Hello once more.
Here's a thought to start the day from A. C. Grayling:
One of the worst of many ironies of Brexit is that it makes you
want to move to another country but stops you from doing it.
Perhaps like me you've been mesmerised by images of raw sewage being pumped into the English channel this week, closing practically the entire south coast to visitors. And perhaps like me you've been thinking about the privatised water companies, and their shareholders, and their CEOs, and about the Tory MPS who voted to make such anoption legal, and the fact that nobody will face prosecution for this disgusting episode. And perhaps like me you're exhausted because if it's not raw sewage pumped into the Channel it's something else. It's everything else.
The Glue Factory isn't much, but it's what I've got, and I hope it comes as a welcome distraction, if not consolation, so thank you for your continuing interest aqnd support, and for supporting The Trussell Trust.
Please let me know if you'd rather not receive this weekly link and I'll happily stop badgering you.
If, on the other hand, you like the badgering please join our live gathering at 7:30pm UK time, and consider making a donation to The Trussell Trust (link at the end of this newsletter).
Let's stick together!
David
Newsletter contents
1. Aid for Ukraine
2. This week’s online gathering
3. Indie press news
Hoxton Mini Press
Two plugs
4. Situation vacant
5. London Consequences 2
6. C D Rose interviews Paul Stanbridge
7. Ghost Signs launch
8. There She Is at the Omnibus Theatre - exclusive discount!
9. Next week's online gathering
10. Nudge
_____________________
1. Aid for Ukraine
After more than 170 days this horrible war drags on and on. We all have many calls on our generosity and disposable income (if any), but few are as pressing as this.
Please give what you can, when you can: the most far-reaching programme is the British Red Cross Ukraine Crisis Appeal. You can donate quickly and easily here.
_____________________
2. This week's online gathering
Live online this Sunday (August 21st) we'll be celebrating the best in contemporary flash fiction with Michael Loveday and his guests Jude Higgins, Dave Swann, Karen Jones & Sudha Balagopal. Also featuring authors Susanna Crossman and Toby Litt!
_____________________
3. Indie press news
Hoxton Mini Press
They have a summer sale which ends at midnight tonight and features up to 50% discount on selected titles:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGqPzFxgVNVKKWKHmHsdVrxDTdG
And that's pretty much it for indie news this week. Everyone is either away on holiday, or having fun at a festival, or prepping for the Frankfurt Book Fair. I suppose I could mention my recently-published Multiple Joyce https://www.saggingmeniscus.com/catalog/multiple_joyce/ Multiple Joyce: 100 short essays about James Joyce's cultural legacy (which was described as 'scintillating' by Stuart Kelly in The Scotsman this week, but that was merely a passing remark in his review of Kit de Waal's superb memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes (published by Tinder Press). Warmly recommended.
_____________________
4. Situation vacant
The best job in the world!
Application deadline is 2nd September, so get cracking.
https://irishmuseums.org/careers-vacancies/manager-curator
_____________________
5. London Consequences 2
Next Sunday (28th August) sees the launch of this exciting four-month collaboration between 18 contemporary authors, each of them contributing, anonymously, a chapter to a novel that will be published in 2023 by Bluemoose Books. It will be co-edited by Jonathan Gibbs and myself
It's a circadian novel, covering around 24 hours. The first chapter (written by Jonathan and another writer) will be sent to the second writer on Monday 29th August, and they will then have just six days to complete and submit their chapter. And so on, until the end of the year.
Only the editors know which writers have been allocated each chapter. It's going to be a real challenge but we know that all these writers will all do something wonderful.
At next week's online gathering we'll announce the list of the collaborators and share more detail about the project's background.
_____________________
6. C D Rose interviews Paul Stanbridge
'Wanting to write books at all is stupid.’
Here's the link to a 3:AM Magazine interview with Paul Stanbridge, author of the forthcoming novel My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is published next month by Galley Beggar Press.
According to C D Rose it's 'a book about the North Sea, maps of the North Sea, maps in general, East Anglia, the topography of the ocean bed, a number of obscure poets, mathematicians and scientists, a horse called Clever Hans, chalk hill carvings, medieval graffiti, trees; an account of an attempt to write a book that is not this book; a homage to W.G. Sebald and David Jones; a book about the impossibility of knowing; a pitiless, unsparing gaze on the writer’s brother’s suicide.'
It's a profoundly moving and wholly original book about loss and grief and consolation, and warmly recommended. Paul says his influences are Sebald, David Jones, Olga Tokarczuk and Alice Oswald - that's a classy roster.
_____________________
7. Ghost Signs London launch
Ghost Signs by Stu Hennigan is an eyewitness account of the author’s experiences delivering essential food and medicine to some of Leeds’ most vulnerable communities in the early stages of the pandemic during the first lockdown in 2020. It’s a timely reminder of how difficult life was for most of us during those unprecedented times, and paints a blistering portrait of the almost unimaginable poverty being endured by countless people nationwide, even before the current cost of living crisis hit. Listed as one of Blackwells Best Books of 2022, and serialised in Prospect Magazine, it’s a visceral, unflinching piece of reportage that has been widely compared to George Orwell’s classic The Road To Wigan Pier.
I reviewed Ghost Signs for the Times Lit. Supp. here.
There's a London launch featuring Stu in conversation with Heidi James at the Social (near Oxford Circus) on Friday 16th September from 6 to 8pm. Details and tickets here.
Buy a copy from the publishers Bluemoose Books here.
8. There She Is at the Omnibus Theatre
Directed by Andrea Maciel & Gabriela Flarys
Produced in association with Animal Head
_____________________
9. Next week's online gathering
We'll be joined on 28th August by the poet Jay Gao who will talk about and read from his impressive first collection Imperium.
Professional graphologist Emma Bache will be looking at MPs' handwriting and we welcome back our roving reporter Melissa McCarthy. The Canterbury-based indie publisher Aina Marti-Balcells will introduce 'What Concerns Us' with Swiss author Laura Vogt and translator Caroline Waight.
_____________________
10. Nudge
On Wednesday 17th August UK inflation officially rose above 10% for the first time in 40 years. But there are other inflations.
Food inflation (which is not the same thing as inflation) is now at 12.7%; inflation for electricity at 53.5% and rising; inflation for gas at 95.5% and rising.
Wages have been stagnant for 15 years. Not even 1% of this inflation is driven by wages.
We are all facing a national emergency, which is already hitting people who are struggling the hardest.
No comments:
Post a Comment