States round up

As with Lowdham's winter weekend a few postings ago, it is difficult to give an objective review of your own event, but I'll try. The fourth States of Independence took place over the weekend - as mentioned in the last posting. Over 300 attended (we have ways of counting people), with most people staying for most of the day. This was a bit down on past years - though more people stayed for longer. These two points were partly related as in previous years I'd spent a lot of time contacting special interest groups whose members might not have been interested in the whole day, but might have been interested in one particular event so that diverse grouping was not so numerous, and, for no apparent reason, there were fewer students around this year. Return to that aspect next time, I think.
The organising team had a disproportionate number of non-literary issues to deal with in the run up. At one stage I was all for skipping a year but my more realistic colleagues (at the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort) felt we would lose momentum so even if we went for a much smaller event we should keep going. But we still had 24 events, as originally planned, and one more bookstall than previous years. And people did stay longer. Last year one of our last slots had nobody but the speakers but (unless I have yet to hear) nothing was embarrassing this year. The traditional organisers' view of events starts with complete failure, moves up to embarrassing and anything above embarrassing is a great success... And some of our events throughout the day were packed to the gunnels, or if not packed, the right amount of people for a specialist event and some good discussion. At the LGBT writers meeting people said the discussion was particularly intense. Good. And many were a great success.
Stall takings are always interesting, though perhaps mostly to other stall holders. We had difficulties with the stall layout meaning a couple of awkward pinch points stopped people getting round as much as I'd have liked, but the stall with the worst position (Shearsman), who is given a free extra table to make up, had their best year so far. Their display is always attractive and I think the firm knows that the specialist poetry buyers will find them and flash the cash.
This was the first year I've ever gone to one of the events as I'm usually on the info point/Five Leaves stall, but this year was in conversation with Alison Moore, our local Booker shortlisted writer, published by the indie press Salt. That event was packed and Alison is a delight to interview. Five Leaves' Pippa Hennessy ran two sessions on ebooks, one on theory, one on practice. Pippa is now running a lot of these sessions. If I could have left the stall I'd have attended the rather riotous session on literary sex before and after 1963, the novelist Kerry Young's talk, that by an old friend and colleague Sarah Butler on "Ten things I've learnt about literature" (the title echoing the title of her first novel) and Maureen Makki on Sudanese women. Don't be surprised if all of these events are replicated in Lowdham during the summer. Of Five Leaves writers, Rod Madocks talked about his new set of short stories on mental health and Ian Parks (who is editing a book for us on Yorkshire poetry) gave a well-attended talk on Chartist poetry.
States also saw the announcement of the shortlist for the East Midlands Book Award. Two States organisers, Kathy Bell and I, are Trustees of EMBA, but the astonishing part of the announcement was that two of the other States organisers, Will Buckingham and Jonathan Taylor, were among the shortlisted writers and Alison Moore was one of our guest speakers on the day. Will and Jonathan even share an office at De Montfort. I'll post later on EMBA, but this year Leicester was particularly well represented on the shortlist of seven. When States was chosen for the announcement none of us knew who was on the shortlist or where they came from.
I should also mention that the day was supported financially by Creative Leicestershire. This enabled us to pay some people's travel from further away and reduce Five Leaves's financial subsidy to the event.
I also want to thank Cathy Galvin who stepped in at no notice to run the short story session with Charles Boyle after Ra Page from Comma Press had to drop out following a bereavement. We have not seen the last of Cathy around the East Midlands I think.
And special thanks to Simon Perril from DMU who, this year, was in charge of logistics, tech and DMU matters, and those students who helped with tables and with chairing.
Finally... it was a book festival... My purchases from other stalls were A Vanished Hand: my autograph album Anthony Rudoph (Shearsman), Ten Things I've Learnt about Love by Sarah Butler (Picador) and Getting the Coal: impressions of a twentieth century mining community edited by Jeane Carswell and Tracey Roberts (Mantle Oral History Project)

Man with white shirt talks to someone who is clearly very interested...

Indie book fair to host awards announcement

Authors shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award will be giving readings at a free independent literary festival which returns to Leicester this weekend.

It will be the first time the States of Independence book fair at De Montfort University (DMU) will host the announcement of the shortlist for the awards.

The festival programme on Saturday will also see star authors offering guidance to creative writers, talks on Chartist poetry, the lives of Sudanese women and unexplained phenomena, a discussion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender writing, performances of short plays and even a recital of Bulgarian guitar music.

“States of Independence is a one day carnival of the feisty, the wayward, the unclassifiable, and the wilfully strange,” said Will Buckingham, DMU lecturer, philosopher, novelist and author of popular children’s picture-book, The Snorgh and the Sailor.

Admission will be free to the book fair, described as “a literary festival in a day,” which will be in the university's Clephan Building in Bonners Lane, off Oxford Street, from 10.30am to 4.30pm and will feature guest writers and publishers from the East Midlands and beyond.

Star guests will include Nottingham-based Alison Moore, whose first novel,The Lighthouse, was short-listed for last year's Booker Prize and Sarah Butler whose Ten Things I've Learnt About Love has created a stir in the publishing world.

The States of Independence festival will feature workshops, readings, panels, seminars, book launches, and regional writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, artist books, magazines and journals.

Seventy writers, mostly from the East Midlands, will be reading from their work, and visitors will be able to learn everything they need to know about eBooks and comics.

Sessions at the festival will cater for readers and writers with a huge range of interests. One panel will be offering advice on setting up and marketing a small press and there will be two sessions offering advice on e-publishing.

Meanwhile the foyer and corridors will host nearly 40 stalls showcasing the best in indie publishing from the region and beyond.

The event is co-hosted by Five Leaves Publications from Nottingham and De Montfort University's Creative Writing team, with sponsorship from Creative Leicestershire.

“States of Independence is a splash of colour against the gray background of corporate publishing,” said Dr Simon Perril, DMU Subject Leader for Creative Writing and poet, author of Newton’s Splinter, Nitrate, and the forthcomingArchilochus on the Moon.

“It sets out to celebrate the abundance of independent creative energies within the region by putting on a day of events of impressive variety. Where else will you find debates about the e-book, talks on comics, discussions of unexplained phenomena, and readings of short stories about mental health in the same day!

“The East Midlands Book Award is open to any published books of fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction written in the preceding year by authors living in the East Midlands. So come to States and you not only get to hear who is nominated, you also get to buy their books before anyone else!

“Come along and find a range of fascinating titles you simply won’t find in high street chains bloated with celebrity autobiographies.”

Visitors will be welcome to pop in or to stay all day. The full programme is at www.statesofindependence.co.uk

States of Independence IV

The programme for States of Independence is available now on www.statesofindependence.co.uk. This year there is more of a fiction focus, with guest speakers including Kerry Young, Alison Moore and Sarah Butler. Kerry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Literature Prize, Alison for the Booker while Sarah makes a return to her old stamping ground in Leicester.
There's the usual range of the sensible and the weird, the comic and the highbrow, and, this year, more stalls than ever, forty, and from further afield.
The joy of States is that it is free, and you can come for an hour or the whole day, spend time in events or just look round the bookstalls. A highlight of the region's literature scene and a splash of colour in the middle of mainstream grey publishing.
A Five Leaves project with the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University, supported by Creative Leicestershire.

Time marches

Five Leaves two big March projects were the Lowdham Book Festival Winter Weekend and the Leicester States of Independence day. No offence to the rest of March, but I'd like to catch up with my sleep now. Lowdham hasn't had a winter weekend every year, but returned to the idea to fill the gap left by Flicks on the Sticks. After ten years our successful, but loss-making, film weekend, was put to bed - at least for a while. The winter weekend's theme was Local Heroes. It's not on the same scale as the summer festival, but 600 attendances over the weekend was encouraging and, unlike Flicks, we turned a modest profit which will help towards the summer funding. The highlight for me was the evening with the screen writer Billy Ivory (as in Made in Dagenham), who used to empty the bins in Lowdham in an earlier life.
The Five Leaves staff is, however, most in need of a few zzzzs following States of Independence, run jointly with our friends of the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University. This was not a good year to run it for any of us due to other commitments but we worried about losing momentum, especially within DMU, and decided to run a "full strength" States rather than cut back. We were pushed but we did it. States is a celebration of (small scale) independent publishing - somewhere between a book festival and a convention. And it's free. This year attendance was a bit down, around 420, but people stayed for longer, usually several hours, attending the performances and discussions, buying books or just networking. The initial idea was to focus on the East Midlands with some help from Our Friends in the West (Midlands) but this year there were stalls from CB Editions in London, Shearsman in Bristol and Inpress from Newcastle as well as our home grown publishers. Poetry was well, possibly over, represented in the programme but that also meant excellent sales at some poetry presses (Longbarrow from Sheffield for example) which specialise in crafted publications in unusual formats - the kind of material only seen at such book fairs.
I was stuck on admin/Five Leaves duty all day but I heard very good things especially about the future of the book industry panel (chaired by Pippa Hennessy from Five Leaves on her first outing as a panel chair in any setting) and the discussion about small press comics run by the Leicester enthusiasts from Factor Fiction. The level of co-operation in the day was shown by several poets deciding to run Candlestick's session after the editor had to pull out at the last minute due to illness. None of the readers have been, I think, published by Candlestick and they had little prep time but it was lovely that they ran an emergency reading service rather than just let that session lapse. Another couple of presses ensured that Candlestick's stall was delivered and returned, with DMU students staffing it. I like also that this event is always younger and more multi-cultural than any other literature event I go to.
Events like States involve hard work from a lot of people but they are a way that independent presses can showcase their work and talk to their friends and relations. Friends in Birmingham are discussing how best to move forward with their own States of Independence, while on September 8th CB Editions is organising their second Free Verse, see: http://www.poetrybookfair.com/.
The programme for our States of Independence is still on http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/.
ps An important part of the day comprises publishing workers buying from other publishers. My purchases were the latest issue of Dream Catcher, to pamphlets from the Nottingham "People's Histreh" group (though as one Nottinghamian said, if they really want to mirror the accent it should be 'istreh), a David Morley poetry collection from Templar that I'd not seen before and Jack Robinson's Days and Nights in W12 meditation (CB Editions). My Five Leaves colleague Pippa bought most of the other books on sale judging by the weight of her rucksack.

States of Independence 3

INDEPENDENT PRESS DAY
Free of charge 10.30am - 4.30pm Open to all
Clephan Building, De Montfort University, Oxford Street, Leicester LE1 5XY
Bookstalls Workshops Readings Panels Seminars Book launches
Independent presses Regional writers Literary agents
Fiction Non-fiction Poetry Plays Artist books Magazines Journals
25+ events, cafe, all day book fair

Independent publishing, independent writing, independent thinking

http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/

Organised and funded by Five Leaves Publications and the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University

This week in books

Like any job, publishing is full of small bits of unexciting detailed work that builds to a fulfilling life at the cutting edge of literature. That, at least, is what I keep telling myself when doing those bits of unexciting, detailed work. Not that I mind packing parcels for Amazon, a task so skilled that it can only be done by senior management at Five Leaves PLC. This week, however, has been exciting. On Tuesday I spent seven or eight happy hours on trains working on the first edit of Russel D McLean's next, third, novel, Father Confessor. We've already announced the book, signed a contract, designed the cover... and it is always a relief when manuscripts live up to their expectations. No slashing and burning required. In an earlier McLean manuscript I'd had fun tracking the route of every gun through the book as a shoot-out at the end seemed to have one firearm too many. No superfluous firearms in this book but it's still bloody dangerous to live in Dundee. McLean fans will be happy.
On the journey back, David Belbin's forthcoming Student lasted from Carlisle to Alfreton. This was my third read of the book, following some editorial changes by the author. There had been an interesting issue as one, now changed, chapter had previously included a lot of action around Second Life. How do you manage to make a novel about students read as current, when aspects of their behaviour pass so quickly? Nobody now uses MySpace, how many people have even heard of Second Life? Whatever students do now, or terms they use, will be out of date by publication date, which is challenging for authors and publishers.
The big local news is the new book of short stories by Jon McGregor, reviewed everywhere the last few days - This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You. One of the stories appeared earlier in the Five Leaves' anthology, Sea of Azov, so we can marginally bask in the acclaim. At the launch Jon revealed that if he'd had his way the book would have been called (I think it was) "I Bought You a Shovel". His publisher, Bloomsbury, thankfully squashed that idea, but wittily and usefully sent him a snow shovel as a present on publication day, so that the sender could add a note saying "I bought you a shovel".
The same evening author Rebecca Buck and editor Victoria Oldham from the American-based lesbian and gay publisher Bold Strokes were giving a talk at Nottingham Writers Studio on their experience writing for and editing a mid-size publishing house. It was hard not to regret the loss of so many of our lesbian and gay publishing houses, Sheba, Brilliance, GMP, Oscar's... when hearing how successful Bold Strokes are, and how mainstream they are too, being stocked in major bookstores. Here there is no discrimination against lesbian and gay writers being successful - think Alan Hollinghurst, Sarah Waters, Carol Ann Duffy - but outside of Gay's the Word you will rarely see lesbian and gay books in any quantity or labelled as such.
Bold Strokes will be at our States of Independence day in Leicester on March 17 and this week the programme went on line at http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/. I'll post later about States, but if you are withing striking, or stroking, distance of Leicester do make a date. In short it is a free book festival in a day, with seventy writers taking part, with its roots in the independent publishing sector.
This was the week the programme had to be finalised for Lowdham Book Festival's winter weekend, held over the first weekend in March. And it has, though it is not yet on line. The theme of the winter weekend is Local Heroes, and it includes an evening with the film-maker Billy Ivory as the highlight. Lowdham's winter weekends have always been on a more intimate scale than the summer festival (intimate being code for smaller), which suits us just fine. The date, for those who follow all things Lowdham, is, however, the usual date for our Flicks in the Sticks film weekend. Well, after ten years Flicks has gone dark. It may return, we hope so, but ten years was a good run and frees up some time to develop our winter mini-festival in the future. Lowdham also now runs a "First Friday" lecture series, with one of our regular speakers, Mike Wilson, yesterday having to cover the whole of Dickens' life and work in a hour. Easy, given his last challenge was to cover the whole of English Literature in an hour...
The week closed with National Libraries Day. That is something. Last year there were dozens of protest actions (including one organised by Five Leaves and UNISON) about library cutbacks, but the day has morphed into a day to celebrate libraries - and protest where necessary. Our local Nottingham Post included a good article in support of libraries, with short interviews with me from Five Leaves and our writers David Belbin and John Stuart Clark (the cartoonist Brick), together with some national figures including the ubiquitous Stephen Fry.
Except the week is not over yet. There are many emails to get through and - hurrah - tomorrow night the next order from Amazon arrives, telling me exactly which books I'll be packing on Monday morning. I'm looking forward to it already.

All the fun of the fair

Book fairs are nothing new. Those of us close to or well into the bus pass years will recall the annual Socialist Bookfair and the assorted international and third world and black book fairs. The only survivor from that era is the Anarchist Bookfair, mentioned here before, doing spectacularly well, and now being around twenty years old. The next is on 22nd October (http://www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk/). The advance leaflet for this year's fair says it is the London Anarchist Bookfair. Has it said that before? I am not sure but it now does seem pointed since May alone saw anarchist bookfairs in Sheffield and - particularly well attended - in Bristol. Our Lowdham Book Festival has always had a book fair on one day, with many talks and lectures (http://www.lowdhambookfestival/) which became the model for States of Independence in Leicester (http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/). This has become the model for an as yet unnamed fair likely to be on October 8th in Birmingham. Meanwhile the comic and artists book scene held a proletarian "International Alternative Press Fair" last weekend (http://www.alternativepress.org.uk/) and the Arnolfini in Bristol held a more middle-class, artist book, Bristol Artists Book Event (unfortunate acronym there). This advertised "prices starting from a few pounds" but on some exhibits you would have needed a mortgage. Up in Durham the date New Writing North is organising a Christmas Market over the first weekend in December. In short, as the high street struggles, independent publishers, from pamphleteers to purveyors of locked glass cabinet books are responding by organising a book fair near you. The more the merrier.

Where are the Moomins when you need them?

Only four more days before our second States of Independence day in Leicester, celebrating the wonderful world of small and independent presses, this Saturday at De Montfort University. A one day - and free - book and spoken word festival. This list gives you an idea what it is about.

The 1950s, artists' books, publishing, eBooks, Asian writing, Irish writing, speculative fiction, spoken word from Short Fuse and Word!, anarchism, sex and sensibility, crime fiction, graphic novels, the Moomins, music, short fiction, money, poetry, making it as a writer, editing, East Midlands Book Award, book and magazine launches. Cafe available. Come for an hour or all day. Full programme on http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/. All human and Moomin life welcome.

States of Independence II

We are pleased to announce the second States of Independence, to be held in Leicester on March 19. States is a celebration of the work of independent presses and those who write for them. Features this year include sessions on speculative fiction, the Moomins and philosophy, sex and sensibility, as well as an agent surgery and the first public outing of the East Midlands Book Award. Six of the eight shortlisted writers are from indie presses and five will be at States. This year we'll also have some stars from the performance scene, from Word! and Short Fuse.
The whole day is free, and last year was attended by 300-500 people including editors, writers, publishers and the public. Jointly organised by Five Leaves and the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University. Come for an hour or the whole day. See www.statesofindependence.co.uk

First and last Beeston Int Poetry Festival ends

The Flying Goose in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, was packed and sweaty for the last reading of the small and unlikely Beeston International Po Fest. The event finished on home ground, with two Midlands writers reading, Matthew Welton and Roy Fisher. It was the perfect setting for two great poets, reading quietly and demanding attention. I only got a silver star for attending seven of the ten events. One Stakhanovite managed them all and has been awarded the gold star for services to poetry. The Flying Goose always has a high percentage of writers and organisers in the crowd, and some last minute networking means that there's be another regional independent publishers day event next March in Leicester, States of Independent II. There's a video archive of a poem from each of the Beeston readers on
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=129081423811358

Another one bites the dust

States of Independence in Leicester on Saturday - see blogs passim - was a big success. Thanks to all the stall holders, speakers, table carriers and fellow organisers for making it so, especially the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort University. There have been a number of blog entries about it, but none more likely to give me a big head than the following: http://siobhanlogan.blogspot.com/2010/03/states-of-independence.html. I'm usually a modest bloke with a lot to be modest about but on this rare occasion I'll also immodestly add a photo of me in action. The bloke with his eyes beginning to glaze over is Stephen Hill, a writer from Lowdham.

More seriously, the event was a success, with getting on for 400 attending, many for several hours. Most of the 40 stall holders I have spoken to did well in sales, in contacts, in future arrangements and many of the talks and readings were packed. 70-80% of those attending were probably from Leicestershire, but we do know of people attending from Newham, Manchester, Birmingham all various places in the East Midlands.

States of Independence

States of Independence

A regional event
INDEPENDENT PRESS DAY
Clephan Building, De Montfort University, Oxford Road, Leicester
10.30am – 4.30pm, Saturday 20th March.
Independent presses from across the region (and some from around the country) will be on site, together with many regional writers whose work is published by large and small independent publishers. Join us for an hour or two or the whole day.
Open to all and free of charge.

Forty writers, mostly from the East Midlands, will be reading from their work at an events programme to accompany an equal number of independent publishers and writers' organisations staffing bookstalls and displaying their work.
Authors include nationally known figures including children's writers Berlie Doherty (twice winner of the Carnegie Award) and Chris D'Lacey, novelists Anthony Cartwright (Heartland, recently read on Book at Bedtime) and Rod Madocks (shortlisted for the ITV Crime and Thriller Awards) and poets Gregory Woods and Deborah Tyler-Bennett. We'll also be providing a Leicester launch for Maria Allen's first novel, launching the international poetry magazine Cleave and featuring talks on independent football magazines, the 1984 Miners' Strike and well known phrases and sayings.
Independent press editors taking part include Iron Press's Peter Mortimer on his “40 years before the mast” as a publisher, and Lynne Patrick from Crème de la Crime, probably the only female crime fiction publisher in the UK. Publishers, groups and magazines from the East and West Midlands and the North East in particular will be represented.
Organised by Five Leaves Publications in Nottingham and the Creative Writing Team at De Montfort Univeristy.
Printed programmes available from info@fiveleaves.co.uk, 0115 9895465. Web programmes: http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/

Diary dates

We have some dates for some of Five Leaves' bigger events in 2010. All we need now is a diary, but most people are better organised...

Saturday March 20: 10am-4pm. "States of Independence" - an independent publishers' fair, with events, readings, launches.
De Montfort University, Leicester

Wednesday June 16: 7.30 (time tbc). "Old City, New Rumours" - launching our major anthology of Hull related poets, in support of Larkin 25. Andrew Motion, a contributor, will be reading and talking about Hull and Larkin. University of Hull

Friday 18 June - Saturday 27 June Lowdham Book Festival - the East Midlands biggest book event, jointly organised by Five Leaves and The Bookcase in Lowdham, Nottinghamshire.

Fuller details of all of these will appear in due course, and on our events listing at http://www.fiveleaves.co.uk/.


Meanwhile, congratulations to Richard Bolt and the team organising the Tower Hamlets Festival of Reading. Five Leaves were represented by John Harvey (OK, he does have another publisher too) and John Bennett (author of E1). The Festival was conceived and organised at short notice, but worked, and will reappear in the second week of November 2010.