Teenagers, by Maxine Linnell

What if you were growing up now - perhaps as a 17-year-old? How would life differ from being a teenager in the 1960s, as I was? I started to wonder about that when I began writing my first novel. How would the life of a 17-year-old girl from today compare with that of a girl of 17 in 1962? And not just the obvious things, like technology - but the way people lived, their values, their families, their ways of dealing with each other?

I didn’t need to do much research into the '60s. I set the book just before the explosion of the Beatles, when teenagers were only just beginning to be seen as having a distinct life between childhood and being grown up. In 1962 the biggest event in the social calendar was the church social on Saturday night, over before 9.30pm with no alcohol or kissing allowed.
But while I knew some teenagers, I had to find a parallel social event for 2010 - and someone suggested going clubbing at Mosh, a nightclub in the centre of Leicester. I knew what a club was like in the 60s - but how would it differ now? There was only one way to find out. Which is how I found myself queuing up outside Mosh with my agent on a Friday night at 11pm, well past my usual bedtime.
I thought about asking for a senior concession, but decided against it. I did wonder if they’d let me in at all when I saw the queue of young people, who could all have been my grandchildren. There was also a moment of apprehension when I met the bouncers at the door. But they did let me in. I wasn’t too surprised by the black paint, the darkened rooms and the music, they weren’t so very different from my memories of clubbing forty years ago (see me as a teen in '62 - right). The toilets were pretty much the same too - unsavoury, but with stickers offering advice lines if you thought you were pregnant, gay or had a sexual problem.
As people arrived, we began talking to them, and found them interested, polite and very willing to talk. We left after midnight - me stealing a glance at the crowded dance floor, half wishing I could join in.
There may be more freedom nowadays - but there are also more risks. The stricter boundaries of the early '60s might offer more support, more hand-holding, and more to rebel against. But many young people now are emotionally more mature than I was, more aware of themselves, perhaps not quite as likely to be taken in. And there’s far more openness and communication. There’s dark and light in both times.

You can read more from Maxine Linnell in her Five Leaves book, Vintage, available from: http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/vintage-2/. Also available as an ebook.

Lenin and the Mills and Boon Question

This 'no more Mr Nice Guy' business works. Below is an article from Harry Paterson's blog. Harry is normally to be found plying his trade as a rock music journalist, but for the next year he will be under the Five Leaves editorial thumb producing THE book on the miners' strike in Nottinghamshire, to be published in 2014. Harry is interviewing everyone - striking and working miners, politicians, women's support group members, Coal Board officials. The book will be partisan, that is clear, but will present other points of view and will start, as it should, with the history of coal in Nottinghamshire and "Spencerism" in 1926. I'm looking forward to it.

'Friends, comrades, brothers and sisters, I’m delighted to officially announce that I will be signing with Five Leaves Publishing who will be bringing out my book on the miners’ strike in Nottingham, sometime in March 2014, the 30th anniversary of the dispute.
For those who don’t know, my initial synopsis was mercilessly savaged by Managing Editor, Ross Bradshaw. Among the most painful cuts inflicted was this, admittedly hilarious, jibe: “Harry, this is Lenin does Mills and Boon! You lack any objectivity at all!” It gutted me, I’ll be honest, but then I went away, licked my wounds, had a think and wrote a couple of new chapters taking on board Ross’s suggestions. Then a strange thing happened and you other writers will know what I mean; the thing just clicked. Ross’s advice suddenly made sense and I could see exactly where and how I needed to proceed while still retaining the personality and individuality of my prose. Ross The Boss then gave it the thumbs-up, we agreed the deal and presto; we are on, baby!
It’s a subject close to my heart and to that of many of my family. I was 17 when it kicked off and 18 on the very day the miners marched back to work without a settlement. It made a lasting impact on me and millions more of my generation. It’s also a fascinating and thrilling story and like all such stories it has everything; drama, tragedy, triumph, sadness, laughter, bitter defeat and unbreakable pride. It also has an incredible cast of characters featuring heroes, villains, saints, sinners, winners, losers, cowards and fighters and I’m having the ride of my life tracking some of them down and hearing their stories, first hand.
There are many books on the miners’ strike so what makes this one different? I would say because mine is about the dispute in Nottingham, the most strategically important area of the entire strike and, in so many way, it’s a tale of two cities. Believe me, it’s one hell of a story. All I need to do now is write the bloody thing…'

Sheffield Saturday

Nottinghamshire presses were heavily represented in Sheffield at the local independent book fair on Saturday, and three of the day's events were based round Five Leaves writers. On the day we sold £140 of books. The stall fee was £20, we hitched a ride with our chums at Candlestick who refused petrol money, but had to pay about £12 in taxi fares to shift books around in Nottingham, so our actual income was £118 for effectively a twelve hour day, except it wasn't really income as it was the sales of books. And none of the writers were paid for their labour. Two of the other Nottingham presses took about the same amount. So why do we do this?
Firstly, we are out for a good time and we like hanging round with other publishers and writers and readers. We pick up trade gossip. We were given a recommendation for a printer which might save us money on our hardbacks. We supported our writers and our writers got an audience. We met an interesting couple who explained new developments in technology that might mean our books can be adapted to reach more people with little or no sight. We learned about the way that Sheffield's Bank Street Arts Centre works financially, and helped bring more people into their building.
There are more and more of these fairs and we are part of creating a slightly different literary culture. Presses are being proactive, reaching out.  And maybe, just maybe, we'll make some money.
Of course there's always the chap with the dog-eared manuscript who wants to speak to everyone, but never wants to listen to answers because in some way he is happier never being published. Inevitably the best attended session is about how to be published, with many people streaming in and streaming out without glancing at the bookstalls, and the people who do that too are perhaps happier that they will never be published or feel the need to read the odd book along the way.
But there are moments like gold.When our writer John Lucas gave a too-early-in-the-morning talk about his memoir of the 1950s, Next Year Will Be Better, the most interested people in his small audience were two young female students, one black, one white, who came up at the end with just enough money to buy a book between them. They were going to share, but of course we offered two for the price of one because those two students were the real reason why John and I got up at 6.30 on a Saturday morning to spend, let's face it, a not completely economic day in Sheffield and that's why the other publishers had done the same, and that's why the authors had given up half of their day too. Because once we were just like those students and in thirty or forty years they will be just like us.

Where poetry is an inclusive art, by Andy Croft

I have recently returned from Paris, where I took part in the long-running International Poetry Biennale in Val-de-Marne - the only department in the Paris region still governed by the Communist Pat.
The presiding genius of the festival, which aims to democratise the writing and reading of poetry, is the poet Francis Combes. He's been responsible for putting poems on the Paris Metro and runs the radical publishing house De Temps Des Cerises.
Along with myself, this year's poets included Valerio Magrelli and Maria Grazia Calandrone from Italy, Florence Pazzottu and Gerard Mordillat from France and Greece's Yourgos Markopoulos, Dino Siotis and Thanasis Triaridis. These poets try to address the crisis in contemporary Europe with a passionate eloquence, biter wisdom and scathing irony.
How depressing then, to arrive back in Britain just in time for the announcement of this year's TS Eliot Prize shortlist. It's the usual carve-up between a small group of publishers - Picador (3), Faber (2), Jonathan Cape (2), Carcanet (2) and Seren (1). And its the usual dull Poetry Book Society (PBS) narrative of "major names" and "newcomers", alongside bookie's favourites, outsiders and dark-horses.
The fact that there are some excellent writers on this year's list - Deryn Rees-Jones, Simon Armitage and Kathleen Jamie - cannot disguise the intellectual narrowness of the whole enterprise.
Two of this year's judges are previous winners of the prize, five of the short-listed authors have been short-listed before and four have judged the prize in previous years. Six titles were chosen by the judges, the other four were PBS quarterly choices, themselves selected by the authors of previous PBS choices.
It's a ludicrous and unpleasant racket. But at least there is no public money involved any more. Having lost its Arts Council support, the PBS is now sponsored by an international investment firm. Appropriate perhaps for a literary prize named after TS Eliot, a banker, anti-semite, admirer of Mussolini, believer in the divine right of kings and opponent of the 1944 Education Act. The winner will be announced in January. I can't wait.

This article first appeared in the Morning Star. Andy Croft's latest book for Five Leaves is the novel-in-verse 1948.

Cecil-Day Lewis symposium at the Bodleian

On 30 October , the Bodleian Libraries are hosting a special one-day event to celebrate the gift of the Day-Lewis papers which belonged to the poet Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972) and his wife, actress Jill Balcon (1925-2009). The archive was donated to the Bodleian Libraries by their children, Tamasin and Daniel Day-Lewis and accompanies an initial literary bequest from Jill Balcon, following her death in 2009.

During the symposium, the poet's daughter, Tamasin Day-Lewis will discuss the life and work of C. Day-Lewis with known scholars of English literature. Participants will have the opportunity to listen to recorded readings of Day-Lewis's poetry by Jill Balcon and live reading by actor Gabriel Woolf. Photographs, manuscripts and correspondence from the archive, never seen in public before, will also be on display during the event.

An Oxford University alumnus Cecil Day-Lewis was one of the most notable Anglo-Irish poets of the 20th century. He also wrote mystery novels and short stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake. Day-Lewis studied classics at Wadham College, Oxford from 1923 and became a prominent member of the Auden group of poets and intellectuals in the 1930s. He was later elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford University in 1951 and appointed Poet Laureate in 1968. In 1951 Day-Lewis married his second wife, Jill Balcon. Jill Balcon was an actress on film, radio, and the stage who had long used her voice ('a rich, expressive, finely modulated instrument' in the words of Peter Stanford) for verse-speaking. C. Day-Lewis and Jill Balcon shared a love of poetry and frequently gave readings together. After Day-Lewis's death Jill Balcon continued to read in public and promote her late husband's work.

David Whiting, Co-literary executor, Estate of C Day-Lewis and Jill Balcon: 'The family papers now given to the Bodleian encompass the wide ranging work of Day-Lewis not only as poet, but as novelist, critic, academic and public servant. They offer a kind of microcosm of his professional and private life, and a real insight into his world and that of his wife Jill Balcon is given by the range of letters from their correspondents, from EM Forster to Alec Guinness. There are, amongst much other material, manuscripts and typescripts of Day-Lewis poems, and the detective fiction written under his alias of Nicholas Blake, much of it now being republished'

The only CD of C. Day-Lewis poems is read by Jill Balcon and is published by Five Leaves. Copies are available from http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/the-poems-of-c-day-lewis/

Salad (cream) days

For Five Leaves, this year's London Anarchist Bookfair was a great success. Aside from meeting many old friends, and sketching out a possible publishing project with Martyn Everett, this was was economically our best outing there yet. It helped having two new and relevant books, Colin Ward's Talking Green and this year's new journal, Utopia, hot off the presses. Thanks to Housmans Bookshop for helping us get the books there. The Bookfair seemed busier than ever and busier for longer and the average age seemed lower. I rather felt that the generation brought up on Colin Ward, Nicolas Walter and Albert Meltzer had passed. The stall was too busy to leave for long and, flying solo, I was unable to attend any meetings this year. Congratulations to the organisers for another great Bookfair.
But there was an unpleasant incident. Five Leaves stall was next to that of Northern Voices. Early in the day a small group from Manchester asked the one person at NV to leave. It was not clear to me at that moment why. It turned out that the magazine had some time ago written a rather unfavourable and, indeed, rather unpleasant obituary of the Manchester anarchist Bob Miller. Some time later in the morning a large group of people, from Manchester and elsewhere, returned to the stall, and when the stall holder refused to leave, wrecked it, stealing most of the material on display and covering the stall-holder and the stall (and one unrelated stall-holder behind NV) with salad cream. Though the stall-holder was uninjured, save for a bruised face when he fell and some irritation from the cream getting into his eyes, he was pretty shocked, as was anyone seeing the incident. I have no doubt that his original article was unwise and should not have been published - the best critique of it appears on NV's own rather good blog, October 4th at www.northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com - but a dozen or so people attacking one person and his stall (with little heed for collateral damage) was bullying.
I've mentioned in a previous posting (about David Hoffman vs. Freedom magazine) that when negotiations between injured parties break down that people must find a way of resolving their difficulties without going to law or, in this case, force of numbers and salad cream - ideally by arbitration. Fortunately this incident took place at a quiet time, in a quiet corner of the Bookfair. The Bookfair is one of the outstanding successes of the wider racial and alternative publishing movement. I would not discourage anyone from attending. The three or four thousand people there over the day happily debate, argue, buy books and socialise with a wide range of opinions on offer. I hope it stays that way.

Pick up a Penguin.

There are few publishers so influential as to define an age, or even a household, but they do exist. For a generation the yellow spines of the Left Book Club were common on the shelves of politically aware working class households. More recently, no feminist household would be without a shelf or three of the green-liveried Virago books. Somewhere in between the two there was Penguin. Penguin was not the first publisher to publish mass market paperbacks (that's another posting sometime) but it might as well have been because for a generation Penguin was both the epitome of cool and, with their green crime jackets and red fiction jackets, the standard of good reading. When I came to book buying properly in the early seventies Penguin was of great cultural importance. For a period I rarely left the house without a Penguin book in my bag or pocket. Some of them I even read.
Significantly, today's Guardian illustrates their report on the Random House/Penguin merger talks with a view of a shelf of Penguin books from the 1960s - perhaps their heyday, in the wake of the Lady Chatterley trial and the cultural changes in the 1960s. Of the sixteen books in the illustration there are, I think, nine in my house.
There were also the black spined classics, the blue spined Pelicans, and some hugely important Penguin Specials including EP Thompson's Protest and Survive which alone almost defined an era. Yet I can't remember the last Penguin book I bought. Probably it was a Puffin picture book.
Penguin lost its cool, outscored by Picador, and, rather than remaining a market leader, the sign of quality, it became just another publisher. The Random House group is, if anything, much better. Leaving aside Fifty Shades of Money, Random's Vintage list alone is fantastic.
It is hard not to be sad about the merger. Though it makes sense. Leaving aside that the ultimate owner of the Random Group, Bertelsmann, was set up by a Nazi (something Random does not boast about) both publishers still have a kind of liberal veneer. Penguin, despite publishing Jeremy Clarkson, still stacks up that way. I suppose if I could put this in American terms, Penguin and Random are Democrats while the Rupert Murdoch owned HarperCollins is Republican. Does that analogy work?
Thee is no doubt that size matters. It is not so long ago that the significant fiction publisher Serpent's Tail moved in with Profile, the two independents being stronger together. And the Independent Alliance, and Faber's sub-alliance are mergers in many ways. I know there will be more of this as publishers big and medium seek succour in a market dominated by Amazon and one centralised chain. But it might all be good news for the smaller indies. The presence of three of them on the Booker list was a sign of the times. I hope.