All gone to look for America

Five Leaves' Russel McLean is up for one of the Shamus awards for his first novel, The Good Son. The Shamus awards are organised and presented by the Private Eye Writers of America, Russel's book is published by Minotaur/St. Martin's over there, the same publisher as his second book, The Lost Sister, which is also Five Leaves on this side. He is shortlisted for the best new private eye story. First Dundee, then the world. Jute, jam, journalism and crime fiction...
http://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/2010/08/pwa-cwa-award-nominations-2010.html

Swanwick

It's nice to be in the younger section for a change, so a brief visit to Swanwick Writers' Summer School (www.swanwickwritersschool.co.uk) fitted that bill. Swanwick has been going since 1949 and some of the attendees have certainly clocked up quite a few of those years. There were younger people there, but not that many, and there were some quiet discussions going on about how to change the demographic. Hard to do, given Swanwick's long history and some of the features. This afternoon, for example, there was a visit to a National Trust property. As opposed to a rave? Good point, but you know what I mean. I was on a panel with an agent, a writer and a cohort from Writers' News. The hot discussion was on e-books, though one person remarked that in 18 months we won't be talking about them anymore because everything - the product, the reader, royalties - will all be sorted. I wish.
Two examples of success though. The current chair is Xanthe Wells, a friend from her Southwell days, who was originally recruited to Swanwick on a bursary for younger writers. And Daniela Norris, cutting an exotic figure being an Israeli who lives in Geneva, remarked that she owed her career to Swanwick. Daniela is the author, with Shireen Anabtawi, of Crossing Qalandiya (Reportage Press), a series of letters between these two women, one Israeli, one Palestinian. On the way back, by the way, people in Derby kept looking at my small bookstall trolley. It is a nice green trolley, but why were they looking at it? It took me a few minutes to realise that there was a big box (recycled from the stock room) with JEWS AND SEX (the title of one of our books) written on it in ENORMOUS letters facing everyone I passed.

The ones that got away

Every publisher has a short list of books they have either rejected, abandoned, ignored or disliked to find that the next publishers or the fifty-third publishers have taken the books on and done well with them. Is it really true that one publisher turned down Animal Farm because they didn't publish animal stories? No matter, we all do such things. And we all lose writers to other publishers and gain writers from other publishers. Peter Mortimer's Uninvited has popped through the post, nicely produced by newish kids on the north east block, Red Squirrel Press. Five Leaves has published more books by Mortie than any of our other writers, but, after long consideration and some editing we dumped this one, in the end thinking it was not right for our Crime Express list, which we had in mind. Pete did not go out and celebrate, particularly as he'd been writing and rewriting this novella for forty years and hoped it would come out before it reached pension age. It did, but not from us. New writers please note that some books do take forty odd years to find the right publisher. Pete and Five Leaves are still talking. Indeed, we've got a travel book by him planned further down the line. So we are pleased that Red Squirrel has published this clausterphobic story where a man comes home to find an uninvited guest sitting in his chair. He is unable to find out why the man is there, what his motives are or where he came from. It's a good little book and we hope Red Squirrel does well with it. We can add it to our list of books we'd passed over that then went on to do well. Copies are available from http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/uninvited_peter_mortimer_i022068.aspx

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Some years ago, by dint of a chance conversation, Five Leaves planned to publish a book called Roman Nottinghamshire. Rather outside our usual fare of Jewish culture, social history, fiction and poetry. I suppose it could be described as social history, at a push. Anyway, the book never appeared, for reasons that need not detain you. There was a lot of interest in it though. Last night I got the first draft of Roman Nottinghamshire by Mark Patterson, an entirely different text. There was so much interest the first time that I was determined to find another author I could commission. Mark Patterson is a freelance journalist whose work I knew well from his days at Nottingham Evening Post and he has a deeper interest in Roman times than is probably healthy. I have to say his draft is excellent. He uses his journalistic skills to make a potentially dry subject entertaining, and informative, and brings in the voices of academics, local historians, or odd blokes he meets in fields to add colour. Although the nearest thing to Roman Nottinghamshire in situ is one bump in a field Mark has found lots to say and lots to show. His book be out next spring, email me at info@fiveleaves.co.uk if you want further information meantime as it is not yet orderable.

Not forgotten after all

Anyone reading this tempted to go to the Five Leaves/Newham Bookshop event on 21st October at the Bishopsgate Institute about "Forgotten London Writers" need to know that the writers in question - Alexander Baron, Roland Camberton, John Henry Mackay and George Gissing - are less than forgotten, as the event is sold out already. Or it might be the attractive line up of speakers, Iain Sinclair, Andrew Whitehead, Sarah Wise and Ken Worpole. Either way a sell out is a sell out and we are pleased with that. As people are still trying to book - my copy of the Bishopsgate programme only arrived this morning - we are trying to persuade the speakers to go for a rerun. We'll post information on that if it goes ahead, but meantime you might want to put your name on a list at Bishopsgate or better still get on their mailing list for their excellent programme of events, www.bishopsgate.org.uk

We the people

I've never quite got the hang of the People's Book Prize (www.peoplesbookprize.com) however many emails they send me. It is a "national competition aimed at discovering new writers with no panel of judges except you, the public!". We, the public get to vote on their shortlist of submitted entries and the winners go forward to an annual award. The Prize is organised by Delancey Press, whose name does seem to crop up on the shortlist from time to time, though their presence is but nothing compared to that of Local Legend whose website (www.local-legend.co.uk) indicates that they are a vanity publisher. Sometimes books from some of my favourite publishers crop up, including a book by one of our writers published by another publisher, so there is a mixture of sorts. Strangely, publishers seeking to enter are forbidden to submit books that are "religious, political or controversial" so tough luck if you want to enter your brand new James Joyce, DH Lawrence, Melvin Burgess or New Testament then. Translated works are also out, so hard luck Stieg Larsson. But controversial is a very loose word. One of the four overall winners for 2009 (published, um, by Delancey Press) is The 3 Plus 1 Plan, which tells you how to make lots of money on buy to let. That seems pretty controversial to me. Political even.

Back in the Borders # 3

Having just seen Rory Bremner award the winner's rosette to a snail in the miscellaneous section of the children's pet competition at the Borders Union Agricultural Show, followed by a sheep shearing demonstration (though not by Bremner), I began to remember the differences between inner city life and the Scottish Borders. But developments in the book business continue here apace. In the two previous blogs I talked about the newish bookshops, Mainstreet and Latimers, which have joined the existing shops The Forest Bookstore (Selkirk) and Talisman Books (Melrose). Now Jedburgh is getting in on the act with the Abbey View Cafe and Bookshop. No website, but the Abbey in Jedburgh is kinda hard to ignore so the attractive Cafe is easy to find, not least because of the wonderful floral decorations outside. The book section comprises one wall of well chosen popular books (I didn't even try selling them Five Leaves' titles) in keeping with the well chosen and popular food. It's not Foyles but a great addition to the town for locals and visitors.
There is an existing Borders Book Festival, which is very big, and which I have criticised elsewhere for its cost and its lack of relationship with the Borders and local bookselling, but I am very pleased to see the programme for the "Books, Borders and Bikes" two day literary festival in Traquair House near Innerleithen, to be held over the weekend of 14-15 August. The theme is "Small Nations, Big Cultures". The event features writers from Palestine, Zimbabwe, Kurdistan and elsewhere. Scottish PEN is involved. I hope it succeeds, as it is a serious and exciting initiative - see http://www.beyondborders2010.com/. I wish I'd known about it earlier.
Back to Nottingham tomorrow...