What the papers say

February was an interesting month for Five Leaves in the press. Yes we made the crime reviews in the Hull Daily Mail (thank you Nick Quantrill) but I hope Nick and the entire Hull population won't be upset if I class the full page in the current Times Literary Supplement as being more of a winner. The page, by Roz Caveney, was about our Roland Camberton books, especially Scamp. Unfortunately not online, the review spots a lot in his books that made us want to publish them after sixty years of unavailability, pointing out that "Scamp feels more interesting than it perhaps did on publication". Alone this looks like damning with faint praise, which is not the tone of the article. She ends saying "Like Scamp, Rain on the Pavements belongs to a tradition of London fiction which is partly journalistic; its consolations are not plot and character, but observation and vivid recall." Our New London Editions have been covered well in Hackney Citizen and Camberton again in Jewish Renaissance.

At the other end of the country, Zoe Wicomb hit the Sunday Herald with The One that Got Away while J. David Simons had a perfectly formed and good review for his The Liberation of Celia Kahn in the Herald guide. David's book is getting coverage in book blogs including Vulpes Libris, while the Jewish Telegraph gave a big spread to the Glasgow book launch. Our Crime Express series is starting to get coverage on specialist crime blogs, with http://www.spinetinglermag.com/ writer "Nerd of Noir" taking a big liking to Graven Image by Charlie Williams and California by noirista (a word borrowed from Mike Ripley) Ray Banks. John Lucas wouldn't know an e-zine or a blog if it came up and hit him but was very pleased by the print out of Michael Bartholemew-Biggs' review of Things to Say in London Grip, which has reached 27 issues but was new to me. B-B's review is on http://www.londongrip.com/LondonGrip/Poetry_review_Bartholomew-Biggs.html. More conventionally, by Lucas standards, the great Jim Burns reviewed the same book in the current Ambit. Parochially I was pleased to see a review of Ray Gosling's Personal Copy in The Nottinghamshire Historian. Because of that other business with Ray his book has not had as much attention as it deserves so it was nice of Denys Ridgeway to ignore that other business remarking that "His memoirs really do capture the mood of the younger generation [of the 1960s], how they lived and behaved."

Ambit then (see previous posting for reasons)

Ambit has been going a long time for a little mag, since 1959 to be exact. It may be the only literary magazine started by a paediatrician, the doc in question being Martin Bax. Over the years the editorial team has included Carol Ann Duffy, Geoff Nicholson and JG Ballard. Since its inception, or at least as long as I can remember (which is not the same thing) Ambit has carried art, poetry, reviews and short fiction. There are some lit mags which carry short fiction but you get the impression the fiction is not central, but it is central in Ambit. Five Leaves has published quite a lot of David Belbin's stories that were first seen in Ambit and I'm pleased that the current issue (203) includes a few poets we've anthologised, and one novelist we've published. The latter, Carl Tighe, is an Ambit regular but in this issue his poetry appears. In the interests of transparency the current issue also includes a review of one of our John Lucas books, but it is Jim Burns - who has been appearing in all the best little mags forever. Other favourite regulars from the little mags include Alexis Lykiard and Helena Nelson.

The other thing I like about Ambit is that it includes a reasonable selection of a writer's work, in this issue a set of Fred Voss's industrial worker poems and a sequence by Judith Kazantzis.

Also in the interests of transparency, or something, I have to say the artwork in the current issue is not to my liking. Indeed Mike Foreman, the art editor's taste is not usually mine. But what do I know about art? This posting is illustrated by a back issue cover I do like.

Conclusion - Ambit is a good, solid read, grounded in the small press movement but with links in the bigger world. It is good on short fiction, loyal to its writers and is not a dedicated follower of fashion. If I liked the artwork more I'd be keener still, but I'm not suggesting any change since the strong editorial line and consistency shows the team knows what it is doing. Individual copies cost £8, subs £28, http://www.ambitmagazine.co.uk/. 96 pages, quarterly.

The names of the forgotten

Penniless Press is a literary journal appearing roughly quarterly, but so roughly quarterly that about once a year I think "Hang on, has my sub run out or has it got lost in the post?" This time, wandering through its website (http://www.pennilesspress.co.uk/) to check - and, dear reader, allow time for a wander as the route is not linear - I found The Penniless Press Reader, available for £8.18 (sic) plus postage. The book is printed on demand from Lulu and arrived in about four or five days. No ISBN so this seems the only way to obtain a copy. But well worth while. Penniless Press is produced in the most basic format, but includes excellent writing including important essays by John Lucas and that small press hero Jim Burns. The best essays and some poetry from issues 1-26, from 1995-2008 are included here, good value at over 400 pages.

I've lifted a chapter heading from the book as the subject of this post in gentle admiration not scorn that the Reader includes chapters on many people who are less well known than they once were (like Irving Howe) or the barely remembered at all (come in Maxwell Bodenheim).

Five Leaves' writers John Lucas and Andy Croft are well represented (and from our Nottinghamshire base the late Leslie Williamson writing about DH Lawrence's friend Willie Hopkin, who Les knew well in Eastwood when he was young). With the possible exception of S. Kadison and the certain exception of Elizabeth Howkins all the contributors to the book are chaps, unusual these days in a literary mag.

If I could describe Penniless in a sentence it would be (from an editorial in issue three) that "Literature should be written for enthusiasts by enthusiasts, and when someone ask you about a writer, talk about the writing and ignore the prizes."

Alan Dent, the editor, is known to have his heart on the left, which adds something to his use of inprint.solutions@brothersofcharity.org.uk as printer of the last issue of the magazine found on my shelves. And that reminds me that the late Poetry Nottingham used to be printed by the Christian Duplicating Services. I hope they only duplicated sheets of paper.