As part of our Eighth Anniversary celebrations, here’s Math Jones talking to editor Cherry Potts about his epic collection, in poetry and flash and monologues, The Knotsman, set in a mythical 17th Century England during the civil war. the knotsman unravels knots and unravels problems, and sometimes hearts.
The Knotsman is on sale, with many other books at our Webshop, throughout August. Just use the discount code ARACHNEVERSARY at the checkout.
ALL our poetry books are now available as eBooks!
With the booktrade suffering, we wanted to make it as easy for you to get lovely things to read as possible, so we have worked very hard to get these in the vitual shops for you. Thanks to Inpress for organising conversions and uploading!
Find these gorgeous words as Kindles on Amazon
and ePub on Hive
In case you were wondering, all our fiction is already available as ebooks. We aren’t set up to sell them ourselves, yet. Working on it.
Anthologies The Other Side of Sleep, and Vindication: poems from six women poets
With Paper for Feet Jennifer A McGowan
A Gift of Rivers, and The Don’t Touch Garden, Kate Foley
Foraging , Joy Howard
Erratics, Cathy Bryant
In Retail, Jeremy Dixon
The Knotsman, Math Jones
Mamiaith, Ness Owen
Let out the Djinn, Jane Aldous
The Significance of a Dress, Emma Lee.
You all know we don’t do horror at Arachne.
The closest we’ve got is Math Jones‘ The Knotsman, which has quite a bit of distressing material in it, but does it from a position of compassion – ‘this is awful’, rather than ‘oooh, isn’t this awful‘.
So if you fancy something to get the ice running down your back, Math’s your man.
It would please Math mightily if you were to celebrate Samhain with his book seeing as he is a pagan.
you can buy a copy here… and if you buy it BEFORE halloween the postage is still free. we are going to have to start charging UK customers after that.
If however, your tastes run to the more traditional halloween fair, there’s a live lit gig, Frightful Yarns, at Honor Oak pub, St Germains Road SE23 on the very night, at 7.30, raising money for our local festival, Brockley Max. Arachne authors Cherry Potts and Neil Lawrence are among the readers, with dark tales of revenge and paranoia. tickets £5
A series of poems that make up the core of the collection by Math Jones, The Knotsman.
In which lovers are separated, by the undoing of a knot, and the Knotsman discovers the consequences.
Math Jones kicks off our Writing the Past event for Hither Green Festival representing the 17th Century with stories and poems from from The Knotsman,
Is it actually Will’s birthday? No one knows, but there is a tradition that ties it to 23rd April because he was baptised on the 26th.
Anyway happy birthday Will.
As we recently published Math Jones‘ The Knotsman, which is set about a century after Shakespeare’s time and in Worcestershire, rather than Warwickshire, and is in any case, a not quite historie, as Shakespeare’s histories are not quite historie, I’ve been looking for links.
this is not quite research – a lighthearted look at the knot in Shakespeare.
Was Shakespeare a knotsman, or did he know someone who was?
He uses knot to mean a group of people, often when that group is not entirely to be trusted, and ocassionally to mean a meeting of said group.
And to mean a contract, or bond, particularly of marriage.
He shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance
Page, of a suitor in Merry Wives of Windsor
I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning
Capulet, when Juliet submits to the marriage with Paris Romeo & Juliet
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven… The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolv’d, and loos’d; And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
Troilus and Cressida, when Troilus discovers Cressida is promised to another.
To hold you in perpetual amity, To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
With an unslipping knot …
Agrippa proposing a marriage in Anthony & Cleopatra
Math Jones takes this imagery literally and has his characters tie, and untie, betrothal ropes, with terrible consequences. Lives and loves unravel, and the Knotsman must run for his life.
Math is in Worcester, the Knotsman’s stomping ground, tonight, reading alongside Claire Trévien and Charley Barnes at the Hive. see facebook event
Knot pictures from the recent Anni Albers exhibition at Tate Modern
Math Jones reads Mr Swarthye
at the launch of The Knotsman
You can buy the book direct from us at our web shop (post free in the UK)
Next live reading
TOMORROW! Tuesday 23rd April 7pm
The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester, WR1 3PD
Math Jones reads The Itinerant
at the launch of The Knotsman
You can buy the book direct from us at our web shop (post free in the UK)
Next live reading
Tuesday 23rd April 7pm
The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester, WR1 3PD
Math Jones reads His Master Freed
at the launch of The Knotsman
You can buy the book direct from us at our web shop (post free in the UK)
Next live reading
23rd April 7pm
The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester, WR1 3PD
Math Jones reads Four Failures
at the launch of The Knotsman
You can buy the book direct from us at our web shop (post free in the UK)
Next live reading
23rd April 7pm
The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester, WR1 3PD
