New Edition June 2017

PG 10 author LAURA GASCOIGNE OFFERS TIPS ON SETTING UP A SUCCESSFUL BOOK SIGNING

PG 16 how do you fit a life in a book? Richard Evans and Paul Harding are here to help

PG 22 josh hamel explains the blog tour and what it can do for your book

NEW EDITION CONTEMPORARY

PUBLISHING

MAGAZINE ISSUE 33, JUNE 2017

You've got questions. We've got answers. Learn how to interview like a pro, work with a co-author and more in this summer how-to issue!

NEW EDITION, JUNE 2017

This Issue

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Welcome to the June 2017 issue of New Edition, our publishing magazine for authors. This quarter, editor and author Pete Salmon reminds writers of one of the most effective literary devices. Laura Gascoigne tells us how she turned her book launch into a successful signing.

Hayley Radford shares her fool-proof guide to giving a good interview. The authors of The Expansion offer advice on creating as a duo. All that plus tips on writing autobiographically, an overview of blog tours and much more!

Josh Hamel, Editor of New Edition Magazine 3

HAPPENI N GS June 17-23|

Broadstairs Dickens Festival

Kent, UK www.broadstairsdickensfestival.co.uk Celebrating its 80th year, the Broadstairs Dickens Festival is a highlight of the summer season. Readings from Dickens novels, living history performers, a Victorian banquet, Victorian magic show and the Country Fayre are just some of the events taking place. Some events are free and some will require tickets, in this huge celebration of all things Charles Dickens.

July

29-30| New York Poetry Festival

New York, US www.newyorkcitypoetryfestival.com Each year, over 250 poets gather in New York to showcase their works with a huge outdoor exhibition of the written and spoken word. The two-day event includes analogue typewriter based art installations, readings from independent writers and collectives, a children’s poetry festival and a showcase of performance-artmeets-prose. Best of all, it is a free to attend event easily accessible on Governor’s Island.

August

26| Indie Lit Fest

Bradford, UK www.ukindielitfest.co.uk/2017-festival Back for its second year, indie authors from all around the UK will assemble at this literary festival to meet and speak with fans. Featuring a comprehensive line up, you will also have opportunities to learn how to become a published author, listen to authors read from their own work, take part in writing workshops to sharpen your skills, and enter plenty of competitions to win signed books.

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News In Brief

Effort to eliminate US arts and library funding renewed after initial budget increase After receving a slight increase in funding in the remaining 2017 fiscal year budget signed in early May, the newly released budget for the 2018 fiscal year once again eliminates funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

“America’s more than 120,000 public, school,

academic and special libraries are visited more than 1.4 billion times a year by hundreds of millions of Americans in every corner of the nation,” American Library Association president Julie Todaro said. “To those who say that the nation cannot afford federal library funding, the American Library Association, American businesses and millions of Americans say emphatically we cannot afford to be without it.”

New J.R.R. Tolkien published after a century

Amazon opens first New York bookstore

novel

Over 100 years since it was first conceived, a new book, Beren and Lúthien, from the Lord of the Rings author is hitting book stores.

The story tells the tale of two lovers, a mortal man and an immortal elf who together try to steal from the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor.

Tolkien expert John Garth told the BBC the book was conceived while the author was on a walk in the woods with his wife after returning from WWI. "Mr. Tolkien felt the kind of joy he must have felt at times he would never feel again."

After revolutionising the way books are sold over the past two decades, Amazon has recently been going back to traditional brick-and-mortar shops.

In May, the internet giant opened its seventh book store, first in New York, with sn Amazon Books location in Columbus Circle.

"We have this 20 years of information about books and ratings, and we have millions and millions of customers who are passionate," said Jennifer Cast, vice president of Amazon Books. "It really is a different way to surface great books."

The 4,000 square-foot-store features roughly 3,000 books, all with their covers facing out in order to better to "communicate their own essence," Cast says. The company's recommendation system makes a physical appearance in the bookstore through an "if you like this" section, which combines the data Amazon gathers on the books listed with human curators to recommend new books.

A second New York city location is scheduled to open later this year.

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Editor’s Note Tools of the trade

As a writer, there are a number of time-tested (all the way back to 3,000 BC, in fact) tools you can use in your writing to affect your reader. Author and editor Pete Salmon implores you to think of rhetorical devices as your friend in his latest column.

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ne of the joys and terrors of writing is that, for anyone who wants to do it properly, there are a million different ways to tell even the simplest story, and that it is in the telling that all the work is done. Making sure you have the right tools for the job is a great way to enhance your abilities.

I was recently reading an article which used the phrase ‘hysteron proteron’, with which I assume you astute readers of the New Edition are completely familiar, but which was for me a completely new term. A quick search revealed that hysteron proteron is a Greek phrase meaning ‘later/first’ and refers to a rhetorical device in which the order of the sentence fails to mimic the order of the event.

For example, Dante uses it in the Divine Comedy, in the lyric describing the amount of time that it takes an arrow to “strike, fly, and leave the bow”. Shakespeare uses it in Sonnet 73 when he describes “That time of year thou mayst in me behold/When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang…” Yoda uses it when he says, “Powerful you have become. The Dark Side I sense in you”. And you use it every time you say “I am going to put on my shoes and socks”.

The idea behind hysteron proteron is to emphasise the more important of the things listed – shoes over socks. This makes it, of course, a species of hyperbaton, a figure of speech in which the familiar order of words or phrases are moved around in a sentence, or where familiar phrases are broken up.

Again, Shakespeare, Yoda and you are masters of the form – Shakespeare in Richard III, for instance, with “Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end”; Yoda with “If so powerful you are, why leave”; and you use it whenever you gaze into the middle distance, shake your head and quote Aristotle – “One swallow does not a summer make”.

What we are dealing with here, of course are ‘rhetorical’ devices – methods of discourse where the language itself attempts to have a certain effect on the reader or, as your friend Aristotle put it, ‘the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion’.

Like most things, it was invented by the Mesopotamians around 3100BC, as a way to relax after coming up with the sexagesimal (base 60) numerical system (which gives us the 60-minute hour). Five hundred years later (but still only the 23rd century BC), the writing of the Sumerian princess Enheduanna – the first named author in the history of the world (cop that Homer!)

– is full of knowing rhetorical devices. And the ancient Egyptians took rhetoric very seriously.

They prized a “balance between eloquence and wise silence”. As do I. In fact, had you been educated in the Western tradition from the time of the Greeks to the late nineteenth century, you would have learned rhetoric at school and you would now know everything from anadiplosis – the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause (“Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music and music is the best.” – Frank Zappa) – to zeugma – in which one single phrase or word joins different parts of a sentence, like the word ‘execute’ in “You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit.” (Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Why is this important to us as writers? Well, in one sense, it’s not. As with all ‘rules of grammar’, the job of the theoretician is to scamper along behind language and try and describe what is going on. As the ‘shoes and socks’ example shows, you have been using complex rhetorical devices all your life. The next sentence you write or say will employ a whole raft of rhetorical and grammatical devices as labyrinthine as a quadratic equation, and you will, unless you are Noam Chomsky be blissfully unaware of what is going on.

But what it is, to us as writers, is useful. In writing fiction – including poetry, drama, songs – we are seeking to persuade our audience. We are all familiar with the expression ‘suspension of disbelief ’ – every piece of literary art requires this. Madame Bovary no more exists than Abba’s Dancing Queen (‘you can dance, you can jive’ rather than ‘you can dance and jive’). All writing is spinning plates. If the reader isn’t persuaded, the whole thing crashes to the floor.

But that is only one type of ‘persuasion’. The writer is also seeking a response to their work which is not merely an acknowledgement of the internal logic of their words. As a chap who spent far too much of his teenage years listening to Frank Zappa, I’d like to use the phrase above – “Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music and music is the best” – as my example.

The phrase happens at the end of Zappa’s wonderfully nonsensical dystopian musicalrock-opera-thingy-whatsit, Joe’s Garage (to sum up, ‘the kids can’t rock and roll, boo! Now they can, yay!’). I remember hearing this phrase at 15 and, I gotta tell you, goddamn it was moving.

Played it twice, I did (hyperbaton).

But as a logical proposition the whole thing is, of course, absolutely banal. To say ‘love is

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not music’ is like saying ‘trousers is not ponies’ – always true and thus meaningless; while ‘music is the best’, while at least debatable, has no greater truth claim than saying ‘cheese is the best’ (the rhetorical device here is, of course hyperbole, the greatest of all rhetorical devices).

So why did it move me? Hormones, obviously.

But in terms of art? Context, certainly – the line would not have been so powerful if Zappa had not spent far too long (as I realised recently, relistening) telling us how The Man was crushin’ the kids. But it’s more than that. The very form of the statement produces an emotional reaction – Aristotle would say pathos, if he wasn’t dead.

It’s a powerful device, anadiplosis. W. B. Yeats, following Zappa, uses it in An Irish Airman Foresees His Death – “The years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind.”. As do Dylan Thomas (“The land of my fathers/My fathers can have it”) and Dr Seuss (“I am Sam/Sam I am” – although I suspect a proper rhetorician would have a lot more to say about that one). The ‘call and return’ nature gives it the feel of an invocation, and we respond – at least I do – in a way familiar from religious devotion.

I’m not saying, obviously, that anyone who writes should learn all the available forms of rhetoric – that could only lead to fear, and as Yoda says, combining anadiplosis with hysteron proteron – “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.”

But I am saying that, as a writer, there is a whole toolkit available to you to bugger about with the reader. There is a mistaken belief amongst vast swathes of both the reading and writing community, that fiction is some sort of window, and the job of the writer is simply to describe what is happening as accurately as he or she can.

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This is nonsense. Every sentence, in its choice of words, in its choice of word order, in its choice of length, brevity, emphasis, internal rhythm, lack of internal rhythm, assonance, dissonance, etc., etc., performs a rhetorical action. The way a story is told affects the meaning. Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, in which he tells the same story of an altercation on a bus 99 times is this idea taken to its extreme, but it is true of every sentence you have ever written, said, or read. If your cat happens to sit on a mat, there is one obvious way to describe that. But at least 98 others.

Every writer is, in some sense, like P. T Barnum, walking a tightrope between “the noblest art is that of making others happy” and “there’s a sucker born every minute”. The job is to make the reader react – with fear, with joy, with doubt, with sorrow, with exultation or, if you are Jean-Paul Sartre, with an existential dread of the thingness of things and the nothingness that lurks behind them. You may not get the response you aimed for (cf. the joys of literature; cf. reader response theory), but that’s the game.

So, next time you find yourself wandering about the internet, do have a look at all the rhetorical devices you might wish to assail you readers with.

And when your particular cat, sits on its particular mat, you can bring all the powers of catacosmesis (the ordering of things from greatest to least great – so ‘cat, mat’, I would argue); ecphonesis (google it, but “Cat! Mat!”) and litotes (ditto google – “the cat was not uninterested in the mat”).

And always remember, in the words of either Aristotle, Jean-Paul Sartre or P. T. Barnum, or maybe all there, there is one very simple rule when it comes to writing – “If people like one elephant, they will like two elephants twice as much”.

(Please note, this article is an example of an eristic argument, which seeks to win an argument regardless of the truth, such that the audience is persuaded by the power of the presentation rather than the veracity of the facts. Plato, of course, wrote that to argue eristically “did not constitute a method of argument” as it used fallacious facts and weakened the position of the speaker, which put an end to the nonsense, and we’ve barely seen it since.)

Pete Salmon is an Australian writer and editor living in the UK. His first novel, The Coffee Story (Sceptre, 2011), was a New Statesman Book of the Year. He has written frequently for TV and radio, and for broadsheets including the Guardian and the Sydney Review of Books.

NEW EDITION, JUNE 2017

Ready to Launch Organising a launch event to celebrate your book’s publication can seem daunting. But it doesn’t have to be. Clink Street author Laura Gascoigne shares the secrets she used to make the launch party for her novel The Horse’s Arse a success.

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fter the painstaking process of readying a manuscript for publication, planning a book launch feels like a party. Anyone capable of organising a piss-up in a brewery - not that dissimilar - should have no problem. But of course a lot depends on your budget. A decent book launch calls for a critical mass of people – a couple of dozen simply doesn’t cut it – and a mass of people don’t just consume a lot of booze, they need quite a lot of space to do it in.

Because my novel, The Horse’s Arse, is set in the art world I decided to hold the launch in a gallery. I could have squeezed the guests into my house, but that would have meant a) me spending days tidying it up beforehand and b) them schlepping all the way out to north London. I also figured that it would look more professional if it took place on neutral territory.

For me the Mall Galleries were just the ticket: apart from the central location off Trafalgar Square, the gallery setting meant that guests who wanted to get away from the scrum could wander off on their own and look at pictures.

A cheaper option, to avoid doing it at home, is to borrow the house of a generous friend. I was happy to pay a hire fee for the venue because it’s about 20 years since I had a proper party and I felt like doing it in style. Plus the gallery provided catering staff and affordable booze on sale or return, helpful when it comes to estimating numbers – not easy when twothirds of your guest list don’t reply and half of those come, while of the third who do accept half fail to show up. I invited 150 people, about 80 came and between them they bought around 50 books.

Once the venue is decided, who do you ask?

Because I’m an arts journalist I have a lot of professional contacts with a natural interest in the novel’s subject matter. I didn’t ask them all, just the ones who are personal friends, as I didn’t want it to become a business do. As it turned out, the mix of work contacts, friends and family – with a leavening of artists – made for a very jolly occasion.

As with any party, after you’ve made the financial and emotional investment the big worry is that no

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one will come. Will they cross town for an event that only lasts a couple of hours and only serves wine?

(My budget didn’t stretch to canapés.) But a book launch is no ordinary event, it’s a special occasion, and people will turn out for an occasion. Like a baby shower it’s a welcome to a new arrival, and that gives the whole event a feel-good factor. I was too busy signing books to have much time to talk to my guests, but they all seemed to be getting on like a house on fire and a hard core had to be evicted at the end. One of them narrowly escaped being locked in.

Part of the point, of course, is to shift books and here again it helps to look professional. Get hold of a proper cash box, stock up on the right change and find a way of taking card payments. Appoint someone to take the money – my cashier was my husband – and make sure they’re liberally supplied with drink.

Also ensure that you have plenty of books and a nice pen to sign them with for posterity.

To speak or not to speak, that is the question. Some people expect speeches, but I decided not to make one as I felt it was unnecessarily formal in front of people I knew pretty well. In front of strangers, yes, I would have done it, as strangers are curious to get to know an author. I didn’t do a reading either, as I wasn’t sure I’d get the voices of my characters right.

That was my decision, but if you’ve got the gift of the gab and you’re a brilliant mimic, then go for it.

First things last: what to put on the invitation. An image of the book cover, obviously, with the date, time, venue, RSVP deadline and address below.

Along the top it’s customary to name the author and publisher as hosts, as in ‘Laura Gascoigne and Clink Street Publishing invite you to mark the publication of,’ leading into the title on the cover. Along the bottom it’s worth including a couple of lines in smaller print mentioning the book, the author, the publisher and, in brackets, the RRP, for the benefit of those who can’t come and might want to order it.

Was it all worth it? Absolutely. It’s hard enough to get any new book noticed, and a book by a previously unpublished author needs all the help it can get. PG Wodehouse famously compared expecting results from a first novel to dropping a petal into the Grand Canyon and listening for the echo. At a well-lubricated book launch, it should land with a splash.

Currently living in Hampstead, North London, Laura Gascoigne has worked as an arts journalist for over twenty years, editing Artists & Illustrators before going freelance. Laura was born in Cairo in 1950, the daughter of a bookseller and an Italian teacher, and grew up in Brussels and Cambridge before studying Classics at Oxford University. The Horse’s Arse by Laura Gascoigne (published by Clink Street Publishing, 4th April, 2017 is available to purchase from Amazon and to order from all good bookstores.

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Interview with a Vampire

Well, it needn’t be that bad! Yes an author’s first media interview might be terrifying, but it doesn’t have to be the stuff of nightmares. Hayley Radford shares her tips and tricks to get the most out of your moment in the spotlight.

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he funny thing about writing a book is that it can be an incredibly isolating experience, one in which the author is invariably left alone with their creative thoughts, their only outlet the pen and paper or computer keyboard. Writers typically want to talk about their work during the writing process, sharing storylines and ideas with friends and relatives, moved to get feedback and check that they’re on the right literary track with those whose opinion they respect.

These conversations, even with a keen reader, tend towards the discursive; relaxed, languid discussions about tone, treatment, character development. Even the plot holes and structural mazes which can keep even the most confident writer up at night. But it’s quite often the case that friends and family can fall short when it comes to supporting a writer’s need to vent about their book, so many writers bottle up their thoughts and concerns about their writing until… they’re sitting in front of a journalist for an interview, or reading a review, cold, for the first time.

Obviously, this is not a good situation to be in.

If the first time you find yourself talking out loud about your book, unprepared, is in front of the senior features writer at The Telegraph, then you should be very worried indeed!

If, like many, that’s a nightmare waking you up at 3am, here are some kind but frank words of advice on how to become a polished interviewee.

Cherry pick and precis your material Sadly, there is no time for great detail in most interviews. Ten minutes is normal, an hour would be an absolute luxury. So it’s important that you get your story straight and to the point, highlighting all the best things about your book as well as the things about you which make you an interesting person.

Don’t overwhelm with information, because, by and large someone hearing about a book for the first time cannot digest too much information in one burst, so in order to get your message across coherently, being brief and whipping out a dazzling elevator pitch, supplemented by some choice comments on your genre, your literary themes, some insightful remarks about people or places or psychology - whatever writing the book has taught you - will be much more likely to resonate with your interviewer. Give them something strong and tangible rather than longwinded and woolly every time. Ask yourself seriously and dispassionately about your book’s strengths and its appeal to others, thinking clearly about what writing means to you and what you hope to achieve with your book. Clarity and impact are key. So don’t worry about trying to explain a complex piece of staging in chapter 36, it’s always better to speak more generically

about a character’s journey, or an important theme you wanted to explore. Your answers don’t have to be earth shatteringly brilliant, as long as they are heartfelt and relatable.

Know your audience Journalists and bloggers know their readership intimately. It’s their job to do so, because it enables them to produce the best, most targeted content for them. They are proud of who reads their work, as you should be as a writer yourself. So it’s important to be respectful of other writers’ audiences. If you’re being interviewed by a blogger or a magazine do them the professional courtesy of reading up on their work, their readership, their interests, so that you can set the right tone for your interview. A tabloid will want frivolity, juicy bits, fluff and entertainment, whereas a broadsheet will inevitably lean towards a deeper, more intelligent line of questioning. A local paper wants local colour, so make sure you give it to them. I once organised an interview for someone on BBC Radio Bristol only for the author to denigrate the Bristolian listeners to the program as probably not being the sort of people to read his book because it would only appeal to very clever types. You get my point here. Ignorance can make for a dull, badly pitched or at worst insulting interview. Know your outlet and their audience and play up to them.

Never, ever utter the words "you will have to read my book to find out" Nothing will set a journalist or blogger's teeth on edge more than an author curtly or coyly refusing to answer questions thinking it’s a devilish way of enticing people to buy and read the book. If you play hard to get or are just plain awkward with your interviewer, then they are unlikely to want to read your book at all.

That awkward tone will translate to listeners, viewers or readers too. I’m not advising you to give everything including the plot twist away, but answering every question with you’ll have to read my book is a surefire way to make the interviewer and their audience switch off and cop out. It’s not clever, it’s just a lazy response.

Big-time authors do it. And they should know better.

Practice makes perfect and out loud is best People’s eyes widen in horror when I tell them to

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rehearse talking out loud about their work! They think it must either be a joke or that I am impossibly cruel and determined to embarrass them. But the fact of the matter is that the more comfortable you become with hearing yourself talking about your work, the more confident you’ll be in your delivery.

A chilly dislocation can occur if the language and tone you use to talk with about your book seems phoney or forced to you - or that the sound of your own voice makes you terribly self-conscious. So the more carefully you think about your own narrative and practice saying it out loud until it feels right and natural, the more readily you’ll be able to draw on it during an interview. You’ll also overcome the weird sensation you feel when you hear yourself talking about something relatively personal. By building up a muscle memory of anecdotes, themes and talking points about your craft, your method, who you are as a person and a writer, the more readily you’ll be able to call upon them, and they will in turn allow you to relax and perform at your best. It’s natural to have stock answers, classic responses; the trick is delivering these lines with a consistent level of enthusiasm so that they sound fresh even during the tenth Q&A session.

Decide what you want to say long before you speak to a journalist and Hold back only if you are happy to lose the opportunity It always amazes me how much an individual’s story can change the closer they come in proximity to a

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journalist. Even the most confident raconteur’s story of personal triumph or family tragedy can shrink and wither when faced with an inquisitive, probing hack. So knowing what you are and are not happy to talk in advance is important, but it’s also critical to be realistic about the process of promoting your book. You may need to play the media game to a certain extent, and that might mean entertaining a particular line of questioning that you hadn’t thought was important, in order to meet the journalist’s needs. You should never give away more than you’re comfortable sharing, but in the same vein there’s no point in being secretive about something that may seem rather unimportant to a journalist or to a reader.

An interview with a good journalist can be a seductive experience, especially if they’re writing a feature about you as an individual rather than just focusing on your novel, and there’s a balance to strike between coming across as reluctant and withholding information needlessly, and giving everything away and regretting it. So think about what you’re saying, where your comfort zone lies and whether or not you’re able to push beyond it.

Quantify the situation and respond accordingly.

But know that it’s much more professional - and certainly easier - to give a little bit more than intended in an interview than it is to withhold information or refuse to indulge a particular line of questioning. Ultimately, journalists will expect you to give good comment and to work with them - they are helping you to promote your book after all. If you hold back and don’t give them interesting material to work with, you can run the risk of leaving them with material that’s too boring to use, and the article won’t come to fruition.

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This is your chance to get your point across so it is sometimes ok to answer the question you wish they had asked you This is a politicians trick, and while it’s not one to be abused, it’s one to keep in mind if you’re feeling confident enough. Giving an answer to a question you haven’t actually been asked yet. You can usually anticipate the questions you’ll be asked in a promotional interview, but they may sometimes fall flat. While it’s always important to try to answer each and every question you’re delivered, it’s also ok to go off on a polite and brief tangent if you think that there’s a more interesting topic to be discussed.

This can sometimes lead to a much more engaging interview and help you to shine.

The journalist is not your friend but the encounter should always be friendly A journalist’s job is to get what they want out of an interview; information, insight, and perhaps a touch of humour. Above all they want engagement; engagement from their interviewee which in turn produces engagement from their readership or audience, and as far as you’re concerned as the writer, if you can inspire readers to engage with you in interview they may be more inclined to go and buy your book for themselves. In the moment of the interview, the journalist may appear to know a lot about you (if they’ve done their research properly, of course) and will typically be warm and complementary. All the things you’ve longed for other people to be about your book. A good interviewee knows that there is, as I like to call it, a touch of fraud about this performance. Because it’s just that; it’s a performance.

One of my first jobs as a journalist was working in entertainment news, a cut-throat conveyor belt of high-profile celebrity interviewees primed to promote their latest novel, song, film, play or product.

It was a lot like the scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant has to pretend to be a journalist in order to speak to Julia Roberts outside of his bookshop (except I never had the pleasure of working for Horse and Hound). It was always a game designed

to swiftly create the illusion of familiarity designed to best extrapolate witticisms, charming anecdotes and well-rehearsed lines in praise of said novel/song/ film/play/product. As a journalist you could enter the room, be introduced to your starry interviewee and it was as if fairy dust was sprinkled through the air. A gossipy kinship would bloom from nowhere. Giggles and secrets would be shared and exchanged. For a split second you could kid yourself that this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, where you carried your lovely chat about said novel/song/film/ play/product down to the local pub for a proper chat.

But then the publicist in the room would call time like a rude landlord and with that, the magic was gone, the professional froideur returned, and with it normal indifference.

View the prospect of an interview as something to look forward to, an opportunity to sell yourself and the book to the best of your abilities. You want to be the best version of yourself; funny, gracious, engaging, bright, smart. Thoughtful but not longwinded. Clear and to the point without being chilly and abrupt. Grateful for the opportunity to promote your book without being either arrogant or grovelling. Speak with passion but don’t come across as so intense your interviewer is likely to be looking for the exit within the first five minutes. So, as I say, imagine you’re meeting a lovely new friend for a chat about the things you want to talk about, but that unfortunately you don’t have much time to spare. And afterwards, you’ll never see them again.

And that’s ok.

I’ve had clients working with journalists on stories who’ve been seduced by kisses at the end of emails or text messages of cheery hello. During the process of compiling features and interviews this kind of behaviour is normal, but heaven forfend you expect it to continue once the story has run. Some can feel hurt when the same level of interest doesn’t continue long after the article has gone to press. It’s just a normal part of the process, like a beautiful brief encounter, designed to get good value positive publicity for the book. When it’s over, that’s it, you have to stay on the train and not wave too madly out of the window with your hanky.

So whether you’re being interviewed for print, radio or television, smile a megawatt smile, be warm, talk emphatically and concisely about your writing and thank them for their interest. Above all, enjoy the experience if you can. And trust me; the second one won’t feel half as scary.

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Tell your story Richard Evans

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hen you have been writing for six decades about other people; other events and other places, suddenly having to turn the lens back on yourself and produce a massive written selfie is a bit daunting.

Journalism requires viewing and investigating things that happen in other people’s lives and, although some of oneself creeps into the articles occasionally, none of it is really about you.

So when numerous friends starting listening to the stories I tell about things that have happened to me and said, “You must write your own book!” I finally thought, ‘Why not?’

It helps, of course, if you have written books – any type of book. Whether it is fact or fiction, producing a book requires writing muscles that are not acquired through newspaper or even magazine journalism. It’s the difference between a sprint, a middle distance run and a marathon. It is a long, sometimes painful and always taxing business.

Having written over fifteen books, I knew I had the ability to produce another one, no matter what the topic. But this would be different. This would be about me.

First question: How much to reveal? How much of my inner self was I prepared to reveal to the world?

Some people are natural extroverts and – especially in America! – will unload their life’s history, with

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Writing about yourself can be intimidating. Distilling all of your experiences and feelings down to a couple hundred pages may even be harder than creating an entire universe from scratch.

Richard Evans and Paul Harding both share how they managed to condense their full lives into two remarkable memoirs and tips for you to do the same.

all its triumphs and torments, at the bus stop or in a doctor’s waiting room. That is not me.

So I decided to start from the beginning – Day One, day of birth, in Paris – and take it from there. Just let it flow. I had in my mind the chronology of my life and I would just tell it, highlighting those episodes that I felt would be most interesting to the reader.

To a certain extent, having led the life of reporter allows you to cheat a little in that respect because much of what you find yourself describing are events concerning other people that you covered. So much of the book is taken up with the people I met, befriended and reported on in the fields of politics, sport and the entertainment industry. Journalists, by the very nature of their craft, move in circles populated by famous people which in my case meant getting to know John McEnroe and Arthur Ashe; Michael Crawford and Richard Harris; Sargent Shriver, George Mitchell and, in this case through a personal relationship, Margaret Thatcher.

As a result, one can be accused of name dropping in every chapter. So be it. These were the people I found myself inter-acting with and I feel the reader will be interested knowing some more about them in close up.

However, this was still to be MY story and therefore I kept myself in the mix, following my life line, my thoughts, hopes, fears and career choices.

I am now deep into my seventies so we are talking about a long time. And, generally, memories do not stretch that long with any great certainty or accuracy.

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I think most of us get can get a fix on our childhood years through the tales we have heard a million times from our parents or siblings with the help of family photo albums.

But, once you are at college or out in the world - working, moving jobs, travelling - just trying to remember is not good enough. Did you first go to Rome in 1961 or 1962? Or was it even 1963? Can you be certain? Not without either a diary or a cuttings book.

So the first essential for anyone embarking on an autobiography is some personal record of your life.

Today, we live in age when just about everything we need to find can be turned up in seconds on the web. Just Google it! But note that I said ‘just about’.

Unless you are a famous person yourself the web will not tell you when Richard Evans first covered Wimbledon or who he was with the night Bobby Kennedy died. That’s too personal and only a diary or a cuttings book will reveal the exact times, dates and places you need to produce an accurate account.

So I have three heroes in my life as far as that is concerned: My mother who lovingly pasted in every report I wrote for numerous papers from the very first rugby match between Saracens and Wasps at Southgate when I was 17, to my articles from New York as a foreign correspondent for the Evening News.

Then, my wonderful secretary, Dominique Fouchez, took over when I moved to Paris. And, much later, when I was tennis correspondent for the Sunday Times, my wife, Lynn, plastered page after page with 2,000 word articles I used to write on Grand Slam tournaments and other events.

From the late seventies, I started keep a diary - not an attempt at Pepys, but just a notation of events I had attended and places I visited. So I can safely say that most of the facts in the book are accurate. And to me as a journalist brought up on that important dictum - opinion is free, facts are sacred – that is satisfying because I would not have written the book without that provable basis of fact.

One problem arose as a result of writing a book for readers on both sides of the Atlantic. The first decision was; English or American spelling?

Apologies to my American friends who like their ‘z’s’ but I stuck to what I was taught in school. A more difficult decision concerned explanations of terms like Public School. In Britain, it means the exact opposite of what it implies in America.

Explaining that for a British reader is superfluous and boring. But necessary for the American. Cricket is another topic that I agonized over, eventually heavily cutting back on the second half of a chapter concerning cricket for fear of boring the American reader.

So it was an interesting exercise, to say the

least. Despite writing 143,000 words, I left out lot I would have liked to say. But there is more than enough, I think, to let people know who I am but, more importantly for me, to take them on a journey through the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st with all the drama, history and personal triumph and tragedy to which I have been witness.

I think, and I hope, the story justifies a book!

Paul Harding

S

tarting to write a book can be as daunting as placing that first brush stroke on a clean canvas. It simply becomes a question of ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’! Smatterings of fiction have buzzed around in the brain for some time, yet I decided the first project should really be my autobiography. It simply felt ‘easier’ to tackle this first. To compile a whole fictional piece was beyond me for now? Here was a life that many voiced as ‘unusual’ and maybe worthy of putting into writing; a story with a beginning and ending with a journey

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NEW EDITION, JUNE 2017

in between that could, with effort, be recalled and told. The encouragement from a superstar such as Johnny Depp did add sufficient fuel to the fire and so I simply started at the beginning. I had not kept a journal through my years so the cobwebs of memory required a severe dusting and as the words flew down on the computer. It was working for me, the secret was to simply write now and edit later. Get the skeleton down and then slowly, with finesse afterward, add the muscle and tissue.

The story has to start with a bang! A small paragraph that instantaneously grabs a reader into wanting more: mine was quite easy, as I had crashed an airplane. What brought me to this point in my life? So it began. I decided early on a different approach to an autobiography. Instead of ‘I, myself and me’ all the way through, why not add pieces of local and world history that had affect on us all. ‘Where were you when this happened’? It made for good breaks by adding timelines that the reader to relate to involving them in the story?

Then I became a little braver adding small tastes of personal philosophy. A dangerous move maybe to talk of politics, religion and mankind’s behavior?

With risk one creates controversy or agreement, either way an author maybe keeps the fire of interest burning? The history made for interesting research online to get the facts as accurate as possible. It generated a fun learning for the author giving needed breaks from labourious writing.

Writing a book I found, almost the easiest part.

Editing the thing is unquestionably a labour of love and twice the workload. I did not realise how many edits it would take before I could submit to a publisher. For great feedback on design I posted on social media requesting votes and comment, the results were fun and provided valuable insight in to what was most captivating!

After being raised and educated in the United Kingdom, Paul Harding relocated to the Bahamas where he became a certified scuba instructor and opened his own business. After a lifelong interest in flying, he earned his commercial pilot’s license and started Safari Seaplanes in 1990, the first charter seaplane business in the country, which he ran for over twenty years. Now retired, Harding currently resides in Nassau, Bahamas and still flies privately. He has previously written for Water Flying Magazine and this is his first book. Sharks in the Runway by Paul W.J. Harding (published by Clink Street Publishing July 13th, 2017 RRP £30.99 hardback, £22.99 paperback).

Richard Evans has been a journalist since the 1960s where he began his career writing for the Evening Standard. He has covered tennis for outlets including the Sunday Times, Fox Sports USA and Tennis

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Magazine, reporting on more than 196 Grand Slams over the course of his career. Evans was the play-by-play commentator for BBC Radio at Wimbledon for twenty years and was a commentator for the Tennis Channel at the French Open and AO Radio at the Australian Open.

He is the author of 18 books. The Roving Eye by Richard Evans (published by Clink Street Publishing 20th June, 2017 RRP £16.99 paperback, £4.99 ebook).

CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE

The Magic of Collaboration

The Expansion is the first in a series of political thrillers written by a collaborative writing team: Christoph Martin and Libby O’Loghlin.

Here, Christoph and Libby talk about the collaborative writing process and some of the research they undertook for the first book.

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NEW EDITION, JUNE 2017

Christoph Martin Zollinger The Expansion story landed in my head one day when I was on a flight from Panama to Zürich in Switzerland (where I live). I started typing on my iPhone, and then, six hours later, I had an outline with the big plot points and about six characters who were larger than life, and wouldn’t get out of my head! The story was of a scope that I realized would be best tackled by more than one mind,

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so I approached Libby O’Loghlin, who is an experienced novelist and writing teacher.

In a sense, this story is relevant to the entire book because it’s been a truly collaborative effort from the start, and having two sets of eyes — and two brains to do the research and the thinking — has influenced the breadth of topics we can write about. In fact, one of the book’s themes is very much around teamwork, and what that means.

We also interrogate (with the help of some of the characters who are Defense Clandestine Service Agents!) the ideas of truth and transparency, and whether truth really exists, or if it’s subjective.

Part of the enjoyment of this project comes from the fact that while our skills and strengths are very complementary, we have had very different life experiences, so we were able to bring a lot of different points of view and diversity to the process and to the characters. And because The Expansion is the first of a series of novels in the political thriller genre (the next contentious arenas are the Arctic, then space and satellites and ‘the cloud’), we expect to be working together for some years, so it’s great to have a strong working dynamic as a basis for that.

Early on in the process we travelled together to Zuoz, which is the little village in the south-east of Switzerland where Max’s (the central character) story really starts. I had this location in mind for Max and Godfredo’s schoolboy friendship, right from the start, because that friendship is really a pivotal bond for Max, right up until the end of the book. So we were lucky enough to be able to visit a boarding school in the area, which gave us the setting, with its ice hockey rink and the WWII bunker and the dormitories.

We tend to do a lot of

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"...it’s been a truly collaborative effort from the start, and having two sets of eyes — and two brains to do the research and the thinking — has influenced the breadth of topics we can write about." talking to people and visiting places, not only for inspiration but to really get to know our storyworlds. I had also lived in Panama for more than fifteen years, so I was able to draw on that experience and bring that to the writing process.

In 2015 we travelled together to Panama to visit some of the locations that would play a part in the story, as well as the site of the canal expansion itself, which was a superb experience. It was breathtakingly huge!

We were able to talk to a very diverse range of people in Panama, including the Director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and even some ex-street gang members, who had lived through very violent times on the streets of Panama City, and who now run tours of the Old Town.

During the process of researching, we also interviewed a number of experts in the areas of engineering and architecture, medicine, and the military and diplomatic corps. Both of us tend to do a lot of reading from all kinds of sources, which is not really ‘hard work’ as we’re both quite curious by nature!

For the next book, we’ve had to steep ourselves in the Cold War and Russia. And I am planning a trip to the Arctic … perhaps that will give you an idea of the scope of the next story!

Libby O’Loghlin I hadn’t ever written a collaborative novel before, and the experience has been a huge adventure.

I can see now there was an element of luck, as Christoph and I found out fairly early on that our skills and strengths complement each other, and we don’t have personality clashes (we save all that for the characters in our books!), which made it really easy to focus on the work.

From a writing perspective, I found working

with a collaborator to be a fantastic way to ‘level up’ my skills, and to get practiced at moving consistently forwards. In our case, once we had developed a basic ‘beat sheet’ and had started churning out the words, it was a bit like a twoway, fast iteration, prototyping process, where ‘end users’ were giving feedback the entire way.

This meant the manuscript could evolve in a fairly robust fashion.

Collaboration is also a great process for learning to be able to critically assess the relevance and usefulness of your ideas, and to (as the saying goes) ‘kill your darlings’ as needed. Christoph and I always respect each other’s inputs and creative ideas, and we discuss everything until we’re in agreement about which way it should go, with the bottom line being: Would this character do/say that? And will it move the story forwards?

The research was fascinating (and potentially endless!) and it was a real privilege to meet so many different people along the way. You can learn so much about the world and humanity—with all its differences and similarities—by talking to people, and I think for writers it’s a real super-power to be able to tap into those universal themes, no matter what genre you’re writing.

I especially loved tackling the political thriller genre, as I’m a been a big conspiracy and espionage reader/watcher (Le Carré, Ludlum, Goldman, etc.). And, to echo Christoph, having two minds on a story—or anything in life, really—opens up worlds of ideas and perspectives, which is a really exciting way to approach a series with as broad a scope as The Expansion.

Christoph Zollinger is a Swiss entrepreneur whose career spans legal, military, corporate and private enterprise. Christoph graduated with a law degree from the University of Zürich, after which time he went on to live and work in Panama in corporate and private enterprise for more than a decade. In 2012 he returned to Switzerland with his wife and children. He divides his time between his home in Zürich and a tiny Alpine village in Graubünden.

Libby O'Loghlin is an Australian novelist and prize-winning short story writer who has a career in narrative media production, including film and television, as well as print and digital publishing.

She has lived in the UK, USA and Malaysia, and she now lives with her family in Switzerland.

The Expansion by Christoph Martin (published

by Clink Street Publishing May 2nd, 2017 RRP £9.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook) will be available to purchase from online retailers including Amazon and to order from all good bookstores.

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On tour Maybe you've never heard of a blog tour or you've participated in several but still have lingering questions. Josh Hamel has the lowdown on this crucial booking marketing exercise.

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What is a blog tour?

Let's start with the basics. A blog tour is very similar to a traditional book tour. Rather than travelling from city to city and book store to book store, though, for anywhere from a week to a month, each day your book is featured on a different blog, reaching new readers each day. These blog posts can be reviews, excerpts from the book, interviews or other feature pieces requested by the blogger.

Why do bloggers want to participate?

Most bloggers update their site because they love books, plain and simple. And so do their followers.

Because of this, they are thrilled to be able to spread the word of new and exciting works and take part in that process. The interviews and guest posts by authors also provide engaging and easy content to help connect their readers to books that they might be interested in.

What books are right for a blog tour?

While there are thousands of blogs, some are more suited to participating in a blog tour than others.

Many bloggers only cover certain genres like romance or thrillers. It's important to understand each blogger's particular wants and needs for their readers when setting up a tour for your book

What are the benefits of a blog tour?

What do the bloggers need from You? A few weeks before the tour is set to begin, you may be asked to write guest posts for blogs who do not have time to review the book but still want to take part in the tour and promote your book. These requests can be anything from answering a short Q&A to a more in-depth piece on your inspiration for writing the book or an in-character letter to the readers. While the blogger may ask for something specific, it is still a good idea to brainstorm a list of topics to write about before the campaign begins in case the requests are more general. An author photo to accompany the post is also often welcomed, as well. It is also important that you put together and return the content requested by the deadline set by your publicist to keep everything on schedule.

How can you support the tour?

The easiest way to help support the tour is to promote it to your own social media followers before it begins and each day throughout the campaign. This includes any banners that are created with each date and blog site as well as linking to the post when it goes live. Also, be sure to stop back to your guest post frequently to read and reply to comments from its readers. Engaging with readers is a nice thank you to the host, and it will also make you more memorable to the blog’s readers.

Much like any form of publicity online or off, blog tours offer a valuable opportunity to introduce your book to readers just prior or post its publication when interest is already at its highest. The effect of each stop on the tour is only amplified by the next, generating more interest than scattered individual posts. And because it is available at all times and around the world, authors can connect with more people than local in-person bookstore signings or appearances. Longterm, tours increase the author’s online presence and visibility, fillings search results with tour posts and reviews indefinitely.

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NEW EDITION, JUNE 2017

Cracking the code Throughout his Outremer series, author D.N. Carter has constructed a code for readers to solve after its conclusion with a cash prize reward. Carter lays out just how he underwent such a massive undertaking by creating a new cipher step-by-step.

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ithin Outremer I have explained several ancient codes, as well as used them to form a modern code readers may wish to try and crack. Outremer is a perfect platform to detail them, hopefully in an engaging and enjoyable format through the lives of the two main characters, Paul Plantavalu, a Christian, and Alisha al Komaty from a Muslim family. I have learnt and believe that religion is a vehicle that has been used to impart certain moral rules and guidelines, sadly often grossly misunderstood or interpreted, but also to carry very real complex mathematical and harmonic codes, which clearly demonstrates a higher intelligence behind all of it. We are only now waking up to see those codes as our own scientific and technological knowledge grows; beforehand we could not recognise them for what they are. It is knowledge and an understanding all people should have the opportunity to be shown.

The most famous number is that of the beast, 666 as given in the Book of Revelation 13:15–18, so I shall use that as an example. In critical editions of the Greek text, such as the Novum Testamentum Graece, it is noted that 616 is a variant. ‘Here is wisdom...let him that hath understanding know that the mark of the beast is 666, for it is the number of man’. Well that got me thinking as I wanted to know what it meant. The value of 216 was regarded by Pythagoras as a magic number as it is the same as 6 to the power of 3, or 6 x 6 x 6. Add a zero to 216, we get 2,160, the diameter of the Moon in miles. When viewed from Earth, the Moons apparent circumference is identical to that of the Suns apparent circumference. 2,160 years is also the processional period of each Zodiacal cycle through the heavens. 2,160 x 12 equals the total complete processional cycle of all twelve signs of the Zodiac at 25,920 years. 2,160 divided by 6 equals the

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360 degrees in a circle. When divided by 24 hours it equals 90 degrees, a right angle. When divided by 12, it equals 180 degrees.

In Revelations, the New Jerusalem is represented with twelve gates. Also the pillars that were raised in Solomon’s temple were 18 cubits high with another four cubits high chapiters, capitals as we call them now on top, spaced exactly seven cubits apart, which is 22 by 7. The ratio of 22 by 7 was evidently very important to them. We know why as 22 over 7 is the standard engineering working formula for calculating PI, without which, none of the huge cathedrals and churches could have been built. The actual book of Revelations in the New Testament just also happens to be 22 chapters long and also states the New Jerusalem is 12,000 furlongs square, which is equal to 220 yards, as there are 220 yards in a furlong, multiplied by 12,000 is equal to 2,640,000 yards. There are three feet to a yard. So 2,640,000 multiplied by 3 equals 7,920,000. The Earth’s diameter is equal to 7,920 miles. As the New Jerusalem is a square, we can multiply our 7,920,000 by 4 which then equals 31,680,000. Also 7,920 miles multiplied by 4 equals 31,680 miles. 31,680 divided by our number 1,440 equals 22. In Revelations the number 144,000 is stated as an important figure. The number 31,680 is important especially within the numerical codes of Gematria, as certain phrases and words as spoken by Jesus, total in value 31,680.

It means that whole sentences and words within the Bible, when you change the individual letters into mathematical values, you end up with certain numbers that constantly appear and repeat within its pages. Note that 31,680 divided by 220 equals 144. Also if we were to draw a square box around the Earth touching the equator, the perimeter of the square would equal 31,680 miles.

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360, 72, 30 and 12 constantly appear in myths, legends and religious writings, the value of 1,080 being a very important one. 30 x 72 equals 2,160. 2,160 x 12 equals 25,920 just as 360 x 72 equals 25,920 which equal the number of years taken to complete the procession of all twelve signs of the Zodiac. 72 and 720 were frequently added to 36 and 360 making 108 and 1,080 respectively. The Moon has a radius of 1,080 miles and a diameter of 2,160 miles as explained. Christianity was founded upon the inspirational word of Christ and the Holy Ghost. Holy Spirit written in Greek is ‘to agion pneuma’. In total they equal a value of 1,080 and represent the male and female elements of the terrestrial spirit. Jesus, spelt in Greek is ‘Ihsouz’ equals 888. Mary, is ‘Mariam’ equals 192. When both are added together, they total 1,080.

If we add the values of Jesus, 888, Mary, 192 (1,080) and the Beast 666, symbolically the rejoining of the physical with the spiritual, the terrestrial with the celestial, and the total value equals 1,746. The Earth is tilted on its axis of 23.4 degrees giving us an angle of obliquity of 66.6 degrees and the Earth travels around the Sun at a mean average speed of 66,600 miles per hour so we complete one complete circuit of the sun every 365 days... and a quarter day.

Also ‘The Spirit of the Earth’, ‘το γαιονμα’ equals 1,080, ‘The Fountain of Wisdom’, ‘πηγη σοϕιαζ ’ equals 1,080.

1,746 is the number which helps reveal the hidden secret esoteric meaning of Jesus' phrase of ‘A grain of mustard seed’ and written in Greek as ‘Κοκκοζ στναπεωζ’ which equals a total sum value of all the letters as 1,746. (Fully explained within Outremer) This figure is also given by many other sacred phrases such as the ‘Spirit of the world’, ‘το πνευμα κοσμου ωηιχη εθυαλσ’ that equals 1,746 ‘The Glory of the God of Israel’, ‘η δοζα του Ισ ραηλ εθυαλσ’ that equals 1,746. The full wording of the Christian title of ‘Lord Jesus Christ’, written in Greek as ‘Κυριοζ Ιησουζ Χριοτοζ’, has the value 3,168. In addition, the value of 1,746 also relates to the Great Pyramid.

Originally, the early Christian symbol of a fish denoted their church, not the cross. The geometric and esoteric symbol and illustration of the Great Pyramid is known as the ‘Vesica Pisces’ meaning the vessel of the fish. The Great Pyramids height is 481 ft and forms the longer axis of a Vesica Pisces when made from two intersecting circles of equal circumference of 1,746 feet. The perimeter of the rhombus contained within the Vesica Pisces is 1,110 ft, and the area of the rhombus equals 66,600 square feet. The numbers and values obtained from the Vesica Pisces are again also found within the New Testament in Revelations.

The volume of the Vesica Pisces is 144,000, which is the same as the number of souls in Revelations. The importance of the value 144,000 is important in its own right as detailed in the Bible, Revelations VII 3:4.

To me, this demonstrated a highly advanced understanding of our world’s mathematical properties and dimensions, written down thousands of years ago. In Outremer, I have tried to convey these facts and how our ancient forefathers knew.

After strange and vivid experiences whilst living in Cyprus as a child, author D N Carter has been fascinated by the history, myths and legends of the Middle Ages and mankind’s past. Today he divides his time between East Anglia in the UK and the south of France with his family. Outremer: Who Controls The Past Controls The Future by D.N Carter (published

by Clink Street Publishing 9th May, 2017 RRP £14.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook). For more information, visit outreamerbooks.com.

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The supercalifragilistic guide

Home to millions and captured in generations of literature, London is a city that inspires. Tour-guide Amber RaneyKincade revals how it motivated her to keep just one of its legendary characters alive today. n October 2001, I moved to London for love.

Itrue, Being a flight attendant had been a dream come but when 9/11 happened, I was very junior

in my career. The airline offered a company leave of absence, whereby you kept your medical and flight benefits, but you didn’t have a job. I was engaged to a Texas boy who was working and living in London, so I moved over to be with him. I enrolled in a masters programme, and graduated a year and a half later with a Masters in International Business. And then his company was going through redundancies. I couldn’t get a marketing job because I didn’t know how long we’d be staying, so I got a job as a double decker bus guide. It was great! I was being paid to talk about a city that I loved. Eight months later, we transferred back to Houston. We were devastated. Luckily, thanks to our visas and jobs, we were able to return to London just two years later. I worked in marketing for many years, but when the recession hit, I went freelance. Then, I remembered my love of tour guiding and decided to do this part-time. It’s now a full-time gig!

I love my job — I have the pleasure of interacting with people all over the world as they take time to explore London. It’s my job to help them enjoy their time here. Of course, I could spend everyday walking up and down The Mall with the Royal guards, or walking around Parliament Square talking about Big Ben, but as a tour guide, I get the privilege of researching

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topics I have interest in, and then creating walks to bring them to life. Sometimes, the result is a walk that only I could enjoy, or a tour that is only for a specific purpose (like the hen party who wanted a Bob Marley Wedding Walk), yet often I hit upon a subject that is attractive and interesting to a mass audience.

Also, I have a panache for dressing up! When I have the opportunity to add a costume, well, I relish it and make it into something fun. Luckily, this has struck a chord with my audience, too! If I am guilty of bringing history to life and causing someone to remember their time here, then I am very pleased.

I enrolled on the City of London Corporation guiding course in September 2011, and passed my exams to earn my badge and qualification just before the London Olympics came to town the following summer. During my year of study, I would walk up and down the streets of the city and think “This is just like in the movie Mary Poppins.” It dawned on me that there were tons of Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes tours, but nothing dedicated to the best British nanny of all time! So, I set to work to be the first!

My Supercalifragilistic Tour was the first of my costume walks. Of course, I can’t do an “Official Mary Poppins Tour” due to copyright. Plus, I wouldn’t want to, as the film wasn't made here.

Instead, I went back to the original book series of Mary Poppins and the author PL Travers. She

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is fascinating, and I created a literary tour with history thrown in. Of course, the film is iconic, and understanding the differences between the character and stories written by Travers versus the Walt Disney silver screen production is also part of the tour. (As well as some local history and knowledge about the actors who played in the movie!)

My tour idea came to me in 2012, a year before the film Saving Mr. Banks came out. It was released in October 2013 and portrays the relationship between Travers and Disney on getting Poppins from book to screen. It touches a little on her life, but doesn’t go into detail. Which is good, because I cover those details in my tour.

Of course, the Mary Poppins we see on the screen isn’t the same as Travers wrote. The Poppins from the page is far more dark, harsh, and not loveable.

Not Julie Andrews at all! The tour covers this very important part of the story.

Pamela Lyndon Travers was born Helen Lyndon Goff in Australia on 9 August 1899 but always wanted to live in London & Ireland. I, too, have an August birthday and always had a longing to live in London. She adored her father, but at the age of 5, he died. (at 5, my parents divorced, and visits decreased to twice a year). She made the long journey from Australia to UK alone, determined to be successful in her writing. I too made my one-way ticket to London, and we both discovered that this city is expensive!

I decided to become immersed in Travers by reading her work, listening to interviews, and reading an extensive biography by Valerie Lawson. I retraced her steps in London neighbourhoods, and wrote a tour that takes into account much more than the iconic film. Customers who have been on the tour are often surprised at the level of detail and care that has gone into the walk.

In Lawson’s book, she recalls how Travers wrote for the Sydney Bulletin. Just before she left for London is 1924, she wrote Song before a Journey:

holds the heart of me.

This little poem resonates with me. I remember thinking that London would be a cold place, so I prepared for my own journey here with a new coat and new pair of boots. I had high hopes for London, and luckily they have paid off. The life I lead here allows me to guide visitors from all over the world down tiny streets and cobbled roads, telling them about those who have walked in their same paths decades or centuries before.

While my tour finds me dressed as an Edwardian Nanny, it’s PL Travers that I identify with more than Mary Poppins. I’m far from practically perfect. I always feel the need to explain. I have no magical powers. I can’t fly, either, to the dismay of one passerby who approached me and boldly shouted, “Fly!” For more information on Amber Raney-Kincade, please visit www.americantourguideinlondon.com or follow @AmericanLDN on Twitter.

Before I go to Londontown, where streets are paved with gold I’ll buy me little flame-red shoes to keep my feet from cold And skins of little rabbits grey, will wrap me tenderly When I go up to Londontown, that

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NEW EDITION, JUNE 2017

New books from

Clink Street this summer The Monk of Lantau

By Mann Matharu One man embarks on a life-changing journey, across Europe, Asia and the Far East, in the search for inner harmony in this stunning and reflective new fiction.

6th June, 2017 RRP £7.99 paperback, £2.99 ebook

The Roving Eye

By Richard Evans

From the tennis courts at the All England Club to the streets of South Africa during the end of Apartheid, journalist and broadcaster Richard Evans reveals the highlights and lessons learned throughout his distinguished career.

20th June, 2017 RRP £16.99 paperback, £4.99 ebook

Catch 52

By P.G. Ronane A fictionalized exploration of British and European identity one year after the vote that has left a country divided and an unsure future ahead.

22nd June, 2017 RRP £8.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook

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Indenture

By Eunice E. Frimpong Refreshing and uplifting poetry to kindle pursuit of resolution and truth.

29th June, 2017 RRP £6.99 paperback, £2.99 ebook

Molly Fish

By Jack McMasters

Thomas Troll's Travels

A paradise is not as it first appears to a love-stricken retired architect who travels to India only to find the reminders of a lost civilization in this debut literary novel.

Delightful children's tale following the adventures of Thomas Troll as he leaves his home in Norway for adventures in England

By Nicolas Starling

29th June, 2017 RRP £9.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook

29th June, 2017 RRP £5.99 paperback, £2.99 ebook

Discoucia

Sharks in the Runway

By Nick Lovelock Revolution, romance and technological wonders are all in a day’s work for the decorated hero of Avalonia, Sir Arthur Pageon.

29th June, 2017 RRP £9.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook

By Paul Harding A roaring review of the life of a private pilot to the stars; a seafarer and adventurer who’s travelled the globe and found that there’s nowhere like the bright blue waves of the Bahamas.

13th July 2017 RRP £30.99 hardback, £22.99 paperback

Dating Daisy

By Daisy_234

The Finder Series Book 1: The Shield

A 52-year-old divorcee decides to try her hand at internet dating for the first time in this quirky and romantic fiction.

A young girl is transported back in time after finding a lost shield and finds herself as she seeks its rightful return.

18th July, 2017 RRP TBD

By C.J. Bentley

18th July, 2017 RRP £6.99 pap,erback £3.99 ebook

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NEW EDITION, JUNE 2017

New books from Clink Street this summer Contrary to Popular Belief

Winter Jasmine

A thought-provoking historical fiction inspired by Christian faith, and the quest for truth.

Life and death, conflict and oppression, nature, love and faith.

The poems of Salim Khalil Haddad resonate with deep, universal themes and are based on real events and poignant personal experience.

By Neil Anthes

25th July, 2017 RRP £8.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook

By Salim Khalil Haddad

27th July, 2017 RRP £8.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook

Preceded by Chaos Vol. +1

By M. Wheeler

The gripping second instalment in an innovative illustrated short story series detailing the past, present and future of a young emergency room doctor loosely based on people and places encountered during the author's career.

30

27th July, 2017 RRP £5.99 paperback, £2.99 ebook

CONTEMPORARY PUBLISHING MAGAZINE

Thanks for reading!

Look for the next issue of New Edition in September 2017!

31

NEW EDITION CONTEMPORARY ISSUE

PUBLISHING

33,

JUNE

2017

MAGAZINE