Lockdown reading: support bookshops (recommended coping strategies)

Lockdown is just round the corner, and with it, your local indie bookshop will be closing. How will you cope? ESPECIALLY if you haven’t done your christmas shopping yet? (I feel like this list should be illustrated by Tom Gauld)

1 RUN to the shop before Thursday 5 November and PILE up books until you can carry no more (Highly Recommended)

Our favourite bookshops… we highly recommend you run here and pile high: Gay’s the Word, Lighthouse, Housmans, Bookseller Crow on the Hill, Review, to name but a very few.

2 Use you local Bookshop’s website to order. (Highly Recommended)

3 Oh NO! your local bookshop doesn’t have a website (yet)? Order direct from the Publisher, especially if they are an independent – they too will suffer from bookshops being closed! Hint, our webshop is here (Highly Recommended!)

4 Still no joy? Head over to Bookshop.org where every sale supports independent bookshops, and you can choose which bookshop gets a cut of the cover price, if you want to, otherwise it’s shared equally between all the participating bookshops. (And if you CLICK this particular link (here it is again, Bookshop.org) we get a tiny referal fee too! You’ll land on our page, where amongst other things, there is list of books we recommend for writers, and a list of some of the other books written by our authors. You can skip off and search for other books elsewhere, and we still get a tiny thankyou from Bookshop, so you know, everybody wins. (Highly Recommended)

5 Want to support global conglomerates that have poor records of staff management and tax paying? Just so you get the book cheaper? …What are you doing on our website?

An Outbreak of Peace launch video: Katy Darby

Author Katy Darby reads from her short story, Canary Girl, at the launch of An Outbreak of Peace, an anthology of stories and poems in response to the end of WWI at Housmans Radical Bookshop

Next launch event Blackwells Manchester 30th November

An Outbreak of Peace Launch Video: Clare Owen

Author Clare Owen reads from her short story, The Cormorant, at the launch of An Outbreak of Peace, an anthology of stories and poems in response to the end of WWI at Housmans Radical Bookshop

Next launch event Blackwells Manchester 30th November

An Outbreak of Peace Launch video: CB Droege

Author CB Droege reads his short story, Sown, at the launch of An Outbreak of Peace, an anthology of stories and poems in response to the end of WWI at Housmans Radical Bookshop

Next launch event Blackwells Manchester 30th November

Launching An Outbreak of Peace – Photos at Housmans

Launching An Outbreak of Peace to a full house at Housmans.

Thanks to everyone who came along and in particular to Housmans for hosting and to CB,  Clare, Karen, Katy, Peter, Sarah and Chantal (all pictured) and Valerie (not pictured) for reading so magnificently – sold out Housman’s stock of the book!

An Outbreak of Peace: Clare Owen

After working as an actor and arts administrator in London, Clare married a boat builder and moved to Cornwall.  She promptly had three children and set up an improvised theatre company, re-enacting the stories of their audiences around the county.  More recently she has co-written and performed with the all women ensemble, ‘Riot of the Freelance Mind’ and she regularly reads her short fiction at spoken word events and local festivals.  She has just finished her first YA novel Zed and the Cormorants, which will be published by Arachne Press in  2019/20

Clare will read from her story The Cormorant at the An Outbreak of Peace Launch at Housmans TOMORROW 14th December 7pm

AND

at Lost in Books, Quay Street, Lostwithiel, PL22 0BS

on 16th November 2018 6pm

An Outbreak of Peace: Valerie Bence

After a career in academia, Valerie Bence finished a doctorate in her mid-fifties and then moved from academic to creative writing, completing an MA in Poetry in 2016. She works mainly with objects and artworks but writes ekphrastic poems in its broadest sense, encompassing truth, memory, place and time. Time is an especially powerful focus and she finds that writing on significant anniversaries or in real-time brings another dimension to the writing process.

Her first collection Falling in Love With a Dead Man (based on Rembrandt artworks) is to be published in 2019. Valerie lives and works in Bucks.

Valerie will be reading her poem, Light at the London launch of An Outbreak of Peace

at Housmans on 14th November 7pm

It’s publication day!

In shops today, in time for the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, An Outbreak of Peace, stories and poems in response to the end of WWI.

A collection of work from writers all over the world, and both sides of the conflict.

The brief was ‘no trenches’ and for the stories and poems to address, grief, relief and hope not vengeance, hatred or triumphalism. We were deeply moved and impressed by what we were sent, and picking the best of those for this book has been a particular pleasure.

You can order the book from us direct in our web shop (post free), or come to one of the launches –

Three launch events for An Outbreak of Peace

LONDON! Housmans 14th November

The official publication date for this anthology of new short stories and poems in response to the end of WWI, An Outbreak of Peace is the 8th November, but we are having the launch party on

Wednesday 14th, at Housmans radical bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DX,

with readings from Clare Owen, CB Droege, Katy Darby, Chantal Heaven (fiction);

Karen Ankers, Valerie Bence, Peter Kenny, Sarah Tait (poetry).

There will also be a poppy-seed cake, and other, liquid, refreshments.

£3 on the door, redeemable against purchase of the book. (It would help our pre-event nerves if you let us know you are coming)

Manchester! Blackwells 30th November

As our authors are spread all over the globe, we are trying to give as many of them as possible an opportunity to celebrate the launch in person. We can’t afford to jaunt off to the US and Australia, or even Germany or France, but we can manage Manchester!

Northern fans of poetry and short fiction are invited to join us at Blackwells, Manchester. Near Arthur Lewis Building, The University of Manchester Bridgeford Street, M13 9PL

on 30th November at 6.30pm

There will be readings from

Rebecca SkipwithLily Peters, (fiction)

Ness Owen, Sarah Tait, Mantz Yorke, and Valerie Bence, (poetry)

and cake and liquid refreshment.

Tickets are free. https://bit.ly/2CQcuVT

And finally, for now, a reading

by Clare Owen of her story from the collection, The Cormorant,

at Lost in Books, Quay Street, Lostwithiel, PL22 0BS

on 16th November 2018 6pm

nearly here – An Outbreak of Peace

One of my favourite moments in the book production process – running sheets.

An Outbreak of Peace our response to the up coming  centenary of the end of WWI is in shops on 8th November, and launches at Housmans, London on Wednesday 14th, and Blackwells, Manchester on the 30th November, with readings, cake and liquid refreshments.

You can pre-order a copy direct from us NOW, we should have our advance copies by the end of next week, or early the following week, for those of you who can’t wait.

 

Coming up: An Outbreak of Peace

LONDON! Housmans 14th November

The official publication date for this anthology of new short stories and poems in response to the end of WWI, An Outbreak of Peace is the 8th November, but we are having the launch party on

7pm Wednesday 14th, at Housmans radical bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DX,

with readings from Clare Owen, CB Droege, Katy Darby, Chantal Heaven (fiction);

clare owencb-biopicKaty Darby headshot Moby big

Karen Ankers, Valerie Bence, Peter Kenny, Sarah Tait (poetry).

Karen AnkersValerie BenceP Kennysarah tait

There will also be a poppy-seed cake, and other, liquid, refreshments.

£3 on the door, redeemable against purchase of the book.