blankpages Issue 25

Issue 25 Aug 2010

BLANKPAGES

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CONTENTS GET IN TOUCH WELCOME...

COVER ARTIST BLANKVERSE SPOTLIGHT FICTION FEATURE - OBVERSE BOOKS THIS MONTH’S MP3 BLANKPICKS BLANK MEDIA RECOMMENDS CREDITS

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Communications: communications@blankmediacollective.org blankpages copyright Š2006-2010 Blank Media Collective unless otherwise noted. Copyright of all artworks remains with artist.

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Welcome...

Issue 25 and it’s all change here at blankpages! This month we have the excellent illustration skills of Kevin Bradshaw (last month’s cover artist) to add to our visual arsenal.

Unfortunately we have parted ways with our Poetry Editor, Baiba Auria, and this issue will be the last for our Fiction Editor, Phil Craggs. They have both worked with the magazine for a long time, and I thank them for their input sincerely.

But as one editorial door closes, others open and I can announce two new additions to the blankpages team. Both are interns – Lauren Bolger and Corinna Iredale. Lauren is working on our poetry content, and Corinna is on board as Editorial Assistant. It is a time of transition for the magazine and I’m sure our new additions will bring some exciting stuff to the table.

Finally, if you happen to be at the Big Chill Festival this month, swing by the Words in Motion Tent on Friday night after Massive Attack for Doodlebug Presents... I’ll be on the sofa with the cream of the North West’s new creative blood, talking blankpages, the collective, the emerging art scene in Manchester (and Mr Scruff will be there too..)

See you then!

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Mark Boardman “My recent work draws inspiration from memory and nostalgia. My intention is to capture moments and feelings that have been visually lost, even to memory, but remain in scraps of emotion. While the paintings are from my own memory, my aim is for the viewer to see parallels in their own recollections, and so the subjects that I choose to paint are unspecific: memories of watching the road as a passenger, or small details from home spaces that seem unimportant if not for the fact that they are part of our everyday lives. I find that these moments and places inform my idea of childhood, where the responsibility of our parents lends a false sense of safety, that gives way at the realisation that we are often inches from death.�

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Mark Boardman graduated from University College Falmouth in 2009 with a BA in Illustration. He paints primarily in oils and has exhibited paintings in Bristol and London.

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James Shaw

illustrations by Kevin Bradshaw Poet, playwright and musician, James Shaw has just gained a first class degree in creative writing at John Moores University and has won the JMU Fellowship Award for 2010. His poetry has been published in Get Back Magazine and his screenplays have already generated offers from two North West publishers. Currently, he is working on the release of his first full album ‘Musical Moods’, having previously released the ‘Serving Scouse EP’ to high acclaim. In September 2010 he begins an MA at JMU in screenwriting. James was born in 1981 in Liverpool, where he currently lives and works.

Nanna Limbs aren’t flying outside my front door.

My doorstep’s free of bloodstains thank you.

I use bleach and it's not cheap.

Footprints leave marks and the only toes that grace my laminate have clean souls.

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I speak as I find.

I wouldn't dare sling mud in other people’s gardens.

The worlds gone to pot so I'll keep my corner spic and span.

Thank you!

Cleanliness is close to godliness.

Satan knows his dirty fingers aren’t poking anywhere near my heart.

Peter Davis died yesterday, in Iraq.

Lovely lad, always smart.

Shame really.

When his mother always keeps her house, her step Immaculate.

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The Joys and Worries of a Prostitute Loves to toss off, watching me on the window ledge in me Primark dress.

After wiping me purple cur tins down, I fix the bed, spread me cushions out and count me cash.

I wrap it up with a plazzy band an cup it inside me bra.

I'll top it up with the next fuck.

Mucky little shit, he's dead insecure.

I'm always there with the tissues on standby to mop up the tears.

See it's like this, Harry and Tom ardly visit but Dick always pops up, rears is ugly ed when ya least expect it, which believe me, I ate.

Can't complain dough, this credit crunch has got everyone on their knees.

Can’t offer the poor sod a hob knob or a brew, well would you?

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Cell Dwellers They wear the walls thin with years of scratching but this one paints his in shit.

He says, The walls remember.

In the dark he paints a face without eyes.

Then cries, Turn the lights on. I can’t see!

I’m obliged to clean his mess.

It’s my job, see?

He paints himself a shitty birthday suit and blows his candles out with a fart.

He sings, Shit makes art, then whispers, I’ll paint your future.

Truth is, I knew his future.

He should have painted a door, and walked through it.

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Hannah Morrison The fresh and direct gestures of pen on paper are always the inspiration to make new work, the initial exploration stimulating the beginning of the process.

The relationship to drawing is constant throughout the whole development of my work, and a successful piece will retain the freshness of my original marks.

I am attracted to neglected industrial structures, places that suggest a sense of history and a narrative behind their appearances of corrosion and wear. I am intrigued by their fragile appearances of tragedy and decay, and I try to choose supports that aid these elements, such as reclaimed surfaces of wood and metal, the distressed surfaces of which influence the piece as much as my drawing.

I like the way different processes can influence my initial imagery: the stark, direct lines of a woodcut; the delicacy of an embossing on paper; the impermanency of paint that can be built up in layers and scraped back. These different techniques of making imagery add depth, intrigue, atmosphere, and a more complete and coherent version of my initial gestures.

I am always exploring new processes to capture the fragile, the ephemeral, and the linear investigation of form and space. I wish to pursue further the notion of collections and for images to appear as scientific explorations of details.

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Hannah Morrison graduated from University College Falmouth in 2007 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Printmaking). In 2008 her work was exhibited in a month-long solo show on the King Harry Ferry, Cornwall, and since then Hannah has enjoyed success in various comissions, competitions and group exhibitions.

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Bed-Monster

By Dave Weaver Illustrations by Kevin Bradshaw It takes more than just a few hours to tidy away a life.

If Jennifer thought a couple of afternoon sessions at the old mock Tudor house would do the trick she was miles out in her calculations.

Like some fatally under-budgeted engineering project the reality was wildly different from the plan. The place was a mess. She knew that of course from the regular monthly visits she’d been paying him over the last two years.

On long Sunday afternoons as her father chased Freddy around the overgrown garden she would get down to the task of tidying the house she was born in; the piles of dirty clothes, the wine bottle empties, the old magazines and newspapers. Not the washing up though, he was always scrupulous about that – a good habit left over from national service. Apparently that didn’t extend to the Hoover.

Freddy loved Grandad, especially Grandad the alien being from planet Compost Heap.

He’d gladly taken on the task of entertaining the boy while she got on with it. As she watched them play, the alien making extraterrestrial noises while Freddy screamed in delighted fear, it reminded Jennifer of the way her father would tease her, how he’d chase her at bedtime, the bed-monster coming after her as she ran shrieking into the upstairs darkness.

It had been the dirty piles of washing up that had tipped her off something was wrong.

His strange actions recently; the loss of his dark little irony-free quirks and prejudices in

vacuous silences. The occasional mumblings about strange events in his past, things never mentioned to her before.

They told Jennifer the long process of slipping away had begun.

Worried neighbours would beckon her into their hallways.

“He was knocking on people’s doors, the police came round.” Mrs Scott had told her.

So here she was, one Sunday afternoon in a chill October, stuffing his unwanted old clothes into plastic bags for the charity dump near the Supermarket. The last of the summer sun had long since vanished and with it Freddy’s whoops of joy from behind the rose bushes.

She’d left her son at home with his dad these last few months. Gerry had always been too busy with his work to accompany them on their grandpa visits and now she needed to concentrate on sorting out her father’s things before his departure. Especially the papers kept in the old tin file underneath his bed.

She knew what she’d find; the house deeds, ancient building society paying-in stubs, a ring of old keys, their significance long forgotten.

She pulled the tin out, holding her nose against the dust, but its own key was missing.

As he dozed in the living room she found it at the back of a dresser drawer under a pile of rubbish.

There were other items in the tin as well, crinkled old green and brown envelopes and a few grainy pictures of her mother he’d kept, their Eastmancolour hues wine-tinged with age. There was even one of her parents together, his arm hugging protectively around her shoulders as they braved the wind on some nameless holiday promenade. He looked a bit drunk and they both seemed very young and happy.

It made her cry a little when she first saw it, picking it out to study it in the fading daylight.

Yes, they were young, much younger than 20

she was now, probably still ‘courting’ as her mother would have put it. It must have been before she was born – there was no sight of a pram. The reverse had ‘Bognor ‘61’ scribbled on it in faded biro; five years before their only child would arrive in the world.

What had they done in those five years?

Where had they been?

She didn’t know.

And what had gone wrong after that, had ruined it all?

She didn’t know that, either. Her perhaps?

It wasn’t the sort of thing she could ever have asked her father and now it was too late.

Her parents had split up when she was still young. It was the summer of Uncle Bob’s farm, a big year in her life when everything had changed. But that summer had been marvellous even if she’d been a little afraid of Uncle Bob at first.

She remembered how her mother had taken her to one side at the school gates after she’d waved her friends goodbye and they’d all given each other over-dramatic hugs the way young girls do.

“You’re going to spend the holidays with Uncle Bob and Aunt Louise on their farm.

We’re going down tomorrow so lots of packing tonight.”

“But I want to stay with you.”

“Daddy and I think that it might be a good idea, while we get ourselves sorted out. Don’t argue with me about it now, Jen. Just give it a chance.”

Her father had been in one of his sullen moods when they’d arrived home. After a few grunted enquiries about her holiday homework he’d gone to bed, leaving the two of them to get on with packing her little case with favourite t-shirts and jeans and two calico summer dresses her mother had bought as a surprise; one brown and one green. She could still see them, laid out on her bed in the little

room with its Donny Osmond and Bay City Roller posters. They were like the envelopes she held in her hand now, the same colours and crumpled as if her mother had just bought them that afternoon, had just taken them out of the bag.

They’d left early the next morning but not before he’d picked her up to hug her goodbye.

He was standing half-dressed at the window, looking down on their little green Hillman car (we’re taking the ‘Hillman’ her mother would say as opposed to her father’s huge Rover, making it sound like some strange family servant). She remembered the just-shaved smoothness of his face as he clung to her, the tangy chemical smell of his aftershave on it and where he’d wiped it on his chest, although she identified it as that only later in life.

At that time it was just Daddy’s smell.

“Have a nice time, poppet. Be good.”

His voice was softer now, and somehow sad.

There was a wetness of tears on his cheek, transferred to hers so that she tasted their saltiness in her mouth.

“You’re always a good girl…”

That was the last time they’d been in the house together. She wouldn’t return there until after her mother had died and Freddy was born. Now her father would be going into a nursing home and the house sold to pay for the fees.

In her old bedroom there was little of the girl she’d left behind. The walls had been repainted magnolia with various pieces of cheap flat-pack furniture crammed against them. It was a guest room now. She even found a dusty old black bra behind the wardrobe.

The bed was still her old one though. She’d felt an odd wave of disgust when she’d first seen it there; that he and some other woman had probably used it together. She put a hand on the headboard and pushed. It still squeaked.

She looked in the wardrobe for the first

time. A few old dresses hung there forlornly, not her mother’s but petite creations with wide collars and padded shoulders. A young woman’s dresses, once fashionably expensive, now shabby.

There was something else as well, something tucked back in darkness on the top shelf.

Stretching up to reach it she found a miniature version of the case she’d taken to Uncle Bob’s.

She sat on the bed, un-clicked the latches and tipped out the contents. Ribbons, Barbie dolls, a pin-cushion she’d made in Fabrics class, given to her father for some obscure reason.

And her old Scottie-dog toy.

That had led to a scene when they’d realised she’d left it behind, her mother refusing to go back for it even though they’d only gone a little way. “I can’t do this twice, Jen,” she’d shouted at a tearful daughter.

She smelt the mustiness of its nylon fur and under that, faint but still there, another familiar odour. She held the toy up to her nose.

It was a tangy, chemical smell.

Somewhere in her memory a thin vale fluttered in the breeze, and for a moment she caught a glimpse beyond. The sudden nausea made her run to the bathroom where she vomited into the sink.

Jennifer was due to pick him up at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. That would give Linda, the home-help from Social Services, time to bath him and make sure he’d eaten his breakfast. Jennifer had come to rely on this large cheerful woman; Her father was thinner and more fragile now than even a few months ago but he could still be a handful. And the bathing and dressing made her feel uncomfortable, as if she were doing it to a stranger.

There was something else as well.

For the past week she’d found herself unable to touch him.

Now she was sitting in her car in the wide circular driveway. She’d been there for a while 21

staring past the house through the wrought iron back gate to the rose bushes beyond. In the blurred colours of memory she saw her father chase Freddy around in the dappling sun of a past summer. Her mind went first to the little suitcase, then to the contents of the crinkled green envelopes in the tin file. This time she’d opened them and read the letters, warning her father of prosecution. Then she’d read the other ones from his lawyers.

The dream had come again last night, the old one she’d thought left behind with her childhood: The bedroom door ajar, distilled streetlight from the corridor’s window framing the silhouette. A rustle of sheets then the sudden unexpected weight, pulling the mattress down and away so that she reached out a sleepy hand to grab hold. The tangy chemical smell in her nostrils as the bed-monster

pushed itself towards her, Scotty-dog trapped between them as the nylon bristles entangled themselves in the matted hair of its chest.

The disembodied hand, gently stroking her shoulder before slowly beginning its journey.

And then the steady, rhythmical squeak of the headboard…

Linda’s voice from an upstairs window made Jennifer start. The slight impatience of the beckoning gesture made her almost jump out of the car, banging her knee on the door. The woman had made sure that his bags were already in the porch, so that Jennifer only had to load them into the vast boot of the 4x4. There didn’t seem to be enough of them, somehow. She’d expected more.

She unlocked the front door and pushed it open, but her feet refused to move any further.

She stepped back into the driveway.

“Can you bring him down?” She shouted up at the window.

They drove through the new housing estate that would take them to the ring road and then quickly on to the nursing home. The town’s older area including Honeycombe Crescent, her father’s road, had been left behind on its fringes. Its solitary detached buildings with their awkward bay windows and cold stone-paved front gardens now felt like grey tombstones to Jennifer.

She and Gerry had a house like these new ones; bright, modest, semi-detached, semifriendly with next door and the people across the road. They had two cars, good jobs, a cat and a mortgage. And a wonderful little boy.

Everything was in its place, as it should be.

“Have I done something wrong, mummy?”

She heard the little girl’s voice in her head. It was the day they’d driven down to Uncle Bob’s farm; there had been no new estate then, no ring road. They’d had to drive through the middle of the old town, through the market day hustle. Her mother had got angry at

the crowds and beeped the little car’s horn, making people stare round at them. She’d felt embarrassed. When mummy got angry it always seemed to be her fault. She tried to catch her eye but her mother stared ahead, unseeing.

“Mummy…?”

“I hate this fucking town!” She’d shouted it at the windscreen, the word hate emphasised so that the other terrible one she’d used was almost lost. Jennifer saw that she’d started crying. They’d been on the motorway for hours before her mother had spoken again as if nothing had happened.

“Shall we stop somewhere soon for our picnic, Jen?” Jennifer knew what the bed-monster was, of course.

She’d always known really, even though she’d hidden it away between the folds of her memory, carefully covered with the bright new things of her life.

Uncle Bob and Auntie Louise had known as well. She’d seen it in their faces when they thought she wasn’t looking; on a pony ride, a day out at the beach. Or the village fair when she’d won a goldfish on the coconut shy, even though it hadn’t fallen down, and Uncle Bob had told the man to give it to her anyway. When he smiled at her it was in the back of his eyes, and when she heard them talking downstairs as she was falling asleep she heard it in their voices. Not the slow, indistinct words but the sound of them. A heavy, flat sound, as if they were being forced to say them.

They’d known. So had her mother.

And so, at last she could admit to herself, had she.

“Sorry, Jen…” So had she…

“Jen…?”

She felt his hand touch her knee.

She started from her reverie and slapped 22

it away, then found herself carrying on the movement so that her palm was suddenly in his face, her fingernails gouging bloody furrows down his cheek. Her foot hit the brake and they both shot forward then snapped back into their seats as the 4x4 stalled and juddered to a halt.

There was a squeal of brakes from behind and she automatically tensed herself for a jolt that never came, the car swerving around them in a blast of horn and swearing.

Her father cringed away from her, pressing his back against the door frame with his fists up to his face as if to protect himself. His eyes were wide with uncomprehending fear.

Jennifer could smell the urine now, its sharp pungent odour filling the car. She saw the wetness spread outwards from his flannel trousers to the edges of the carseat then slowly drip onto the floor.

“Sorry, Jen…” He began to repeat the words again like a mantra.

He only stopped when she forced herself to slide across and put her arms around him, to tell him that it was alright, just a car, not the end of the world.

He was quiet for the rest of the journey.

Jennifer thought the girl at reception couldn’t be more than twenty. She seemed bright and friendly enough though as she gave Jennifer the forms and put big crosses where she had to sign.

“He had a little accident on the way here.”

She explained.

“Oh dear, we’ll sought all that out when we get him up to his room. Has he hurt his cheek as well?”

“Moved when I was trying to shave him this morning.”

The girl looked at her steadily.

“We’ll get someone round to deal with that as well then, shall we?”

“Thank-you.”

“That’s no problem.” The girl replied with a tight little smile. She hadn’t believed her.

In the small neat room her father looked a shrunken figure as he sat on the bed. Jennifer read a magazine while two women bathed him and put him in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

When they left she took his hand. “Well, you’re alright now so I must be going. I’ve got to pick up Freddy from cubs.”

He looked up at her, and for a brief moment the milky bewilderment in his eyes seemed to clear.

“I’m sorry, Jen.” “I told you, the car doesn’t matter.”

“Not the car…”

She felt her eyes suddenly prickle with tears.

She couldn’t look at him but squeezed his hand and nodded.

“I’ll come and see you when I can.” She heard her own small voice but it was as if someone else was saying the words.

She found herself bending down to kiss the top of his head.

“Goodbye, daddy.”

Outside the day had grown darker, with a light rain begining to fall. Jennifer looked around absently at the carefully laid out lawns and tidy flowerbeds. She tried to find some residue of the anger that had been flowing inside her but it seemed to have finally drained away.

That was good.

It was like a poison anyway. She didn’t want to carry it around with her anymore, to pass it on to Freddy.

But the bed-monster lived inside her head now. It would always be a part of her.

She drove away from the home down the long tree-lined driveway without looking back.

Dave Weaver is a graphic designer living in St Albans, Hertfordshire. He took to writing relatively recently, becoming a member of the Verulam Writers’s Circle, and has had a number of short stories published on various e-zines and two in printed anthologies. He is currently working on a fantasy novel, ‘Jacey’s Kingdom’, and a set of interconnected short stories set in Japan, ‘Flowerchain’.

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Obverse Books introduction by Phil Craggs In 2009, a new small press called Obverse Books published its first release, entitled Iris Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus. A short story collection about a gin-soaked adventuress who travels the universe in her time machine (cunningly disguised as a double-decker bus) with her talking panda side-kick (and noted art critic) Panda and generally gets in the way of evil-doers everywhere. The book was a rather attractive hard-back release, and sold well enough to do what all small publishers hope their first books will do - pay for the second book. And so it was that The Panda Book Of Horror followed at the end of 2009, and Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate opening this year’s publication schedule. Also announced is their first non-tie-in book, The Obverse Book Of Ghosts (due October 2010) and the forthcoming Faction Paradox book, a series of stories about a time-travelling voodoo cult that delights in creating paradoxes.

So, why should you care? Well, because this isn’t just an operation designed to publish friends of the editors who aren’t good enough to be published elsewhere; Obverse’s first few releases have been full of experienced writers who marry craft with imagination, names such

as Paul Magrs, Mark Morris, Stephen Cole and George Mann to mention only a handful - successful novelists in the wider publishing world.

You should care if you value new voices, as Obverse has an open submissions policy on most of its books. No-one gets published unless they’re good enough, but everyone has their work considered.

You should care because Obverse rejects formulaic fiction, valuing instead stories full of ideas, told with wit and intelligence but that don’t take themselves too seriously.

And you should care because the example of Obverse gives important tips to anyone thinking of setting up their own small press. The founder of Obverse Books is Stuart Douglas, who below outlines the process that led to the publication of their first book. Every book is different; a different genre, a different target audience, a different style of writing wanted.

The story of Obverse Books is not typical, and their route can not be followed step-for-step by others. But it can act as a guide to help others through the early stages of preparing a book for publication, as well as being an interesting story in its own right.

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Avoiding Disaster: or, How to Establish Your Own Small Press

Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus!”

By Stuart Douglas.

And now, if this email subject lines was to be believed, disaster!

‘disaster’!

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Back to the beginning…

That one word subject line in my Inbox filled me with a sudden, horrible sense of impending doom. So I did what all publishing professionals do in such circumstances – I shut down my PC and went to get a cup of tea.

Well, what else could I do? Very rarely in human history has the word ‘disaster’ been a prelude to cracking open the champagne and toasting the rosy future.

And we’d been doing so well, too.

After a month or so of feverish email blandishments and imprecations, we’d amassed a set of authors for our first book, I’d agreed to pay them enough for a smallish pizza for the stories they were all in the middle of writing, and I’d announced the forthcoming book on various online fora, message boards and mailing lists. I’d tweeted it and Facebooked it, even made it my email signature – “Coming Soon from Obverse Books – Iris

Stage 1 – Pick a Subject Getting the subject of your book right is pretty much essential. Assuming that you don’t actually have a Remembrance of Things Past bursting to escape from your breast, it’s important to find a topic which a few other people might find interesting. There’s an argument to be made for hitching your wagon to the latest craze but, almost by definition, the time to do so is about a year ago.

With Obverse it was actually pretty straightforward.

Paul Magrs and I have been online friends for years. We conversed via email and Facebook, and met up in person now and again. Every so often one or other of us would come up with an idea for a project, and we’d enthusiastically discuss doing it together but predictably never manage to get things going properly. Hardly surprising, of course – how often does idle 25

work-avoiding email chat lead to actual workcreating action?

We talked about a novel in which the characters from ITV sitcoms try to survive in the world of Terry Nation’s Survivors, about a guide to TV serials based on classic children’s books, and about a collection of short stories based round a peculiar police station; but each came and went and nothing much got done in the passing.

Then one day we were moaning about the lack of good Doctor Who books nowadays.

The BBC had triumphantly re-launched the TV series in 2005 and followed that up with the now customary series of tie-in novels but, unlike the books published while the series was off the telly, the new books were generally thin stuff with little to interest anyone over the age of ten.

Co-incidentally, amongst the earlier range of Who books were several written by Paul, featuring his own take on the Doctor and his people, the Time Lords: Miss Iris Wildthyme, a gin-soaked time traveller whose time machine was stuck looking like a red Routemaster double decker bus instead of a Police Box and who, rather than being surrounded by pretty young girls like the Doctor, liked the company of gay men.

‘Why don’t we write some new Iris stories?’ we said to one another in (genuinely) crossed emails.

And that was that. Eight months later we had a finished book selling like hot cakes and we haven’t looked back since.

Well, not quite. First off we had to check whether we even could do any new stories.

Stage 1B – Who owns the rights?

Iris, in the wise words of Wikipedia, is a character with a ‘complicated publishing history’.

Originally appearing in one of Paul’s early mainstream, magic realist novels, she had entered the Doctor Who universe in four basically bonkers novels for the BBC. Following the end of the initial run of BBC Dr Who books, she’d done nothing for a while then popped up in a set of two audio plays from Big Finish and a short story collection edited by Paul from the same company. But that was back in 2005 and here we were in 2009, with little certainty regarding the rights Paul currently had to the character.

Paul was pretty certain he could do whatever he wanted with her and it seemed a fair presumption

that he hadn’t ceded the rights to Big Finish for anything other than the releases from a few years back. But until agents were consulted he couldn’t be sure. Rights ownerships are rarely as straight-forward as you would think and it can turn out that characters are owned by the most unlikely people.

In our case, however an email or two was all it took to confirm that Iris was all Paul’s and we could go ahead with the book.

In retrospect, this was the biggest break we got. A new imprint (especially a genre one) really needs a hook from the get go, or at least a property which can be guaranteed to sell more than seven copies to the authors’ mums and aunties. Without an Iris to anchor itself to, Obverse would have been just one more tiny publisher chucking out sci-fi stories and hoping they’d stick.

With Iris, though, we had a small but loyal following, at least tangentially linked to a massively successful TV show. We also had an audience we could reach directly, via Doctor Who fora and mailing lists. Money is tight in any start-up and the fact that we would need to spend little or no cash on advertising was a big plus.

Even so, a captive audience and a property 26

designed to hook a starting set of customers was all very well, but it wasn’t enough. We also needed to wed the property to a set of authors the audience would recognise.

Stage 2 – Get some authors.

There was a fairly large group of authors we both knew who we wanted to appear in the book. For my part, these were mainly Doctor Who people: authors with a single book under their belt, or a handful of short stories, who had little to no chance of being asked to contribute to the new, wildly popular but definitely more simplistic, BBC book range. Paul had a wider range of potential writers, including television writers, former students of his and a smattering of novelists. Luckily the degree of overlap was such that in the end our individual lists of a dozen or so authors meshed pretty well and by the time we’d trimmed off people who were either unrealistic targets or who we knew were too busy, we had a solid 12 names to approach and convince to write an Iris story.

One major stumbling block, though – how much to pay them?

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Obviously Paul knew how much he’d been paid for work in the past, and at that industry standard rate we could afford to have a little under two stories in the book before I ran out of money.

I’d decided that I was willing to lose two thousand pounds maximum which, added to the fact that I reckoned we’d sell at least 50 books, meant we had £2500 to spend. As a rough figure I reckoned on £1500 for printing, which left a grand to spend on authors.

Well, not all. One person said they’d love to but couldn’t come up with a story, and another said he would have no idea at all how to write for Iris. Still, we got nearly every writer we wanted, through a combination of pathetic playing on friendship, ingratiating comments and asking ‘what are you working on just now, anyway?’

So we made two points clear up front when we announced that we’d be asking for subs:

We told them the deadline for first drafts, hastily skimmed over the very small fee, and moved onto the next stage of our masterplan...

There’s no denying that we then got lucky. Not only did we get far more pitches than we’d ever dreamed possible, but the vast majority of them were good. Not just OK or acceptable, but genuinely good; full of wit and imagination and a nicely askew view of the universe. We actually commissioned the very first pitch we got: a mad, clever, brilliantly left-field story about a masked Mexican wrestler, and then spent the next several weeks arguing back and forward which other of the many excellent pitches we would be able to use.

Plenty of money. Surely?

Stage 3 – Involve the readership

As it turned out, not really. £100 for hosting for a website, another hundred for ISBN registration (as soon as you buy ISBNs the publisher name is linked to the books you release, so you effectively become a TM publishers and no-one else can use the same name from then on), a couple of hundred put aside for the postage charges for review copies…it all adds up. In the end, we had a few hundred pounds left in the pot to pay the authors and, more in hope than expectation, we set about mailing people.

It’s not the most original idea we’ve ever had, but there is one thing more likely to get genre book fans excited than the names of their favourite authors on the cover of a book.

And oddly, unexpectedly, brilliantly, they all said ‘Yes.’

Their own name on the cover of the same book.

Slush piles don’t always work. They can feel like a dead letter office designed to placate budding authors. An overlong turnaround time from submission of unsolicited manuscript, for instance, or no-one ever seeming to get a book into print from out of the pile – that sort of thing can kill any benefit from accepting open submissions in the first place.

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We would feedback to every single person who submitted a pitch before we announced the line-up of each book Every book we published would have at least one story in it taken from the slush pile.

In the end, we picked three stories from the slush pile and, as promised, gave feedback to everyone else who took the time to pitch. And we stressed we’d be doing the same thing for the next book.

It’s worth mentioning that none of this is brain surgery – the Virgin Publishing Doctor Who books had always run a slush pile and in many

ways we were just restarting something which had for a long time been synonymous with Doctor Who publishing. But it did get people talking and get them interested.

Stage 4 – Coping with disaster Back to the ‘disaster’.

I had my cuppa and came back, opened the email and – relief.

What could have been something as horrific as a sudden realisation that I’d forgotten to carry a zero, meaning this venture was going to cost me a fortune, turned out to be no more than one not very good author taking a hissy-fit and pulling out of the book, because I’d said five years previously that a mate of his wasn’t a very good writer. Which he isn’t and wasn’t. But Paul wanted him in and I was pretty confident that he could drag a decent story out of anyone.

Embarrassingly, that’s about as close as we came to actual disaster. Other than shrugging and mailing another writer for a new story, that was our Towering Inferno!

Stage 5 - Cover art.

a good cover design is almost as important as the stories inside. At all costs avoid a cover which looks as though it were knocked up in five minutes in Photoshop using an image downloaded from the net - the last thing you want is for your customers to think you’re actually just a self-publisher. Get someone talented to do an image for your front cover or, alternately and more cheaply, go to one of the free stock photo sites - www.morguefile.com is a good one - and download a suitable image from there

In the end we went with Biddles (www.biddles. co.uk).

Stage 6– Finding a Printer

Put the calculator away.

You should do this bit first, but really it’s the easiest bit by far. There are dozens of printers in the UK alone, all of whom are very competitively priced and enormously helpful. Go onto Google and type in ‘digital book printing’ and you’ll get pages of companies happy to print you as little as 100 copies of your book at surprisingly moderate prices.

Stage 8 – The finished product

Drop a few of them a line, ask for samples of their work, quotes for printing, logins to their ftp servers – they’ll all be happy to help. If you’ve got this far there’s nothing at all to worry about when it comes to having the actual physical book made.

When generating interest in your new book,

Stage 7 – Do the Maths It’s a simple sum: (Cost of authors + cost of printing/number of books) = Cost Per Book Add on an amount equal to whatever you want to make from each book.

And that’s about it.

For a small fee, most printers will convert your word document into a print ready file. They’ll also check your cover artwork looks ok. All you need to do is buy a large supply of padded envelopes, make a big Excel spreadsheet of customers and prepare yourself for the frosty looks you’ll undoubtedly attract as you hold up the queue at the Post Office while you post 125 books, all the same size and shape, but which seemingly still need to be weighed individually!

Best of luck!

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“When Gauguin really gets your goat...

(THIS MONTH’S MP3)

DEAF TO VAN GOGH’S EAR - And Then Deaf To Van Gogh’s Ear are the group providing the soundtrack to this month’s issue. The quirky indie quartet have been making a name for themselves in certain circles over the last couple of years with their unashamedly experimental take on pop. Or is it an unashamedly poppy take on experimentalism? I think it’s probably both. They caught our eye some time back when they played at a Blank Media night and now we are proud to announce that they will be the first to play at Blank Media’s new series of live music events “BlankSounds” as part of their tour with virtuoso math-rock duo Chrik. Support comes from another duo, Nuzzlemuzzle, who will be providing their own unique approach to music with some Jackie Collins-influenced lo-fi indie. So come and join us at Kro Bar (Oxford Road, opposite the Academy) on Friday August 13th, you won’t be disappointed.

Deaf to Van Gogh’s Ear - http://www.myspace.com/deaftovangoghsear Chrik - http://www.myspace.com/chrikmusic Nuzzlemuzzle - http://www.myspace.com/nuzzlemuzzle

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is unavaoidable”

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exquisite c You may remember in June's blankpages we featured a new, independent festival that took place at Fell Foot Wood in the Lake District. Imploding Acoustic Inevitable is run from Wigan; a mixture of experimental or leftfield music and poetry. The package translated really well into a festival setting, with a lovely responsive crowd and a relaxing vibe. A genius stroke on the part of the organisers was their take on the Surrealist's Exquisite Corpse technique.

The opening of a poem was written, and passed around the festival site for everyone to contribute to. blankpages has the honour of publishing the fruits of this strange labour, and it certainly makes for more adventurous reading than a straight review of the event. Through it, perhaps you can get a better sense of what went on that weekend... So, dive in... And if you're reading it and recognise your creation, we'd love to hear from you....

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And so for good measure...

I kiss your eyelids and hold your heart.

It’s time to be together, Apart...

It’s time to be the thing you aren’t And are!

We, stumbling through this once dark wood, Where Wigan and Windermere fuse; Nervous nature trembles, I’d love to fall into your swimming pearl eyes, But, alas, I can’t swim...

It was whispered softly Don’t do poetry; do do trees The heat of the sun melted our minds To leave creativity, alone, simmering...

Where brutal dreams are realised In tin town, timber bones they creak Like floorboards.

Once, when the floods came, my faith started to wane I used to be, but now I am not!

Music is my best friend!!

To be someone must be a wonderful thing.

The sky is ready to be burst She started to itch,

corpse Like rabid dog with an incurable case of the mange...

The candles don’t release the pressure.

You cunt!

Midge Ure, midge more, midgey bidgey Yet another stanza from me, why not?

A lad, a lass, a loss, again alas!

Vole? Bowl? Soul? Pole? Coal? No goals!

Up jumped a jolly swag man Wigan and the world in a cup hiccup And so to time, lets wind up.

For the steaming dalek on stage...

Where is the doctor? Where is the doctor?

With my burgundy mock-tudor I look like a complete fucking loser On no wing but a prayer With my well-conditioned hair I fuck my own anus, The French “Derriere”!

Liquorice root, leather chaps, Tortoise eyes, wholemeal baps, Last week I went to the shops, not anymore.

Tickety-bum, tickety-bum Something is going on behind the cover of the club In the daytime.

Ooops – I forgot my husband’s hot-dog jumper My school bus never came Small, some would say miniscule (but only from a distance).

Copies of the Koran, written in Korean.

“There is no ‘I’ in team” “Yes there is!”

It was Stocko’s fault It’s always Stocko’s fault!

Ich bien ein Stocko’s fault Does anyone remember FADS? The owl has angry eyes; it is angry Green tent under; go through And sorrow walks back home with me, You lose one umbrella to find another in a taxi.

(It’s everything you ever wanted from a Sunday) Flippin’ glad to be here as I flipped my van yesterday!

Mumm-ra’s pyramid you say, Well so be it.

I love grass, our lass, lets get smashed!

Roses are red, violets are blue England are shit and so are you!

Chops: are you hot, are you cold?

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FAMILY FRIENDLY FILM FESTIVAL Various Locations 30 July - 15 August The Family Friendly Film Festival is packed full of events and activities perfect for keeping your little monsters entertained during the holidays. From the best in children’s cinema from across the globe, to special events and workshops, the festival is the only place to be every summer! www.familyfriendlyfilmfestival.org.uk/ ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLOBE Madlab, Manchester 3rd – 31st August Madlab is excited to present our first show, On the Other Side of the Globe : Exhibition of Korean contemporary artists and designers in Manchester & London. http://madlab.org.uk/ FILMONIK - KICKS AND GIGGLES THE SECOND Font Bar, Manchester, 3rd August - 7.30pm, An informal chance to come down and meet everyone, share ideas, find out more about Filmonik if you have not been down to one of our nights before and generally have a laugh. Everyone is welcome and we hope to see as man of you there as possible. http://tinyurl.com/326ooh6

ANGLE OF REFRACTION, GARETH HACKING | MARK DEVEREUX greenroom, Manchester 4th August - 4th September Preview: 5th August, 6-9pm The discipline of photography is constantly evolving and in greenroom’s new exhibition, Angle of Refraction we are taken to see exciting advances that push this art form to new extremes. Blank Media Collective are curating this exhibition to showcase the work of Gareth Hacking and Mark Devereux who create captivating and unique images using light and photography to produce abstract, painterly images. www.greenroomarts.org ‘YOUTUBE KARAOKE’ FILM NIGHT Nexus Art Cafe, Manchester 6th August, 7pm-late. Free Entry Cast your vote for your favourite youtube videos to be played live on the night and form part of a unique human landscape. Also on the night will be a screening of Daft Punk’s ‘Electroma’ www.nexusartcafe.com FILMONIK - GORILLAS IN THE MIST Nexus Art Cafe, Manchester August 7th 10:30am - August 8th 8:00pm Filmonik’s next open screening is at Deaf Institute from 8pm Sunday August 8th. You have from 10am Saturday August 7th to make a film for that

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screening. That’s just 34 hours. We have nothing to offer you to aid you in your mission. Simply bring along the equipment, skills, talent and knowledge you have at your disposal and be willing to share and collaborate to make something amazing. You’ve proved what you’re capable of achieving “with a little...” Now’s the time to show what you can do with nothing. http://tinyurl.com/39ax4f9 BECOMING A MEMORY Untitled Gallery, Manchester 14th August - 26th September Preview: 13th August, 6 - 9pm Exhibition by photographic artist Roxana Allison. www.untitledgallerymanchester.com/ BRIGHT CLUB 'PLACE' Nexus Art Cafe, Manchester 16th August 7.30pm The thinking person's variety club! Bright Club blends comedy, science, music and anything else that can happen on stage. Our experts dissect one of the important things in life from eight different directions, and all in Bright Club's unique style. The first rule of Bright Club is: you tell your friends about Bright Club! This month's theme takes its cue from our current exhibition, and focusses on the idea of PLACE. www.nexusartcafe.com

INFINITE STROKES: CHINESE INK PAINTING Chines Art Centre, Manchester 20th August – 11th September Preview: 19th August Chinese Arts Centre pays tribute to two artists, Mary Tang and Cathy Wu, who have shown commitment to the Centre over the last 20 years.

Both artists have worked as workshop leaders for the Centre but are also accomplished ink brush painting and calligraphy artists in their own right. www.chinese-arts-centre.org/ NORTHERN FUTURES The Civic, Barnsley Runs till 3rd September Northern Futures is a new, annual art & design prize hosted by The Civic.

The prize has been set up to both recognise and reward the best emerging creative talent in the North of England. Each year, Northern Futures will focus on four specialist areas of art and design and for this inaugural year. www.northernfutures.co.uk/ To include your event in next month’s issue email editor@blankmediacollective.org with your event title, location, date, time and a short description (100 words).

NXNW FESTIVAL POETRY SLAM The Tudor House, Wigan 9th Aug, 8pm - FREE An FA Cup style Poetry Slam with poets paired up in knockout fashion. Four rounds until the winner is declared and prize of £70 given out. There are also runner up prizes.

Poets can sign up by contacting john.togher@ nxnwfesival.co.uk YOU SAY TOMATO, I SAY TOMATO Unit 9 Eckersley Mill, Swan Meadow Road, Wigan, WN3 5BD 8th August - 3rd September Open: 12- 6pm, closed on Mondays.

Preview (Press Day) : 5th August 6 – 9pm Private View: 7th August 7 – 11pm You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato is the second show in as many years to be curated by Smith and Boobis.

The northerners are both Brighton graduates whom, together with the Wigan based NXNW team, are working to demonstrate the strengths and ability of northern small towns to host and appreciate cutting edge shows that would rival their London equivalents.

This exhibition brings together a collection of 20 artists and poets whose varied practices engage with the semantics of spoken language. As suggested by the title, the exhibition is an investigation into the nature of linguistic disagreements and is based on Wittgenstein’s notion that every conversation is a game in which each player inevitably has their own rules.

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THE BLUE CURTAIN The Tudor House, Wigan 10th Aug, 8pm - FREE A night of theatre, comedy, poetry and storytelling. ‘Midwich Assembly’ will be performing a short story set to music, playwright Melanie Rees will be showcasing an extract of her play, brother and sister duo John & Christine perform excerpts from their comic portrayal of a northern mother and son relationship and John Darwin will provide morose and intricate poetry.

SOUND OF RUM The Tudor House, Wigan 11th Aug, 8pm The Sound of Rum are a young band that fuse elements of jazz, hip hop, and politically charged poetry. They have recently been seen at Bestival, Latitude, Glastonbury, The Big Chill and Secret Garden Party. they are currently signed to Rob Da Bank’s Sunday Best label.

Blank Media Collective Team: Director: Mark Devereux Financial Administrator: Martin Dale Development Coordinators: Dwight Clarke & Annette Cookson Communications Coordinators: Stephanie Graham & Dan English Information Manager: Sylvia Coates Website designer: Simon Mills Exhibition Coordinators: Jamie Hyde, Marcelle Holt, Claire Curtin, Rachael Farmer & Taneesha Ahmed Special Projects Coordinator: Victoria Jones Live Music Coordinator: Iain Goodyear Official Photographer: Gareth Hacking

blankpages Team: Editor: John Leyland Fiction Editor: Phil Craggs Poetry Intern: Lauren Bolger Music Editor: Dan Bridgwood-Hill Editorial Assistant: Corinna Iredale Visual Editors / Designers: Henry Roberts & Michael Thorp

In next month’s blankpages...

we have the pleasure of presenting poetry and conversations with ALICIA STUBBERSFIELD, and a cracking music feature by our roving Liverpool reporter ELAINE WILSON on the superb STEALING SHEEP... stay tuned!!!

BLANK MEDIA IS KINDLY SUPPORTED BY LAZY DAISES

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