story to go with it.

Which character in the series do you have a particular soft spot for?

Oh, Allie. Definitely. I love her so much. She absolutely breaks my heart. Her search for truth and for people to believe in – I know all about that. There is a lot of me in her. But Rachel sounds the most like me. She is my stand-in within the book, in terms of her dry sense of humour and her pragmatic attitude.

How many books will there be in the series?
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. If I were a betting woman I’d say four, but I never bet. Because I always lose. Basically, it’s early days, and a lot depends on how my lovely, beautiful, talented and fragrant publisher feels about it in a year or so.

How far ahead did you plan before you started writing?
YEARS. …. Ok, not really. I’m afraid I didn’t plan at all. I just sat down one day and wrote the first chapter. I didn’t even draw up a synopsis until I was 200 pages in. And the first 200 pages have hardly changed after I first wrote them. [Jen: I remember Neil Gaiman saying somewhere that he loved writing because he was excited to read where his own story was going.]

Tell us about your journey from writing to agent to publication.

I was super lucky, I think. I wrote Night School over the course of five months. When it was finished, I didn’t quite know what to do about it. I’d mostly written it for fun. My husband and friends insisted it didn’t suck and really wanted me to send it to an agent. So I spent a few weeks researching agents. I stumbled across Madeleine Buston’s page on the Darley Anderson website and I liked what I read there, so I Googled her. After deciding she was perfect, I sent her three chapters on a Thursday, and by Saturday she’d signed me. She told me from the start she knew just who she wanted to send the book to, but first I had to make some significant changes. I’d initially written it as a paranormal book, but she believed strongly that it would be better as a non-paranormal. So I took six weeks to revise it into a thriller. This was the book she pitched to Samantha Smith at Atom Books, and they signed me on pre-empt. We never showed the book to anybody else – Madeleine always wanted me to work with Sam and I think she was absolutely right. Sam is an amazing editor, and she absolutely gets my writing style and sense of humour. We are like two coffee-addicted peas in the literary pod.

How did you celebrate your book deal?

When Madeleine called to tell me the deal was done I was on a bus in London on my way home from work. I got off the bus so I could jump up and down and whoop without upsetting anybody. So, first I celebrated by jumping up and down like a crazy person at a bus stop on the South Bank. When I got home, though, there was champagne. [Jen: Yey, champagne!]

Now that you have the deal for the books, do you find that your writing routine has changed? I’m assuming now you must be working to deadlines, which you weren’t doing before. How have you adjusted to that?

What’s been really weird is having time to write. I wrote Night School after work, on weekends and on holidays (and to be perfectly honest, on quiet days in the office when nobody was looking). Suddenly, I can write ALL DAY, and it’s been a strange feeling. It feels almost lazy not to have to squeeze in writing time. It took a couple of months to adjust, but now I find I’ve got a schedule in place and it works well. I do admin and emails first thing in the morning, then I move to editing what I wrote the day before. In the afternoon I write. The deadline doesn’t bother me, but knowing the book has a destination – that people are going to read this and that there are expectations – that was a little intimidating at first.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’m reading The Clockwork Angel and The Clockwork Prince, both by Cassandra Clare, and I am ADDICTED. She is an amazing writer. These stories are brilliant. I’m absolutely hooked.

If you were to give one piece of advice to budding writers, what would that be?

Read all the time. Write all the time. When you’re reading a book you are like a musician practicing. When you’re writing you are like an artist painting. And take your time. Don’t expect to write your first novel at 21. Or even 31. But keep writing until the right story, the right characters and the right time collide.

Do you have any projects on the go bar the Night School series/plans in notepads for different books? What do you hope the future holds?

I have an idea for an adult crime series that I’d love to write someday. I also have an idea for a break-up book that has been floating around in my head for years. I don’t know when I’ll have time to write either of them though. Night School Book two is about 75% done, and then there’s Book THREE to think up. And who knows what will happen after that?

Thanks, CJ!

Sometimes school can be murder...Allie Sheridan's world is falling apart. She hates her school. Her brother has run away from home. And she's just been arrested. Again. This time her parents have finally had enough. They cut her off from her friends and send her away to a boarding school for problem teenagers. But Cimmeria Academy is no ordinary school. It allows no computers or phones. Its students are an odd mixture of the gifted, the tough and the privileged. And then there's the secretive Night School, whose activities other students are forbidden even to watch. When Allie is attacked one night the incident sets off a chain of events leading to the violent death of a girl at the summer ball. As the school begins to seem like a very dangerous place, Allie must learn who she can trust. And what's really going on at Cimmeria Academy.

Buy Night School / CJ's website - Twitter - Facebook page

if we're too busy, we miss out on the best things

2012-02-17T13:08:00.002-08:00

The Washington Post Joshua Bell experiment...

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

The violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

We need to make more time for the beautiful things in life.

competitions for writers

2012-02-16T07:28:00.001-08:00

Exciting writerly things are happening, which I will be able to tell you about in due course. For the moment, this is a nudge to the writers out there: two fabulous competitions:

Short Fiction’s 6th Annual Short Story competition [click]

1st prize: £500 plus publication
2nd prize: £100

Closing date: 31st March 2012.

Stories must be previously unpublished and under 5000 words. All stories will be considered for publication. Entry is £10, which allows you to submit up to two stories, and to receive a copy of the journal with the winning story inside. – Untie your hands and submit!

The Rialto Poetry Competition 2012 [click]

Theme: 'Nature.' The term ‘Nature Poetry’ will be given a very wide interpretation by the judges.

1st PRIZE £1000
2nd PRIZE £400
3rd PRIZE £300

Closing date: 30th April 2012.

The winning poems will be published in The Rialto, Britain’s leading independent poetry magazine.
Judges: Sir Andrew Motion and Mark Cocker.

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Have fun! xx

big love to book lovers

2012-02-14T13:17:00.001-08:00

Valentine's day. Calling all book lovers. I love your book-loving. Here is a post on book love for you. x

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This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Reading Kills from Beto Gomez on Vimeo.

competition: two signed copy of 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops'

2012-02-14T01:28:00.001-08:00

So, today is Valentine's day. It's also 50 days until the publication of 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops,' so here's a competition. There are two signed copies of 'Weird Things...' up for grabs, and anyone can enter. I want to hear the weirdest/worst chat up lines you've ever heard. You can Tweet them, with the link #weirdchatuplines. If you don't have Twitter, you can enter the competition by leaving a comment on this blog post, or on the facebook page.

One signed copy of the book will go to my favourite weird chat up line, and one will go to the best literary weird chat up line. For instance, some guy once came up to me at my desk at Ripping Yarns, holding a copy of Romeo and Juliet, and said: 'Baby, let's write our own romantic novel.' Ew. [Once I'd controlled the nausea, I pointed out that Romeo and Juliet is actually a play.]

So, go forth, lovely people. Shock me...humour me...make me worried about the human race. Your deadline is midnight [GMT].

NB: If you post your chat up lines here or on facebook, they still have to be Tweet-length [that's 140 characters or less including #weirdchatuplines]

Go, go, go!

Author Visit: Nicola Morgan

2012-02-08T02:51:00.001-08:00

Calling all budding writers! Nicola Morgan is an award-winning writer with over 90 books published. She blogs over at 'Help, I need a publisher!' and, as well as all of her fiction writing, has recently published several books to help writers: 'Write to Be Published' [Snowbooks, 2011] and now 'Write a Great Synopsis.' Her advice is invaluable. So, writers, pay attention!

All those who reply to this post will be entered into Nicola's synopsis competition - the winner [name pulled out of a hat] will have their synopsis critiqued by Nicola herself! Now, that's a pretty awesome prize.

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Hi Nicola! It's a year since I interviewed you on here. What have you been up to since then?

Oh, well, in between buying boots and eating chocolate and such important things, I’ve been doing far too many talks and workshops for anyone’s good, writing and publicising Write to be Published (Snowbooks June 2011), writing and publishing Tweet Right and Write a Great Synopsis (WAGS), re-publishing my original debut, Mondays are Red, and writing but not yet publishing (it’s with a publisher) another YA novel.

That's a lot of things! Right, Nicola. Write a synopsis for 'Write a Great Synopsis'. Now, there's a challenge.

Ha! Actually, in the absence of instructions, a synopsis would be about two pages and you REALLY don’t want that, so I’ll do something much nippier: “WAGS has as its starting point the fact that writers hate writing synopses. It shows why they are not to be feared or hated and covers every aspect of how to tackle then, removing all stress or resistance. There are examples, critiques, quotes from agents and publishers, and the answers to every question I’ve ever been asked about synopses. There’s even a challenge involving champagne.” OK?

OK. If you could go back in time and give yourself a copy of 'Write a Great Synopsis', 'Write to Be Published' etc, would you do it?

I’m struggling with the existential aspects of that. Actually, I wouldn’t need WAGS because I’ve never had a problem with synopses. But gosh I did need WTBP. On the other hand, if I’d got published easily, I wouldn’t empathise so much with writers, so I wouldn’t be writing all this stuff to try to help them, and doing that makes me happy. Ergo, not being published more quickly has made me happy.

You're self-publishing and publishing the tradition way for different things. How do make the decision as to what should be published where?

I gather everything I know about publishing and writing, including my experience of what publishers do well and what they do badly, and what I do well and what I do badly, mix it up, add some bats’ wings, and see what answer I get. Then divide it by three and add some chocolate.

I saw in an interview that you said you feel you owe your agent morally, and so give her royalties for your self-published work. How important is your agent to you, and how important are agents in general?

My agent is very important to me. If she stopped agenting, I’d have to find another and it would have to be someone as good, which would be tricky. I know many writers who have had lots of books published and who know as much as an agent about how to read contracts (etc) but they still want to have an agent.

What's the most common mistake you've heard re. writers sending submissions to publishers/agents?

That’s like asking you what’s the most common weird things people say in bookshops! I do think sending toffee is right up there, though. “Together we can be rich” is another one – it may not be common in those exact words, but the underlying message of “Listen up, hotshot agent: this is seriously the best thing that’s ever crossed your desk” is quite common. [Jen: as a side note, folks, Slushpile Hell is worth a read]

What is the single most important piece of advice you could give to a budding writer?

Read.

What are you working on at the moment? And what do you hope for, for the future?

As usual, I’m working on lots of things. Preparing lots of new events; writing two new Crabbit Publishing titles – Dear Agent and How to Promote Your Book Without Bugging the Pants Off People; and a top secret possible project which, if it happens, you will SO know about! What do I hope for? Not to bug the pants off people.

Now, folks, listen up -

Any of your readers who are also writers might be interested in the Big WAGS Competition – all commenters below this post will be entered and prizes include synopsis critiques. (If you’d like to comment but don’t want to enter the competition, just say!) Details on my blog, where you’ll see details of the other blog tour stops – and the more participating posts you comment on, the greater your chances of winning.

Thanks again for letting me visit!

Thanks, Nicola!

For details about the book, including buying options, go here.

Bookshop Spotlight #1: Ripping Yarns Bookshop

2012-02-04T05:22:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas I said I'd like to do some blog posts about individual bookshops across the world. I've had lovely emails from bookshops all over saying that they'd like to to take part - bookshops in the UK, America, Africa, Australia, Japan... So, I'm cracking on with organising those. But, first, I'm starting here. A blog post about Ripping Yarns bookshop, an antiquarian bookshop in North London. I've worked here for two and a half years, and it's where I started writing 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' properly.

[photo by Iona]

There I am, surrounded by books.

We were also very excited yesterday when Andrea Riseborough said that Ripping Yarns is her favourite British shop. Hurray! Thanks, Andrea!

Celia Hewitt is the owner of Ripping Yarns. Yesterday, when she came in, I sat her down and got her talk about the history of the bookshop. It's a lovely story. So make yourself a cup of tea and have a read!

So, Celia, tell us about the history of the bookshop

"I was an actress [well, I still am an actress], and I used to do a lot of touring. I spent a lot of my time in secondhand bookshops all over the place. I accumulated all different kinds of Victorian books, as well as schoolgirls books, such as Angela Brazil, and childhood favourites like Biggles and Jennings. And then, when I was out of work, someone advertised for help in an antique shop on Archway Road. It was next door to a run-down bookshop from the 1930s that had recently closed down.

While working there, I found that people would come with suitcases full of books, looking for the bookshop next door in the hope of selling them. Partly out of curiosity, I eventually started buying them and, in the end I had so many that I decided to take the lease on the derelict bookshop next door - that was over twenty five years ago. We redesigned it, painted it, made it look clean, and in the window we had a model of Just William, because I had a lot of William books. We haven’t got him anymore because he got very old and dirty. I put him in the outside bin at home and it scared the dustbin men out of their wits. [laughs]

[photo by Laura Braun]

I had no idea how to run a business but my husband and I both loved books. He was a writer and a poet [Adrian Mitchell], and whenever he had a new book out, usually near Christmas, he’d come in to the shop do a reading. When I bought books for the shop, he would to go through them first and say ‘No, I need that one; I need it for research.’ I did say to him that he wasn’t going to live long enough to write all the plays that he wanted, and in fact he didn’t, but all the Pushkin books he bought have indeed come in very handy, as Michael Boyd at the RSC is doing Adrian’s version of Boris Godunov as his final production.

Anyway, at the time I got the bookshop, we were living in Hampstead, and we wanted someone to help with the house and the children, and then these two girls turned up on our doorstep looking for work. So, they came, these two jolly Australian girls, and made cakes for the bookshop and we had a big press launch. In those days we didn’t have the bookcases in the centre of the bookshop, so we had a lot more room to move around. Michael Palin and Terry Jones came and opened the bookshop for me because Ripping Yarns, of course, was the name of their television series. They both read aloud from Biggles and Just William books, and I think I made a lot of money that night… and not much since [laughs].

We specialise in children’s books but, because of where we are as a neighbourhood shop, I can’t afford to do just that. If we were somewhere else then perhaps, but that’s not going to work here. So, I have a lot of other fiction, history, politics, music and poetry - a much bigger poetry selection than you usually find, mainly because I’m interested in it myself.

We have the books, and the bookshop itself, because we like having them. We don’t make much money – in fact we usually just about break even - and the people who work with me don’t make much money either. However, we all love books and that’s the main thing, and we have quite a jolly time.

I also have a dog, Daisy - a very old golden retriever who comes and sits in the shop quite often. She’s quite used to books because they’re all over our house. The only trouble is that, sometimes, she does lie down in the middle of the shop in customers’ way. She’s not dangerous, just a little hopeless [laughs]. But she is rather beautiful."

How many books does the shop have?

"In the shop I would think we have at least 10,000 books. Online we have 6000, and we’re adding to it all the time. In our storage spaces we have at least another few thousand and, at my house, we have many many more. In the days when we began, of course, we didn’t have computers."

How did you manage to keep track of everything?

"Well, we didn’t have as many books. And then we had Hugh working here [Jen: Hugh now works in publishing and is the editor of 'Weird Things...'] who persuaded me to buy a very primitive Apple computer and set up the system. We all had to learn how to use it when he left, and it took us a while."

What about the people who have worked here in the past?

"A lot of actresses have worked for me, as well as musicians, writers and artists. People in the arts, really. There was our popstar, Daniel, who was in a little band which is now a very big band, Yuck. They’re doing frightfully well. He still stops by for a cup of tea. He’s writing poetry now, and I’ve given him some poetry books to read. He was very charming in the shop."

What’s the best book you’ve had in the shop?

"We had an amazing eighteenth century cookery book once. But I don’t really know; we’ve sold so many books over the years – you forget them all. We have sold books for over a thousand pounds, but not too often. We've sold collections of books to a Japanese children’s library, and at the moment we do have that wonderful eighteenth century collection of etiquette."

Who’s your favourite author and illustrator?

"I have to admit I read a lot of detective novels, especially Penguin green crime. Sylvia Townsend Warner is also somebody I’m quite keen on, and I read a lot of poetry, too. I love Walter Crane and James Thurber, and Ralph Steadman is not only my favourite living illustrator but a dear friend as well. He’s been very supportive of the bookshop. We have quite a lot of interesting people who’ve come in to the shop over the years. Sylvester McCoy, who was Dr. Who, and Peter O’Toole came in when he was writing his autobiography, looking for Boy’s Own magazines and some old annuals that he had as a boy. We often have John Hegley stopping by to do readings, and Michael Rosen, who both love the shop, though events are a little difficult for us because of the lack of space."

What’s the strangest thing a customer has said in the past?

"Well, we have had several stalkers in the past. One was obsessed with gardening, and he’d come in and speak to Zoe, a very beautiful girl who used to work here who had never really been to the country and knew nothing about gardening. Anyway, he used to come in here repeatedly and ask her lots of questions about tractors, even though he knew she didn’t know the answers."

What about the future?

"There’s a lot of local love for the bookshop. We especially appreciate the parents who bring their children in regularly, encouraging them to read. To be realistic, in the future as well as our normal stock, we’re going to have to start focusing on more valuable books, music papers, comics and ephemera. Things that you’re never going to be able to get on Kindle. But it’s so difficult to say that we won’t stock one thing or the other when we would like to stock everything. But I will say that, if you want to keep your local bookshops, you cannot take them for granted and assume that they will always be there. Especially not now. So, please go in, look around and have a chat. You may very well be tempted."

www.rippingyarns.co.uk

Opening times:

Tuesday-Friday 12-5pm Saturday 10-5pm Sunday 11-4pm.

Closed Mondays.

The bookshop is opposite Highgate tube station. Free parking on Archway Road for one hour outside.

For all enquires email yarns@rippingyarns.co.uk

Online inventory can be found here.

More bookshop stories from other places to come!

good morning!

2012-02-01T23:45:00.002-08:00

Quite possibly the most beautiful thing, ever.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

you are very lovely people

2012-02-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

This morning I went to the bank and transferred the money raised from the 100 Poem Challenge to EEC International. The total raised was £4250 [which is €5100/$6740], and will go to the research centres looking for a cure for the degenerative eye disease associated with EEC Syndrome. Hurray!

So, THANK YOU so much to everyone who donated, bought a postcard or a pamphlet [or both!], and to those who tweeted about the project, and who sent encouraging messages during the weekend of the poetry writing itself. If you want to read the poems, they're still online over here if you scroll down.

Y'all are lovely. Thank you. xxxxxx

Author Visit: A. J. Ashworth

2012-01-31T05:08:00.001-08:00

Everyone who replies to this post by 14th February [no matter where they are in the world], will have their name put into a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Andrea's book: Somewhere Else, or Even Here

[NB: Remember, if you don't have contact details over at your blog, please leave your Twitter name or email address in your comment so I can reach you!]

Andrea! Welcome. Make yourself at home.

Thanks, Jen – lovely to be here.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I was born and brought up in Blackburn but moved to Yorkshire a couple of years ago. I’ve been writing seriously for the past few years and won Salt Publishing’s Scott Prize last year with my debut collection ‘Somewhere Else, or Even Here’. [Jen: and damn good it is, too!]

Tell us about ‘Somewhere Else, or Even Here.’ How long did you work on it? There are lots of beautifully interwoven themes, and the stories flow from one to the next. Had you planned these connections out, or were those details added later?

The book’s a collection of 14 stories, most of which were written as part of an MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. I spent about three years writing them, but I had no overall plan for a collection so I just let each story unfold in whichever way felt right. I’m interested in what you say about interwoven themes and stories flowing from one to the next because all of that happened naturally, without any obvious tinkering or intervention. I have a love of astronomy so I obviously knew that was in there, but other themes such as loss or loneliness were completely unintended. The writer is often the last person who knows what their work is about though!

I didn’t consciously create any connections between the stories, either before, during or after, but it’s not surprising if they’re there because we all have certain preoccupations, whether we’re aware of them or not. Someone once said to me that there are echoes throughout my stories and I like that idea – the idea of the original sound or image repeating elsewhere but in a different way.

Which story in the collection was the first that you wrote, and which was the last?

I think ‘Eggshells’ was the first one. It’s the story of a young girl going on holiday with her family and while they’re driving to the coast they witness a horrible road accident. It was inspired in part by family holidays to Heysham, although I never saw an accident like that, thankfully. The last one to be written was ‘Bone Fire’, which is the story of a troubled teenage boy who carries out an act of destruction at his school using a bonfire.

Where were you when you found out that you’d won The Scott Prize? How did you celebrate?

I was actually at work and knew the winners were going to be announced that day. As you can imagine it was very difficult to concentrate and I spent most of the day clicking ‘Refresh’ on the Salt website, waiting for the news to appear. It was an amazing feeling and I’m forever indebted to Jen and Chris Hamilton-Emery at Salt for publishing me.

I think I celebrated with beer and food at a lovely little Mexican restaurant that I like. There was probably chocolate involved at some point too – there usually is. [Jen: & rightly so, too.]

Which short story writers do you admire?

Raymond Carver is my first love so when I started writing more seriously I always used to try and write like him. I’ve developed my own style since then but his stories are the ones I always return to. I naturally turn to the American short story so I also love Tobias Wolff, Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, etc., and I particularly loved Stephanie Vaughn’s collection ‘Able Baker Charlie Dog’ or ‘Sweet Talk’ as it was titled in the US. Other than the Americans, I really enjoyed David Rose’s novel ‘Vault’, which came out last year, and I’ve had the pleasure of reading a few of his short stories since then, so I can’t wait for his collection to come out. There’s also Claire Keegan [Jen: adore her!], Alice Munro, Elizabeth Baines, Vanessa Gebbie, Simon Van Booy… I could go on and on.

What are you reading at the moment?

Vanessa Gebbie’s novel ‘The Coward’s Tale’, which is fantastic [Jen: Vanessa will be stopping by soon to talk about her book], and David Mitchell’s ‘Cloud Atlas’. I’m always dipping in and out of short story collections too so I’ve got Jo Cannon’s ‘Insignificant Gestures’ on the go as well.

Give us the name of a book that you wish you’d written.

One of my favourite books of recent years is Elizabeth Strout’s ‘Olive Kitteridge’. It’s described as a novel in stories so it can be read either way – as a novel or as a linked short story collection. The book is set in Maine and tells the story of Olive and her family and follows them through the various events that happen in their lives. The writing is wonderful, of course, but Olive is an unusual and intriguing character too – difficult, a little cold, without much self-awareness – and yet we warm to her and care about what happens to her. She’s real. If a writer can make you empathise with a character who isn’t immediately sunny and warm then that’s great writing.

At what age did you know that you wanted to be a writer? What advice would you give to other writers?

I actually wrote from a young age, as a lot of children do, just because it was a pleasurable thing to do – putting words and sentences together until they made a poem or a story. I loved English and if there was an option to write a story instead of an essay that’s what I’d do. I have a vague recollection of thinking the words ‘I could be a writer’ when I was about 15, but I think I put too much pressure on myself and I couldn’t really write for a long time after that. Taking a writing course and having some deadlines helped me to get going again, but that was only about six or seven years ago.

If I can give any advice at all, it is to write as often as you’re able to just because you like to do it – not for what you think it can give you. And keep going. Rejections will come, they always do, but keep going.

Where do you write, and do you set yourself a schedule?

I write in a room at the top of the house which has a nice view of the sky. If the writing’s not going too well then I stare out at the sky. As you can guess I spend a lot of time doing that instead of writing. I just write when I have the urge so sometimes I write every day, even if it’s only for ten minutes. Other times I can go days and weeks without writing. If there’s a deadline then that helps but I don’t have a schedule.

Can you let us know what you’re working on at the moment?

I’m working on some new short stories and also trying to get going on a novel. Switching from short stories to a novel is going to be a bit of a challenge I think but that can only be a good thing – challenges keep you on your writing toes.

Thanks, Andrea!

Buy Somewhere Else, Or Even Here / Andrea's blog / Follow Andrea on Twitter

all the poems, all the films

2012-01-30T04:11:00.000-08:00

Well, Smile for London has finished. It's been really fun. I hope, if you were in London, you managed to spot a poem or two on the tube!

Here are all of the poetry films, back to back. x

Word in Motion, 2012 from Smile for London on Vimeo.

calling all arts students and graduates

2012-01-26T07:34:00.000-08:00

A message here on behalf of The Arts Emergency Service - a new charity aimed to help arts students. Please do take the time to this, if you can. x

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The Arts Emergency Service – Write for Us!

Who were are:

“The Arts Emergency Service” is all about the wonders of studying the Arts and Humanities at university and how to make the most of it during and after, not just in the sense of career success but other great benefits which don’t have a £ next to them.

We believe the UK is approaching crunch point for student debt. Many talented potential students from poorer backgrounds especially, may shy away from less vocational subjects when degrees cost £27k (even though loads of studies show Arts grads earn just as much as others). The majority of the current Government have studied a BA – a telling fact!

Higher Education should be accessible to all who are able & willing. In helping us generate useful and genuine content for the website you are becoming part of this brand new project, the sky is the limit and we’re talking to loads of academics about starting a media campaign (we’re in the Guardian next week!) and fundraising to support disadvantaged students. We need graduates and students to share experience and contacts with struggling students who don’t have the family support and financial buffers many others benefit from!

The Audience:

Your piece should be aimed at future students considering BA’s and/or current students studying the Arts or Humanities – these are the people we want to support and enthuse.

The Brief:

The absolute most important thing we want to communicate to the world is why YOU chose to study a BA, why YOU think it’s so important!

The kind of articles we need to make the case are along the lines of YOUR personal answers to the questions we’ve already asked on Twitter (and had such great responses too – thanks!) Questions like:

· NEW STUDENTS: Are you studying a BA next year? What are you studying? Why did you choose it? Are you worried about the new fees?

· UNDERGRADUATES: Are you a current student studying an Arts degree? What challenges do you face? (That can be anything from personal problems to academic issues and of course, the ever present money worries!) Can be totally anonymous of course, we both had things to overcome at Uni and understand what it’s like…

- GRADUATES: Would you have gone into HE to study a BA degree if you were starting 2012 and paying £9k? Personally I would have had such pressure to choose something more practical like Law or the Sciences (both great things btw)rather than Literature...

Who you are: Just include a short line or two, don’t need your name if you want to be published anonymously, but say where you study & what you study – also, if you have a blog of your own or a website do feel free to link to that in your biography paragraph too! Sharing is the heart of creativity!
Sooo…

Once all the complicated business of setting up as a charity is completed, Josie (@josielong) and I (@_griff) will both write similar blog entries to you guys and publish them all on the new site: www.arts-emergency.org (don’t look yet, it’s a tad empty at the moment!)

Just keep it to around 600 words max and email the copy or, if you have a good idea that isn’t covered above, a short pitch to us @ arts.emergency@gmail.com

Thanks so much and it’s amazing to know so many people feel as strongly as we do about the life affirming value of studying the Humanities and the Arts!

Neil and Josie x

when I was younger...

2012-01-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

If you're in London, my short-short poetry film [animated by Sonia Hensler and Andrjez Rudz] is showing in these tube stations between 4-7pm this week, along with other Smile for London poetry films. Here it is for you all to see!

[all of the poetry films will be shown back to back, with no adverts, on platform three, Euston Station, all weekend 28-29th Jan]

our friends at the circus

2012-01-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, Lotty, Jo and I went to the Quentin Blake exhibition currently showing at the Foundling Museum. I strongly recommend it if you're in London [or will be before April]. It's a collection of his recent works commissioned by hospitals in the UK and France.

The exhibition will be going on tour next year to seven different galleries in the UK, so if you don't make it to this one, you might have the chance to see it elsewhere. The paintings are just beautiful.

Other things I'd love to point you in the direction of:

This wonderful article about postcards sent by Angela Carter. In 1988, four years before she died, Angela sent a Bard card from the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare festival, in Canada.

The message on the back reports only that "Canada's nice. Especially Montreal. Like Scandinavia with liquor."

You've probably heard that Waterstone's is getting rid of its apostrophe. If you're on Twitter [or even if you're not] - it's worth checking out the rather hilarious account of @SadApostrophe - the apostrophe on its new job hunt.

And, finally, these two Jan Svankmajer Alice in Wonderland related films. In case you were wondering, Through the Looking Glass is pretty much my favourite book ever. For my 21st birthday we had an Alice party. Oh yes. And last week, after the visit to the Quentin Blake exhibition, Jo, Lotty and I were lusting over Marchpane's 383 editions of Alice. 383! Count 'em! Anyway, yes, two of the trippiest films in the world. Enjoy! x

Konstiga Saker Kunder Säger I Bokhandeln

2012-01-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

Today I signed contracts for Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops Swedish translation rights!

'Konstiga Saker Kunder Säger I Bokhandeln' will be published by Bokförlaget Lind & Co. They are commissioning new illustrations for the book by a Swedish cartoonist, and the book will be published this autumn. Spännande!

Smile for London - poetry on the tube

2012-01-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

For those who live in London [or who will be in London in the next two weeks], Smile for London goes live on Monday! This is a film of twenty second animated poems aimed to cheer up commuters, and will be on display across 60 digital screens on the London Underground every morning (7am-10am) and evening (4pm -7pm) rush hour for two weeks from 16th January 2012. Stations include: Angel, Camden Town, Oxford Circus, Bond Street, Charing Cross, Covent Garden, Knightsbridge, Paddington, Euston, Piccadilly Circus, Victoria and Waterloo. My poem, about Oxford Circus, has been animated by Sonia Hensler. The launch for this was on Wednesday, where all of the poets and artists got to see the film - and it's looking fab. You can view a sample video over here.

[For non-Londoners, the organisers are contemplating the idea of a DVD of the films, otherwise I'm sure that they will be uploaded online after the screenings.] xx

weird things.... at the bookseller

2012-01-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

There are lots of exciting Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops things going on, which I'll be able to talk to you all about soon. In the mean time, I'm ever so grateful to the lovely people of Constable and Robinson and The Bookseller. There are 'Weird Things...' banners on their website today [Friday], and behold the front and back covers of this week's issue of The Bookseller itself. I'm so excited; I'm dancing in the bookshop! x

nighttime bookshop

2012-01-10T02:46:00.000-08:00

Morning, folks! You can now read yesterday's articles on 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' in The Evening Standard and The Ham and High online by clicking the links. :)

But, mostly, today I am blogging to show you all this wonderful video made by Type Books in Canada. I just love it. So beautiful! x

Author Visit: Liz Berry

2012-01-09T02:50:00.000-08:00

Everyone who replies to this topic by 20th January [no matter where you are in the world], will have their name put in a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Liz's amazing collection, The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls.
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Liz Berry was born in the Black Country and now lives in London where she works as an infant school teacher. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2009. Her poetry has appeared in most of the major UK magazines and on Radio 3. Her debut pamphlet, The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls, was published by tall-lighthouse in 2010. She is Emerging Poet in Residence at Kingston University and a 2011/12 Arvon-Jerwood mentee.

What's the first poem you remember writing?

My mom and dad both love poetry and so when I was little we were always reading together and making up our own poems. The first poem I remember writing by myself was about the group of ladies my mom used to gossip with in our cul-de-sac in Dudley. I must have been eight or nine because my lovely teacher at the time, Miss Danks, gave me a special exercise book to write my poems in.

Where and when was your first poem published? What was it? Could you give us a small extract?

My first proper poem to be published was in a little magazine called Fire when I was around fifteen. It was in the voice of a seagull in a painting in a suburban living room, speaking her love to the late-night weatherman. The idea stayed with me for years and eventually became the sonnet ‘The Late Night Weatherman Who Used To Love Me’ which is in my pamphlet. The first line is still the same: “The late night weatherman who used to love me /read sonnets of snowfall and westerly rain.” I had poems published here and there in magazines over the following years but I didn’t start writing seriously until I was twenty-seven and I went to study for an MA at Royal Holloway. Then my first publication was in Mslexia. I had two poems – ‘The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls’ and ‘When I Was A Boy’ - chosen by Carol Ann Duffy in their annual poetry competition. I still feel very affectionate about those poems.

Tell us about 'the patron saint of schoolgirls'.

The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls was my debut pamphlet published by tall-lighthouse in the 2010 as the winner of their pamphlet competition. It’s a collection of 19 poems which were written from Autumn 2007 to Winter 2009.

How long did it take you to write the collection – which poems came first, and which came last?

I wrote the poems in the pamphlet over about two years, the time I was studying for my MA and also working as an infant teacher. The first poem was ‘The Red Shoes’ and the last was ‘Dog’.

Do you find reoccurring themes creeping into your writing? What areas do you particularly enjoy exploring?

I love writing about the Black Country where I grew up and where my family lives. My boyfriend is from the same little town and so that makes the place even more fascinating to me. It’s got an amazing dialect and folklore, an astounding story of industrial wonder and decline and is a region with a lot of heart and rough-and-ready tenderness. Recently I’ve been writing lots of poems using Black Country dialect and have written about it for the Young Poets’ Network and The Poetry School. I also love writing about transformations and metamorphoses: adolescent girls, fairytale-ish narratives, the interplay between the human and the animal, the way in which boundaries dissolve and we’re made creature by the ecstatic or sensual experience. Although I rarely write about my work as a teacher, I find the spirit of early childhood weaves itself through my poems – that spontaneity, rawness and wonder that little children have.

What form does an idea for a poem normally present itself, for you? As a word, a theme, or perhaps a first line?

Poems come to me in lots of different ways. Most often with a feeling but other times a story sparks my imagination or a little idea I hear. Or perhaps I go somewhere and experience something and that starts it. I mostly begin to gather my thoughts by making a spider diagram in my notebook with the idea or image at the centre and then just writing, writing, writing everything that comes. I find that allows me to make surprising connections and access ideas and images that might be hidden deeper. Then I get a blank page and let it find the right form.

What poetry collections have you read recently?

At the moment I’m so inspired by Kathleen Jamie’s The Queen of Sheba. It’s an amazing, alive collection which uses Scots dialect in such an exciting way. Her voice just fizzes. I’ve also been reading the wonderful The Faber Book of Vernacular Verse edited by Tom Paulin. New collections I’ve enjoyed recently are Sasha Dugdale’s Red House, Clare Pollard’s Changeling, Daljit Nagra’s Sultan Tippoo’s Man Eating Tiger Toy Machine and Kate Potts’ Pure Hustle. I also love reading magazines like Poetry London and The Rialto and discovering new poets there. Last year I was enchanted by poems I found by Abigail Parry and Anna Woodford.

You're a teacher. Do you get the chance to read/teach poetry at your school? What do you think about the National Curriculum's approach to poetry?

I’m so lucky because I mostly teach Reception, the first year of school, where poetry is all about speaking and listening. It’s a magical time because the children have no preconceptions about poems yet - about them being difficult or ‘not for them’ - and just take huge pleasure in the sound of words and rhymes and the images they make in your head. Poems, songs and stories are part of our daily routine. I’m also fortunate enough to teach at a very bookish school where reading and writing are valued. Our classes are named after writers and artists and it always cheers me up to look out of the window at playtime and see a line of juniors sitting on the wall reading.

What do you consider to be your biggest writing achievement to date?

Taking my dad to the Eric Gregory Award ceremony in 2009. He loves poetry and instilled that same love in me so it was a special thing for us both.

What are you working on at the moment, and what are your hopes/plans for the future?
This year I’m an Arvon/Jerwood mentee and I’m being mentored by Daljit Nagra. He’s encouraged me to write lots of dialect poems and has been an inspiration and a wonderfully tough editor. In the long term, I’m working on putting together a first full collection but I’m not in any rush. It’s more important for me to work hard on the poems and explore everything I want to, to make my work the best it can possibly be.

My hopes for the future are to continue enjoying writing and to care as much about every new poem as I did about the last; to continue to love reading other people’s poems and to retain that sense of wonder.

--

The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls

some quickfire fun things

2012-01-05T16:03:00.000-08:00

1. Here's an anagram tube map. I particularly like: 'Dragon & Falcon Hire,' 'A Retard Cotton Mouth,' 'Burst Racoon' & 'Frog Innard.' & not forgetting 'Rugby Skin,' 'Prussian Gurdle' and 'Queer Spank.'

2. My poem 'The Bearded Creatures' has placed in the York Open Poetry Competition 2011. Hurray!

3. There are only 14 copies of my limited edition poetry collection left. We've now raised over £4000 for EEC International - so, thank you, lovely people. [It's illustrated by Greg, who has also illustrated 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops.']

4. Here are some beautiful illustrations Ronald Searle drew for his wife.

5. Roald Dahl stamps.

6. If you're in North London, there was a piece in today's issue of The Ham and High about Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops.

7. This blog post by Amanda Palmer may or may not have made me cry like a baby.

Night. xx

where stories comes from

2012-01-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

This morning I gave a talk at the RNIB about poetry, read some of my own work and talked about writing processes and all that jazz. It was really interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion with everyone who came along. One thing in particular that we discussed was where the ideas for our writing come from. One of the participants said that she'd been looking through some of her old school exercise books from the late 1940s, early 50s, when she'd written poetry. A lot of it, she said, was about aliens invading the earth from Mars. At the time she swears that that's what she intended to write about, but now, when she looks back on it, she can clearly see that the aftermath of the second world war was nudging its way into her work. Albeit in a different form - but her subconscious was concerned about invasion, war and the unknown.

With my poetry at the moment I find my ideas [broadly speaking] fall into two separate categories. There's the poetry that is tangled up in the North East and my childhood, and there's the poetry concerned with 'otherness' - 'freaks', odd heroines, mythology and taking control. The full-length collection I'm working on at the moment deals with the latter of these - for instance a poem 'Memories of His Sister in a Full Body Wetsuit' [which will be published in the next issue of Agenda], is about a girl born with her legs joined together - a 'real life mermaid,' or selkie:

[extract]

She never used to talk much. You said you always used
                                                                    to come here
before your mum found amber bottles on a top shelf.
Before the operation where your sister’s legs were split
                                                    - because she’d arrived
in this world swimming. Your dad looking for a receipt.

I've always been fascinated by the origins of fairy tales and mythological creatures, which influenced a lot of these poems in this collection [at the moment called 'How to Weigh Nothing']. Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks make an appearance, along with saints that never existed, Eve leaving Adam for another woman, and many other strange things [a few of those are available over here, on page nine]. Also the deformity element is obviously in some form related to my own - and something which really freaked me out, finding out about The Lobster Boy - people with EEC living in freak shows with people paying to come and stare at them. I think I'll stick to the day job, thanks ;)

In with my North East related poetry is one called Kitchen, a poem which placed in last year's Kent and Sussex poetry competition and will be published in the next issue of The Rialto. It's a narrative: two girls, naked, in the narrator's kitchen talking about love, life and death, scared that one of their mothers is going to come home and catch them. Now, I've never hung out with someone naked in my mum's kitchen [I'm sure she'll be pleased to hear that if she's reading this], but clearly [to me, obviously to anyone else reading it they can make up their own mind], a lot of that poem comes from the anxiety I had about my parents finding out I am also attracted to girls.

[extract]

...feet tapping on the floor. Your mother would be home soon.
To her yellow and white check tea towels and her hand-painted
                                                                                   bread bin

and her naked daughter standing like Jesus in front of the
refrigerator. I grabbed your foot.

Some stories are things I've half remembered, or mis-remembered or half-heard things about other people. I suppose writing is our way of making sense of the world, and what's great about that is the poem or story we have written can mean something completely different to someone else [even the inital ideas]. So from memories, old folk tales, and personal stories grow other stories and other perceptions of those stories until they're something else entirely to many different people. I think that's what I love most about literature as a whole.

Author Interview: Shelley Harris

2012-01-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

All who reply to this post before 15th January will have their name put in a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Shelley's debut novel, 'Jubilee.' [It's a fab book!]

Shelley Harris was born in South Africa, emigrating to Britain at the age of six because of her parents' opposition to Apartheid. She has been a local journalist, a teacher, a filler of envelopes, an assistant in a wine shop and a bouncer at teenage discos. She lived in Paris for a year, on the sixth floor of a skinny townhouse, in the smallest flat she's ever seen.

Her first novel, 'Jubilee', is about an iconic photograph taken at a Silver Jubilee street party in 1977, about the boy at the centre of that photograph, and about the secrets he has kept hidden for thirty years.
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Hi Shelley, thanks so much for stopping by, please make yourself at home!

Thanks, Jen. Mind if I have a biscuit?

Please do! So, your debut, Jubilee, has just been published. Congratulations! How does it feel to be a published author?

Exciting and a bit baffling. It was something I never thought would really happen so even now, when I can find my own book in real bookshops, there’s something about it that seems surreal.

Tell us about Jubilee.

At the heart of the book is an iconic photograph taken at a Silver Jubilee street party in 1977. And at the centre of that is Satish, a British Asian boy living in a conservative English village. The picture is seen as celebrating a harmonious, multicultural Britain – but only Satish knows what really happened that day. When a reunion is planned years later, his secrets threaten to emerge – and to destroy the life he has built.

How long did it take you to write?

It took a long time – six years, to be precise. That was partly because I began it when my kids were very tiny, and I could only write in short bursts, and partly because I honed it through several redrafts.

What kind of things had you written before Jubilee? Can you tell us about your journey from writing to publication?

Well, I’d written all sorts of things before: appalling poems in my teens, journalism in my twenties (when I was a local reporter), and then a whole novel which I lacked the nerve to send out – no-one’s seen it to this day. Then I had a long gap during which I was a secondary English teacher and didn’t write a single creative word. But here’s the really weird thing: what I did do was read, read, read constantly, and when I first started writing Jubilee – bam! – there was this voice I didn’t know I had. Must’ve been the reading, mustn’t it? The words must have fermented inside me or something, and then – pop!

In terms of the journey from there, I’d say that the kernel of the story remained whole, right the way through the process, and the voice didn’t change very much. But what I really needed to find was the right structure to tell my story, and that’s what took the time. I got feedback from an editorial consultancy, and some useful advice on an Arvon course, and I put the manuscript through three major rewrites. I don’t know what it’s like for you, but for me writing is often about a kind of unromantic doggedness.

And then, after all those years, the deal ended up happening really quickly; I read out a bit of the novel at York Writing Festival, and a few agents said they were interested in representing me. I signed up with Jo Unwin of Conville and Walsh, and three months later I had a contract with Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Where were you when you found out that you had a book deal? How did you celebrate?

That was honestly one of the best moments of my life, right up there with my children’s births and Thatcher resigning. Jo and I had been to see publishers, and when I got home she was on the phone, saying that they’d started bidding for Jubilee. ‘You’ll definitely be published now,’ she said, and then my kids came home and hugged me: perfection. I celebrated the way I always do, by crying like a big old baby.

Tell us about your childhood, growing up in South Africa, and your move to England. What similarities do you and Satish [the main character of Jubilee] share?

I was six when we left South Africa, and so my memories of it are mainly familial. My mom’s South African, so it was all about us, and cousins, and my grandparents. Of course, I know now that we were living in this horrific police state, the beneficiaries of a racist tyranny – it was the reason my parents decided to move to England.

What’s hilarious, looking back, is that I can recall with great precision what I was expecting from Britain. At the time, the IRA were bombing English cities – that’s what I heard the adults discussing, that and the cold. I had this very clear image that our ship would arrive at Southampton, that there would be a crunch as it butted against the ice, and that I’d look down onto a snowy dockside to see my English grandparents ducking for cover as bombs exploded around them. Unbelievable that I would see myself as moving from a place of safety to one of danger!

Satish and I are very different in many ways, but our main similarity is our desire, as immigrant children, to fit in. When I came here I’d watch other kids the way Satish does, just trying to learn the codes. We were both at the margins as children, and I wanted to explore the double-edge of that; Satish’s very exclusion allows him to perceive things more clearly. He’s privy to secrets precisely because he is so disregarded. Our other similarity (I’m wincing a little here), is that we’re both a teensy bit OCD, I think.

You mentioned in another interview that the idea for Jubilee stemmed from an old photograph of your father's. What ideas came first to you, for the novel – characters or storyline?

The idea for the storyline came first, when I looked again at a photograph I was very familiar with – my dad at a VE Day street party when he was a kid. I started to really think about the odd conjunction of public and private which comes in a street party photograph. There’s a tendency for the viewer to believe she understands everything about it because, of course, it’s a public event which we all ‘own’ in a sense. But when you throw together a small community like that, you’re also going to get all sorts of private things going on, which the viewer can’t begin to guess at: tensions, feuds, unforeseen alliances.

So I thought: what if there was all that going on, and it took place at my own generation’s great street party in 1977, when Britain was on the cusp of huge social change? What if the village was a very traditional English one, and right in the centre of the picture there was a newcomer, an exile from Idi Amin’s Uganda? And then along came Satish.

Did you get any books for Christmas, and what are you reading at the moment?

Ooh yum, yum. Yes I did – loads. At the moment I’m engrossed in Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre’s The Ruins of Detroit. I’m a voracious reader of novels, but this is photography – incredible pictures of the centre of Detroit, where economic collapse has caused a mass exodus. It’s an astonishing thing: classrooms which look as if they’ve been abandoned mid-lesson; a theatre which became a car park which is now deserted anyway; a police station, the floor thick with discarded mug shots. I keep thinking…there’s a story here. I’m waiting for it to announce itself.

And of course I’ve just realised, telling you this, that as with Jubilee, it’s a visual image which is suggesting stories to me. How interesting!

Are you able to tell us what you're working on at the moment?

Well, I’m in the first draft of my next novel, which is about a very ordinary woman who does something absolutely extraordinary, and tips her life on its head in the process. It’s at a fairly early stage, so I’m fighting shy of saying much more than that.

Where do you see yourself in ten years time?

It’s very simple: I’d like to still be writing for publication, and I want to constantly raise the bar on the quality of my writing. I’d also like to be making really good salted caramels – but you can’t have everything.

Thanks, Shelley!

You can find Jubilee at your local independent bookshop, or online.

Shelley's website / Find Shelley on Twitter

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T04:57:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a good Christmas! I spent it in Newcastle with my family, and then Miles and I celebrated our six year anniversary, which was lovely. Over the past couple of days I've been editing the first proof of 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' - s'ninety five days until publication, innit.

My short-short story 'Catwoman' placed in the 2011 Binnacle Ultra Short Competition. My contributor copy arrived in the post yesterday, and it's a beautiful little thing. The magazine is in a box:

And that box is filled with cards. Each card has a short biography of the writer on one side, and their story/poem on the back.

S'cute, no?

Today I'm writing, and making up short term and long term to-do lists. Crikey. I aim to enter the new year in the way I mean to go on - organised and finishing things. Yes.

Here's to a happy and healthy 2012 for all of us! I've pinched this from Neil's blog:

poetry filming: Sonia Hensler & merry christmas

2011-12-22T05:27:00.000-08:00

Smile for London are announcing the artists who are pairing up with poets to create poetry films for the London Underground in January. Sonia Hensler will be animating my poem about Oxford Circus. Sonia produces really cool collage-type-drawings, like the one shown over on the right. I'm really excited to see what she comes up with. You can read an interview with her over here.

You can read more about the videos and the collaborations on the Smile for London blog. [Please do excuse the video they found of me; it's from a while ago and I appear to be racing to the end of the poem I'm reading.]

I'm finishing bookselling-type-work early this year and, after closing up the bookshop tonight, I'm getting on a train up north, to Newcastle, for Christmas. So, festive tidings to you all! I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas. Here's a baby polar bear. xxxx

last call for Christmas

2011-12-17T08:13:00.000-08:00

UK folks: s'the last chance [by Tuesday 20th] to order a copy of the 100 Poem collection to arrive in time for Christmas, as present to yourself or someone else. *puts on Christmas hat*

The pamphlet, containing 100 poems, is a limited print run of 200 [of which 191 have been sold so far], with a cover designed by Greg McLeod [also illustrating Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops]. They are numbered, and signed. £10, plus postage.

All proceeds [that's £8.60 from each sale, plus any money left over after postage costs] go to EEC International, funding research centres using stem cell research and gene therapy to find a cure for degenerative eye sight problems.

PAMPHLETS SOLD: 191/200

[If you'd like to order more than one copy, or you don't have a paypal account/paypal isn't working, then drop me an email]

Merry Christmas, folks. x

Sample poem:

----

#100

There is field, and we are in it.
This is it, you say
crouching low over your shoes.

We prepared to leave as
milk bottles came
chose instead the ones
the tide brings - green

buckets on ropes
hanging low
from our shoulders. We
find the cows out
in the field. A drunken farmer
too busy making
snow angels. We milk instead

then walk the twelve
miles to the beach
avoiding slot machines
until our beds are checked.

On the edge of the pier
we can begin again
to see ourselves. We dip
chipped mugs deep in buckets
for our bones.

snow and poetry [but not so much snow]

2011-12-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

I had some very nice news in my inbox this morning, saying I've won third prize in the Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition. Hurray! My poem 'the chicken, the egg and my sister' will be published in an anthology with the other winning poems early next year. For obvious reasons I can't show you the poem, but I can post some of the judge's report which describes the poem. Then you can have fun reconstructing the poem in your head, as you think it might be...

This is a surreal poem, powerful in its intensity, and disturbing in the vision it portrays. The writing unnerves via its rather matter-of-factual frankness; its exact depictions of individual acts of mutilation; and its exploration of illogical rationality. Each word is employed efficiently and effectively to convey the horror. Even though very few adjectives are used, the writing is visual; the tone almost coldly non-judgemental. The poem manages to contain the horror, the mental torture via a calculated use of technique.

I'm a little worried as to what poem you've all got in your head, now.

You can see a list of the winners and read the whole judge's report over here.

In other news, there's snow in North London today!

[ok, so the photo's from last year, and the snow today has practically gone. And I hope it stays that way, too, because I have to get a train home to Newcastle at the end of next week. Trains and snow do not mix well.]

The other day I posted about Words in Motion, poetry going on the tube for two weeks in January, for which a poem of mine has been chosen. Words in Motion have been releasing the names of some of the other poets involved, and there are some pretty cool names in there. Jarvis Cocker, Salena Godden, Ross Sutherland to name a few. Emily Berry also had a poem picked; I love her collection Stingray Fevers. I'm really looking forward to seeing this project come together.

Happy weekend! x

a whole load of blog posts about bookshops

2011-12-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

I love bookshops.

Well, I would, since I work in one.

I'm guessing, if you're reading this, that you love bookshops too.

In the New Year I want to do a series of blog post 'spotlights' about individual bookshops. Bookshops are important, and this article earlier in the week made me sad, and angry.

As my lovely agent said on Twitter: Amazon don't acknowledge how they benefit from existence of bookshops. If there are none, they will suffer. But we will suffer most.

Very true.

HOWEVER, these bookshop blog posts I'm going to do aren't about Amazon. They are about spreading the joy of physical bookshops - showing photos, talking about the books booksellers in particular love to sell. They are about talking about local communities, favourite customers, events and author signings. They are going to be about showcasing the wonderfulness of booksellers and bookshops worldwide.

So, if you're a bookseller [anywhere in the world], and you're reading this, and you'd like me to write a blog post about your bookshop then please email me. You'll need to answer some questions and send over some photographs later on, but for the moment a simple 'ME PLEASE' will do, and I'll whack you on a list.

Lots of love. x

ETA: Bookshop spotlight No. 1 - Ripping Yarns bookshop

poetry on the underground

2011-12-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

I've always been a fan of Poems on the Underground, a project set up in 1986, displaying poems in over 3000 advertising spaces on London tubes. It makes me smile when I see one of these whilst commuting [oh, the dreaded rush hour!].

There's a new project that's happening early next year in the same vein. It's called Words in Motion, and moving advertising screens on London's underground will be taken over by poetry. The project called for submissions of poetry of forty words or less, along with audio files of the poems at 20 seconds or less - poetry that would help cheer up commuters during one of the coldest months of the year. The poems chosen by the judging panel are being animated into 20 second typographic films by leading motion artists. Those films will then be played on screens on the London underground from the 16th of January for two weeks. One of my poems has been picked, and is currently being animated. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished films of all of the poems. Hurray for poetry on the tube! I'm not sure which stations/lines they'll be showing but, when I know, I'll let you know.

100 Poem Challenge update: A big thank you to all who have bought a copy of the poetry collection so far. I've got the pamphlets from the printers, and they are now being posted as and when orders come in. Things with EEC International are really moving forward, and all money raised for medical research is very much needed. Next year the organisation is also going to work on creating an international database for all those with EEC, helping to further research. Following the 100 Poem Challenge, I heard from Cristina, who runs EEC International [based in Italy], and I have been appointed the Manager of EEC International for the UK, to help co-ordinate the register, help people with EEC Syndrome find the right doctors, help people connect with each other and give parents who have given birth to children with EEC information about the condition. This will be something I'll be doing in my spare time, and I'm very excited about getting involved and furthering the work of EEC Syndrome Awareness.

In other, completely different, news, our bookshop is looking all Christmassy. If you're looking for a pretty book for a Christmas gift then do stop by. If you're further afield but are hunting for a particular edition of an old book then drop us an email and we'll have a hunt for you. I wish we had this Christmas tree, sent to me by @highlandtiger77 on Twitter. Best tree ever, no? x

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops - at Christmas

2011-12-07T07:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it is nearly Christmas....

Customer: I'd like a book for a friend, about saving the world from alien invasion. I'd like the main character to be a little like Freddie Mercury and a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

--

Customer: Do you still have that thing that was in your window? It was pink and fluffy.
Me: A book?
Customer: No, it was a dog toy, I think - with a lead.
Me: Yeah, I think that was probably in the vet and pet store's window, two doors down.

--

Customer: Do you have 'Windows 7 for Dummies'?
Me: Sorry, we're an antiquarian bookshop; nearly everything in here pre-dates computers.
Customer: Oh. Do you have user guide for antiquarian computers? You know from, like, the olden days, when they had swords and stuff?
Me: ...?

--

Customer: Excuse me. Do you sell snow?
Me *thinking I've misheard*: Sorry. Snow?
Customer: Yes. SNOW.
Me: .... no. No we don't.

--

Customer: Do you have, like, a Christmas book about that, like, really famous baby?

--

a customer reading a book about the nativity.
Customer *to her friend*: Don't you ever get the feeling that Baby Jesus is somehow related to Herod? I always think that he's going to go: 'JESUS. I AM YOUR FATHER.'

--

Customer: Do you have a vending machine in here?

--

Customer: Do you think you could post this book to America for me, in time for Christmas?
Me: Yes. I'm sure we could. I'll just get the scales and I can work out postage costs for you.
Customer: You expect me to pay for the postage as well? I'm already paying for the book!
Me: ...

--

the real Mr Scrooge...
Customer: I'd like a Christmas book, about Christmas, that doesn't have anything to do with snow, or robins, or snowmen, or Jesus, or holly.
Me: ... right.
Customer: And no bloody carols, either!

--

Customer: Do you have any cards?
Me: We have some old postcards in a box by the door. Some of them have already been written on, though.
Customer: Oh, do you have one that says 'To Juliette, with love from Christine'? It would save me writing it out again, you see.

--

Child *to me*: Does Santa come to your bookshop to get gifts for kids?
Me *nodding wisely*: Yes. Yes. He absolutely does.
Child: That's awesome!
Me: Yes, it is.
Child: But...
Me: But what?
Child: But... Santa's really fat. I don't think he could squeeze through the gaps in the bookshelves.
Me: It's ok. He sends us a list before hand, and we leave the books by the door.
Child: That makes you Santa's elf!
Me: Yes... yes, I suppose it does.
--

Merry Christmas, folks. x

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops - the book.

--

Other Christmas-related goodness:
My poetry collection for Charity, for Christmas
Terrible family Christmas photos
The Book Tree in Edinburgh

poems on postcards all over the world [and how poetry's working hard to stop houses burning down!]

2011-12-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

The initial part of the 100 Poem Challenge had people donating with the option to have one of the 100 poems written on a postcard and posted to out to them [wherever they happened to be!]. So I spent a lot of time after 5th and 6th November carefully writing poems out by hand, and then sending them out here, there and everywhere. I'm really thrilled with how everyone's interacted with this project, and it's lovely to see the poems on postcards in their new homes across the world:

in Sweden [with a lot of Terry Pratchett books]

America!

Western Australia [tucked inside an advent calendar]

with postcards also posted out to New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK.

displayed on windows, on pinboards and bookshelves

& I have to mention one poem on a postcard in particular. Chris [@book_recycling] said that he'd like me to write a poem about 'fire and rescue' - because he works as a volunteer firefighter. So, on the weekend of 100 poem writing, that became poem #84:

--

#84

I am called
to stop you becoming
the icarus girl.

Ladders guessing
just how tall you are.

Hair down like Rapunzel.

--

I then hand wrote that poem on a postcard, and sent it to Chris. That postcard now resides in their fire engine. Check it out!

Amazing. Chris informs me that this poem-on-a-postcard-in-a-fire-engine has so far been to two house fires, one road traffic accident and two automatic fire alarms. Emergency poetry! Fabulous. Thanks Chris!

Edit: I've just had a very moving email from one of the owners of a poem on a postcard, asking if it's ok for his postcard to be cremated with his brother, who just passed away, as he thinks he would have liked the poem. I am extremely touched by this. Sending many thoughts and much love to you. xx

--

If you'd like to buy the poetry collection of all 100 poems, please head over here.

[Thank you to everyone who sent me a photo of the postcard in their home [sorry if yours isn't included above; there were so many!]]

100 Poem Challenge poetry collection - for sale!

2011-12-02T07:39:00.001-08:00

We spent biology lessons in summer months
exploring rock pools. Prefect ties to hold
our hair up. Fishing for pound coins
as though they're wishing wells. Instead
claimed witch hair, wet ankle socks.
Salt living under finger nails.

On the 5th and 6th November 2011, I wrote 100 poems in 48 hours to raise money for EEC International, a charity who fund research into EEC Syndrome [a condition I have], especially eye sight problems to do with gene p63. It is likely that most people who have EEC Syndrome will lose their sight. If a cure could be found for this then it would benefit thousands of people [not just those with EEC] worldwide.

All proceeds from the sale of these poetry collections will go to EEC International [that's £8.60 per sale after printing costs].

This is a limited print run of 200, with a cover designed by Greg McLeod [also illustrating Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops]. They are numbered, and signed. £10, plus postage.

It's printed high quality, 52 pages, and contains all of the poems from the challenge. If you liked the poems and you'd like a physical copy of all of them, then this is for you.

PAMPHLETS: SOLD OUT

[If you'd like to order more than one copy, or you don't have a paypal account/paypal isn't working, then drop me an email]

[Bear in mind, if you're buying for Christmas presents, that these are being posted from the UK. I will have the pamphlets by mid-week, and will be posting them out to you straight away.]

--------

Sample Poem:

#1

In those days we'd sleepwalk.
It was easier for us to see the city that way.
The daytime gave us kitchen steam,
flour tilting like November snow. At night
we'd trudge through gardens
that our house had never seen.
We would run and cup non-existent light.

Mostly, we dressed up as birds. Mary's favourites
were the leather swans. Black feathers in her bedsheets
and a zip up to her neck. We'd walk
together and in lines -
our wings hooping every lamppost.
In the mornings we'd bathe our swollen feet. Inch
our claws along the frozen tiles -
make-believe that we could fly again.

[tag word: SNOW]

------

Happy Friday!

Any questions, please feel free to email me.

more paper sculptures

2011-12-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

I am buzzing away, a very busy bee. Working on several projects at once and making my mind boggle. At the moment [as in right now, well not right now, because right now I'm writing this] I'm finishing off a radio play that's been on my to-do list for some time. I wrote a play earlier in the year, and the BBC said 'we like this very much, but it is not long enough - write more!' So, dutifully, I am writing more. We will see if it goes anywhere. At any rate, I'm having fun writing it.

A couple of people who bought poems on postcards [you lovely people] expressed concern about how much the postcards and postage costs must have taken from the donation. Fret not, my friends! I paid for all the postage, postcards etc myself. I did not take any money from the donation box. That was a little expensive, but think of it as my own money-esque contribution [considering this charity pretty much benefits me personally in the medical field].

The 100 poem poetry pamphlet will go on sale in the next couple of days. I should receive a proof from the printers tomorrow. So, more on details of how to buy one very soon.

Now. You may remember my blog post a few weeks ago about the anonymous paper sculptures that had been donated to literary places around Edinburgh. Like this beautiful thing:

If not, you can read it here. They are very beautiful, and now the whole set [all ten] has been discovered. One of them was even left at my old bookshop for Ian Rankin. Here he is with it.

[photo by Vanessa]

And two others: a book left at the National History Museum

with a dinosaur tucked inside, and many tiny men with guns surrounding it.

And this wonderful book sculpture left at the Writers' Museum:

as well as a cap and pair of gloves made out of paper left at The Scottish Poetry Library, along with this letter from the artist, who still wishes to remain anonymous:

It's been a wonderful project to follow. You can read more about it, and see all of Chris's photos [some of which shown above] over here.

This story has made my heart happy. x

poetry, pamphlets, christmas

2011-11-26T07:19:00.000-08:00

A quick little blog post.

All the poems on postcards from 100 Poem Challenge have been posted. If you're in the UK, you should have yours by now. If you're further away, you should receive your postcard next week. Hurrah!

In the next week or so, I will be selling limited edition collections of the 100 poems from the 100 Poem Challenge, bound together, numbered and signed, with an beautiful cover illustrated by the lovely Greg McLeod [who is also illustrating Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops].

Look, here's the cover:

Pretty, no? There will be 200 copies. They will go on sale on this blog. All proceeds go to EEC International. [*cough*they will make nice Christmas presents*cough*]. Greg's just finishing up the artwork for the back cover and, once that's done, they will whizz off to the printers. Check back soon.

Speaking of Christmas presents and charity, the lovely Blackwells in Edinburgh has a Children's Book Tree [which I found via Nicola Morgan.] On this tree, staff hang requests from children who are either vulnerable or have some reason for extra need. Then customers either come into the shop or phone on 0131 622 8225 and buy one of the gifts, which then gets wrapped up and given to the child in time for Christmas. A fabulous cause, no? I just called up and bought a copy of Northern Lights for a teenage girl. So, if you can, please do give them a call and buy a book for a vulnerable child this Christmas.

xx

Author Visit: Joe Dunthorne

2011-11-17T12:48:00.000-08:00

All who reply to this topic by 1st December [no matter where you live] will have their names put into a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Joe's book Wild Abandon.

Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea, and is a graduate of the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing MA, where he was awarded the Curtis Brown prize. His poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies and has featured on Channel 4, and BBC Radio 3 and 4. A pamphlet collection, Joe Dunthorne: Faber New Poets 5 was published in 2010.

His first novel, Submarine, the story of a dysfunctional family in Swansea narrated by Oliver Tate, aged 15, was published in 2008, and was made into a film. His new novel, Wild Abandon, was published August 2011.

---

Joe! Welcome. Grab some snacks, plonk yourself on a beanbag. Make yourself at home. Sum up your new novel for those who haven't got their mitts on it yet. Sell it, sell it, sell it.

I’ve been trying hard to find a one line summation and, after much struggle, I have this: the end of a marriage, the end of a commune, the end of the world.

Put in more expressive terms, it’s about a commune in Wales that splits in to two warring factions as the married couple who started the commune break up. It’s also about the apocalypse. And blood soup.

How long did it take you to write? Did you find it easier, or harder, than writing your first book?

It took three years and, yes, it was way harder than writing my first book. Not just because of the extra pressure, but also because of the technical difficulties in writing a third-person, multi-narrative story with lots of characters. I thought it would be a good idea to challenge myself but I had not through the consequences of that challenge. It was tough, but I feel like a better writer for having got through it. Next time, to make things easier, I’m going to write a first-person novel with no characters, no plot, no words. There, that’s done.

What's your publication story [from writing your first book, through to the book deal]?

I started at twelve, writing text adventure computer games. My first hit was called Depression where the only outcomes were different kinds of suicide. Then, at fifteen, I wrote lyrics for my band, Peanuts Are Bad (named after my allergy.) Then, at seventeen, I wrote soppy poems. Then at twenty-two, I started Submarine. I was lucky enough to win prize at UEA with it and that helped me find an agent who, in turn, helped me find a publisher.

Where do you find yourself writing the most? [In a summer house, chained to a desk, upside down, hanging from the ceiling etc etc?]

I’m either in my kitchen, or in my office, which is a converted Jubilee line train carriage on a roof in east London. You can see it here: http://www.villageunderground.co.uk/workspace It’s a space I share with architects, theatre companies, designers and lots of others. It’s great, but cold in winter. I have to break the ice on the kettle water, some mornings.

I know you were involved quite a lot in the filming of 'Submarine.' Seeing how your book morphed into script, what was left out/what changed for screen – has this process changed how you write now? Has it made you look at aspects of writing in a different way? Did it make you want to do some script writing? [Ok, that was a lot of questions in one go, sorry].

I try not to think about film when I’m writing prose. I concentrate on what work’s best for the reader, and banish all other thoughts. As for scriptwriting, I’m intrigued by the idea but I’m also nervous of giving up so many of my writerly tricks and tools. I’m not sure I could survive without a trusty simile.

You write poetry, too [Joe has a pamphlet out with Faber]. Do you find you have to be in a different frame of mind to write poetry? Does an idea for a poem come to you in a different form than an idea for a piece of prose?

It’s all writing, as I see it. Usually, I write poetry as a form of procrastination from short stories, and short stories as a way to escape a novel I should be writing, and a novel as a way to avoid poetry. So the cycle of life is complete.

There are plenty of skills specific to poetry -- line breaks, rhyme, meter -- but they all feed back in to my prose in some way. Usually, if I have an idea, it’s pretty clear whether it’s destined to be a poem, a story or -- rarely -- a novel.

Where are you at the moment?

I’m in Toronto now at the International Festival of Authors. It’s beautiful. I’m looking out over a huge lake. Yesterday, I went in search of the city’s biggest burger.

Where would most like to do a reading of your work?

Um... in Fiji?

Tell us about the England Writers' Team.

We are, as you might guess, a football team of writers. When I used to play for us regularly, we were notoriously rubbish. Since I’ve left we have gone a winning streak. The Writers’ Team is one of the best reasons to become a writer. [Jen: Perhaps the England Writers' Team should play The Authors Cricket Club. Obviously you should either play football or cricket; you shouldn't have a game where half the players play football, and the other half play cricket. That's just unnecessarily confusing.]

On our book forum, we have The Book Tree, where members post their favourite books to everyone, and everyone writes their own comments inside. If you were to send a book round The Book Tree, which would you pick and why?

White Noise -- by Don De Lillo. It has the best set-piece in all literature: a sixty-page scene that follows a family’s evacuation from their town following a chemical spill. The chapter’s called Toxic Airborne Event. There’s a band named after it, I noticed. As the different possible side-effects of exposure to the chemical are announced on the radio, the children in the back seat of the car pretend to have each new symptom in turn. It’s funny, clever, surprising and serious.

What are you working on at the moment, and what are your plans for the future?

Poems! I’m having a break from prose to get back to my poetry. It feels good.

Wild Abandon / Joe's website / Find Joe on Twitter

books what I've recently and rather liked

2011-11-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

For the Messengers - Jude Cowan.

I have been meaning to post about this for so long. I performed alongside Jude in 2009 and she's all kinds of wonderful. In early 2008 Jude began to write poems in response to the un-packaged daily news footage she was archiving for the Thomson Reuters news agency. She continued throughout what proved, globally, to be a tumultuous and historic year. This book is filled with beautiful and thought-provoking poems. I highly recommend it.

Saudi Arabia: Oil Hunters

Before the oil we were shepherds
and drivers of camels, chasing stars,

crossing unmarked borders. Beneath
the wide tent we drank-in quiet,

our teapots nestled in roasting charcoal.
Then came oil. Wellheads bloomed, their

metal trunks withstanding desert heat,
growing strong on rich calories of black blood.

Riyadh teems with petrol pumps, and down
its streets we shunt in mighty machines,

managed by signs directing our migrations.
Transparent parabolas praise the cliff

of Kingdom Tower, water plays
like children at its palm-strewn feet.

Jude's got a mixed-media exhibition of 'For The Messengers' in London this month, running until the 27th November. I'm hoping to get there myself. It's had rave reviews. All details here.

---

Why Be Happy When You Could by Normal? - Jeanette Winterson.

“I don't know how to answer. I know what I think, but words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.”

I have loved Jeanette Winterson's work ever since reading 'Oranges are Not The Only Fruit' -one of the books, as Rebecca Makkai put it, that 'saved me'. Why Be Happy... is the autobiography behind Oranges. I made the mistake of reading the majority of it on a train. Do not do this. I managed to avoid crying the first time, but just an hour ago, whilst finishing it on a train to London, I ended up blubbing and received some strange looks. However, I care not. This book is worth that. It is worth so much more than that.

Jeanette's honesty and bravery in this book is so powerful. She is adopted. Her adoptive mother has no time for anything but God; she sews 'The summer is ended and we are not yet saved' on Jeanette's gym bag. They all live in the End Time, waiting for the apocalypse. Books are banned in the house, so Jeanette collects them and hides them under her mattress. Her mother finds them, throws them out of the window and burns them in the back garden. When Jeanette falls in love with a girl, the whole church tries to exorcise the devil from her; her mother disowns her. 'After the exorcism, I went into a mute state of misery. I used to take my tent and sleep up in the allotment. I didn't want to be near them. My father was unhappy. My mother was disordered; we were refugees in our own lives.'

If you love Oranges then you will love this. If you haven't read Oranges, then I'm not speaking to you until you do.

“I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.”
--

there but for the - Ali Smith

Another one I've been meaning to blog about for ages. I read it one sitting, the day it came out this summer. Ali Smith, like Jeanette Winterson, is a god to me. Seriously. This is the story of Miles, a man who doesn't know where his life is going, who locks himself in someone else's bedroom when attending a dinner party. Miles is questioning everything in life: its point and the absences in it, and the dinner party is held by Jen and Eric [generic, get it? She's so clever]. This book is about time and place and history. It is about identity. It is beautiful.

What shop did this book come from? she asked. Her father was looking worried at the cooker. He always got rice wrong. I don't know, Brooksie, he said, I don't remember. That was unimaginable, not remembering where a book has come from! and where it was bought from! That was part of the whole history, the whole point, of any book that you owned! And when you picked it up later in the house at home, you knew, you just knew by looking and having it in your hand, where it came from and where you got it and when and why you'd decided to buy it.

I'm just narked that I'm going to have to wait another few years for another book of hers. I've read everything she's written, more than once. I must re-read again. If you haven't read any Ali Smith before, I'd start with her short stories, or The Accidental, or this, or her play, or anything of hers really; it's all fantastic.

--

The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes.

This may seem a slightly boring/predictable choice, as it just won the Booker Prize and so it's on a lot of people's 'to-read' piles, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't shout about it. I enjoyed it, very much. It's only a little thing, but manages to be a wonderful mixture of funny, heart-breaking and a slap in the face. I like to think that the end of the book is set around Archway Road [where Ripping Yarns is], but it probably isn't. Still, I shall pretend. There's a big twist, and I didn't see it coming. I now want to re-read the whole thing because I know I'll read it in a completely different way.

--

St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves - Karen Russell

Simply the best short story collection I have read in years. I cannot do it justice here. I only ask that you read it.

So, go on. Off you go. x

poetry, postcards, short stories and post

2011-11-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday, folks. It's taken me the best part of this week to recover from last weekend [that sounds melodramatic, I know, but true!]. This is probably because I've not actually taken a break, ha. I've been working at the bookshop during the day, working on several writing projects in the evenings and have just started writing out the poems on postcards from last weekend. Miles and I spent all of last night matching poems up with appropriate postcards.

I've had messages from people asking when postcards will arrive. Poems 1-21 went out in the post today, so those should be with people soon. I'll be sending them out in batches over the next week or so; please bear with me, and remember that I'm the arthritic writer missing several fingers, so writing masses of stuff by hand is not my strong point ;). If you have bought a poem, please let me know when it arrives. It might be cool if you could also email me a photo of where you display it, then I can put the photos up on the blog showing where the poems are all over the world.

(I'm also currently investigating releasing the 100 poems in a limited edition pamphlet, to sell on my blog to raise a little more money for EEC International. I'm 95% sure that this will go ahead, so watch this space).

In other news: Poetry: yesterday I got an email from Patricia McCarthy [editor of Agenda] saying that I've been picked as one of their Chosen Young Broadsheet Poets, which I'm very excited about. Some of my work appeared in their online broadsheets [15 and 16] earlier this year. Now four poems of mine will be published in a book-sized print edition of theirs some point soon.

Short stories: this year's edition of Short FICTION is out. It includes a short story by me called Fringe, about a girl called Linnea who gatecrashes plays at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, spending her life taking on the parts of other people. It's been illustrated, too. You can order a copy over here.

I'll be back soon with an interview with the lovely Joe Dunthorne, and also a blog post with some book recommendations. In the mean time, farewell, and happy weekend! x

100 Poem Challenge - complete!

2011-11-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

Forty five minutes ago, at ten minutes to midnight, I completed my 100 Poem Challenge - writing 100 poems in 48 hours for charity. Hurrah! There was much stress, and some swearing, and definitely not much sleep, but I got there in the end. Thank you so much to everyone who supported me on Twitter throughout the weekend. I couldn't have done it without you!

Here's the final poem:

#100

There is field, and we are in it.
This is it, you say
crouching low over your shoes.

We prepared to leave as
milk bottles came
chose instead the ones
the tide brings - green

buckets on ropes
hanging low
from our shoulders. We
find the cows out
in the field. A drunken farmer
too busy making
snow angels. We milk instead

then walk the twelve
miles to the beach
avoiding slot machines
until our beds are checked.

On the edge of the pier
we can begin again
to see ourselves. We dip
chipped mugs deep in buckets
for our bones.

--

You can read all one hundred poems over here.

If you like what you see, please consider donating some pennies.

And now I shall drink some wine. Yes yes. WINE, and then sleep. Lots of sleep.

Lots of love x

2011-11-04T17:46:00.000-07:00

Midnight has come and gone, which means that 100 Poem Challenge is officially here! Eek!

I haven't planned out any poems, I haven't made any drafts. I haven't even examined the tag words to think of ideas because it felt like cheating. I will be doing ALL of the work this weekend.

I've just written the first poem, and posted it. Now I'm off to bed, will get up early and work work work all weekend. Running total for the challenge is $3672/£2275 raised for EEC International. You all are amazing.

Poem #1

...Mostly, we dressed up as birds. Mary's favourites
were the leather swans. Black feathers in her bedsheets
and a zip up to her neck. We'd walk
together and in lines -
our wings hooping every lamppost...
[read it all over here]

Tweet and spread the word this weekend, if you can. I hope you enjoy reading the poems. All of them will be posted, as I write them, over here. x

ETA: It's the morning, so here's a video of me talking about it, in glittery tights, with a tortoise. Oh yes.

Poems over here.

so, I think I love you all

2011-11-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

Three weeks into my campaign to raise money for EEC International - the running total has just hit $3000 [£1880]. I'm overwhelmed! Thank you so much to those who have been donating, and to those who have been spreading the word about the challenge via Twitter and facebook. It means such a lot; they are an amazing charity who do fantastic work.

I was also very excited to see this tweet today:

as well as a retweet from the lovely Neil Gaiman. Amazing.

After the weekend of 100 Poem Writing, I'll be making a video about the challenge which will be shown at the EEC conference in Italy later this month, and in the new year I'll be doing a poetry talk for the RNIB, which I'm really looking forward to.

This weekend [5th and 6th] is the weekend itself - writing the 100 Poems. It's suddenly looking like a very scary task indeed! Tweets of encouragement during that time are welcomed, as are shouts to ask if I'm still awake ;) I shall be living on caffeine and chocolate and cheese. Oh yes. If you'd like to send me words to inspire a poem, please do. You can leave them in the comments box or tweet me.

So yes. Thank you thank you thank you to those who have donated so far. If you haven't yet and you'd like to, then the link is here - every single penny counts. £1. £2, whatever you can. Tweet, spread the word. All the poems will be posted, as I write them online [link is on the donation page]. Thank you all so much x

Author Visit: Rebecca Makkai

2011-10-31T14:00:00.000-07:00

I read 'The Borrower' earlier this month and completely fell in love with it. I had to get in touch with Rebecca and ask her to come along and talk to you all about it, and she said yes. Hurrah! So, here she is. Make yourselves comfortable.

All who reply to this post by the 15th November will have their names put into a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Rebecca's book. [Doesn't matter which part of the world you live in!]

--

Rebecca Makkai is a Chicago-based writer whose first novel, The Borrower, is an Indie Next pick and has garnered rave reviews in O Magazine, BookPage and Booklist among others. Her short fiction will appear in The Best American Short Stories this autumn for the fourth consecutive year, and appears regularly in journals like Tin House, Ploughshares, New England Review and Shenandoah.

Hi Rebecca! Welcome to my blog. Make yourself at home. Have a biscuit, take a seat.

Hello! Delicious biscuit, by the way! [Why thank you]

Sum up 'The Borrower' for those who haven't got their hands on it yet.

A librarian inadvertently kidnaps a ten-year-old boy. Or, a ten-year-old boy blackmails a librarian into kidnapping him. Depends on your mood.

What sparked the idea for the book? A particular character, a storyline?

Ian, the boy in the book, has been enrolled by his mother in an anti-gay class because she fears he isn’t masculine enough. About ten years ago I found out that such classes exist, and that was the original spark for the novel.

What's your writing routine?

It mostly involves getting out of my house. I’ve got two toddlers, so escape is mandatory. Beyond that, I’m not very superstitious. I just sit and write. (I think a lot of writers try to tell a big story about routine as part of their mystique. I’ve even heard one writer claim she keeps a bowl of water on her desk, and when she sits to write she runs her hands through it to calm herself. I call that malarkey for several reasons, the most important being that no writer would ever in a million years put water next to her computer. Right?)

What was the most exciting part of the publishing process for you? Where were you when you found out the book deal was confirmed?

I was incredibly fortunate in that there were several editors bidding on my book, and I knew this ahead of time. The day it went to auction I was teaching (I teach elementary level at a Montessori school), and I sneakily checked my phone every hour or so to see what my agent had texted me. Then I just went back to triangles and verbs and whatever else we were doing that day. I think I’d have been ripping my hair out if I’d just been sitting around at home.

The most exciting thing, though, was probably back on the day I first signed with my agent. I knew she was good enough to sell the book, so that was the moment when I felt like it was all going to happen.

Have you come across parents like Ian's in real life [I know I have], and have you ever known a boy like Ian you wanted to save from their parents' oppression?

Although quite a few adult friends have told me about growing up in households like this, I’ve fortunately never had to encounter parents like that firsthand. I certainly wouldn’t react as fecklessly as Lucy does, but I also wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut.

Have you had any backlash from people or organisations such as Exodus International since the publication of your book?

No. Somehow I doubt that they’re big readers of contemporary literary fiction... There have been a few reviews on Amazon and the like (which, for the sake of sanity, I’ve long stopped looking at) where readers said things like “I’m not a bigot or anything, but I didn’t like the blatantly pro-gay agenda,” then gave it a low ranking. I don’t mind them not liking my book (I probably wouldn’t like theirs), but I wonder if they know how ridiculous and transparent those statements are.

Tell us about The Trevor Project.

I’ve linked to The Trevor Project on my website and elsewhere, and it’s an organization we can’t highlight enough. They’re a counselling and suicide-prevention lifeline for LGBTQ youth, and they were the first ones to do something like this on a major scale in the US. I’d always assumed it was named after someone we lost, but in fact Trevor is the character in the Oscar-winning movie of the same name.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’m reading another debut novel, The History of History, by Ida Hattemer-Higgins, and it’s wonderful so far. I’m also picking my way through The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, about the periodic table.

What are you up to when you're not writing?

Teaching, being a mother, cooking, yoga, gardening. Most of the writers I know are drawn to things like cooking that are very tangible and finite. When you’ve been working for a year on something that’s just a computer file and a story in your head, and you don’t know if it will ever amount to anything or if you’ll even finish, it can be very therapeutic just to make some soup. It’s done in one evening, and you eat it, and there’s very little angst involved. And you can’t go back and revise it the next day.

Are you allowed to tell us about your second novel, The Happensack?

I’m allowed to, but I’ve been warned by other writers not to ruin it by talking too much. I’m saying the same thing to everyone, which is that it’s the story of a haunted family and a haunted house, told in reverse.

In The Borrower, you say that books save us. [That part made me cry, by the way.] I couldn't agree more. What books have saved you?

To name one: When I was six years old, my teacher read us The Twits by Roald Dahl. It’s one of his typically ridiculous stories, a really violent one in fact, but it was the first time I’d ever heard of a deeply dysfunctional family other than my own. That book meant so much to me that I copied the entire thing out by hand.

--

"This story - often fun, sometimes sad, always bookish - deals with big issues... Rebecca Makkai's literary debut will appeal to young adults and readers of adult literary fiction."--We Love This Book

"Ian is a little star. His many sayings and observations that he'll burst out with are endearing - and often funny. It's clear that Lucy is smitten by her favourite 'borrower.'"--The Bookbag

"Makkai takes several risks in her sharp, often witty text, replete with echoes of children's classics from 'Goodnight Moon' to 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz', as well as more ominous references to Lolita...the moving final chapters affirm the power of books to change people's lives even as they acknowledge the unbreakable bonds of home and family. Smart, literate and refreshingly unsentimental."--Kirkus

"Rarely is a first novel as smart and engaging and learned and funny and moving as 'The Borrower.'"--Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of That Old Cape Magic and Empire Falls

"The Borrower's out and out charm is heightened by its furious, righteous heart and conviction that books offer salvation and hope when life is messy and near-unbearable"--Marie Claire

The Borrower

Rebecca's website / Follow Rebecca on Twitter / Rebecca on Facebook

Author Visit: Jane Davis

2011-10-24T01:44:00.000-07:00

All who reply to this interview by the 8th November will have their names put into a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Jane's book 'Half-Truths and White Lies.'

--

Jane lives with her partner of ten years in Surrey, in a ridiculously impractical timber-framed house that they love, and have sunk a small fortune into. If they ever move, it will be because they have run out of space to house their CD collection.

She had written as a hobby for a number of years, whilst pursuing a career in insurance, but recently took a leap of faith and 'retired' from full-time work, just at the onset of a major recession.

In October 2008, her first novel, Half-truths and White Lies, was selected as the winning title of the Daily Mail First Novel Award.

--

Hi Jane! Welcome to my blog. Make yourself comfortable.

Hi Jen, and thank you. I have my pint of coffee and I’m ready to go...

Tell us about ‘Half-Truths and White Lies’

My working title for the book was ‘Venn Diagrams,’ born out of a request from a colleague to draw a diagram to represent my (somewhat complicated) network of family and friends. Transworld quite rightly pointed out that the phrase was coined in the 50’s and might not mean anything readers of a certain age, and that others might confuse the book with a mathematical textbook. But for me, overlapping circles remains a far better way of illustrating modern families than the traditional tree.

Half-truths and White Lies was my second attempt at writing a novel. My first, having drawn on my own life a little too often, remains buried in that special bottom drawer reserved for dusty manuscripts. The only decision I made was to write about a family as far removed from my own as possible: a father, a mother and one daughter – so I didn’t have too many characters to play around with. And then by the end of chapter three, I had managed to kill two of them off.

From this you can probably gather that I am not a great plotter. I get to know my characters and then I rely on them taking me along for the ride. This approach does tend to result in a crisis three quarters of the way through when I have to work out how to get from C to D.

There is a school of thought that tells you that must have a detailed plot before you start writing. If that was the case, I would never have put pen to paper. I choose to take the advice of authors who say exactly the opposite:

Debby Holt claims that there are plot-driven novels and character-driven novels. Hers fall into the latter category and I’m with her.

Stephen King’s advice from his book On Writing: is to start with a single question and see how that idea develops. The question always begins ‘what if?’

Sir Terry Pratchett uses a method that he calls The valley of the Clouds. In the valley of the clouds there are mountains but you can only see the very tops of the peaks. It is your job as an author to work out how to get to the mountains.

As often happens when something I am working on is nearing completion, I found that someone else had got there first – except that this was not another author: it was a news report describing almost the exact same scenario.

To give you a taste of what Half-truths is about, firstly, it’s the struggle of a young woman to find her own identity after she loses her parents in a horrific motor accident. It’s also a story of two sisters who were treated very differently by their parents, one labelled as beautiful and one labelled as clever, and the impact that those labels had on them. It’s a story about that very confusing word called love, and that particular situation when we cross the line between friendship and something more, and all of the messy repercussions that follow. It’s about the choices and decisions we make and how the impact of those decisions resonate through time. It’s about the secrets between a group of family and friends, and the lengths that they will go to to keep them hidden. It’s the story of what one man will go to undo the damage he’s done. And it’s about forgiveness, because it’s amazing what friendship is capable to surviving. But, of course, there’s no one character who knows the whole truth at the beginning. And our starting point is this very volatile situation in the aftermath of the accident when the characters are at their most vulnerable and anything could give. It’s a bit like my house which is very old and decrepit: my partner Matt will start tapping a patch of loose plaster and suddenly he finds himself with a pile of rubble where the wall should be.

Chance played a great role in my route to publication. It was by chance that I heard about the Winchester Writer’s conference a week before it was held in 2008. And it was by chance that I chose to attend a lecture held by Jack Sheffield of Teacher Teacher fame. Because if those two things hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have learned about the Daily Mail first novel award – two days before the deadline for entries.

How long did it take you to write?

Considering that I was working full-time, not very long at all! My first attempt at a novel took four and a half years with a very stop-start approach. Working two evenings and week and the mornings of my weekends (with occasional time off for good behavior) the first draft took me a year.

Giving up your job in insurance to pursue your writing career must have been an exhilarating and terrifying thing to do. Talk us through that.

Yes and no. It was a job I had been in for 23 years, having seen an embryonic team grow into a medium-sized business that still had a family feel, but then had to be sold to a large corporation in order to allow the Managing Director to retire. The last year had been hard – I have always accepted the need to fire people, but making a large portion of the staff, some of whom I had worked with for 20 years, redundant was soul destroying. Until I left, I didn’t realize how much the role of Deputy MD had hardened me and how much I had begun to dislike myself. So I’m a lot more comfortable with myself now and that’s a good thing.

The lack of money, the lack of a monthly pay packet was another thing. I am not one of life’s natural risk-takers. I like security and I have what I think of as a healthy fear of poverty. I had grown very fond of adventurous holidays and L K Bennett handbags. I have since found that neither of these things is essential.

My contract prevented me from working for the competition for two years, so I planned on giving myself a two-year sabbatical, with the challenge of trying to get my work published. With only vague memories of the word Recession, a few weeks in, with doom and gloom in every news report, the honeymoon period was well and truly over. I began to think that I had made a serious mistake. And then on 15^th October, two days before my birthday, I got the call that changed everything.

Where were you when you heard you’d won the Daily Mail First Novel Award? What went through your head? Who did you tell first? How did you celebrate?

I received the call from Transworld when I was at home on my own and, because I was alone, I wasn’t quite sure how to react. There was no one to ask, ‘Did that just happen?’ I can completely understand the sentiments of Myrrah Stanford Smith who, at the age of 82, signed a three book deal with Honna. Receiving the news by telephone (as I did), she says that she was 'Gob-smacked. She insisted on putting down the phone, pulling herself together and ringing them back to make sure it was true. She had expected the manuscript to be returned with a rejection letter. Myrrah also summed up what it means to see your work in print beautifully. She said "To have my book, my words, in my hands as my very own book - it was wonderful."

I tried to phone my partner who was in a meeting. I phoned a friend who I thought would be at home, but wasn’t, so I left a message. Even my mother was out. But word soon spread through the wonders of modern technology and the phone started ringing. And there was champagne. Quite a lot of champagne.

Which bookshop did you first spy your book in?

I wasn’t the first. Even before the book signings on the first day of release, my sister Anne was visiting our nieces in Brighton and spied it in Waterstones. She texted me a photograph to prove it.

What’s your ‘writing routine’ – if such a thing does exist.

I am used to long days at work so I try to treat writing as if it is a job. A typical day will be half an hour’s reading over the breakfast table – at the moment Karoo Plainsong by Barbara Mutch - on goes the coffee pot and then a good four hours work, a five-mile walk to get more oxygen to the brain and another four hour session. At the moment I am editing rather than writing, which is perhaps not so enjoyable, so this is where the discipline acquired through my working life comes to the fore.

I notice that you say your music collection is threatening to take over your house. Do you find music influences your work? Who are your favourite artists?

Music if one of those things that instantly transports you to a time and place in your life so, although I find I difficult to work with any background noise, it is a source of inspiration. At the moment I’m working on a piece based in the 80’s so my playlist has consisted of The Cure’s Just One Kiss, Japan’s Nightporter, Eurhythmic’s Here Comes the Rain Again and INXS’s Need You Tonight.

In terms of favourites, so many to choose from but David Sylvian and Peter Gabriel (my favourite male vocalists), The Sundays, Kate Bush, The Cure, Dr John…currently Elbow (God bless you, Guy Garvey: you are a poet), Radiohead, Goldfrapp, Florence and the Machine, Two Door Cinema Club (makes me feel 14 again), XX. I’m off to see The Specials at Brixton the end of the month which I’m very excited about. For once, I may not be the oldest person at a gig.

You put a lot of quotes about reading/bookselling up on your blog. Give us some of your favourite ones.

I think the one from Churchill (apologies, Sir, if I misquote you) – Give me four hours and a blank sheet of paper.

On my Book Forum, we have The Book Tree, where members choose their favourite book, and post it round to other members. Everyone writes comments in the books as they read. If you were to pick a book for The Book Tree…

Just one book? Surely that’s torture? The book that I have returned to most often is The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. If you have seen the film, forget it – there is no way that this epic story could have been successfully condensed into 2 hours of screen time. This is beautiful writing, rich and soulful and heartbreaking. It transports you instantly into the mind of its narrator and the deep south.

What are your plans for the future?

The fact that the publishing world is in turmoil is beyond my control, but these things are cyclical, so I will simply keep writing and build up a body of work that I feel proud of in the hope that I will be well-placed when the planets come into alignment.

--------

You can find 'Half-Truths and White Lies at your local bookshop, and also on Amazon.

Jane's website.

the aeroplane girl

2011-10-19T03:04:00.000-07:00

Last week I finally finished [or at least stopped myself editing] my short story collection. It's called The Aeroplane Girl [hence the Twitter name], but actually doesn't really have anything to do with aeroplanes at all. More to do with The Angel of The North. But not really about that either. Man, I am selling this well. Anyway. I've been working on this beast for a while [a couple of years]. Some of you might have heard me wittering on about it on the BBC Book Cafe during that time [my apologies]. Anyway, I was in ever increasing agreement with the quote 'You never finish a book, it just gets taken away from you.' So, after one final day of staring at it, I emailed it off to my agent with possibly the best pitch ever: 'Thank fuck. Please take this book off me before it kills me dead.' You know, all the eloquent stuff your literary agent wants to hear. [Sorry, Charlie.]

Recently, I've had several tweets/emails from people asking where they can read some of my short stories. So, to make it easy for y'all:

Longer stories:

Second Skin - in issue five of Inkspill.
In the Beginning - in issue three of Gutter.
Pebbles - is to be published in the New Welsh Review next year.
Fringe - in the brand new issue [5] of the glorious Short FICTION.

and some flash pieces:

The Appian Way - [which was reviewed the other day by the lovely Scott] over at The Cadaverine.
Catwoman - commended in The Binnacle's international short story competition. To be published in their next issue.
Grandma's House - to be published in the 'Amazon' issue of Fuselit next year.
Origami - to be published in 'New Sun Rising' charity book for Japan.
Pisces - published at issue two over on Spilt Milk.
Table Manners - over here at The Pygmy Giant
In the Tree - April 2010's issue of Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine.
Postbox - a tiny little one, joint second in miniWORDS competition 2009, over here.

This week has been a very good writing week, with a short story acceptance from the New Welsh Review, and a poetry acceptance from The Rialto, which made my heart happy. I love their poetry journal, and was lucky enough to have two of my poems in an issue of theirs earlier this year. Bar working at the bookshop, I've been finishing a poetry pamphlet collection I've been working on called 'The Hungry Ghost Festival,' and sorting out some things for 'Weird Things....'

A big thank you to everyone who submitted entries from other bookshops for the back of the 'Weird Things' book. It was very heartening to see that the madness stretches worldwide. All successful entries were contacted two weeks ago. I'm waiting on a couple of release forms for these so, if you're reading this and you haven't sent your release form back [tut tut], please do so asap so my lovely editor can start typesetting the book. Hurray for typesetting!

Finally: a massive thank you to everyone who has donated to EEC International via my 100 Poem Challenge, so far. In the first week of the campaign you've helped raise £1135 [$1793] and, quite frankly, got me all emotional. Thank you thank you thank you. There are still 44 days left of the campaign, so please do continue to spread the word. Any donation gratefully received [£1, £2.. whatever]. If you could pop a link [http://www.indiegogo.com/100-Poem-Challenge] to it on your facebook page, blog, or Tweet it that would be amazing. This charity really do deserve all the help they can get; they do wonderful work. And hey, you're helping out freaks like me ;)

Lots of love xxxx

PS. I'm doing 'All Hallow's Read.' You should too.

Author Visit: Steve Stack

2011-10-15T02:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone who replies to this topic before October 31st will have their name put into a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of 21st Century Dodos.

--

Happy Saturday morning, folks! A while ago I thought it would be a good idea to let this man loose on my blog [I was no doubt drunk at the time. In fact, he probably spiked my drink]. I should have known he wouldn't behave. This is man is in charge of the excellent blog meandmybigmouth. You should definitely check that out.

He has written a book called 21st Century Dodos - a very funny collection of things that have gone out of fashion/no longer exist. The book is a fond farewell to the many inanimate objects, cultural icons and general stuff around us that find themselves on the verge of extinction.

Yes. And now he's here to talk to you all about it. HOWEVER, instead of a Q&A session I asked Scott -I mean, Steve [blimey it's confusing, but I'm fairly sure he answers to most things]. Anyway, yes, I asked him to imagine that the year is 2100, and to write about five cultural things in the past 100 years that have now become extinct. And this is what he said.

--

Hello.

Jen has let me loose on her blog. The fool.

I am here to promote my book, 21^st Century Dodos. It is one of those mildly amusing toilet books. You know the sort of thing: you get given it for Christmas, stick it on top of the cistern to read when you are having a poo (ladies, don’t pretend it is just us men who do that) only for it to remain half-read and amass a collection of colourful splashes and stains. [Jen: Nice...]

The handful of people who read it all the way through will discover over 130 articles on inanimate objects (and other stuff) that are on the verge of extinction. Things like audio cassettes, rotary dial telephones and white dog poo.

But enough about my actual book, Jen has asked me to write about an imaginary book. I am to pretend the year is 2100 and I have written a book called 22^nd Century Dodos (shit name, that). What five things do I think will be extinct by then?

Here goes.

Bookshops. [Jen: SEE, I KNEW THIS WASN'T A GOOD IDEA.] It doesn’t make me happy to suggest this but will they still be around in the next century? [Jen: *sob*] We are already reading about the death of the independent bookshop with seemingly dozens closing every month, Waterstone’s have decided to end the 3 for 2 and start putting their promotional stickers on the back of books (does that strike anybody else as a bit odd?) and Amazon command over 50% of the UK market. Surely at some point in the distant future bookshops will be a rare sighting on the high street? [Jen: *sniff*]

Except for secondhand bookshops, I reckon they’ll still be around (we need somewhere to get rid of the contents of our toilet library.) As will Jen, standing behind the counter, 124 years old [Jen: Ahem, 113], listening out for weird things customers say. But they'll have to speak up a bit.

3D Movies. Sitting in a darkened room wearing sunglasses is just fucking stupid. At some point other people will realise this.

Marmite. Those plucky Danes have led the way by ‘banning’ the Devil’s sputum. In the coming century the rest of the world will follow suit. I mean, whose idea was it to extract anything from yeast? And what idiot then decided to eat it?

Then we can start on peanut butter. And Ribena. [Jen: But but but I love marmite and peanut butter! I will keep a secret stash in my cellar.]

Alphabetical Order by Surname. Apple’s insistence on listing music on our iPods in alphabetical order by first name will slowly take over all filing systems. By 2100 William Shakespeare will be alongside Will Self, Martin Amis will nestle snugly next to Martina Cole and Kate Atkinson will be sharing a shelf with Katie Price.

Knives, Forks and Spoons. The spork will rule the world!

There you go people, some ideas for a sequel to my attractive and reasonably priced volume of nostalgia. To be written by someone in 89 years time. Please alert your grandchildren in your wills.

You can find 21st Century Dodos at your local bookshop. You can also find it over on Amazon.

a little video of me talking about things.

2011-10-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hello! If you've reached this post and don't know who I am: my name's Jen [hi!] and I'm a writer and bookseller living in London. I've had my poems and short stories published in various places, and I'm also the author of 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops.' I also have EEC Syndrome, which is a rare form of Ectodermal Dysplasia. A couple of months ago I was told that, because of this condition, I might lose my sight in the next fifteen years [how careless of me]. So, I'm doing a fundraising event to raise money for research centres who are looking for a cure for this, and who are also doing research into better understanding and helping out in other areas affected by EEC. My fundraising challenge: writing 100 Poems in just one weekend. [5th and 6th of November]. When I write the poems, they will be posted online over on this website.

Here's a little video where I explain everything about it.

CLICK TO DONATE [and to read a bit more about it] ETA: The donation page has now expired, but you can buy a copy of the poetry collection over here. Over £4000 has been raised so far, thank you to everyone who has donated and spread the word. xx

Thank you. Lots of love xxxxxxxxx

weird things customers say in bookshops team

2011-10-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

[The 100PoemChallenge: Happy weekend. Just a little post to say that I've set up a separate blog for my 100 poem weekend challenge. All the details are over there. I'll set up links for donations when I've set the dates, but for now you can subscribe to the blog if you want to [I'd love you long time], so you get notified when I have more to say about the project. At the moment Cristina [who runs EEC International] is trying to get the charity up on JustGiving, as that would make everything very easy. If not, then it'll have to be donations through paypal. I'm very excited about the challenge. No doubt I'll never want to see another poem as long as I live afterwards [no, that could never be true], but yes, I'm excited. I also received an email from the RNIB yesterday asking if I'd help out with some poetry workshops because of it, so hurray for poetry and charity.]

--

Now: back to 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops'. Greg is working away on the black and white illustrations for the inside of the book and they're looking marvellous. The manuscript for the book is being sent out to other countries now, which is very exciting, too. I'll keep you all posted on any developments.

This week has been a bit of a 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' team meet up in the bookshop, what with Greg visiting on Monday, and today Charlie [my agent] stopped by, followed by an unexpected visit from Hugh [my editor] this afternoon. Charlie discovered that our local deli has a croissant happy hour [always good to know], and he also signed some books [<--here's a photo to illustrate that fact] - you've still got two days left for the chance to win one of those. If you bought one from the shop and wanted it shipped, your book will go in the post on Monday.

Awesome.

Also, also, last night I contacted successful contributors to the back of the book, for the 'Weird Things Customers Say in Other Bookshops' section. There were some really really wonderful entries, thanks so much, guys. S'all coming together very nicely. xx

national poetry day - and a poetry-writing-fundraising challenge

2011-10-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

Happy National Poetry Day, folks! In fact, John Hegley stopped by the shop this morning to have a rummage through our poetry shelves in celebration. He'll be performing tonight at The Bloomsbury, if that tickles your fancy. Also, to celebrate the day, Templar are very generously giving away 250 poetry pamphlets. You can choose from their short collections [at the bottom of this page here], and simply email info@templarpoetry.co.uk with your choice and your address so they can post it out to you. Hurry, quick, before they all go!

You can check out some of my poetry, if you like, over at Agenda. The rest are in print publications, and there's a list of those over to the left *points* You could even write a Poem in a Pile if you like.

At the moment I'm reading Salt's 'Best British Poetry 2011' and can't recommend it highly enough. It's edited by Roddy Lumsden, and has an amazing selection of poetry which he chose as the best published in literary journals over the year. I'm falling in love all over again with poets I already adore: Liz Berry, Sophie Mayer, Emily Berry, Andrew Philip... and discovering poets I'd never stumbled across before. Do it. Buy it. IT'S NATIONAL POETRY DAY, FOR GOODNESS SAKE. Ahem.

-

NOW. THE CHALLENGE

Thank you for your replies and tweets about my blog post here: re. doing a fund-raising event for EEC International research centres, who are doing all kinds of wonderful things to try and find a cure for degenerative eye conditions [which, if found, would not only benefit people with EEC but a whole range of eye diseases]. EEC International also do work on lots of other things to do with clefting, cell mutation, p63, plastics, dermatology, hearing problems, all kinds of stuff. Only last week Moorfields eye hospital in London [which is where I go], were given the go ahead to start trials on stem cell treatment for people with Stargardt's macular dystrophy, which causes progressive sight loss. This is all to do with retinas, a different ball game to corneas [EEC], and it shows what money and research and science can do.

SO, to get to the nub and the gist of what I'm trying to say: I have decided that for a fundraiser, in the spirit of National Poetry Day [though I'm aware I won't actually be doing it ON National Poetry Day because, er, that's now], I am going to write 100 poems in one weekend. Yes. Soon I'll be asking you here and people on Twitter to give me buzz words. Once I have a list of 100 buzz words, I'll set up a separate blog where, when the weekend of the challenge comes, I'll post the poems as I write them, using one buzz word for each poem. I'll also do youtube videos throughout the weekend documenting it. I may well take some of the poems from this, edit them, and try and make a physical thing for people to buy to raise more money, but that's a whole new thing to think about and that's all for later. SO, yes. 100 poems in a weekend, with buzz words from your lovely selves. Me chained at my desk for two days to bring you all [hopefully] pretty things to raise money for EEC International, to help research into EEC Syndrome. More on this when I know dates of when I can do it and all that jazz.

Phewf!

Final note: last night I went to Paper Aeroplanes's gig: Songs in the Cinema. In May I wrote a short story which was released as a limited edition story/CD package with their single 'My First Love.' That sold out in the first day, but you should definitely check out their other CDs. Their music is all kinds of beautiful.

Bookshop Visit - Greg McLeod

2011-10-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

Look who came to the bookshop! Bloggers meet Greg McLeod [illustrator of 'Weird Things']. Greg, meet bloggers.

Greg is lovely, and you can spy a rough black and white sketch there, which will be one of the illustrations for the inside of the book. That sketchbook is where it all happens. Yes.

The two of us are plotting and planning to bring you all some very nice things. Watch this space. x

thinking caps

2011-10-04T03:31:00.000-07:00

Right, everyone, pay attention. Last month I wrote a not so happy blog post about the likelihood of me going blind. So, I'm going to do some kind of fund-raiser to raise money for EEC International, who fund the research centres, which are looking for a cure for this blindness problem using stem cell research and all that science-y jazz. They do a lot of work for the rare freaks, like me.

I want you to get your thinking caps on. What should I do? Should I bake a bazillion cakes? Should I swim to the moon? You can suggest I be creative for charity, you can suggest that I be absolutely outrageous [no jumping out of planes etc, though, please, thank you!]. I am contemplating running the marathon wearing nothing but sellotape, but not sure how practical that is... hmmm.

Answers on a postcard [or in the comments section below], please! Thanks xx

Author Visit: Andy Briggs

2011-10-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

All who reply to this topic by the 20th October will have their name put into a hat: the name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Andy's book.

Andy Briggs is officially rebooting Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy in time for the icon’s 100th birthday next year. The world’s first eco-warrior now returns as a 21st century legend for a new audience.

--

Andy started writing on movie projects such as “JUDGE DREDD” and “FREDDY VS JASON” and “FOREVERMAN” for Spiderman creator Stan Lee and legendary producer Robert Evans.

Andy went on to work with Gregory Novac and Bruce Timm on Warner Bros. “AQUAMAN” - while at the same time landing an eight-book deal with Oxford university Press for “HERO.COM” and “VILLAIN.NET”.

Hi Andy. Welcome to my blog, make yourself at home. Grab a cup of tea and a biscuit.

As long as there is some shortbread in there. I may make lots of crumbs...

So, how did you set about creating a new Tarzan adventure? What inspired you to do that?

For me, Tarzan invokes my childhood summers, bank holidays - and every other day I was off school. It was a chance to escape from Liverpool and journey into darkest Africa. Now, as an alleged adult, I was shocked to discover very little in the way of new Tarzan stories around. From my time doing school events I realized that children across the country are very aware of Tarzan - even if they have never seen a film or read a book - he is an iconic character. Sadly, the books and films are so old that the new generation tend to shy away from them so Tarzan was facing extinction. I saw an ideal opportunity to reinvent (or reboot, to use Hollywood parlance) the character.

Tell us a little about the books themselves.

I feel that Tarzan is more relevant now than he ever has been. He was the first eco-warrior in a time when nobody cared about the environment, and he does it in such a way that it doesn’t feel preachy.

My take on Tarzan was to modernize the story, set it now in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo - which is an ideal wild setting for the character, and allows an exciting canvas for modern jungle stories. Updating the characters was important - making Tarzan a darker more feral, unpredictable character and turning Jane into a modern tough girl who is a mental match for Tarzan’s untamed brawn.

Then is was a case of spinning a new exciting tale that felt like classic Tarzan, with plenty of links to the traditional story... while making it completely new and fresh...

You started off in film, I believe. How did you make the transition between that and novel writing?

I find it a great pleasure to swap between writing platforms. Writing movie scripts requires great discipline - you have to streamline characters, you can’t investigate internal conflicts, you have a limited page count (90-120 pages on average) to tell the entire story, whereas books allow you an almost endless canvas to tell the story and it’s extremely liberating to enter the heads of your characters and explore their inner most thoughts...

Which bookshop did you first spy your book in?

It’s always a huge thrill seeing your book on a shelf - and I think I saw it in WHSmiths... I was too excited to really note where I was!

You’re touring at the moment; how’s that going?

It’s exhausting! I perform an hour-long interactive presentation that ends in a very loud Tarzan survival quiz in which I get the group (usually whole year groups) to scream and shout. Usually my voice gives up during the book signings at the end.

I love touring, it’s the only chance writers really have to talk to their readers - find out what they like, what they are expecting, and equally important, what they don’t like. It’s all good research to improve the next book.

Which were your favourite childhood books?

I was a comic lover, so enjoyed Spiderman, X-Men and almost every other Marvel titles I could lay my hands on! I was also a role-playing geek (can you believe that?) and loved the Fighting Fantasy books! I read The Hobbit multiple times... and of course, Tarzan of the Apes!

Tell us about ‘Trapped by Monsters.’ Who are some of your favourite monsters in fiction/children’s books?

I blame Tommy Donbavand! It was his great idea to bring together a group of children’s authors to blog about anything we wanted. Not just each other’s books, that would be dull, but any other books, films - anything - that we were interested in. It now serves as a wonderful place were we can fire off our collective thoughts, meet new author friends and chat amongst ourselves as an authorly self-help group!

On my book forum we have a Book Tree, where members choose their favourite book and post it round to the other members. Whilst reading the books, everyone writes comments in them as they go. If you were to choose a book for the book tree, which would you pick and why?

Easy - Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. It’s a wildly imaginative and totally original story that is endless fun no matter how many times you read it!

What are you working on at the moment?

If my editor is reading... the edits of TARZAN 2: THE JUNGLE WARRIOR, out next summer. I have also finished a new spec script that will go out to Hollywood studios later this year (it’s a family Christmas film!) and am working on... a secret project!

Now I’m heading off to finish your biscuits...

Exciting stuff! [the film etc, not the biscuits....]

You can buy Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy over on Amazon.

You can find Andy: at his website / on Facebook / on Twitter

His other series of books - Hero.com andVillain.net. Trapped by Monsters is over here.

Last Call for 'Weird Things'

2011-09-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day for 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' submissions from other bookshops. So, if you haven't sent your submissions in already then you should probably get on that. The ones chosen will have their quote and their name, plus address of their bookshop put in the back of my 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' book. We're looking for entries from all over the world!

I particularly liked this one from Maera in Ireland, which was sent in this morning:

Customer: If I were, to say, meet the love of my life in your bookshop, which section do you think they would be in?

Splendid!

----

Right. Other things.

Today is the publication day of Scott's '21st Century Dodos', so you might want to check that out. Scott will be popping by here on the 15th October to chat about it, too. I can't promise he'll behave.

Today is also the last day for your chance to win a copy of Andrew Kaufman's new book.

Also, this here = wise words.

Last night was my lovely agent [Charlie]'s book launch, and I'm very happy to now have a physical copy of this admirably slim, delicious little book.

[*Charlie's book has nothing to do with tortoises... giant lizards, yes, but not tortoises.] You can still win a copy of Charlie's book, and I'll be selling signed copies at the bookshop - I have three left, because I sold the others, so if you want a copy do drop by, or send me an email, and I'll post a copy out to you, wherever you are.

But but but, do not drop by this weekend because I won't be there [well, the bookshop will, obviously, and the lovely Marie will be there], but I will be in the New Forest. Miles and I are driving down tonight for three days, and I plan to read, and eat, and go for walks in wellington boots, and actually finish editing my short story collection because I have been naughty and not had the time to do it recently, what with bookselling and 'Weird Things' and all that jazz.

So, yes. Happy renewed summer to you all [I'm slightly narked about that, really; I'm a big fan of oversize woolly jumpers], and I'll see you all on Monday. I will be tweeting intermittently over the weekend whilst I eat my own body weight in cheese. Excellent plan. x

Second Skin published in Inkspill

2011-09-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

The first story from my short story collection 'The Aeroplane Girl' has been published in Inkspill issue 5. So it's kinda like you get to read the beginning of my book.

You can download a free copy of the magazine, and find my story on pages 30-34. A taste of my 'proper' writing, innit. I hope you guys enjoy it.

"There was a girl who ran marathons wearing nothing but sellotape..."[<--click]

illustration by Richard Sampson

tea and love and fingerless gloves

2011-09-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday, folks. The Kent and Sussex Poetry Society Folio has now been published, including the winning poems from this year's competition, of which mine was one. My poem was appraised by Jo Shapcott which got me all in a bit of a tizz. It was a very lovely review:

"Jen Campbell's 'Kitchen': an imagined dialogue running so close to the edge that speakers and reads are transformed alike."

If the mood takes you, you can order a copy of the society's folio by dropping them an email.

--

A very lovely thing happened yesterday. The very lovely Jane came by the bookshop and brought me this box:

and inside the box was this:

How awesome is that? She thought it was suitably outrageous and would feed my tea habit. And so it shall. So, with Cat knitting me some bespoke fingerless gloves [because I have ridiculous hands] and sending them all the way from Australia, and with this fabulous tea pot and cup, and all your lovely replies on here, I'm feeling the bloggerly love, yo. Thanks guys xx

PS. In the next week or so I'm going to make y'all a video tour of Ripping Yarns, for those who are far away and can't visit. *nods*

Author Visit: Charlie Campbell

2011-09-22T03:40:00.000-07:00

Everyone who replies to this topic by 10th October will have their name put into a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a signed copy of Charlie's book: 'Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People.'

--

No, we're not related [I thought I'd start with that as I've been asked it a fair few times now]. Now, today is the publication day of Charlie's fabulous book 'Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People.' It's very very good. I loved it. Miles stole it off me and read it too and is totally a fanboy [slightly embarrassing]; whilst reading it he kept on stopping to read parts aloud to me across the table, even though, y'know, I'd already read it. Anyway, it's a rather good book like that.

Now, I did tell Charlie that if he didn't give me a biography I would put it as:

Charlie Campbell is a graduate of the University of Awesome. He has a black belt in karate, twelve illegitimate children and lives in a cupboard in Camden. On Sundays he plays in a rock bank called The Fashion Goats.

and guess what? He forgot to send me a biography. So perhaps he really does do/have all of these things... I have to admit I've never been to his house, so you never know...

Anyway- on with the interview!

Charlie Campbell is a graduate of King's College London and was previously Deputy Editor of the Literary Review where he ran the Bad Sex in Fiction Prize among other things. He lives in London, grew up in Paris, and is a literary agent at Ed Victor Ltd.

--

Charlie! Take a seat. Make yourself at home, etc etc. Pitch your book to the masses.

Well, it’s a history of scapegoats, of people who have been blamed over the years for things they didn’t do. It takes in whipping boys, sin-eaters, medieval animal trials, and quite a lot more.

Give us a quote from the book.

The one I like the most is the one used on the jacket – ‘In the beginning there was blame. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent and we’ve been hard at it ever since.’ It was pretty much the first sentence of the book that I wrote.

You said on The Monocle podcast [here [24 minutes in]] that you couldn't remember what sparked the idea for Scapegoat, but I'm afraid that's just not good enough. Make up a story for us. If it's helpful, you can include the following: Simon Cowell, a chihuahua, an electric violin, the Yorkshire dales, the Weapons of Mass Destruction, and The Queen Mother.

I’d been thinking about conspiracy theories (which fascinate me – though I am pretty sceptical about them) and I started wondering about whose fault everything actually was. And that got me onto scapegoats.

I love short general histories – Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress is one of my favourites; and Theodore Zeldin’s An Intimate History of Humanity is an extraordinary book. But I never thought I’d write one myself, until the idea of Scapegoat came to me. [Jen: I'm distinctly unimpressed with the lack of chihuahuas in that answer, but I'll accept it.]

The amount of research you had to do for this book is phenomenal. How did you go about it?

In a completely unsystematic way. I’d be reading one book, it would mention others, and my pile of reading just grew and grew. And the internet is an astonishing resource for writers – then it would be off to the British Library for the heavy lifting. I’m still thinking of things that I should put in the book and it’s 6am on publication day. There’s a lovely quote of Hilary Mantel’s, along the lines of ‘I never finish a book, it just gets taken away from me.’ I would agree.

There were also a few people who were extremely helpful with their ideas, for which I’m very grateful. And sometimes ideas would come from the most unexpected place. I remember reading a thriller which mentioned how many special forces missions failed because the soldiers were discovered by a small boy and his herd of goats. He kept cropping up again and again.

Which part of the book was the most enjoyable to study/write?

The chapter about the animal trials probably. E.P. Evans’s book The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (which was the main source for this section) never ceases to amaze me.

What's the funniest/most ridiculous 'blame story' you've heard in real life [not in your book]?

We all come up with them. And there are endless examples. Off the top of my head, I remember playing table football with someone at university. After he lost, he apologised, telling me that he’d just split up with his girlfriend. I did wonder what explanation he would make to himself when things really went wrong. Anyway, hopefully he’s found someone nice now, and wins constantly at table football.

How has being a literary agent helped you understand the writing process? Is it weird to have your own agent when you're used to being on their side of the desk?

Well it hopefully makes me a little more sympathetic to the writer, knowing what it’s like to invest so much into a book. When you’re involved in the publishing or bookselling industry, you see just how many other books are out there, and you revise your ambitions accordingly. Hopefully. And I don’t find it odd having an agent. I would say this, but they do a lot of unseen work.

What has been the most exciting part of the publishing process for you?

The first review was by Francis Wheen, and it was just lovely. I don’t know him, but have read (and loved) his books over the years. So it was very pleasing to find that he liked what I’d done. And my publishers, Duckworth, produced a really beautiful book. Getting the first copy was very exciting.

You used to be a fellow bookseller, in Paris no less [I'm not jealous, not jealous at all]. Tell us about your bookselling days.

I ran into someone last night who used to work at Shakespeare & Co. There are a lot of us clearly. It’s an extraordinary place – charming, romantic and chaotic. You would open a drawer and could find anything from the owner George Whitman’s half-eaten lunch to yesterday’s takings that he had mislaid, or a first edition of Ulysses (ok, there was only one, but I don’t think anyone ever quite knew where it was). The daily challenges involved people lighting fires at the back of the shop and then trying to steal the till; dealing with endless American tourists looking for a copy of A Moveable Feast (perversely, George didn’t tend to stock it), which they wanted with the shop stamp; and I once had cheese soufflé spat all over me in the course of my duties. I’m still not sure why.

On the subject of blame: out of interest, who/what do you blame for the number of bookshops declining? And, from your experience as a bookseller, agent and writer, where do you think the book/publishing industry is headed?

The demise of the Net Book Agreement was the real killer. But our government and legislators are to blame too. Unlike in many other countries, we have no protection for the independent bookseller. Supermarkets, chains and online retailers are able to secure much better terms from publishers, and that is entirely wrong in my view. The market isn’t always right, as the financial crisis has shown us.

But I’m actually pretty optimistic. I think electronic publishing is, on the whole, a wonderful development. There have been so many times when I have finished a book with a pang that it’s over. The idea of being able to buy another book by that author and have it right away… We’re quite a gloomy industry by nature, and this isn’t the first time the death of the book has been announced.

What are you up to when you're not agenting/writing?

What most people do, and playing cricket badly. A friend and I are starting a team of writers and I would love to get a book out of it – each player contributing a chapter. What it will be about beyond that, I don’t know. But cricketing writers, get in touch!

On my Book Forum we have The Book Tree, where members choose their favourite book and post it round to the other members. Everyone writes comments in the books as they read them. What book would you choose to send round the Book Tree, and why?

Catch-22. It’s the best argument that a book can be both serious and amusing.

Finally, what projects are you working on at the moment?

I am planning to write a short history of nepotism

In the beginning there was blame. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and we've been hard at it ever since. We may have come a long way from the days when a goat was saddled with all the iniquities of the children of Israel and driven into the wilderness, but is our desperate need to find some organisation, person or other to pin the blame on and absolve ourselves of responsibility really any more advanced? Charlie Campbell's book highlights the plight of all those others who have found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, illustrating how God needs the Devil, as surely as Sherlock Holmes needs Professor Moriarty, or James Bond needs Blofeld. Every person and society needs someone to oppose. Scapegoat ranges from serious contemplation of Jesus and contemporary issues of Government blame-shifting to conspiracy theories like David Icke's that the Duke of Edinburgh is one of many giant shape-shifting extraterrestrial lizards who secretly run the world. Scapegoat is a tale of human foolishness, that exposes the anger and irrationality of blame-mongering while reminding the reader of their own capacity for it. Moving from the Bible to the modern Royal Family, from medieval Witch burning to reality TV, from the whipping boys of the Renaissance court to Blairite politics, this is a brilliantly relevant and timely look at social history that uncovers, in an accessible and entertaining way, countless stories of obsession, mania, persecution and injustice from the highest echelons of society to the lowliest outcast.

You can buy Scapegoat over on Amazon

Also, I'll be selling signed copies at Ripping Yarns. They'll be here soon; they are winging their way across London as I type. So, if you'd like to buy a copy then do drop by. Or, if you're further afield [wherever in the world], drop me an email and you can pay the shop through paypal, and I'll post a copy out to you. [£12.99 plus shipping]

You can also follow Charlie on Twitter.

a poem in a pile

2011-09-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

I spied this over on Scott's blog which, in turn, was taken from Janet Reid's competition, in turn inspired by Tahereh Mafi. [Phewf!]

The idea: to write a poem using book titles. I've only just seen this, so missed the deadline, but I thought I'd have a go anyway. Here's mine.

GIRL, INTERRUPTED

WHAT I DID was teach
her HOW TO FALL.
LIKE topical
GETAWAY GIRL, stowed
on THE BOAT, north
to ANTARCTICA.

IN THE TENT there, the wind makes it
like THE WORLD AND OTHER PLACES:
a family of HOTEL WORLDS.

Some days she speaks out FOR THE MESSENGERS
for THE UNCONSOLED.

Here FOLKLORE is on her frozen tongue.

She has taught the snow to DANCE, DANCE, DANCE:
trains it to run and WALK THE BLUE FIELDS.

--
[If you have a go at this yourself, post them below, or post links to your own blog posts]

I give you: the front cover of 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops'

2011-09-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

All hail the lovely Greg of The Brothers McLeod.

I love it very very much!

[ETA: it will be available March next year, in hardback. It is available to pre-order on Amazon [don't worry, ignore what it says on there, it will be hardback]. ALSO ALSO ALSO very soon you'll be able to go into your local bookshop and request they keep a copy for you when it's released. More on that later. x]

gifts in support of libraries, books, words, ideas.....

2011-09-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

I was tweeting about these as they were being discovered, but you might have missed it, or you might not be on Twitter. Beautiful book sculptures made by an anonymous artist in Edinburgh have been found at literary organisations as 'Gifts in support of libraries, books, words, ideas.....'

The first one was the 'poetree' discovered at The Scottish Poetry Library [@byleaveswelive]

Next to the 'poetree' is a paper egg filled with words which, when put together, make out "A Trace of Wings" by Edwin Morgan.

After the first one was discovered, seven different sculptures have since been 'gifted.' They are all so beautiful and intricate. My favourite is probably the one given to the Edinburgh Book Festival. There's something so 'Alice'-like about it.

Over here you can see the lovely Anna of @EdinCityofLit talking about the discovery of the book sculpture given to Edinburgh City of Literature, discovered at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Whoever made these: I think I love you.

You can see all of the book sculptures in their glory over here.

"Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!"

2011-09-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

Today it's National Roald Dahl day [hurrah!], so I spent a happy half hour this morning arranging all of our Roald Dahl books in the window, including a first edition of 'The Magic Finger.'

I adored Roald Dahl's books when I was younger. I also had most them on audio tape, too. I had to fastforward the musical introduction to 'The Witches' because it freaked me out too much; I used to wish I was called Matilda; I kept an eye out for friendly giants walking the streets at night; and I loved the version of Ian Holmes reading 'Boy.' Magical stuff. Happy birthday, Roald!

-------------------------------

In other news:

Yesterday my editor sent me a preliminary sketch for the front cover of 'Weird Things.' It's looking pretty damn good. Obviously, I can't show it to you yet, so you're going to have to take my word for it. ;) Booksellers, you still have until the 30th September to send in your very own 'Weird things customer say...' - info on that is over here.

I've had some very lovely bookshop visits from blog/twitter people over the past week - from not only the lovely people of London [including John, who was running away from his fiancee for entering them for 'Don't Tell The Bride,' and who bought a load of Biggles books, Dickon, who came for nostalgia in with the Puffins, and Catherine who brought cookies], but also from further afield: two lovely blog readers from Georgia, USA, Mindy's husband over from Australia, and Mavis_Cruel from Northern Ireland, who made me blush to the extreme by bringing me a bunch of flowers. Thanks,guys!

I'm also considering hiring Mark Billingham as my PR person: he appears to be acting out some of my 'Weird Things' on his current book tour.

Re. other writing: I'm editing the second half of my short story collection 'The Aeroplane Girl', which is most fun, and I got the proof through for 'Fringe', a short story of mine that has been illustrated and is to be published in this year's edition of Short FICTION, out in November.

So, for now, I will bid you all farewell. I'll be back soon with more illustration news etc, and some more author interviews, too [a list of the forthcoming ones are over on the left hand column. You've also still got time to win a copy of Andrew Kaufman's book, 'The Tiny Wife' by clicking here].

In the mean time, I leave you with this:

Author Visit: Andrew Kaufman

2011-09-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

Everyone [no matter where you are in the world] who replies to this topic by September 30th will have their name put into a hat. The name pulled out of that hat will win a copy of Andrew's fantastic book: 'The Tiny Wife.'

ANDREW KAUFMAN's critically acclaimed first book, All My Friends Are Superheroes, was a cult hit and has been translated into eight languages. Kaufman is also an accomplished screenwriter and has completed a Director's Residency at the Canadian Film Centre. He lives in Toronto with his wife and their two children.

---

Andrew! Howdy! Grab a seat. Get a drink. Eat some biscuits, but don't talk with your mouth full. Very important. So. How are you celebrating the release of The Tiny Wife?

I’m over here in Toronto, so the festivities involve mainly a lot of Googling, Twittering and some perhaps obsessive checking of my Amazon numbers. I asked Scott [The Friday Project] to sent me pictures of the book in stores, and he sent the word out and now I’ve got tonnes of pictures sent by bookstore staff. Which is pretty awesome. I love people who work in bookstores [Jen: Shucks, thanks!]. They’ve basically made it possible for me to keep publishing…

Tell us about the book [and also about how pretty it is, because it is very pretty]. I mean, I've read it, and I love it – but sell it to the people who have yet to discover how wonderful it is. [Also, I should tell you that I read this book on the train from London to Edinburgh, and I was wearing a dress that was the exact same shade of red. By accident. I'd colour-coded my outfit with a book BY ACCIDENT. Amazing. Anyway, yes. Sorry. Back to you]. Tell us about The Tiny Wife.

A thief robs a bank in the West end of Toronto, but instead of taking money he demands - and receives - the item of most emotional significance from everyone. Claiming he’s taking 51% of their souls with him, and it’s up to them to grow them back, the thief then exits. Everyone in the bank then begins to experience something unusual. One woman’s husband is a snowman when she wakes up. Another discovers that she’s made of candy. Our hero discovers that she has begun to shrink and she has to find out how to, and if, she can stop it before she shrinks away to nothing.

How long had you been working on it?

Well, some of the stories are really, really old. There’s one I remember writing shortly after Kurt Cobain died. But the manuscript came together in a little over a year. Which is very, very quick for me. (As a side-note, though, I wrote of big chunk, in fact most of the first chapter, i.e. the idea that really frames the whole work, on the train from London to Edinburgh. That was accidental too – just like your dress!) [Jen: Clearly we're both fantastic.]

What's your story of 'from writing your first manuscript to publication'?

Big picture? My first book was called ‘All My Friends Are Superheroes.’ When I started writing it I was struggling to be a film director, when I realised that I was never going to make any money making indie cinema. So, I said to myself, I might as well not make any money doing what I really want to do, which is writing.

I remember the exact moment when this happened. I was walking across the living room. It was snowing. I started AMFAS the next day. For this book, I met Scott Pack when I did the Book Swap a little over a year ago. We really got along, so he was the first person I thought of when I got the manuscript for the Tiny Wife done!

Did you buy anything exciting/poignant with your first writer's pay cheque?

I bought the suit I got married in. Not the shoes, or the shirt, or the tie or he belt. Just the jacket and the pants. It was not a very big cheque.

Which of your books did you find the most difficult to write?

The Waterproof Bible. It was not a pleasant experience. Lots of self-doubt. For the record, let me say that The Waterproof Bible is by far the best book I’ve ever written. Maybe ever will write. But man, was it a hard birth.

[Re: 'All my Friends Are Superheroes'] What would your super power be?

When I’m on – Inthemoment. When I’m not, Mr. Narrator.

If the thief from The Tiny Wife came up to you right now and said he wanted your most prized possession, so that he would end up owning 51% of your soul, what would you have to give to him?

When my son was born my wife gave me a Yard-o-led mechanical pencil, and when my daughter was born she gave me the matching pen. I carry both of them with me at all times in a green leather pouch. I would have had to have given that over. As for what that would have done to me – I don’t know. Without the love of my wife or the presence of my children I think I’d just start getting thinner and thinner until there was nothing left of me…

I met Neil Gaiman last week, and he was saying he's a massive fanboy of Ray Bradbury. I love how writers are still fanboys to those they consider 'higher' writers. Who do you fanboy over?

Richard Brautigan. I really love him. In Watermelon Sugar, The Abortion these are books that I know I shouldn’t love so much, that my tastes should be better and more sophisticated, but man, I really love them. For the record, and in a desperate attempt to make you think that I’m still cool, I’m also a bit of Salinger fanatic.

What are you up to when you're not writing?

You know, the usual. Bowling, driving around…

Talk to us about writing for film. What have you been working on with regard to that?

Right now it’s a TV show called ‘Curious and Unusual Deaths!” where, each week you get three of the most bizarre ways that someone has died and the science that explains it. It’s a pretty fun gig. For movies, I’m working with Topsail Productions on the script for the movie version of AMFAS [Jen: Eeek!]. I’m anxious to start working on a movie-script based on ‘The Tiny Wife.” I think it could be just beautiful.

On my book forum we have The Book Tree where members choose their favourite book and post it round to each other in a circle, writing comments in each others' books as they go. If you were to choose a book for the Book Tree, which one would you pick, and why?
Lightboxes by Shane Jones. It’s a beautiful story and one of those ‘those who like it like it a lot’ books. I’d be fun to read the comments of those who just don’t get it right beside the ones where readers are being blown away!

And, finally: what are you working on at the moment?

I’m surprisingly close to completing a ‘Three Generations of Family Saga’ story. In this one, a grandmother gave each of her grandchildren a special ability at the moment of their birth, which have had the unforeseen consequence of completely ruining their lives. Right now it’s called ‘The End of the World and Everything That Came Next.” It could also be called ‘Shark Bites’ or “The Waterfields” or ‘Your Impossible Standards.’ At this point, I’m open to suggestions…

[Jen: I love the first title very very much]

You can buy The Tiny Wife from your local bookshop, or from Amazon.

Andrew Kaufman's website / Follow Andrew on Twitter.

What I talk about when I talk about talking about things.

2011-08-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

Use your blog to connect. Use it as you. Don't 'network' or 'promote.' Just talk. - Neil Gaiman

This is me, talking. Hello.

Today I was given a strange thing to consider. Well, not really to consider, as much as to get my head round. What if you know that in a number of years you aren't going to be able to see anymore? How do you deal with that?

Firstly: I'd like to make a change to the law which means that all audio tapes are, in future, recorded by Alan Rickman. I think that's a given, really, and an entirely reasonable response. I shall be writing to David Cameron about it first thing in the morning. I fully expect him to make it his top priority.

Secondly: well. Blimey. I'm not sure there is a secondly that isn't extremely rude. In fact, I think it's 0:52 of this video here.

So yeah. Those who have been following this blog for a while might have read my post about 'Why I Write.' I have a genetic condition called EEC Syndrome, a syndrome caused by a defect in gene p63, a gene in charge of cell reproduction. It causes clefting [more or less of certain things], which means I have missing fingers, toes, teeth, a cleft kidney, and cleft tear ducts. I was born with syndactyly, ectrodactyly, and there are associated high cancer risks because the cells I reproduce do mutate. I've had dozens of operations [the most recent just three months ago].

Today I went to see my geneticist to discuss new research which has proved that people with EEC who have eye problems go blind in their late thirties. The p63 gene programs the cornea, which reproduces itself all the time. Eventually it mutates, reproducing differently, until it doesn't reproduce properly at all. Cornea transplants don't work because I'm programmed to destroy the new transplant with damaged cells. There is no treatment.

I've been referred to Moorfields [where I had eye operations as a baby], and a specialist eye geneticist in Northern Ireland. I'm on the waiting list should any trials come up. I'm putting my faith in stem cell research.

And I'm sitting there, and in my head I'm laughing - because it all sounds so ridiculous, doesn't it? I mean, you piece the science together and it makes sense, but, really - what?

I'm in a very surreal place right now.

And look at you guys. I mentioned I was going to an appointment, and I got tweets from people I don't even know wishing me all the best, and people I do know being so wonderful. You got me pretty emotional, actually.

I guess I wanted to say: this is what's happening with me right now. There aren't any 'weird things' or googles or poetry or whatever in this post. This is just what I did today. I've been told things before: I've been told 'you can't' and 'you won't'. I've heard the word 'disability'. And, fuck it, quite frankly. People get knocked down, and, after a think and a hug, they stand up, and they bloody well keep walking.

Even if I do end up walking into the nearest wall because I can't see it.

Shit happens, doesn't it?

Lots of love to you all x

--

ETA: 19th October: I am now doing a fundraising event to raise money for the research centres who are looking for a cure for this degenerative eye condition. You can find out more information about that over here.

an evening with Neil Gaiman

2011-08-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

If you were on Twitter last night, following the #NeilatEB tag, then you would have heard me tweeting at the event we were hosting with Neil Gaiman, organised by The Edinburgh Bookshop.

It was a fantastic evening held in 'The Crypt' below St. John's chapel at the far end of Princes Street. I got the train up to Edinburgh yesterday morning, waved to Arthur's Seat, had a mooch around the Book Festival [which had a man dressed as The Mad Hatter outside, hurrah], and had a lovely booky lunch with Becky and Anna. I do miss Edinburgh [I did my degree at Edinburgh Uni and so lived up there for four years].

In the evening, Vanessa and myself, and the Edinburgh Bookshop team, set up The Crypt, got Neil's books ready, and then at 7:30pm, Neil arrived, had a cup of English tea, and we had a lovely evening of informal questions; Neil read from 'Smoke and Mirrors', did a signing, and there was more tea [followed by wine]. I gave him a big thank you hug for tweeting and blogging about 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops.' [ETA: and now giving us a quote for the cover of the book!] Here are some snippets from the evening:

Q: What is your favourite genre to write in?
Neil: Anything can make my heart sing.

Q: When you get an idea for a story, what comes first: a person or a moment?
Neil: Sometimes you get the story by working backwards... not the way you'd expect.

Neil: I'm very lucky, because when I was younger I got to interview lots of interesting authors who were at the pinnacle of their careers by writing one genre only, when they wanted to write others. So [being able to write and publish many genres] - I'm lucky... Some authors are like dolphins; you can train them. You teach them a trick and they get a fish, so they do the same trick again to get another fish. You wouldn't go to an otter show. If you teach an otter a trick, and give it a fish, when you offer it another fish it will do something completely different. I think I'm an otter author.

Neil: One thing that does motivate my writing is guilt [laughs]. The next book I'll probably do will be an adult book, because I love the people at Headline publishing, and I think I owe them another one.

Neil: I quite like being edited, but with American Gods, the editing process was not about making it a better book; it was about making it a shorter book, because of the price of paper.

Neil: At the moment I'm writing a short story that's now out of control. It's driving me mad in a way that nothing has since Coraline. Coraline was only supposed to be 3000 words!
Vanessa: Coraline terrified me.
Neil: Well, then this one might terrify you, too. I'm writing a story... I think it's a kids' story. It's got a child as the main character, but there are lots of creepy things, and murders.

Neil: When writing: the obsession comes first; then comes the book.

Neil: I like writing on the go; I'm very good at turning off the world.

Neil: I have a custom-made jacket. I told them I wanted a jacket with lots of pockets so I could put pens in them, and inside jacket pockets big enough for a large Moleskine. [pulls a notebook out of inside jacket pocket]

Neil: I love collaborating because I can't reread my own work for pleasure, whereas I can pick up Good Omens and chuckle at it. A collaboration, when it works, lets you laugh at your own jokes.

Neil: For the very first time, recently I went illustrator-shopping for a book I've written called 'Chu'sday' about a baby panda who sneezes. I wanted to come up with a picturebook that could be published in mainland China [as none of my others have been]. However, the tragedy with illustrators is that most of the ones I'd like to work with are dead.'
[sorry, any excuse for me to get this cute thing linked: CLICK]

Neil: After this work in progress, the next book will probably be American Gods Two.
Everyone: Oooooooh.

Q: What's with you and bees? You've won awards for your bees, right?
Neil: Well, I have, for the past four years, won county prizes for the honeycomb my bees produce.... having said that, my bees this year have been crap. I got cocky the year before because we got all our bees through the previous winter, but last year the temperature dropped to -30c in December, and all my bees died.

Q: Would you ever write a 'British Gods'?
Neil: Yes. In fact, there's a story at the back of the new edition of American Gods which is set in Scotland, and that was meant to be the first of three novellas - the second set in Yorkshire, and the third set in London.

Neil: My favourite myths are the ones that have managed to creep into myth through the back door. The myth that is only just a myth, 'The Pear Drum', was my inspiration for Coraline.

Q: How did you come up with the button eyes in Coraline?
Neil: You know, it would be lovely if you could book an appointment with yourself in the past, to say 'look, in the future, you're going to come up with this idea in a book, and please please just pay attention when you do, ok?' But, you can't, and I don't know where that idea came from.

Q: If you could write a letter to your sixteen year old self, what would it say?
Neil: ... Don't wear that.

Q: Lots of people worry that they've spent their entire lives doing a job that they hate. You do a job that you love, so what do you spend your time worrying about instead?
Neil: What a great question. I don't really know. I just know that, when I was younger, I thought, I could be in my seventies and in a hospital bed, dying, and I could think to myself: 'I could have been an author.' And I wouldn't ever know if I was lying to myself... so I had to try and do it, to find out.

Neil: If I wasn't a writer, I'd love to run a really really old bookshop and be one of those people behind the counter who glare at everyone who comes in.
[I duck under the table and hide]

Q: What's your best writing advice?
Neil: Number one: finish things. Number two: write. Just write: I'm not being funny, but so many people say to me 'I'd love to be a writer, where should I start?' and you should start by writing.

Q: Why is your book 'Blueberry Girl' called that, and not the name of any other fruit?
Neil: Blueberry Girl was written for my friend Tori Amos when she was pregnant. ... She'd asked me if I could write a prayer, or a poem, that could go up in the baby's room, so I did. And Tori called her bump 'The Blueberry', so it became 'The Blueberry Girl.'

Q: Are you going to write another episode of Dr. Who?
Neil: If we'd discussed me writing another episode of Dr. Who, I wouldn't be able to tell you.

Neil: I forget that I have so many followers on Twitter, and that I'm not just talking to a collection of good friends... and then I tweet a link, and I break the internet.

&

Neil: In a world where Google can give you thousands of answers, a librarian will always bring you the right one.

--

Brothers McLeod to illustrate 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops'

2011-08-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

This is all very exciting. I can confirm that the lovely Greg McLeod, from Brothers McLeod, will be doing the illustrations for my 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' book. BAFTA nominated illustrator Greg and writer Myles have been directing animations since 2000 and have worked with BBC, Tate, RSC, ITV, MTV, Channel 4. Here's Billy Shakespeare!

I did a little dance around the bookshop this afternoon when Hugh [my lovely editor] sent me the email [ok, it was a big dance, not a little one]. You can find Greg and Myles on Twitter over here. I leave you with an animation of theirs. [Make me a cup of tea someone, please! English breakfast, milk, no sugar. Thanks!]

Fantastic!

CALLING BOOKSELLERS THE WORLD OVER

2011-08-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

Folks! Thank you very very much to those of you who sent in entries for a top 'Weird Things Customers Say in Other Bookshops' for the back of my 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' book. We've got some real gems. [I attractively snorted lemonade out of my nose whilst reading some.]

In fact, we enjoyed them so much, that we want to make this list longer. SO we're reopening the submissions for the book for those who hadn't heard about it last time. And not only that, but we're opening them up to booksellers - EVERYWHERE. Worldwide. [If you have a bookshop in space, you may enter too. Extra kudos to you.]

Please send in your best 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' to weirdthingsuk@gmail.com. Set the conversation out in a script format [as seen in my posts here]. Please include your name, contact number, and the name & location of your bookshop.

Deadline: 30th September.

If you're not a bookseller, do pass this message on to your local bookshop! Tweet them. Drop them an email. Go in and talk to them. Let's make this a book for booksellers and booklovers alike.

Go!

xxxxxxxx

[PS. As for those who have already sent quotes in; we'll be contacting you all shortly - thank you!]

[PPS. At the moment this edition is to be published in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, but we will be pitching to other places very very soon.]

weird things people google to get to this blog

2011-08-22T05:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday, all. I've been amused recently by the google searches which have landed people on this blog. I just don't understand how some of them ended up here, either. Bizarre. Anyway, they're worth a giggle. Have fun!

'WHY ARE CUSTOMERS SO FRIGGIN CRAZY?'
[Well...]

'Female Black Books Dylan Moran Jen Campbell offspring.'
[.......]

'how to make sex toys for women'
[I realise this one in because of the 'Weird Book Titles' post, but still].

'John Hegley: I neeeeeeeeed you.'
[Yeah, I'll er, pass that message on.]

'Was Rupert the Bear friends with Robin Hood?'
[Hmmm....]

'Do gay people have sex in bookshops?'
[Er...]

'Fantastic things to say'
[Why, thank you]

'Stop rioting! I'm trying to study!'
[Sorry...]

'Jen Campbell: giantess.'
[I hate to break it to you, but I'm only 5ft5]

'Is it weird to put my book in a tumble dryer if I drop it in the bath?'
[.... yes]

'I have some of Adolf Hitler's old clothes. Can I sell them online?'
[Dude, be my guest]

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops #8

2011-08-19T05:22:00.001-07:00

I hope you are all enjoying this revamp of the summer which seems to be upon us. I plan to dance merrily around London town tomorrow. Perhaps with a mojito. & Next weekend I'm off to Edinburgh to visit the lovely people from my old bookshop, and to give Neil Gaiman a massive hug for blogging about 'Weird Things.' That will be fun, too. I'll blog about that when I get back.

So, if you missed it: I have a book deal for 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops' - hurray! I have now completed the manuscript - hurrah!.

Thank you, too, to all booksellers who sent in their own 'Weird Things' for the 'Top Weird Things From Other Bookshops' at the back of the book. I've picked out the ones I really like, and I'll be getting back to you all when I've had confirmation from the right people.

So, now, we're discussing illustrators, which is awesome. As for release dates, I don't have a firm date yet but I think we're looking at early 2012 for the UK/Aus/NZ edition. My agent and I are also sorting out the pitching of the book for the States and various places in Europe. So, it's all exciting stuff! When I have more news, you'll be the first to hear about it. You can also keep up to date by 'liking' the official facebook page.

In the mean time, I thought I'd leave you with a couple more 'Weird Things.' I've left you without them for a fair while now.

Have fun!

--

[Due to the forthcoming book release of 'Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops', I've removed some of the 'Weird Things...' quotes from this blog.

You can still find some here and here, and you can find all the information on the book over here].

Thank you. xx

Happy Things

2011-08-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's post on the London riots, I wanted to make a post about the things happening in London at the moment which make me happy.

Waterstone's in Ealing put this sign on their window: 'We are still open: if they come and steal books, they might actually learn something.' I love you, whoever wrote that sign. Please marry me.

Friday Project [Harper Collins] tweeted this: 'Any indie bookshops been hit by the riots? Drop us a line and we'll send you a box of free books.'

Here at Ripping Yarns bookshop, we're open again for business. So, stop by or, if you're far away, you can find us here too.

The Riot Clean Up is in full swing. People of London are pulling together to show that they outnumber the people who are looting, and rioting.

The clean-up in Clapham (Pic: Twitter via @Lawcol888)

You can look at the Riot Clean Up website to see where to go if you want to help out.

On boarded up shops in Peckham which had been destroyed by looters, people came and decorated them to make it look like this:

source http://yfrog.com/z/klzzkwcj

and now, the board is so full of reasons why people love Peckham, it looks like this:

source http://yfrog.com/h6k01rsj

This is the real London. And we will win. x

I heart London.

2011-08-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

I had every intention of keeping Ripping Yarns open today, but I'm writing this to you from my house, because I've had to close up.

There were a few riot vans passing early in the day heading away from Archway, but then seven riot vans all appeared at once heading in the other direction, and several police on foot. There was a very uneasy vibe out the place, several shops had closed already and pulled their shutters down, I'd had no customers in the shop all day, there were groups of people starting to form near the woods... so I decided to close. We're also next to Wood Green and Tottenham. You can read The Big Green Bookshop's post on the riots. Some idiots also decided to use the unrest to perform a hate crime.

I'm now home, listening to police sirens in the distance.

I love London. The people doing this are not representative of our city. It's all crazy, and it makes me very very sad.

I'd like to take this opportunity to quote from a letter sent to a small girl by Adrian Mitchell (my boss's late husband, the fantastic poet). We found this letter amongst his papers a few months ago. It is so relevant today:

--

...You must be strong. It's not good thinking about the dark side of the planet obsessively or all the time. Your imagination should also delight in the beauty and warmth of the people and creatures around you, the joy and often absurdity of life.... It is important not just to have feelings about the horrors of today, but also to think and study hard to discover - what can be done to change all this? What can I do to change it?

I don't mean that you alone can abolish all the evil in the world magically. But maybe through your songs, or poems, you could change the lives of thousands of people you've never met. Or maybe you'll be a doctor and add to the healing part of the world's population, rather than the destructive side...

...I was a child in World War Two. I was really too young to be afraid then, even when the bombs were falling, for I didn't believe that it would ever happen to me. But many times since I have been afraid, for myself and my family, for my country and for the whole world.

But fear isn't the answer. Courage and hard work is the nearest I can find to one... I share your fear sometimes that the whole world seems to be in flames. Well, we better learn to be good firefighters and save all the people we can.

Yours, with love

Adrian

---

Please support @Riotcleanup. Stay safe, everyone.

Jen xx