INPRESS BOOKS P rose A n d N on - F i c t ion JULY–DECEMBER 2015
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Inpress: supporting leading literary book publishers for over a decade Dear Book-Lover, Our prose and non-fiction publishers continue to push boundaries and bring you innovative, edgy stories, ideas and information from the world of independent writing and publishing. From Valley Press (garnering rave pre-publication reviews on NetGalley) comes The Boy in the Mirror – a young man’s cancer memoir written challengingly in the second person, so the reader becomes the protagonist. Peepal Tree Press continues to champion Caribbean writers and the long-awaited new edition of Edgar Mittelholzer’s My Bones My Flute will delight ghost story fans. George Lamming’s Water with Berries is another modern classic exploring politics and post-colonial identity. Burning Eye Books take their first step into biography with Marie Antoinette: An Intimate History, which will be a must for French history fans. Continuing the historical theme, The Last Roundhead, Holland House’s English Civil War novel (masquerading as biography) is also gathering 5* pre-publication reviews. Meet Me There, Cinnamon Press’s tenth anniversary collection focussing on the effect of place, is much-anticipated by this Wales-based independent’s loyal fan-base. Location also plays a strong part in a new novels from Y’Lolfa – Steffan Williams’ hospital-focused The Last House Officer – and from Wrecking Ball Press with Russ Litten’s third novel – the prison-based Kingdom. Istros continue to publish the best in translation from the Balkans, with the hard hitting Yugoslavia, My Fatherland (which provides our cover image) and crime fiction aficionados with a taste for the existential have a treat in store with Andrej Nikolaids’ Til Kingdom Come. Nine Arches publish their first creative writing title, with 52. Write a poem a week. Start Now. Keep Going. (Jo Bell ed.). Jo, the Canal Laureate, is a charismatic and inspirational figure on the poetry scene, and this book will become a must-buy for experienced and aspiring poets alike. Meanwhile Y’Lofa brings out the paperback of BBC news anchor Huw Edward’s much-praised City Mission: The story of London’s Welsh Chapels. Staying on a theme close to many Welsh (and British) hearts, their The Rugby Union Quiz Book will keep followers of the forthcoming Rugby World Cup entertained between fixtures. And as we have all come to expect, Seren have another storming second half of the year ahead, not only with their continued focus on the centenary Alun Lewis season (page 21) but also the first English publication of The World, The Lizard and Me from Gil Courtemanche (1943-2011), much admired author of Canongate’s bestselling A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali. It’s a privilege to work with such an innovative, creative group of publishers and to share their forthcoming work with you. Yours, Sheila
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SECRET SHELTER ACCL AIM FOR THE SHELTER SERIES: “A gripping read… I read it one sitting… a definite contender for my book of the year.” Crime Fiction Lover “A deeply layered web of hidden identities and secret alliances… a thrilling, bloodthirsty, novel.” Buzz “A powerful and dynamic piece of writing. Uncomfortable, taut, brutal, it will shock you out of complacency and hold you gripped right to the end. A wonderful piece of writing.” Cambria
PROLOGUE She’d never been spooked by death. Life and the living definitely gave her the occasional nightmare though. The nurse looked down at the prone figure on the bed. Now and again, in the early days, there’d been something; the odd ripple of an eyelid, a small but definite blink as she reacted to some sudden noise somewhere. But for weeks now there’d been nothing. The nurse checked the usual vital signs, recorded the latest findings in the log she re-filed at the bottom of the bed, then turned to go. In the early days too, she’d talk to her, hoping that something, anything, might get through. These days she couldn’t get out of there quick enough. On a whim the nurse held the door open just for a moment as she made to exit, then slammed it, hard against the jamb, looking at the young woman all the while. Nothing. Not even a flicker. It was like caring for a living corpse. On the bed, Mo stared at the ceiling as the nurse exited, closing the door rather more gently behind her this time. Not that she exactly had much choice, the ceiling was all she could stare at right now. But it wasn’t the ceiling she was looking at with its catscradle splinters in the paint around the central light socket, or the small spider she could now see creeping along an almost invisible web to consume its latest catch. All she was seeing was him. The man. The man whose name, or real name at least, she still didn’t know and now never would.
For more information see page 8
The Last Roundhead Jemahl Evans, author of The Last Roundhead, graduated with an MA in History, focussing on poetry and propaganda during the Wars of the Roses, and started writing this, his debut novel about the English Civil War, in 2013. Now spending his time teaching, reading history, listening to the Delta Blues, walking his border collie, and whining on Twitter about the government, he took the time to tell us a little more about the book…
Why the English Civil War? My interest in the civil war was sparked very early on by reading Rosemary Sutcliff’s book Simon. The whole Seventeenth Century is a fascinating period of British history, and really the birth of our modern state. So much was changing, politics, medieval social structures, gender roles, religious control, science and mathematics, literature. I wanted to show it all through the eyes of someone who lived through it. There is also a real resonance today; iconoclasm, terrorism, brutal civil war, religious schism. They tore Britain apart three hundred years ago, but turn on the world news, and it’s everywhere. Samuel Butler’s poem ‘Hudibras’ – the English Don Quixote – gave me the idea of an old man responding to his critics, and Butler’s own Civil War career led me into the story. It’s also a period that, despite its popularity with re-enactors, doesn’t have a lot of fiction written about it, and Roundhead protagonists are even rarer.
What other books would you compare it to? Well, I think the picaresque way it weaves through real history, with a footnoted structure, is similar to Flashman. I hasten to add Blandford is a very different character; he’s more Little Big Man. It has elements of The Three Musketeers and Tristram Shandy, but also more contemporary books like Bernard Cornwall’s Saxon novels, Simon Scarrow’s Eagle series, or Michael Arnold’s Stryker books.
It’s the first in a series… so what next? Without giving away too many spoilers – he has a civil war to survive, a new world to visit, a theatre he can’t open, more civil war, Cromwell, the restoration; lots and lots. I have Blandford’s life sketched out up to the Great Fire and beyond. Book 2 is almost fi nished; it covers the period between the two battles of Newbury. Whilst the Roundheads are beginning to win the Civil War, life isn’t so good for Blandford. For more information see page 11
My Bones My Flute Edgar Mittelholzer was born in New Amsterdam in what was still British Guiana in 1909. He began writing in 1929 and despite constant rejection letters persisted with his writing. In 1937 he self-published Creole Chips and sold it door to door. By 1938 he had completed Corentyne Thunder, though it was not published until 1941 because of the intervention of the war. In 1941 he left Guyana for Trinidad where he served in the Trinidad Royal Volunteer Naval Reserve, later moving to England in 1948 with the manuscript of A Morning at the Office, which was published in 1950. Between 1951 and 1965 he had published a further twenty-one novels and two works of non-fiction, including his autobiographical, A Swarthy Boy. Apart from three years in Barbados, he lived for the rest of his life in England. His fi rst marriage ended in 1959 and he remarried in 1960. He died by his own hand in 1965, a suicide by fi re predicted in several of his novels.
The moon, that night, rose late, for it was on the wane, and when Mr. Nevinson and I, in pyjamas, went out on to the northern veranda to begin our vigil we were almost startled by the bluish-reddish glow that threw the tops of the trees in the east into sharp and detailed silhouette. But then anything would have startled us. As Mr. Nevinson chucklingly remarked: “I shall soon begin to take fright at my own hand when it scratches the back of my neck.” As we approached the hammock, Jessie’s voice asked nervously: “Is that you, Daddy?” And we saw her face appear above the window sill. “Aren’t you asleep yet?” “There’s nothing like sleep in my eyes tonight,” she said. She was sitting in bed in pyjamas, her chin resting on her knees, her hands mechanically massaging her feet and toes. In the dim light of the ten-watt bulb her face looked strained and furtive. From the other side of the room her mother called: “Well, if you two stand there holding a conference with Jessie I don’t think I shall ever sleep, either.” She spoke a trifle irritably, and turned over in a restless manner. After advising Jessie to lie down and try to compose herself for sleep, Mr. Nevinson and I made a fi nal inspection of the two candles on each of the two window sills. They were fastened tight in improvised candle-rests made out of cocoa tins, these, in turn, being tacked to the sill to ensure that they did not topple over. The space between them was exactly twenty inches, and in
this space, also tacked to the sill, stood a rusty, canteen tin plate containing a piece of waste. Rayburn had attended to this in his usual efficient manner, and he had revealed such a feeling for neatness and symmetry that the window sills, as Mrs. Nevinson had commented when surveying them earlier that evening, looked like sacrificial altars at which we were about to “perform desperate and bizarre rites.” The candles had not yet been lit nor the waste soaked with petrol. We had decided that this should not be done until the two women had fallen asleep, for not only might the fl ickering flames and the fumes of the spirit keep them awake but there would be no sense in allowing the candles to gutter down and the fumes of the petrol to evaporate when there was no prospect of any activity on the part of the demon-entities. From what had happened on the other nights, we felt fairly certain that nothing could materialize unless the two women were asleep. On the veranda floor, beneath each window, we had placed a bottle of petrol and two spare candles and a box of matches, and two upright chairs substituted for the deck-chairs which usually were out here, for we knew that our vigil would be a tiring one, and the comfort of a deck chair would be too conducive to dozing. For more than an hour we paced or sat, indulging in very little conversation. Whenever we did speak we spoke in whispers so as not to disturb the two women. Occasionally we smoked. From Chapter 17, Edgar Mittelholzer, My Bones and My Flute For more information see page 7
FICTION
Clickfinger Mavis Gulliver
Closure Jacob Ross (ed.)
Dark Mermaids Anne Lauppe Dunbar
Book two of The Hag-Stone Chronicles, following on from Cry at Midnight (ISBN: 9781909077355).
An anthology of black British short stories featuring Bernardine Evaristo, Fred D’Aguiar and a host of gifted established and debut writers.
Dark Mermaids is a shocking story of a political system that doped its youngsters to sporting superhero status, and then left them to fend for themselves.
The standout feature of Closure is its richness – of styles, forms, themes, and ways of telling that display a keen awareness of the contemporary short story while exploiting the suppleness of the form to serve the imaginative needs of the writer. The richness is also in the tremendous array of moods and levels of intensity of these stories. Raw realism gives way to pure lyricism; the fanciful rubs shoulders with the speculative.
1990. The Berlin Wall has fallen, Kathe is dead and a young girl arrives on officer Sophia Künstler’s doorstep asking for help. Sophia is forced to return to her childhood home in the former German Democratic Republic, where she faces a past fi lled with secrets.
The Witch of Tiree is dead and Kester, the young wizard has returned to his people. Hamish has forgotten everything that happened, but Merryn will always remember. The necklace of seabeans and hagstones has hung unmoving round her neck. Now, on their fi rst day on the Isle of Kerrera, the necklace begins to throb – a sure sign that there is malevolent magic in the air. Merryn warns The Benevolent Wizards; but trying to defeat the evil witch, Ammonia B Clickfi nger, leads them all into even greater danger. Another gripping novel for children, Clickfi nger is not the end of the story. Look out for Book Three, The Snake Wand in 2016, when our heroes will be re-united in a fi nal quest. Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £9.99 9781909077737 • 198x130mm • 250pp July 2015
There is trauma and humour; tenderness and transgression. These narratives are about our humanity: the ways in which we do and do not love, unrequited yearnings, the quiet unstated violence in our lives, the way we obscure loneliness, and of course the precious moments of jubilation. Jacob Ross is the author of two short story collections, Song for Simone and A Way to Catch the Dust. His novel, Pynter Bender (ISBN: 9780007222971), was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize 2009.
With her job as a police officer hanging in the balance, Sophia begins to investigate the dangerous web of ‘State Plan 14.25’. As she reluctantly delves into the sordid Stasi secrets of those she grew up with, Sophia uncovers a web of horrors about her own abusive past as a child swimming star in the GDR. But her hunt for the truth has not gone unnoticed by those close to her, people who still have too much to hide. Seren • Paperback • £9.99 9781781722626 • 198 x 129 mm • 266pp September 2015
Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £9.99 9781845232887 • 135x206mm • 196pp October 2015
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FICTION
Dry Season Gabriela Babnik Winner of the European Prize for Literature 2014. Gabriela Babnik’s novel Dry Season breaks the mould of what we usually expect from a writer from a small, Central European nation. Taking a global perspective, Babnik takes on the themes of racism, the role of women in modern society and the loneliness of the human condition. Dry Season is a record of an unusual love affair. Anna is a 62-year-old designer from Central Europe and Ismael is a 27-year-old African who was brought up on the street, where he was often the victim of abuse. What unites them is the loneliness of their bodies, a tragic childhood and the dry season, or ‘Harmattan’, during which neither nature nor love is able to flourish. Cleverly written as an alternating narrative of both sides in the relationship, the novel is interlaced with magic realism and accurately perceived fragments of African political reality.
Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures Vanessa Gebbie “Gorgeous… beautiful.” David Gaffney An exquisite collection of microfictions by well-known poet and writer Vanessa Gebbie, fully illustrated by Lynn Roberts, which explores the ever-shifting face of relationships and what it means to allow another person into your life. Delicate and disturbing by turns, gently surreal yet anchored in the everyday, Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures is described by Tania Hershman as both “funny and poignant”. Vanessa Gebbie is a novelist, poet, short story writer, teacher and editor. Illustrator Lynn Roberts is an artist and art historian specialising in picture frames. Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £8.99 9780993168215 • 150x170mm • 122pp October 2015
J-, Black Bam and the Masqueraders Garth St Omer First published in 1972, St. Omer’s final novel is now republished as part of the Caribbean Modern Classics collection. J-, Black Bam and the Masqueraders is the fi nal instalment in a quartet of novels that explores the lives of the St Lucian middle class in the years around independence. The reader re-encounters the brothers, Peter and Paul Breville. Peter, after years abroad, has resumed married life with his long-abandoned wife Phyllis, and is now working as a lecturer in Jamaica. His brother Paul remains in St Lucia, disgraced and unemployed after his refusal to marry his pregnant girlfriend. The novel follows the contrasting lives of the two brothers, offering a challenging portrayal of a middle class beset with hypocrisies over race, sexism and class privilege. There is no Caribbean novelist who exposes the realities behind the masks people wear or the gaps between postcolonial rhetoric with greater economy or elegance.
Istros Books • Paperback • £9.99 9781908236265 • 198x129mm • 280pp October 2015
Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £9.99 9781845232436 • 206x135mm • 136pp October 2015
FICTION
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Kingdom Russ Litten
Morlais Alun Lewis
My Bones and My Flute Edgar Mittelholzer
A stranger appears out of nowhere in a prison library and assaults a guard. Locked in solitary confinement, he relates his story to a listener over the course of one night.
Alun Lewis’ final novel, published in a new edition with an afterword by Lewis’ biographer, John Pikoulis.
A long-awaited new edition of this haunting novel, which has 200 reviews on GoodReads.
Kingdom, the third novel from Russ Litten, spins magical realism and hard-boiled psychodrama into a heartbreaking urban fable of human awakening. Ghosts may not exist – but sometimes they are real. Do you believe in life before death? Russ Litten is the author of the novels Scream If You Want To Go Faster (William Heinemann) and Swear Down (Tindal Street Press), which is currently being developed for a three part TV drama. He has written for radio, fi lm and television, including the Guy Ritchie directed Sherlock Holmes. A resident of Kingston-Upon-Hull, Litten works as a writer in residence at a prison in the north of England and is a regular tutor on Arvon Creative Writing Courses.
Miner’s son Morlais Jenkins is already being educated away from his background at grammar school when he is adopted, on the death of her own son, by the wife of the local colliery owner. Morlais’ parents recognize the opportunity for their son to make a better future, but they must all pay a great price. Stifled by middle class life, his adoptive mother recognizes that Morlais will be a poet and encourages him to be neither working class nor middle class, but true to his talent. Centred on the confl icted character of Morlais and the decisions he faces over his two families, his two social backgrounds, and his desire to be a poet, the novel is an enthralling journey through the life of a young boy becoming a young man. Seren • Paperback • £12.99
Wrecking Ball Press • Paperback
9781781722800 • 208x135mm • 240pp
£10.00 • 9781903110324 • TBC • TBC
July 2015
September 2015
Only when he is on board the steamer halfway to their remote destination up river in Guyana does artist Milton Woodsley realise that there is more to Henry Nevinson’s invitation to spend time with his family in their jungle cottage. Milton, thinks he has been invited to do some paintings for Nevinson, a rich businessman, and possibly be thrust into the company of their daughter, Jessie. But when the Nevinsons mention a flute player that no one else can hear, Woodsley begins to glean that there is more to their stay. Mittelholzer subtitled his 1955 novel “A Ghost Story in the Old-fashioned Manner”, and there is more than a hint of tongue-in-cheek in this thoroughly entertaining work, though it rises to a pitch of genuine terror and has serious things to say about the need to exorcise the crimes of slavery that still echo into the present. Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £9.99 9781845232955 • 135x206mm • 204pp September 2015
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FICTION
Of Soul Sincere B. Lloyd
Past Tense Adam Craig (ed.)
The second book in the Julia Warren Mysteries, following on from The Greenwood Tree (ISBN: 9781909374577).
Ten authors offer ten different takes on the past to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Cinnamon Press.
Summer, 1928: When invited by her publisher to assist a well-respected MP to write his memoirs, Julia is at fi rst reluctant to concentrate on anything other than her next novel; however, circumstances (involving among other things unexpected plumbing) conspire to change her mind and she fi nds herself at once guest and employee at the great man’s rather bohemian household.
Incisive, witty, heartbreaking or simply poignant, this collection of micro-fictions and prose poetry features work by a host of brilliant new and established writers: Patricia Debney, Soren Lundi, Phil Madden, Pete Marshall, Jane Monson, Alexa RadcliffeHart, Joanne Stryker, Bill Trüb, David Mark Williams and Adam Craig.
Almost immediately she encounters memories of a rather unsettling nature...
Adam Craig is the editor of the previous Liquorice Fish Books collection, Lost Voices, and the author of the novel Vitus Dreams (ISBN: 9781909077676) published by Cinnamon Press.
Holland House • Paperback • £9.99 9781909374867 • TBC • TBC October 2015
Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £4.99 9780993168222 • 210x148mm • 24pp October 2015
Secret Shelter Rob Gittins “Visceral, strongly visual and beautifully structured… powerful, quirky characters and a great sense of place.” Andrew Taylor A sequel to Rob Gittins’ hardhitting fi rst crime thriller, Gimme Shelter (ISBN: 9780956012586) Secret Shelter continues the story of witness protection officer, Ros Gilet. For most people, the past is history, but for Ros Gilet, it’s a threat. A threat that has just become all too active as a copycat killing brings back from the past characters who weren’t even supposed to exist. Real life ghosts who’ve just assumed human shape. But who are these ghosts? And what do they want? Rob Gittins is the longest serving scriptwriter on EastEnders, having written over 200 episodes. He has also scripted for Casualty, The Bill, Emmerdale and Heartbeat and has won many awards for his work. He is a member of Crime Writers’ Association, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, BAFTA, and has spoken at many writing festivals. Y’Lolfa • Paperback • £8.95 9781784610739 • TBC • TBC July 2015
FICTION
| 8
send Kay Syrad
Star-Shot Mary-Ann Constantine
Swimming on Dry Land Helen Blackhurst
A beautifully written second novel from the author of The Milliner and the Phrenologist. (ISBN: 9781905614714)
A stylish urban novel with a supernatural twist, beautifully illustrated with woodcut-style motifs by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.
A startling and beautifully paced tale of dreams lost and found under the Australian sun.
Dr. Maxwell Morley is a respected chest physician who has devoted his life to his work. When he diagnoses the heavily pregnant Lilian with turberculous she is put in an isolation ward the baby is removed at birth and later despatched to a children’s home.
As their paths cross in a world of benches, parks and galleries, a handful of characters reveal their stories of obsession, loss and recovery, creating a fragile network of relationships which will help to resist the inexorable channels of silence eating into the city.
Unsure of his diagnosis and fearing professional ruin he frequently visits the child, drawing the Matron of the children’s home into his quest to ‘save’ the infant. She observes Dr. Morley’s rather unusual behaviour with interest at fi rst and later with dismay, as he becomes increasingly obsessional.
A brittle young woman sits on a bench in Gorsedd Park, conscious of the powerful building behind her; a tall man carries a box full of a strange organic substance up the entrance steps; a young father explains the formation of stars to his tiny son. As university researchers try to map and understand the destructive silence snaking around them, it becomes clear that the linked lives of these and other marginal characters offer ways of countering its effects.
Meanwhile, Lilian and her husband Joe fight back against the medical establishment hoping to see their child again, setting off a chain of events that will put everyone in jeopardy. Kay Syrad’s other publications include a collection of poetry, Double Edge (Pighog, 2012), two Thames & Hudson artist’s monographs and reviews and essays on poetry.
Poignant and humorous, Star-Shot is an exploration of how objects and images can focus our grief and desire; it is also a meditation on the regenerative power of garden ponds, and the cosmic significance of frogs.
Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £9.99
Seren • Paperback • £8.99
9781909077799 • 198x130mm • 300pp
9781781722640 • 198x129mm • 192pp
September 2015
October 2015
Set in a small fictional mining town in south-west Australia, Monica Harvey, a twelve-year-old English girl, is looking for her younger sister, Georgie. The Harvey family has recently moved to Akarula, having being persuaded to set out in search of a new life by their rich Uncle Eddie, who owns the town. Monica discovers Georgie down one of the disused mine shafts but by the time she returns later that day with her father and Uncle Eddie, Georgie has once again vanished. But it soon becomes clear that Georgie’s is not the fi rst disappearance in the town. As the search widens, the history of the land unfolds new possibilities and suggests answers to the mysterious disappearances. Seren • Paperback • £9.99 9781781722916 • 198x129mm • 248pp November 2015
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FICTION
The Crocodile Princess Ian Gregson
The Disobedient Wife Annika Milisic-Stanley
The Finest Years and Me Mark Woodburn
A unique alternate-history novel for fans of The Damned United and Alma Cogan, from the author of Not Tonight Neil (ISBN: 9781907090370).
Winner of the 2014 Cinnamon Press Debut Novel Award.
“Excellent portrait of Churchill ... a novel not to be missed.” Michael McMenamin, Finest Hour Magazine
Set in Phnom Penh in 1962, amongst the diplomatic community with its tensions, friendships, intrigues and affairs, against the background of the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis, The Crocodile Princess takes historical figures, from Prince Sihanouk to Peter Cook, constructing an alternative history in a parallel world. Fast-paced, witty, full of intrigue, misdirection The Crocodile Princess is a gripping read from an accomplished author. Ian Gregson is an award-winning poet whose latest book of poems is How We Met (Salt, 2008) and whose previous collection, Call Centre Love Song (Salt, 2006), was shortlisted for a Forward prize. His previous novel, Not Tonight Neil, was also published by Cinnamon Press. Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £9.99 9781909077782 • 198x130mm • 300pp
Dedicated to the women of Tajikistan, The Disobedient Wife, intertwines the narratives of Harriet Simenon (wife of the powerful Henri Simenon) and Nagris, her impoverished local nanny and maid. Harriet comes to admire her maid’s strength as her own life unravels. Rich, deeply humane and with a strong sense of place, MilisicStanley’s novel brings her acute observational skills, honed by her work as an artist and social anthropologist, to bear on this moving and compelling story of how two women survive and thrive in difficult circumstances. The novel’s backdrop is Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where there are ten banned opposition parties, many of which are multi-national and would like to see Central Asia become an Islamic ‘superstate’. All mosques and churches are required to be registered and religious minorities are prevented from registering new places of worship.
September 2015
| 10
It is 1942, and the war is not going well for Britain. Winston Churchill faces enemies across the world, inside his own parliament, and within his very body and soul. Churchill’s former ‘batman’ Jamie Melville, having left London in 1919 to build a life of his own, has been struck with a bitter tragedy. It takes an unexpected proposal from the Minister of Information to return Jamie to London, to stand beside his old Colonel at his time of greatest need. From the murky underground corridors of Whitehall to Washington D.C. and the Oval Office itself, Jamie is at the centre of high-end decision making, intrigue, treachery and betrayal. Valley Press • Paperback • £8.99
Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £9.99
9781908853561 • 198x129mm • 352pp
9781909077829 • 216x140mm • 250pp
October 2015
November 2015
FICTION
A story of politics, war and personal salvation, The Finest Years and Me is the fascinating sequel to Mark Woodburn’s 2012 novel Winston and Me. (ISBN: 9781908853172)
The Green Table Tricia Durdey
The Last House Officer Steffan Williams
The Last Roundhead Jemahl Evans
The poignant, sometimes harrowing, story of a young dancer trying to survive in Holland under Nazi occupation.
An entertaining and heartfelt novel from a talented author with over ten years’ experience in the NHS.
A brilliantly researched historical spy drama set during the English Civil War.
When Hedda Brandt and other members of Kurt Jooss’s dance company flee Germany in 1933, Hedda imagines she is going to a place free from the prejudice and threats that have overtaken her country.
Owen Morgan is a junior doctor trying to fi nd his feet in the modern NHS. Unfortunately he is peculiarly ill-equipped to survive the demands of the ever changing world of hospital medicine or indeed of his feisty Indian wife, his two sons and their tumultuous home life.
While teaching dance in her new home in the Netherlands, Hedda encounters Katje, a girl who has been enthralled by the performance and wants to learn to dance. But these are dangerous times and as the Nazi occupation changes all of their lives. Determined to defy new regulations that demand dance should conform to rigid ideology, Hedda is drawn towards resistance, but with her life more and more at risk, matters are only complicated by the prospect of love with a much younger man, Kai Hoffman, whose family have befriended Hedda. Against a background of oppression, disappearances and terror, Hedda and Katje assert the power of dance, resistance and life in this gripping debut novel that takes real events and characters as its starting point.
Padma, a former nurse, fi nds herself married to a dithering, stressed out doctor she is unable to comprehend, let alone help through one of the most difficult times he is likely to experience in his entire life. Owen and his family must overcome cultural issues, health issues, family quarrels and personality incompatibilities and all this during the biggest upheaval in medical training for decades. And then there is Colleen, the lovely, ever loyal Colleen – the love of Owen’s life. If only he knew it… Will Owen succeed in balancing his hospital and home life? Will he survive his medical training? Will his patients?
Ancestor to Colonel Blimp, Sir Blandford Candy is an irascible old drunk with a hatred of poets and a love of hats. Following an argument with his new neighbour Alexander Pope, he looks back on his life and the start of the Civil War. Following an illicit affair with his brother’s betrothed, young Blandford sets off for London and joins the army to fight the King, taking part in the battles of Edgehill and Turnham Green. As he bounces from battlefield to bedroom, Blandford unmasks Cavalier plots, earns the enmity of the King’s agents and uncovers an attempt to steal thousands. All whilst dealing with murderous brothers, scheming sisters and puritan displeasure. This is Flashman meets the Three Musketeers in a picaresque romp through Stuart England at its nadir and through the Civil War. Holland House • Paperback • £9.99 9781909374645 • TBC • TBC August 2015
Y’Lolfa • Paperback • £8.95 9781784611224 • TBC • TBC Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £9.99
August 2015
9781909077768 • 198x130mm • 294pp September 2015
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FICTION
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The Long Siesta Nick Sweet “Nick Sweet is a rising star in crime fiction.” Gary C. King Summer 1998, Seville: An elderly priest is found murdered in horrific circumstances. Inspector Velasquez at fi rst assumes that a junkie is on the loose, but when a second man of the cloth shows up in the Guadalquivir River, followed by a Russian gangster, Velázquez realizes he has a puzzle of major proportions on his hands. Are the three murders linked? Are they politically motivated? And if so, how? His boss, Comisario Alonso, is breathing down his neck and wanting answers fast as the danger begins to creep a little too close to home… Nick Sweet has been previously published by US publishers Moonshine Cove and Club Lighthouse; his short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, including the Evergreen Review and Descant. He has reviewed for The London Magazine and The Contemporary Review. Holland House • Paperback • £8.99
The Shadow of Nanteos Jane Blank A supernatural novel played out against a dramatic backdrop of political and social conflict in 18th Century Wales. The Shadow of Nanteos is about a family’s dream turning sour. Set in Cardiganshire in the 1750s at the beautiful mansion near Aberystwyth, the novel begins when William Powell and his wife Elizabeth unexpectedly inherit the estate.
Jane Blank is a professional teacher, novelist, poet, dramatist, script writer and creative writing tutor. She is a member of Literature Wales and the Welsh Academy.
September 2014
Y’Lolfa • Paperback • £7.95 November 2015
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It’s Easter 1955 and as Lilia scrapes the ice from the inside of the windows, and the rust from the locks, but there are pasts that lurk with the moths in the folds of the drapes at Sugar Hall that she cannot reach. Mouldering in the English border countryside the red gardens of Sugar Hall hold a secret, and as Britain waits for its last hanging, Lilia and her children must confront a history that has been buried but not forgotten. Based on the stories of the Black Boy that surround Littledean Hall in the Forest of Dean, this is a superbly chilling ghost story from Tiffany Murray.
9781784611712 • TBC • TBC
FICTION
“A beautiful and haunting book. Tiffany Murray is a wonderful storyteller.” Sarah Winman, author of When God Was a Rabbit
Powell’s elder brother has died suddenly leaving no heir, though the handsome, mysterious young bailiff at the house is rumoured to be his illegitimate son. Initially, for the clergyman and his family, their new life is everything they could have wished for. But the house isn’t even fi nished, the estate is riddled with debt and land disputes threaten the lead and silver mines. Soon the family are caught up in a violent political and legal battle that can only end in tragedy.
9781909374744 • TBC • TBC September 2015
Sugar Hall Tiffany Murray
Seren • Paperback • £8.99 9781781722206 • 208x135mm • 200pp
The World, The Lizard and Me Gil Courtmanche A moving novel about war, obsession and the human condition from the acclaimed author of A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali. The World, The Lizard and Me follows the life of French Canadian Claude Tremblay who, since he was eleven, has sought justice for the voiceless victims of war. His passion for justice has taken him to a job at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he pursues the conviction of Thomas Kabanga, a Congolese warlord charged with creating child soldiers in the civil war there. Despite telling testimony and damning evidence Kabanga is freed on a legal technicality and Claude fi nds himself at moral crossroads. Appalled, he travels to Congo to gather more evidence. His meetings with damaged former child soldiers challenge him further and he fi nds himself more confl icted after a chance meeting with Kabanga. As moral boundaries blur in a culture Claude thought he understood, a different sort of justice is formulated and executed. Drawing on experiences of reporting in Africa, Gil Courtemanche has written a novel marked by immediacy and authenticity.
Till Kingdom Come Andrej Nikolaidis Existential crime fiction from one of Slavoj Žižek’s favourite novelists. A cynical local reporter fi nds out that the grandmother who brought him up is not his relative at all. Suddenly, the past he has called his own turns out to be a complete fabrication; from the stories of his parents to the photos in the family albums. So starts the most important investigation the reporter has ever undertaken, one in which the main suspect is the mother he never knew. Our hero’s journey will take him to the site of wartime atrocities, on the trail of fake suicides across Europe, to the doorstep of an occult Scottish clan and fi nally to the empty grave of his own mother. Through his own unique and recognizable style, Nikolaidis takes us into a world of criminal intrigue. Powerful, rich in philosophy, the reader is as powerless as the hero to free themselves of this binding narrative and fi nd their way through the existential dilemmas. Istros Books • Paperback • £9.99 9781908236241 • 129x198mm August 2015
UEA Creative Writing Anthology Prose Fiction (2015) Foreword by Helen Cross and an introductionby Jean McNeil & Henry Sutton “Full of crisp writing and intriguing situations, the pieces in this anthology act like teasers for all the brilliant novels and short story collections we have to look forward to over the next few years.” Emma Healey Widely renowned as the UK’s most successful course of its kind, the University of East Anglia’s MA in Creative Writing was also the country’s fi rst. It has launched the careers of a vast array of awardwinning and best-selling authors, including Anne Enright, Jane Harris, Kazuo Ishiguro and Andrew Miller. The 2015 Prose Fiction graduates featured in this anthology continue to produce work that is at the forefront of literary innovation, with evocative storytelling, formal experimentation, well-drawn characters and places that will fascinate, haunt and disturb long after readers have turned the fi nal page. Though diverse in setting and genre, these twenty-five pieces share one element: they are all driven by strong and unique voices. Egg Box • Paperback • £9.99 9780993296215 • 210x148mm • 176pp November 2015
Seren • Paperback • £9.99 9781781722657 • 135x208mm • 180pp October 2015
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FICTION
Wages Paid James Carnegie
Water with Berries George Lamming
Yugoslavia, My Fatherland Goran Vojnovi´c
New edition of a powerful novella about a day in the life of a slave plantation.
A remarkable novel of politics and postcolonial identity with an introduction by J. Dillon Brown.
For what it has to say about gender in the context of slavery and the construction of masculinity, Wages Paid was and is a ground-breaking work. First published in 1976, the novella is set on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. In a world where all persons, including the plantation manager have become commodities, the body becomes a territory and the only organ that cannot be wholly owned is the brain.
Teeton lives multiple lives in England. One is with a bohemian group of Caribbean artist exiles; another is his curiously intimate mother-son relationship with his English landlady. He is also enmeshed in a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow a reactionary Caribbean government.
A hard-hitting examination of a generation from the former Yugoslavia that escaped the bullets but not the war.
Sex is at the heart of a paradox: the plantation owner, Mr Johnson commands the body of any woman he desires, to do whatever he wants. Yet he owns enslaved men as studs and enslaved women as breeders. Short paragraphs and rhythmic, almost ritualistic language build up the tension, providing an acute sense of the meeting point between outer lives of total constriction and inner mind-worlds in which desires cannot be suppressed. Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £8.99
Teeton keeps each aspect of his life in compartments but when the revolt begins, his once separate worlds begin to fuse together with disastrous results.
When Vladan Borojevi´c googles the name of his father Nedeljko, a former officer in the Yugoslav People’s Army, supposedly killed in the civil war after the decay of Yugoslavia, he unexpectedly discovers a dark family secret which recollects the events of 1991, when he fi rst heard the military term deployment and his idyllic childhood came to a sudden end. Seventeen years later Vladan’s discovery that he is the son of a fugitive war criminal sends him off on a journey round the Balkans to fi nd his elusive father. A journey in which he also fi nds out how the falling apart of his family is closely linked with the disintegration of the world they used to live in.
Perhaps the most famous writer to emerge from the island of Barbados, George Lamming was born on June 8, 1927. Though he grew up on the island, like so many West Indian writers he eventually left, emigrating to England in 1950. After spending some time working in a factory and broadcasting for the BBC, Lamming, along with other exiles like V.S. Naipaul, became a leader in a Caribbean renaissance that took place in England.
The story of the Borojevi´c family strings together and juxtaposes images of the Balkans past and present, but mainly deals with the tragic fates of people dealing with the long aftermath of violent confl ict.
Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £11.95
Istros Books • Paperback • £9.99
9781845232153 • 135x206mm • 128pp November 2015
FICTION
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9781845231675 • 135x206mm • 270pp
9781908236272 • 129x198mm • TBC
July 2015
October 2015
Farewell Cowboy Farewell, Cowboy is a tough yet poetic novel by one of Croatia’s best known writers. The story is rich in local colour and sentiment, following the main character, Dada, who returns to her home town on the Adriatic coast in order to unravel the mystery of her brother Daniel’s death. Daniel, although young, smart and popular, threw himself under a train in mysterious circumstances a few years earlier. In her search for clues, Dada meets an array of eccentric characters and succumbs to the charms of the young gigolo Angelo, who is a part of a film crew shooting a Western on the nearby ‘prairie’. Slowly and painfully she discovers all there is to know about her brother’s death, and how Angelo was caught up in it. “Saviˇcevi´c’s prose, which is always relaxed and descriptive, and sustained with conversational ease, becomes increasingly beautiful in moments of high drama... The humour and sheer anarchy of the action combined with the comic exasperation, unforgettable characters and Dada’s wry acceptance of the way life happens to be, make this subversively appealing novel all the more profound; even, unexpectedly, beautiful.” – Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times “Dazzling, funny and deadly serious, this perfectly pitched novel about the legacy of the Yugoslav war heralds the arrival of an exciting new European voice... Saviˇcevi´c has a rare ability to speak of the deadly serious with a hedonistic lightness that lures you into a spirit of abandon, only to go on to deliver breathtaking blows of insight.” - Kapka Kassabova, the Guardian
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“Author Olja Saviˇcevi´c is an awardwinning poet, novelist and shortstory writer, and one of Croatia’s best-known authors. In Celia Hawkesworth’s fi ne translation, her anarchic modern voice leaps off the page.” - Alison Burns, Bookoxygen
Istros Books • Paperback • £9.99 • 9781908236487 • 129x198mm • 200pp • April 2015
Significance Winner of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize 2015. Lucy Swann is trying on a new life. She’s cut and dyed her hair and bought new clothes, but she’s only got as far as a small town in northern France when her flight is violently cut short. When Inspector Vivier and his handsome assistant Sabine Pelat begin their investigation the chance encounters of her last days take on a new significance. Lucy’s death, like a stone thrown into a pool, sends out far-reaching ripples, altering the lives of people who never knew her as well as those of her loved ones back home. “With Significance Mazelis has set her novel-writing bar at a breathtaking height.”
“An incricate, subtle thriller with a satisfying literary edge.” Francesca Ryndderch
Rachel Trezise, Agenda
“Significance is written with admirable storytelling skill that weaves captivating narrative tension, poetic density and exploration of ideas.” Valerie Sirr, Wales Arts Review
“Significance is a blend of policier and existential thriller that expands this vision by giving her gifts for subverting genre and stereotype greater rein than ever before.” John Goodby
Seren • Paperback • £9.99 • 9781781722930 • 130x198mm • 400pp • June 2015
Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize
MIDLAND BY HONOR GAVIN An industrial accident in a wire factory and the chance discovery of a birth certificate. Church services held in a ruined swimming pool. An unidentified elephant skull. Midland tells the stories of three young women as they fight to find their feet amidst the accumulated rubble of the twentieth century. From the bombsites of the 1940s to the construction sites of the 1960s and the school halls and decaying tower blocks of the 1980s, Honor Gavin has created an ingenious narrative of one Midlands family that is also a startling, anarchic history of a city. Composed in electric prose that soars and dives, blending keenly observed dialect with urban theory, cinema, farcical digressions and surrealist timekeeping, Midland is a novel out of time but in the middle of everything. “Midland is a glorious synthesis of the public and the personal, a unique work where we champion the city as an individual, witnessing the highs and lows of a city that just isn’t, well, set.” Julia Walmsley, Redbrick “As you read Midland you feel the form of the novel shaking under the weight of space and time, the foundations quaking and beginning to cave in; as if all time is coming down upon us … Here is an author writing on the edges of the form and it is exhilarating, if at times a little frightening!” Journal of Everyday Phonoaesthetics
Penned in the Margins • Paperback £9.99 • 9781908058232 • 320pp November 2014
FICTION BACKLIST STRANGER, VISITOR, FOREIGNER, GUEST ELIZABETH PORTER
THE COMING ANDREJ NIKOLAIDIS
THE LAST HUNDRED DAYS PATRICK MCGUINNESS
THE LAST SHIP JAN LOWE SHINEBOURNE
Istros Books • PB • £7.99 9781908236036 • 110pp
Seren • PB • £8.99 9781854115416 • 378pp
Peepal Tree Press • PB • £8.99 9781845232467 • 164pp
THE NIGHT GAME FRANK GOLDEN
THE ROTTING SPOT VALERIE LAWS
THINGS TO MAKE AND BREAK MAY-LAN TAN
Salmon • PB • £10.00 9781910669006 • 250pp
Red Squirrel Press • PB • £6.99 9781906700102 • 395pp
THE WHALE HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES SHARON MILLAR
TIME TRAVEL HOTEL CLIVE BIRNIE
TWO NOVELS: THE PROOF & THE THIRD LIE AGOTA KRISTOF
Cinnamon Press • PB • £9.99 9781909077645 • 280pp
Burning Eye • PB • £9.99 9781909136526 • 176pp
CB Editions • PB • £8.99 9781909585041 • 248pp
Peepal Tree Press • PB • £8.99 9781845232498 • 196pp
UEA CREATIVE WRITING ANTHOLOGY PROSE FICTION 2014 JOSEPH ANJALI, NATHAN HAMILTON, RACHEL HORE, JEAN MCNEIL (EDS) Egg Box Publishing • PB • £9.99 9780957661158 • 192pp
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CB Editions • PB • £8.99 9781909585010 • 216pp
VITUS DREAMS ADAM CRAIG Cinnamon Press • HB • £11.99 9781909077676 • 260pp
FICTION BACKLIST
LEAVING BY PLANE, SWIMMING BACK UNDERWATER SCOTT LAWRENCE Papillote Press • PB • £9.99 9780957118782 • 176pp
LOVE & FALLOUT KATHRYN SIMMONDS Seren • PB • £8.99 9781781721469 • 240pp
MILLIE AND BIRD AVRIL JOY
THE LOST ART OF SINKING NAOMI BOOTH
Iron Press • PB • £9.00 9780957503281 • 92pp
Penned in the Margins • HB • £12.99 9781908058294 • 144pp
QUARTET JENNIFER BAILEY, HELEN HOLMES, JANE MCLAUGHLIN, JEZ NOOND
ROOT: NEW STORIES FROM NORTH EAST WRITERS KITTY FITZGERALD (ED)
Cinnamon Press • PB • £9.99 9781909077652 • 200pp
Iron Press • PB • £9.00 9780956572554 • 200pp
LOVERS’ LIES KATY DARBY AND CHERRY POTTS (EDS) Arachne Press • PB • £9.99 9781909208025 • 137pp
NEW WELSH SHORT STORIES FRANCESCA RHYDDERCH AND PENNY THOMAS (EDS) Seren • PB • £9.99 9781781722343 • 250pp
MILDEW PAULETTE JONGUITUD CB Editions • PB • £8.99 9781909585034 • 96pp
PUNKPUNK! ANDREW HOOK (ED) Dog Horn • PB • £12.99 9781907133893 • 216pp
SKEIN ISLAND ALIYA WHITELEY
SOLSTICE SHORTS CHERRY POTTS (ED)
Dog Horn • PB • £10.99 9781907133855 • 200pp
Arachne Press • PB • £9.99 9781909208230 • 128pp
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FICTION BACKLIST
FICTION BACKLIST A HISTORY OF SARCASM FRANK BURTON
AMERICAN BLUES EVAN GUILFORD-BLAKE
BABBICAM ROD MADOCKS
BY ALL MEANS TIM LOVE
Dog Horn • PB • £9.99 9781907133015 • 160pp
Holland House • PB • £8.99 9781909374249 • 236pp
Holland House • PB • £9.99 9781909374829 • 400pp
Nine Arches Press • PB • £7.99 9780957384705 • 104pp
COMMENTARY MARCELLE SAUVAGEOT
CONTROLLER SALLY ASHTON
DEVILSKEIN & DEARLOVE ALEX SMITH
DOUBLE THE STARS KELLEY SWAIN
Ugly Duckling Presse • PB £10.00 • 9781937027100 • 128pp
Dead Ink • PB • £8.00 9780957698581 • 72pp
Arachne Press • PB • £10.99 9781909208155 • 256pp
Cinnamon Press • PB • £9.99 9781909077362 • 166pp
EXILE CILER ILHAN
FIVE SELVES EMANUELA BARASCH-RUBINSTEIN
GIMME SHELTER ROB GITTINS
Istros • PB • £8.99 9781908236258 • 130pp
Holland House • PB • £8.99 9781909374799 • 204pp
Y Lolfa • PB • £8.95 • 9780956012586 • 336pp
GRANDMOTHER DIVIDED BY MONKEY EQUALS OUTER SPACE NORA CHASSLER
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Valley Press • PB • £8.99 9781908853455 • 334pp
T H R O U G H O U T 2 0 15 S E R E N B O O K S A R E C E L E B R AT I N G T H E C E N T E N A R Y O F A L U N L E W I S (1915 - 19 4 4 ) , T H E G R E AT E S T W R I T E R O F T H E S E CO N D WO R L D WA R . Born in Cwmaman on the 1st July 1915, Lewis went on to win a scholarship to Cowbridge Grammar School when he was 11. It was here that he began to write well-crafted fiction that showed talent far beyond his years. Lewis’ life, like the lives of so many in the 20th century, was disrupted by the shadow of war. A pacifist by nature, Lewis initially had no intention of joining the army, but he eventually joined the Royal Engineers and later qualified as a Second Lieutenant despite how unhappy military life made him. He was stationed with the South Wales Borderers until December 1942, when he arrived at a new station
in Nira, India. In the same year his poetry collection Raiders’ Dawn was published. It would be the only collection published during his lifetime. Just over a year later, in February 1944, Lewis was moved to Burma. On the 5th March 1944, he was found shot in the head after shaving and washing, and died from the wound six hours later. He was 28 years old. Though it is widely believed to have been a tragic accident, there are others who believe it was suicide. One thing we can be certain of is that his premature death was a great loss to Welsh, and indeed British, literature.
JOIN US AS WE CELEBRATE LEWIS’S LIFE AND WORK THROUGHOUT 2015 – AND BEYOND! From the Hay Festival to the publication of Lewis’ previously unpublished novel, Morlais, we’re packing 2015 with centenary celebrations. Follow us on Twitter at @AlunLewis100.
MARIE ANTOINETTE The beautiful objects owned and worn by Marie Antoinette still exert a tremendous fascination today. Sadly the ravages of the Revolution resulted in the destruction of Marie Antoinette’s fabulous wardrobe and much of her belongings were either looted, sold abroad or lost forever but enough remains for us to have a very good idea of the luxury that she liked to surround herself with. The Queen’s clothes collection was vast, with three whole rooms put aside at Versailles just to store it. The rooms were open to public so it was possible to visit the Queen’s clothes, just as you could go and watch her have dinner or walk past on her way to Mass in the morning and it’s likely that to the fashion mad ladies of Versailles a trip to the Queen’s wardrobe, where her amazing gowns were laid out on special shelves to keep them from crumpling and other damage, was viewed with as much reverence as seeing her in person. Marie Antoinette was given a fixed allowance of 120,000 livres a year for clothes and accessories, a vast sum that was somehow never quite enough (she spent 258,000 livres in one year), probably because at some point along the line etiquette had decreed that eighteen pairs of pastel coloured gloves scented with violet, hyacinth or carnation and four new pairs of shoes had to be ordered for her on a weekly basis along with other such items that seemed like small fry but amounted to vast sums when added together. Her weakness for the designs of Rose Bertin was also a problem as each of her gorgeous dresses which had swooning, romantic names like ‘Indiscreet Pleasures’, ‘Heart’s Agitation’ and ‘Stifled Sighs’ cost around 1,000 livres, sometimes even 6,000 livres each, which quickly mounted up when you were ordering dozens at a time along with matching shoes, perfumed fans, feathers and extravagant hair decorations. Strictly speaking, Marie Antoinette’s wardrobe purchases were supposed to be restricted to orders of thirty six dresses for the summer and thirty six for the winter but the Queen adored fashion and so ordered far more, bypassing the usual court dressmakers and instead directly consulting with the fashionable couturiers of Paris. According to etiquette she was only supposed to wear dresses once and had to change three times
a day but clearly seventy two dresses a year wasn’t going to cut much of a dash at Versailles and so she ordered more. Once worn, favourite dresses were kept and carefully looked after, and perhaps cleverly altered, so that they never looked anything less than brand new but others were given away to her ladies in waiting, who saw this as being one of the most valuable perks of what could be a very arduous and tiresome job. When the Queen’s gorgeous bedchamber was renovated in the last century, several pins were discovered wedged between the wooden floorboards, a remnant of the elaborate daily ceremonial that surrounded the dressing of the Queen. Every morning before she got out of bed, Marie Antoinette would be presented with the gazette des atours, a huge book full of fabric swatches from each of her gowns and she would place a pin in the dresses that she wanted to wear that day, which would then be brought down from the wardrobe in vast green taffeta (which was provided brand new every day) covered baskets. Marie Antoinette would change three times in the course of the day: first of all there would be a formal silk or velvet gown to be worn to Mass, followed by a lighter, more informal muslin, lawn or cotton dress for the rest of the day and then finally a gorgeously elaborate evening dress to be worn to dinner, concerts, balls or the theatre in Paris, where Marie Antoinette had private boxes at the Opéra House, Comédie Française and Comédie Italienne. The young Queen’s preference was for light fabrics and pale, pastel colours such as a soft lemon yellow, dove grey, pale green and lilac. Again, Madame Bertin was inventive, taking an almost poetic pleasure in thinking up names for different shades – ‘Incendie de l’Opera’ was a vivid orange red; ‘Cheveux de la Reine’ a soft gold inspired by her hair colour and, most poetically, ‘Caca Dauphin’ was a pale brown. Marie Antoinette took as much care of her person as she did her clothes and her beauty regime was extensive. At night she would sleep wearing gloves lined with wax, rose water and sweet almond oil and she probably treated her hair with a wash of saffron, turmeric, sandalwood and rhubarb in order to accentuate its strawberry blondness. Before she applied her make
up, she would carefully cleanse her skin with Eau Cosmetique de Pigeon, followed by Eau des Charmes astringent and then Eau d’Ange, a gentle whitener. After this, white paint was carefully applied to her face, followed by a dusting of scented powder then kohl around her eyes and a touch of rouge to her cheeks. Sticks of pomade scented with rose, carnation or vanilla were used to gloss her lips, eyebrows and eyelashes. Marie Antoinette had survived a childhood bout of small pox relatively unscathed bar a few scars but it is likely that she still enjoyed the fashion for black velvet beauty patches – perhaps applying one to the corner of her mouth, which signalled her wish to be kissed or one on the forehead, which suggested that the wearer was haughty. There was a definite emphasis on the senses – Versailles at this time was absolutely foul smelling and the courtiers did everything they could to keep the smell at bay. Marie Antoinette’s rooms were scented with a profusion of fresh flowers, melted fragrant pastilles, pot pourri, oils and perfumed sachets. She particularly loved the fresh scents of orange blossom, lemon, rose, lavender and violet and her rooms would have smelled heady and sweet as you entered them. The Queen loved to douse herself with eau de fleur d’oranger (orange blossom water); simple violet, rose and jonquil scents or more complex perfumes made with vanilla, musk, lavender, iris, jasmine and lily or lemon, cinnamon, angelica, cloves and coriander. It seems that everywhere she went, she wanted to be surrounded by gorgeous fragrances. Unusually for the time, Marie Antoinette insisted on frequent baths and her bathroom at Versailles still exists with simple dove grey walls and a sloping tiled floor so that the water could drain away. Her perfumer Fargeon invented for her the bain de modéstie, which involved donning a flannel chemise so that her body would not be exposed even to the gaze of her ladies in waiting. Once in the bath she would sit on a large pad filled with sweet almonds, pine nuts, linseed, marshmallow root and lily bulb while she washed herself with muslin pads filled with gentle and exfoliating bran and soaps scented with herbs, amber and bergamot, before settling back in the water to daydream about what the future might hold.
SEE PAGE 27
NON-FICTION 52: Write a Poem a Week. Start Now. Keep Going Jo Bell (ed.) A creative guide to writing poetry. The 52 Project started with a simple idea: Write a poem a week. Start now. Keep going. It became a phenomenon. Hundreds of poets took up the challenge and their poems swept the board of poetry prizes, publications and personal successes. This book brings together the 52 prompts written by Jo Bell, the popular poet behind this year’s brilliant collection Kith (ISBN: 9780993120107), and by guest poets ranging from David Morley to Rachael Boast, so that you can pick up the challenge yourself. With contemporary poems to illustrate each prompt, it’s a fi ne anthology as well as a book of lively and engaging exercises for poets, whether beginner or wellestablished. Nine Arches Press • Paperback £14.99 • 9780993120190 • 216x138mm November 2015
Alun Lewis: Letters to My Wife Gweno Lewis (ed.) “leaves no doubt… about the subtlety, intelligence and emotional force of the writer lost to us.” Andrew Motion Soldier and poet Alun Lewis wrote frequently to his family, friends and other writers such as Robert Graves. Mostly these letters are uncollected but those that have been published received high praise, and were compared to Keats’s letters by critic Walter Allen. Letters to My Wife includes over 240 letters to his wife Gweno Ellis, beginning with his enlistment and continuing until his death in Burma in 1944. From them emerges a unique account of daily army life and of the phoney war in Britain and with descriptions of Lewis’s journey to India via Brazil and South Africa. The letters also shed light on Lewis’ development to become the leading writer of World War Two, with fi rst hand references to his popular poems and stories, how they originated and how they were fi rst published. Letters to My Wife is the story of Alun Lewis’s war.
Alun, Gweno and Freda John Pikoulis The true story of the great war poet and the two women in his life. Born in the impoverished industrial valleys of south Wales, the story of Alun Lewis has many varied aspects – he was a talented academic, a gifted writer, a depressive personality. He was politically aspirational in left wing terms and a pacifi st by nature who was faced with a war against fascism. In the course of the war he became caught between two women on opposite sides of the world, his wife Gweno and Freda Aykroyd, an ex-patriot in India whose house provided respite for officers on leave there. Lewis’s relationships with Gweno and Freda informed his poetry but also contributed to an inevitable emotional turmoil. He died in mysterious circumstances on active service in Burma: was his death an accident or suicide? And did his triangular relationship with Gweno and Freda contribute to the ending of his life? Seren • Paperback • £14.99 9781781722831 • 216x138mm • 325pp July 2015
Seren • Paperback • £12.99 9781781723012 • 216x138mm 432pp July 2015
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An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in London Nathan Pellington & Sarah Lester
Caught on Camera: Reading in the 70s Terry Allsop
Part documentary, part poetry, part catalogue, this is a witty, tender exploration of urban life.
A photographic journey into Reading’s past.
One weekend in the middle of October 1974 the French writer Georges Perec set himself a challenge – to describe everything that happened in place SaintSulpice, Paris. Not a record of the buildings or history of the square, but a record of ‘that which is not noticed, that which has no importance: what happens when nothing happens’. 40 years later, writers Nathan Penlington and Sarah Lester replicated Perec’s experiment in a small insignificant square in the north east London borough of Hackney. In a major departure from the original protocol this is more than the work of one writer; a collaboration between two observers with differing sensibilities and styles – the overlaps and deviations of the simultaneous accounts underlining the impossibility and futility of the task.
Forty years ago the town of Reading was changing rapidly. Many of the buildings recorded in this book have since been demolished, redeveloped or changed beyond recognition. However, the canal and the churches provide reference points from which we can take our bearings, and some unlikely buildings have survived. Others, perhaps, should have been consigned to history but remain. Containing 80 never-before-seen photographs, this intimate portrait shows a variety of scenes and locations brought to life by the people who inhabit the photographs and demonstrate the vitality and diversity of the town – aspects that live on despite changes in fashion and car design. Two Rivers Press • Paperback • £12.00 9781909747104 • 200x185mm • 144pp July 2015
City Mission Huw Edwards “A thorough and absorbing history of Welsh churches in London.” Church Times BAFTA award-winning Welsh journalist Huw Edwards traces the history of London’s Welsh churches in this paperback version of City Mission, fi rst published in hardback in October 2014. He examines the origins of the London Welsh, the pattern of Welsh migration to London past and present, the influence of Howel Harris and the early Methodists, the tradition of Welsh preaching, and describes in detail the Welsh religious causes in London. The book also appraises the Welsh’s contribution to London’s spiritual life since the 1770s. Fully illustrated with over 170 photographs it will appeal to the London Welsh as well as to Londoners keen to learn more about the city’s religious and architectural heritage. “Huw Edwards’ book raises all sorts of questions about the future shape of the 21st-century Church.” Methodist Recorder
Burning Eye Books • Paperback • £9.99 9781909136595 • 129x198mm • 100pp October 2015
Y’Lolfa • Paperback • £14.95 9781784611743 • 250x165mm • 352pp September 2015
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Episodes in My Life Jan Carew (ed. by Joy Gleason Carew) The autobiography of the renowned writer, artist, educator, philosopher, journalist and activist. Towards the end of a long and astonishingly full life, Jan Carew began writing his memoirs. They cover his multiple lives as Guyanese/ Caribbean novelist, anti-colonial and antiimperialist activist, the early shaper of Black Studies in the United States, actor and playwright, painter, agricultural evangelist, advisor to Heads of State in Africa and the Caribbean and theoretician of the Columbian origins of racism in the Americas. Also included are his political awakening in colonial British Guiana, his sojourns in Communist Eastern Europe, his life as a writer in London, Paris and Amsterdam, his return to the Caribbean in the nationalist 1960s and his presence as a reporter in Cuba at the time of the revolution, his years in Africa and role as an advisor to Nkrumah in Ghana and his reluctant coming to rest in North American academia.
Forgive the Language: Essays on Poets and Poetry Katy Evans-Bush “Sharp, wry ... wears its considerable erudition lightly.” Time Out Happiness, typewriters and the ethics of plagiarism are just three of the subjects under the spotlight in this stimulating book of essays by prolific literary blogger Katy EvansBush. Re-evaluations of Ted Hughes and Dylan Thomas jostle alongside a personal recollection of Michael Donaghy, reviews of Wendy Cope, Ian Duhig and Dorothy Molloy, a search for forgotten war poet Eloise Robinson, and practical guides for writers. Evans-Bush combines the intellectual scholarship of the literary critic with the dynamism of a seasoned traveller in the blogosphere. The result is essential reading for anyone interested in poetry and culture from the turn of the twentieth century to today. “An incredibly astute, accessible and stylish critic. Poetry for her is not some arcane pursuit. It is a way of thinking and being in the world. I love her work.” Suzanne Moore
In the Eye of the Storm Juanita Cox (ed.) Critical perspectives on Edgar Mittelholzer from A.J. Seymour, Michael Gilkes, Joyce Sparer and many more. In the 1950s and early 1960s no Anglophone Caribbean novelist had a higher profi le and was more praised than Edgar Mittelholzer. His earlier novels in particular found enthusiastic reviewers in the UK and USA. But after his suicide in 1965 his reputation began to sink and for several decades, none of his books were in print. This collection of essays charts the way Mittelholzer’s work was read in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and shows how a contemporary generation of critics is rediscovering his real merits – the quality of his prose, his literary ambition and the ways in which at least some of Mittelholzer’s ideas about the Caribbean speak to a postnationalist generation. The collection is edited by Juanita Cox, whose research on Mittelholzer’s life and writing has played an important role in the rediscovery of this important Caribbean writer.
Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £19.99 Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £19.99
9781845232450 • 156x234mm • 352pp November 2015
Penned in the Margins • Paperback
9781845231286 • 227x152mm • 352pp
£10.99 • 9781908058324 • 216x138mm
July 2015
200pp • December 2015
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Man Up, Jonny Fluffypunk Jonny Fluffypunk “Acute social obsevation, intricate humour, surreal fantasy, sharp irony and wit... and England’s most pretentious moustache.” The Independent The critically acclaimed and much loved author of The Sustainable Nihilist’s Handbook, Jonny Fluffypunk, has been touring the poetry, comedy and alternative cabaret circuits for over 15 years. A multiple slam champion, Jonny does spoken words of various kinds in an act which has established him as a fi rm favourite at festivals and arts centres up and down the country. This new collection contains poetry, flash fiction and the transcript of the eponymous solo show ‘Man Up, Jonny Fluffypunk: One Man’s Struggle With Late-Onset Responsibility’. The collection is fully annotated, enabling the reader to recreate the live performance experience of JFP’s sustainable nihilist brand of poetry/comedy/ theatre mashup from the comfort of their own toilet seat. “Evocative, nostalgic, moving and funny. Jonny has triumphed where swathes before him have failed.” Byron Vincent
Marie Antoinette: An Intimate History Melanie Clegg “Her encyclopaedic knowledge of the period allows the reader to relax into the story and be swept along.” Rachael Lucas The youngest daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette was born into a world of almost unbelievable privilege and power. As wife of Louis XVI of France she was fi rst feted and adored and then universally hated as tales of her dissipated lifestyle and extravagance pulled the already discredited monarchy into a maelstrom of revolution, disaster and tragedy. Historian and writer Melanie Clegg takes a fresh look at the story of this most fascinating and misunderstood of queens, exploring her personal tribulations as well as the series of disasters that brought her to the guillotine in October 1793. This is an illustrated and readable account from the author of five historical novels and a regular contributor to Majesty magazine. Clegg also writes regularly for her own women’s history blog Madame Guillotine.
Meet Me There Gail Ashton (ed.) An anthology of creative nonfiction exploring ideas of place. In Meet Me There, ten Cinnamon writers celebrate the press’s tenth anniversary by talking about writing. Each essay explores the ways in which place and location are central to the author’s work, offering insight into ways in which notions of place are integral to all kinds of writing, all kinds of readers, all kinds of writers. From the places that inspire to how associations of place become important in literature, the ten writers engage us with considerations of former work and extracts of new work in which place plays a central role. They offer tools and techniques on writing place into a piece. Includes contributions from Gail Ashton, John Barnie, Mark Charlton, Jan Fortune, Ian Gregson, Mavis Gulliver, Hazel Manuel, Jane McKie, Jim Perrin and Susan Richardson. Cinnamon Press • Paperback • £9.99 9781909077812 • TBC • 250pp October 2015
Burning Eye Books • Paperback • £9.99 9781909136595 • 129x198mm • 100pp October 2015
Burning Eye Books • Paperback • £9.99 9781909136656 • 129x198mm • TBC November 2015
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The Boy in the Mirror Tom Preston
Silchester: Life on the Dig Jenny Halstead & Mike Fulford
Men Who Played the Game Mike Rees
A unique, contemporary, honest and unflinching account of a disease that touches us all.
This collection of watercolours, accompanied by poems, provides a unique glimpse into life on an archaeological dig.
A study of the sportsmen who fought in the Great War.
“When you turn on the bathroom light your reflection stares numbly back at you, gormless and vacant. You blink. Your eyes are yellow, as is your skin. You’ve lost weight: your pyjamas hang off your arms like the wilting leaves of a dying plant. You stare at yourself in the mirror for several surreal minutes. The thing before you is not you. But it is.” In January 2011, aged 21, Tom Preston was diagnosed with stage 4 advanced aggressive lymphoma. His chances of survival were optimistically placed at around 40%. This short, autobiographical work tells the story of the fight in the months that followed – but this is no ordinary cancer memoir. The Boy in the Mirror is written in the second person – so the events in this book are happening to you, the reader, living through the hope, love, suffering, death and black comedy encountered by Tom during the battle to save himself. Valley Press • Paperback • £7.99 9781908853530 • 198x129mm • 70pp September 2015
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The Roman Town at Silchester, Calleva Atrebatum, was a working archaeological dig – the University of Reading Field School – which took place every summer for eighteen years. Taking advantage of the last opportunity to record ‘life on the dig’ in 2014, artist Jenny Halstead spent the summer creating and collating material for this beautiful and historic book. Jenny Halstead’s superior draughtsmanship, her eye for colour and her wide variety of techniques produce evocative, lively images. The resulting book is a fitting and enduring record of this historic episode in the life of an ancient city.
The Great War marked a profound change in attitudes to war and the conduct of it. Six million men from the British Isles served in it, 720,000 (12%) were killed. Junior officers had a 20% survival rate; up to 80% of a battalion could be lost. Battle had changed from engagement by professionals to wholesale, mechanized slaughter. Men Who Played the Game explores the development and importance of sport in Britain and the Empire leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, and the part played by sportsmen in the confl ict. The book includes revelatory chapters on how sport – the fans, the governing bodies and the sportsmen themselves – responded to the coming of war.
Two Rivers press • Paperback • £14.99 9781909747081 • TBC • 78pp
Seren • Paperback • £17.99 • Hardback
October 2015
9781781722862 • 216x138mm • 320pp November 2015
The Edinburgh Fringe in a Nutshell Paul Eccentric
The Gymnast and Other Positions Jacqueline Bishop
A performer’s guide to staying solvent and sane at the world’s biggest arts festival.
Stories essay and interviews dealing with art, maternal separation, travel, family histories and mythologies.
Whether you are a solo artist or the producer of a full cast ensemble taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe remains the same daunting task. The Edinburgh Fringe in a Nutshell gives the insider view on surviving the festival from those who have been there, done it and have the scars to prove it. This book is an unbiased guide to taking a show to the Fringe without being ripped off, sidelined or driven mad. Edinburgh Fringe veteran Paul Eccentric has written an essential handbook that includes exclusive interviews from many other performers including John Hegley, Rob Auton, Paul Lyalls, Elvis McGonagal and Tim Wells from the poetry world alongside well known authors, playwrights and comedians who share their experience of the Edinburgh Fringe. He combines these with comedic ‘day in the life of the festival’ anecdotes and candid interviews with festival facilitators and reviewers, including Kate Copstick. This book provides insights of equal value to both fi rst time and seasoned Fringe performers.
Beginning with the promptings of the transgressively erotic title story, Jacqueline Bishop felt that only the hybrid format of this book, with its mix of short stories, essays and interviews could begin to encompass her desire to see where she had arrived at in a creative career that encompassed being published as a novelist, poet and critic and an exhibited artist. How did these sundry positions connect together? What aspects of both conscious intention and unconscious, interior motivations did they reveal? This is an absorbing read, each piece standing individually and collectively as Jacqueline Bishop questions how she came to such a multifaceted creative career. Jacqueline Bishop has been published in The Caribbean Writer, Crab Orchard Review, Macomere, Renaissance Noire and Wasafi ri amongst other journals. Other works by include The River’s Song, a novel, and two collections of poetry: Fauna and Snapshots from Istanbul.
The Roots of Rock Peter Finch This musical memoir travels from Wales to the US accompanied by a multi-track playlist. In The Roots of Rock: from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back, Peter Finch reflects on how popular music has shaped both his life and the culture in which he lives, from fi rst hearing American music on the radio in his Cardiff home in the 1950s to the compendious and downloadable riches of digital fi les. Finch has always gone to gigs and now he travels to the bars of Ireland, the clubs of New York, the plains of Tennessee, the flatlands of Mississippi and the mountains of North Carolina to get a feel for the culture from which his favourite music originates. The resulting book mixes musical autobiography with an exploration of physical places in western Europe and the US. It is a demonstration of the power of music to create a world for the listener that is simultaneously of and beyond the place in which it is heard. The cast of musicians includes Muddy Waters, Taylor Swift, Bessie Smith, Tommy Steele, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Chris Tweed and singing cowboys. Seren • Paperback • £9.99 9781781722664 • 135x208mm • 280pp
Peepal Tree Press • Paperback • £12.99 Burning Eye Books • Paperback • £9.99
9781845233150 • 156x234mm • 206pp
9781909136564 • 129x198mm • TBC
November 2015
October 2015
July 2015
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The Rugby Union Quiz Book Matthew Jones Published in time for the start of the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Here’s an opportunity to test the old grey matter. This rugby quiz book contains fi fty rounds of ten questions. These reflect some of the fantastic or maybe more unusual moments of rugby from all over the world. Y’Lolfa • Paperback • £3.95 9781784611170 • TBC • 128pp August 2015
The Twat in the Flat Geoff Allnutt “A welcome cure for the aural anaemia of our times” The Independent The Twat is the Flat is a reimagining of Dr Seuss’s Cat in the Hat, deploying an alternative narrative to create an uproarious illustrated book for adults. Part parody, part homage, The Twat in the Flat has all the off-beat humour of the original, but you will probably not be reading it to your children at bedtime! Geoff Allnutt is a long-standing writer and performer. He has been part of influential spoken word collectives such as The Speech Painter and Atomic Lip. With an impressive portfolio of material behind him ranging from the strangely comic to the deadly serious he is an electric and unmissable performer. Geoff has appeared on stages across the UK including Glastonbury Festival. Burning Eye Books • Paperback • £9.99 9781909136663 • 216x148mm • TBC November 2015
WAAM: A History of the Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement Hanef Bhamjee The history of a crucial civil rights group as told by its longstanding leader. The story of the Wales AntiApartheid Movement, from leading campaigns against sporting, industrial and commercial links between South Africa and Wales, in the mid-sixties to its present charitable incarnation as Action for Southern Africa. WAAM was one of several crucial campaigning bodies which shaped Welsh political life in the 60s, 70s and 80s. It was focussed on attacking racism and raising the profi le of Nelson Mandela in Wales, Britain and abroad. The book draws extensively from archives and interviews with activists and public figures to tell the story of this remarkable organisation. Hanef Bhamjee was born in South Africa and was a member of the ANC and its military wing. He fled the country in 1965 and became a solicitor in Cardiff, and the leader of WAAM. He was awarded an OBE for services to race relations and the charity and voluntary sector. Seren • Paperback • £12.99 9781781721995 • 216x138mm • 240pp December 2015
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The Writing on the Wall Peter Kruschwitz An anthology of Reading’s Latin inscriptions, containing 70 photos and specially produced wood carvings. What are monuments for? And why are the inscriptions invariably in Latin? What on earth is the point of communicating in a language no one understands? Peter Kruschwitz, a classics scholar and specialist in the Latin language and its history, uses these questions as his starting point to reveal a fascinating range of texts from the wealth of Reading’s Latin inscriptions. Starting from the statue of King Edward VII outside the station, the reader embarks upon a journey of discovery through the remarkable and checkered history of this town, uncovering some of Reading’s hidden treasures and recalling the individuals who have made the town what it is today. Two Rivers Press • Paperback • £10.00 9781901677997 • 216x138mm • 150pp
UEA Creative Writing Anthology Scriptwriting (2015) Introduction by Steve Waters “Drama collections are rare little gems. Open this one up and let the words transport you to new” worlds on screen and stage. It is treasure, indeed, from these talented writers.” Tilly Lunken – Writer / Dramaturg From distraught bridesmaids who lose their bride to young adults searching for love on Tinder, these stories showcase some of UEA’s fi nest storytelling. The 2015 scriptwriting anthology comprises of eight original pieces from a wide range of talent—some dark, some comedic, some a little bit of both. Here are scripts that give us a glimpse into eight wildly contrasting worlds fi lled with striking characters. Whether it’s terminally ill adolescent patients fi nding unique ways to entertain themselves, or a father and son clockmaking duo who come to loggerheads in a shocking way, there’s something in this anthology for everyone.
September 2015
UEA Creative Writing Anthology Creative Nonfiction (2015) Foreword by Ian Thomson and an introduction by Kathryn Hughes ‘”All good writing,” said Walter Benjamin, “either dissolves a genre or invents one.” Creative Non-Fiction is a genre in a continual state of dissolution or reinvention, and the UEA class of 2015 have proved themselves fearless pioneers of this uncharted terrain. I have no doubt that these are voices which will grow and grow, that we will read these writers again.’ Frances Wilson The dark secrets of elephantkeeping; camels, puddings, love and loss; an unlikely heroine of the American Civil War; the enchanting shores of Lake Metigoshe during dragonfly season – these are just some of the subjects of this rich collection of eleven new nonfiction voices, graduates from the University of East Anglia’s renowned Creative Writing MA. Egg Box • Paperback • £9.99 978093296239 • 210x148mm • 80pp
Egg Box Publications • Paperback
November 2015
£9.99 • 9780993296246 • 210x148mm 128pp • November 2015
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What Does Europe Want? WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE GREEK PRIME MINISTER ALEXIS TSIPRAS Instead of a peace-project, the European Union is increasingly turning into a warzone: whether it be the expulsion of immigrants or riots in Paris, Athens and London, or European interventions to bring “more democracy” to Libya or Syria. Instead of leaving Europe to the enemies, one of the greatest European philosophers of our day, Slavoj Žižek and the young Croatian philosopher and Guardian columnist Srecko ´ Horvat reflect on the fight for a different idea of Europe; one that embraces all its peoples equally.
IN THE
NEWS ISTROS BOOKS • PAPERBACK • £12.00 • 9781908236166 • 216X138MM • 202pp
NON-FICTION BACKLIST
BLACK AND WHITE SANDS ELMA NAPIER Papillote Press • PB • £10.99 9780953222445 • 280pp
HOME AGAIN: STORIES OF MIGRATION AND RETURN POLLY PATTULLO AND CELIA SORHAINDO (EDS)
BROAD STREET CHAPEL & THE ORIGINS OF DISSENT IN READING GEOFF SAWERS
FINDING MYSELF: ESSAYS IN RACE POLITICS AND CULTURE CLEM SEECHARAN
Two Rivers Press • PB • £7.95 9781901677898 • 57pp
Peepal Tree Press • PB • £19.99 9781845232474 • 336pp
LOSING ISRAEL JASMINE DONAHAYE
GATECRASHING EUROPE KRIS MOLE
Seren • HB • £12.99 9781781722527 • 160pp
Valley Press • PB • £10.99 9781908853394 • 466pp
MOUNT LONDON
WARE AT WAR 1939-45 DEREK ARMES
Papillote Press • PB • £9.99 9780953222452 • 248pp
THE SKY’S WILD NOISE: SELECTED ESSAYS RUPERT ROOPNARAINE Peepal Tree Press • PB • £16.99 9781845231613 • 260pp
Penned in the Margins • HB • £12.99 9781908058188 • 200pp
Rockingham Press • PB • £12.95 9781904851608 • 208pp
HOLY WELLS SCOTLAND PHIL COPE Seren • HB • £25.00 9781781722589 • 252pp
THE FALSE APOCALYPSE: FROM STALINISM TO CAPITALISM FATOS LUBONJA Istros Books • PB • £9.99 9781908236197 • 256pp
YOUR TIME IS DONE NOW (SLAVERY, RESISTANCE AND DEFEAT: THE MAROON TRIALS OF DOMINICA 1813-1814) POLLY PATTULLO (ED) Papillote Press • PB • £9.99 9780957118775 • 164pp
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NON-FICTION BACKLIST
MAGAZINES
It’s intelligent and generous. If you’re a lover of good poetry, The North is essential reading. As a small independent magazine we’re in a fortunate position. We don’t follow trends, foster political affinities or keep up appearances.
“Excellent.” The Guardian “Redressing the balance of English poetry.” Poetry Review “The North grows in authority with every issue.” Andy Croft
We don’t do lots of useful, necessary and boring things and we don’t put up with middle-of-the-road ideas. The most important thing is the quality of the writing.
In each issue of The North: • A lively range of contemporary poetry by new and established writers. • A broad spectrum of book reviews, from mainstream publishers to the smaller presses - sympathetic, rigorous.
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• Critical articles, conversations with writers, autobiography. • ‘Blind Criticism’: two or three writers put their heads on the block and comment on a poem without knowing who wrote it. • ‘Poets I Go Back To’: writers reveal which poets from the past have most influenced them.
• ‘The Collection’: writers talk about books that are important to them. • Plus occasional ‘Brief Guides To ...’ well known poets (for example, John Killick on Douglas Dunn, Anna Adams on Elizabeth Bishop).
ACUMEN
AGENDA
BANIPAL
January, May, September
April & September
March, June, November
ENVOI
THE LONDON MAGAZINE
February, June, October
Six issues every year
MODERN POETRY IN TRANSLATION Three issues a year
THE RIALTO
SONOFABOOK
UNDER THE RADAR
March, August, December
Three issues a year
March, August, December
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MAGAZINES
WRECKING BALL PRESS Musi was my first introduction into literature. Music The song lyric. Leonard Cohen came first; T the album “The Songs of Leonard Cohen” I thought it was just me and him, him talking and me listening. Of course now I know that every other bed-sit in Hull was filled with Len’s dulcet tones murmuring into the shell-likes of other would be in writers. The gatefold and inner sleeves were my books back then. Joni Mitchell, Ricki Lee Jones and Tom Waits were others I would spend many an intimate evening with. I remember listening to a live album by Ralph McTell and he introduced one of his songs by talking about Sylvia Plath. I went and bought “Ariel” the next day. This was the first poetry book I bought. Leonard Cohen’s music is a perfect example of why I do what I do. Thirty odd years on and I’m still getting something – very often something completely new – out of those same songs. It comes down to literature that lasts. That’s what I am trying to achieve with Wrecking Ball Press. Ezra Pound said ” Literature is news that stays news”. Good music and good books. I still listen as much as I read. I used to run a café in Hull. We would put on live jazz and poetry readings. The Students started bringing me their poems. I was only a café owner at this time and had never edited or considered editing anybody’s work. It was bad poetry. I told them this and when they asked me why I could only say “it wasn’t for me” – but I couldn’t explain why. Wrecking Ball Press was born in the back room of the Café because of this. I wanted to produce a poetry magazine that I thought at that time didn’t exist. My friend Owen Benwell, who was working for me as a part time cook, had recently finished Art college and had started getting interested in Graphic Design. We decided we knew enough between
us to start our own poetry magazine. So he bashed away at the computer in the store-room and I carried on cooking lasagnes and reading manuscripts that I had previously put out feelers for. It didn’t take long. Suddenly every man and his dog was a writer, it seemed. But the same problems kept cropping up time and time again. The writing I was being sent just wasn’t hitting the mark. It seems like it will always be a sore point. What is good writing? What is bad writing? It’s subjective of course, but as an editor you have to decide there and then if it’s right for you and your readers. I feel that bad writing just reinforces its own right to anonymity and therefore obscurity. End of story. Of course cafes and pubs are the perfect backdrops for writers. Drink loosens tongues and words spill. The café was becoming a melting pot of artists and writers all bigging up their own work, trying to shout over the sound of the band. I didn’t mind this. Apart from the preacher and the ear bullied victim, everyone else seemed to be too busy listening to the music. I don’t do it much myself and hardly any of my friends do. Talk about literature. There is a reason why I have become friends with some writers and not others over the years. I prefer to talk about the things that feed literature rather than literature itself. WORDS. I like them still alive. Jammed in the middle of buckled sentences or spat out before the brain gets time to register the chaos. I look for these qualities in the work I publish. “How would you like your steak cooked, medium, rare or a la Anglais?” (well done with all the life and soul taken from it). I believe this is what happens to much literature. It gets overcooked till it tastes of nothing. I’m not looking for rhyme or metre or how many syllables there are in a line. I’m looking for the words to move on the page. I want to be distracted from the formula. I want the words to do what all good words should do and that’s LIVE. Shane Rhodes, editor
Corksucker • Dan Fante
Digging the Vein • Tony O’Neill
The Book of Fuck • Ben Myers
“Fante offers moments that brush the genius of Buko Elle
“A blistering account of addiction, love, hope and the downside of the American Dream…” – Dazed and Confused
“Ben Myers has the imagination of a lovable serial killer, his writing will fill you with love and scare you to shit.” – Kelly Jones
Paperback • £9.95 • 9781903110188 June 2007
Paperback • £10.95 • 9781903110157 February 2004
Paperback • £7.99 • 9781903110263 December 2005
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