States goes west

Advance notice that States of Independence, our free, day-long event promoting indie publishers, has developed a sibling, with States of Independence (West) due in Birmingham on 8th October. The day will include stalls from many publishers from the West Midlands, and some from elsewhere (including Five Leaves and Shoestring from Nottingham and Happenstance from Edinburgh), readings, panels, talks and "flash fiction". The venue is Eastside Projects gallery, in Birmingham's creative quarter and forms part of Birmingham Book Festival. The main organiser is Jane Commane, of the energetic Nine Arches Press in Rugby, and Writing West Midlands. We'll include material on the day in a later blog posting, but meantime anyone from those parts interested in indie publishing should note the date.

Jewish Socialist mag

Here's a shout for the new issue of Jewish Socialist magazine (issue 62). The issue includes a couple of pages by J David Simons on the background to his two Five Leaves' historical fiction books set in Jewish Glasgow, The Credit Draper and The Liberation of Celia Kahn. The former stemmed from stories of members of his own family selling drapery on credit door to door, or more exactly croft to croft in the Highlands; the latter stemming from a meeting with me at Jewish Book Week when I talked about one of the characters in his first novel (the Celia Kahn character) "as if she was a real person" and that not enough had been written about Jews and socialism in Scotland, which "simple remark heralded the birth of a novel". I'm now worried that he was thinking I could not tell the difference between characters in novels and real people. (And that was before I mentioned my imaginary friend...). But he did write the second novel.

Elsewhere in the magazine our Jazz Jews writer Mike Gerber explores the connection between Jews and boxing, while the writer of our forthcoming Battle for the East End book on Cable Street, David Rosenberg argues with David Cameron about multi-culturalism. The other stand out pieces in a very good issue of the mag includes a long report of a speech by Afif Safieh, the PLO's Roving Ambassador for Special Missions (an old friend of the Jewish Socialists' Group) and an article by Paul Collins on Victor Gollancz, founder of War on Want, the Left Book Club and the once influential publishing house that carried his name. The current issue costs £2.50 including postage from Jewish Socialist, BM 3725, London WC1N 3XX and a four issue subscription costs £10 from the same address.

Academy?

You know all those glitzy awards on television for films - BAFTAs and the like. Have you every wondered who is in the various "Academies" that select them? No? Nor had I until I discovered that I had become a member of the Academy of British Crime Writing (Publishing, Film & Television), or at least I will be when I cast my vote for the shortlist of the Specsavers/ITV Crime Thriller Awards to be held on ITV 3. The invitation to vote comes with no mention of why I have been chosen to join this prestigious Academy, though I can guess it is because a couple of years ago one of our titles was short-listed for the book section of the Awards. But I've not been invited to vote on books, but on film and television. Do I really care who wins the Best Actress Award for a television crime/thriller programme? I don't even watch television but here I am, a member of the Academy. I hope I am given a casting couch.

Virtual book launch

We'd like to have given all you some cake and let you explore Sue Dymoke and David Belbin's allotment yesterday, at the launch of Dave's Secret Gardens, but we could not get you all in their neighbouring house if it rained, and it did, but here's the start of the event: http://bit.ly/6efz0J.

The book is partially set in the ancient Hungerhill gardens in Nottingham, where I used to have a couple of allotments at one time. Hungerhill gardens are very secret - high hedges, mysterious winding paths, old brick sheds. You could hide there, and Aazim does, for a while. He is a refugee child. At one stage in the story he is asked "Why did you come here? Were you escaping something? Or did you come for a better life" [Aazim thinks} She doesn't want me to tell a story that will make her feel bad. I can tell. She doesn't really want to know. "Everyone wants a better life," I reply. "Don't you?"

I don't like Murdoch either

... not that anyone does, of course, now. But there are reasons beyond the phone hacking. Rupert Murdoch owns HarperCollins, one of the UK's major publishers. HarperCollins publishes some great books, including - great irony here - Naomi Klein's No Label. It also publishes some terrible books, like the great unsold autobiography of John Major which netted Major a £400,000 advance. If you look at the HarperCollins list you will find that Murdoch has used his publishing firm as a kind of outdoor relief for politicians heading past their sell-by-date. Add in the serialisation of such memoirs in the Sunday Times and you can see that many politicians have had sizable contributions this way. In 2004 Ian Jack, in the Guardian, referred to Robin Cook getting an advance against royalties plus serialisation fee that topped £400,000 for a book that did not even earn 10% of the advance alone. And there is David Blunkett writing for the Sun. Now, why would any media mogul chose to give politicians far more money than their words could possibly be worth?

There is one exception. Chris Patten, an honest man among Conservatives, wrote a book about being the last Governor of Hong Kong, on a realistic £50k advance from HarperCollins. The book was however never published as it included some of Patten's comments on the Chinese government. Murdoch was at the time getting into bed with the Chinese government on some business deal and did not want to publish anything critical of that Government. So Patten was dumped, and his book went on to be published, successfully, by MacMillan. I can only hope, as the Murdoch empire fades, that the excellent Times Literary Supplement survives, under new ownership.

Sometimes a book only tells half the story

Earlier this week we launched Maxine Linnell's second book, Closer, at Knighton Library in Leicester, with many of her friends and with colleagues from Leicester Writers' Club out in force. Probably most people knew that Maxine had a personal tragedy in the period leading up to the book's publication. The adage "the show must go on" is not always true but sometimes it is better if the show does go on. I'm sure Maxine would not want the loss of her son Ben to define her completely but we need to recognise it. She was asked to write the article below on a book blog, and we are linking to that with her permission.
http://notesfromtheslushpile.blogspot.com/2011/07/writings-struggle-and-then-life-gets-in.html

Desperately seeking... Robert Poole

Robert Poole wrote one book only, as far as I can tell - London E1, published by Secker in 1961. There are more recent writers called Robert Poole, but the one in question was born in 1923 and appears to have vanished without trace. Secker - now part of Random House - still hold the rights. We have been in touch with them about republishing the book in our New London Editions series, but would like to contact him, if he is still alive, or his Estate and know more about the man. In the book he describes his career in somewhat racy terms. He was born fifty yards from Brick Lane, held various jobs, jumped ship in New Zealand, was jailed there for a month then deported. He sold clothes in Oxford Street, and in 1958 moved to Margate and ran the Bingo stall at Dreamland. And after that? We know nothing. And Google knows nothing either. A similar blog for another writer in the series turned up a daughter, so we step forward in faith again. The book itself is set in Brick Lane during the blitz and is of particular interest as it describes, in what must be true to life fiction, the relationship between the host community and the Asians then starting to settle in the area.