Two of the our recently published novels have much in common in spite of their very different cultural contexts – or at least so they were felt to be at the time. In fact they came from two worlds sealed off from each other.
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My Vagabond Voices poetry collection assembled itself in a perhaps unusual way.
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I was going provide an essay for this newsletter on the curious parallels between Helen Lamb’s Three Kinds of Kissing and Sigmunds Skujiņš’s Nakedness, which both concern the secrets and often tragic lies of adolescents, and are set around 1970, one in small-town Britain and the other in the then small-town society of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Latvia.
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Maybe it's appropriate that this was the book that taught me to draw with my left hand – my 'wrong' hand. It’s said that you either use one side of your brain or the other when it comes to drawing, and I'm pretty sure this cover proved that point to me. For a designer it's really important not to close off too many creative avenues at the start of a project, and while I try my best to use traditional techniques in most of my covers, there's no denying the life-saving advantages of the final digital stages. In this case, it came to an actual reversal...
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Blessed Assurance is a coming-of-age novel - set against the backdrop of a small close-knit religious community in the fictional Scottish village of Kilhaugh one fogbound December in the late sixties. The story takes place over six soul-searching days in the life of God-fearing dog-thief and pyromaniac, eleven-year-old Joseph Kirkland – and his godless, devil-may-care best friend Archie Truman – as the perpetually guilt-ridden Joseph attempts to put right what he believes to be the most terrible of lies. The book explores ideas of family, friendship, faith and grief, and the compromises that have to be made to remain part of a community.
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The relationship is what gave the events their energy. A book comes to life in different ways, at different times, for different readers. The writing is not the partnership, but the writing comes from the partnership, and the evidence of this in the photos from this event would suggest that this is a valuable thing to share.
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There’s a lot of information out there on how to pitch your book to publishers, but much of it is based on how the larger houses operate. In this article I’ll give you a peek into what the submissions process is like for a small indie publisher, and provide tips on how to craft a submission that stands out.
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Some of my earliest childhood memories involve weekly visits to the library with my mum. I dreamed of being like Matilda in the movie scene when she leaves her library pulling a small trailer full of books. “You can only take out eight books at once?” I’d asked the librarian in surprise, convinced I’d run out in the next day or two. When aged eight and asked what I disliked the most for my school yearbook page, I answered, “Running out of books from the library.” I suppose it’s safe to say I was obsessed with the library from an early age, and I’m entirely convinced this contributed to a lifelong love of books.
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For me, reading has always had a synaesthetic quality. Just as some people can taste music or feel smells like a sensation on their skin, I experience books through the colours and properties of seasons. … Perhaps you don’t have this problem. Actually, I hope you don’t. It’s annoying, inconvenient and leaves piles of books scattered around my room waiting for the perfect moment to be read. However, if you recognise this pattern in your own reading life, then here are my suggestions (both practical and emotional) on how to read for the seasons.
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Cheers Govanhill is a semi-fictional blog about inner-city weirdness from Glasgow’s unruliest neighbourhood. Everything in it is true, although a lot of it might have been made up. The narrator laddie, Boy David, explains where to buy brontosaurus cutlets, how New York stole all its ideas from Govanhill and what gentrification means for the filthy habits of west of Scotland dead men.
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You may not know that this is Global Entrepreneurship Week, so as the British Library cajoles us into growth, innovation and of course scaling-up, we have belatedly decided to come out with our own mission statement…
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With his cover for Helen Lamb’s vividly atmospheric novel Three Kinds of Kissing, designer Mark Mechan aimed to capture the mood of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – the period in which the story takes place. This is one of the most detailed, unique covers he’s created for us. In this blog post he breaks down his design process.
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