"In my mind I'm going to Catalonia"

With apologies to James Taylor for the above title.

"The identification of one state with one national language is rather like monogamy - much praised as an ideal but as often ignored in practice," starts John Payne in "Mind Your Language", a chapter in the new edition of his Catalonia: history and culture.

Catalonia has just hit the streets, or perhaps the ramblas, and is Five Leaves' last book of 2009, just squeezing into the year. In addition to the important language issue, John's book covers - as the title does more than suggest - Catalan history and culture. As well as bringing his 2004 book up to date, this new edition includes a fresh chapter on Catalunya Nord, that part of historic Catalonia within France. It has been a good year for the author as his Signal book on the West Country has also appeared. For the avoidance of doubt the West Country here is around the author's home near Bath rather than, say Galicia or Asturias.

John Payne's book could easily be read in tandem with Michael Eaude's Barcelona, which went into a new edition last year.

Stanley Middleton

This week's Times Literary Supplement includes an overview by Paul Binding of the work of Nottingham novelist Stanley Middleton, who died earlier this year shortly before his 90th birthday. An overview was overdue. Binding picks out 1972-1984 as the key period of Middleton's work, starting with Cold Gradations and ending with The Daysman, with other high points including the earlier Harris's Requiem. While Trent Editions republished the latter, a small handful only of Middleton's late period titles are available. It would be wonderful if his main publisher, Hutchinson, could release some of his best work on print on demand, the equivalent of Faber Finds.

We were lucky enough to be the publisher of Holiday, Stanley Middleton's Booker winner, until Random House took back the rights earlier this year. It was fun having a Booker Prize winner on our list, and Stanley, gentleman that he was, refused all royalties and insisted on buying any copies he wanted at the full retail. We do still have some copies of Stanley Middleton at Eighty available.

Meanwhile, for those of you organised enough to have next year's diary, Paul Binding will be one of the speakers at a bookish celebration of Stanley Middleton's life on Saturday May 8th, from 2.00-4.30 at Nottingham University.

The event will be free but places will need to be booked. Full details are not available yet, but you can email Five Leaves meantime to make sure you are sent the programme.

Anybody really, really well organised may want to put a note in their 2013 diary that we will be publishing a critical overview of the novels of Angus Wilson by Paul Binding, that year being AW's centenary.

Hurry - final weeks!

Today's Guardian usefully sums up the disastrous state of bookselling today. On page 13 Waterstone's has taken out a big advert promoting Nigella Christmas for under a tenner, less than half price. For a penny under half price the main literary bookseller in the UK will sell you the Guinness Book of Records, and for the same low retail price you can buy a volume of letters to their younger selves by Rolf Harris, Jonathan Ross, the racist bigot Alan Carr and others of that ilk.

One page 19 WH Smith offer up to 75% off another bundle of useless books that is only redeemed by the presence of Andrew Marr's book on Modern Britain. The Guinness Book of Records is a tenner though - you can save a penny by sticking with Waterstone's.

Two pages on, Borders, in their last gasp, is offering up to 60% off their stock as they are closing down. I'd never noticed their mission statement printed next to their logo before - "Let's escape" it says. And they will, as fixtures and fittings are also up for sale.

Look again at the figures.... half price at Waterstone's, up to 75% off at Smiths, up to 60% off at a chain that is closing at Xmas.

Someone trying to tell us something here?

Exiled Writers

Back to literature....
Saturday 12 December: 2.00pm
AGM of Exiled Writers Ink, home of many of the writers in Five Leaves refugee anthologies, Crossing the Border, The Bend in the Road (now out of print) and The Silver Throat of the Moon. The guest speaker is Daljit Nagra (pictured), contributor to the Anglo-Dutch pamphlet By Heart-Uit Her Hoofd (Five Leaves) though he is marginally better known for his Faber collection Look We Have Coming To Dover!, which won the Forward first collection prize in 2007.
The new issue of Exiled Ink magazine is now available, £5 cheque to Exiled Writers Ink, 31 Hallswelle Road, London NW11.
AGM venue: Universal Peace Foundation, 43 Lancaster Gate, London W2 3NA (Lancaster Gate tube)

This is a late entry, other Five Leaves events are listed on our main website.

EDL in Nottingham

Well, I never did get to the poetry reading on Saturday (see two entries ago). In case anyone was wondering why people were concerned about the EDL, check this one out:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzvj06Ngt98. The moment around 2.20 seconds is a great one, presumably the EDL felt that a lamppost looked suspiciously Islamic.

The rise and rise of creative writing courses

The excellent Tindal Street Press from Birmingham is a well known publisher of fiction from Birmingham, whose modest output has a singularly strong record in being shortlisted or winning various literary prizes. They have just published Roads Ahead, short stories by 22 newish voices, some from the West Midlands, some from further afield. The book is edited by Catherine O’Flynn, one of their earlier big success stories. As the title suggests, the book is a marker for the future with most of the contributors being at a fairly early stage in their writing career.

Of the 22 writers, five mention that they have completed or are attending creative writing courses at university level. I know two of the others, both of whom used to live in the East Midlands and both of whom completed creative writing courses but did not mention doing so in their authors’ notes. It may be that some of the others have also completed such courses, but at least seven have certainly done so. Of the others, four currently teach creative writing at university level.. Thus at least half of the line up is involved in that world.

It takes a few seconds on google to find that there are many creative writing courses. Locally you can find them at Nottingham University, Nottingham Trent University, Derby University, University of Lincoln, De Montfort University, Loughborough University. Apologies if I have missed any. The number may well have increased since starting this article.
Creative writing courses may well have replaced the old style writing groups. They have, however, been subject to some criticism. Nottingham writer Jon McGregor, for example, as part of a most interesting article on making a living as a writer, comments “Some will find patronage within the great pyramid schemes of creative-writing courses…” as an alternative to his dressing up as a bear, handing out leaflets outside the pound shop in Barnsley, as a way of getting by as a struggling writer. (You can find the full article in Pen Pusher 12, orderable via http://www.penpushermagazine.co.uk/.)

I don’t think Jon was suggesting his ursine habit was a better option. Nor here am I criticising M.A.s in Creative Writing. Some of my best friends etc. And some of the authors I have published or have signed up have done such courses and some teach them.

But I don’t think it would be a good idea if the road ahead for any publisher has the equivalent of a bus lane for people on creative writing courses.

Spoilt for choice

This coming Saturday looks interesting. Here in Nottingham you can attend Nottingham Forest versus Leicester FC (only 1,000 tickets left) or go ice-skating in the Market Square, or pick up a present at the German Christmas Market. Cathy Grindrod is launching her excellent new Shoestring Press poetry collection, The Sky Head On at Bromley House Library. Meanwhile, elsewhere in town, the English Defence League will be showcasing the worst of England in protesting against Muslims, seig heils optional. There will of course be counter protests.

It is hard to imagine that poetry is a major debating point among the English Defence League. But on the other hand, I've only just hastily returned an unsolicited manuscript about the glories of Englishness compared to say, the beastly Scots, the unspeakable Welsh and the dreadful Europeans, which was in poetic form. It is always a good idea to look at a publisher's list before sending in material.

Not that there is anything new in groups like the English Defence League. Turning to the last posting here, Roland Camberton's Scamp, published in 1950, has a character picking up a leaflet from the fictional Association of Freemen and Yeomen of England "Britons! In times of old your forefathers knew how to draw the sword for liberty. It was they who carried the flag to the furthest corners of the globe... Alien influences dominate our native land".

No doubt there was a Pictish Defence League, demonstrating against alien Romans coming across here, stealing their woad...