End of Week Round-up #28

13th May 2022

As I’ve made known on all my social media accounts I was asked to be a judge for the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown Award 2022 and I accepted, so loads of books slightly outside my normal reading genres. Always good to push comfort zones.

What I’ve been up to this week and other news.

Mostly just reading, but without telling you what I’m reading which feels very weird!

This week has seen a lot of commuting for work which was strange and threw me a bit, it also meant that I walked 60 miles in 7 days and my poor knee is complaining.

Once more all my emails, DMs, and bookmarks have been cleared with a lot of new information added to the websites.

I’ve got all the returned Author Q&A emails onto the blog as draft posts which are scheduled to go out automatically which feels good and a bit of progress in getting ahead of myself.

The new Author Q&A this week is Nigel Stewart talking about his writing, why not read about his books and writing process? If you would like to be included please contact me at contact@bigbeardedbookseller.com.

Other news.

The Jhalak Prize shortlists were announced on Wednesday evening:

• Consumed, Arifa Akbar (Sceptre)

• Somebody Loves You, Mona Arshi (And Other Stories)

• Like a Tree, Walking, Vahni Capildeo (Carcanet)

• Keeping the House, Tice Cin (And Other Stories)

• The Roles We Play, Sabba Khan (Myriad)

• Things I Have Withheld,  Kei Miller (Canongate Books)

and the Children’s and Young Adult shortlist is:

• Ace of Spades, Faridah Àbíkí-Íyímídé (Usborne)

• We're Going to Find the Monster, Malorie Blackman & Dapo Adeola (Puffin)

• The Musical Truth: A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs, Jeffrey Boakye, illustrated Ngadi Smart, (Faber & Faber) 

• Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, Maisie Chan (Piccadilly Press)

• The Sound of Everything, Rebecca Henry (Everything With Words)

• The Crossing, Manjeet Mann (Penguin Random House Children’s)

Glad to say I’ve read and enjoyed quite a lot from both lists :) and the winners will be announced on 26th of May.

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Recently added bookshops and publishers.

• Abbey’s Bookshop (Australian bookshop)

• Arkbound (publisher)

• LitVox (online bookshop)

• Megalong Books (Australian bookshop)

• The Unreality Store (online bookshop)

Submissions and applications.

• Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction, closes 30/06/22

• A Pocket Anthology of Addiction and Recovery, Acid Bath Publishing are looking for submissions for. this publication, closes 05/08/22

• Spectrum Poetry Competition, Renard Press is looking for poems up to 100 lines or 750 words, closes 21/05/22

• Truffle Magazine, submissions open for Issue 5, not sure of closing day yet

• Young Scot’s Writer of the Year, all genres all media, under 1000 words or five minutes, closes 24/06/22

Upcoming events.

• Edinburgh International Book Festival, various venues in Edinburgh, between 13/08/22 and 29/08/22

• Edinburgh Zine Fest, in the Fruitmarket Warehouse, 14/05/22 and 15/05/22

• Evesham Festival of Words, various Evesham, between 01/07/22 and 03/07/22

• Fowey Festival, various venues around Fowey, between 06/05/22 and 14/05/22

• Hay Festival, various venues around Hay-on-Wye, between 26/05/22 and 05/06/22

New and upcoming book releases.

• The Stardust Thief – Chelsea Abdullah – Little Brown (19/05/22)

• The Whisperers and Other Stories – Algernon Blackwood – British Library Publishing (19/05/22)

• Hope on the Horizon – Onjali Q. Rauf – Hachette (26/05/22)

• Threadneedle – Cari Thomas – HarperVoyager (26/05/22)

• Banned Books – DK (02/06/22)

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Scotland Street Press - Publisher Profile

Scotland Street Press is based in Edinburgh and can be contacted through:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScotStreetPress
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScotStreetPress/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scotstreetpress/
Website: https://scotlandstreetpress.com/

We are committed to developing a publishing house that helps promote Scotland as a distinctive creative voice in the world. Women’s voices are under represented in literature as a whole in Scotland, and we intend to help redress this balance. We have discovered two outstanding first time female authors and generated a PEN Award for Tania Skarynkina and a nomination for the Carnegie Medal for L. J. MacWhirter. Our collection sees four memoirs by older women and twelve out of sixteen titles by women.

We are keen to create books that not only read well, but look beautiful; we aim to combine the visual design, binding, and cover with the literary merit of the contents. Our team of designers and printers work closely with the editorial team to ensure that the themes of the book are accurately translated into a tangible aesthetic.

We hope that our books liven your minds and hearts and inspire you to great things. There are often up to four of us in the office and we work hard on few resources.

In their own words

When did you start publishing?

2014

What made you want to start an independent publisher?

I had published a book with Random House and FSG in New York, and they did not want the companion volume, so without even prudently asking around I decided to set up an indie. (needless to say four years of full-on, unpaid, uphill learning has caused some moments of regret at rashness of decision)

What genres do you specialise in?

Memoir, autobiography, literary fiction and poetry

Where are you based?

Edinburgh

Do you have a submission window, if so when?

Not yet. We get too many without advertising.

What is your submission procedure?

Writers tend to make requests from the website.

Who are you (team photo if possible)?

We are currently Jean Findlay, head of publishing, Andrew Lindsay, sales and marketing, Lucrezia Gaion, intern, Valentina Auletta, Erasmus Trainee, and Megan Richie, one month internship.

Background in the book industry?

Jean has a lifetime working in literature of some sort: playwright, arts journalist, author. Andrew Lindsay has an MSc from Napier University in Publishing and experience in sales at Blackwells. Lucrezia works at the Broughton High School library and every trainee or intern who comes on board brings original ideas and self taught enthusiasm.

Talk about some of your books if possible?

We are proud to be the first to translate a book from the Belarusian language into English, for which we won a Pen Award. Belarusian is spoken by two thirds of the population in that country but the official language is Russian. The publisher in Minsk was shut down for publishing books in Belarusian and we had to buy the rights through Lithuania. Books written in an oppressed language are a hidden treasure. Tania Skarynkina’s book of essays, A Large Czeslaw Milosz with a Dash of Elvis Presley, is a cocktail of world literature seen from a forgotten town in a forgotten country. Her own photograph as the cover image can be seen as a metaphor for a country where the pig is king and where those who wear their hearts on their sleeves may have it skewered. (attached)

From Corsets to Communism by Jenny Robertson is a literary biography of Zofia Nalkowska, a Polish novelist who is regarded as one of the leading anti fascist writers of the last century. Her slim volume Medallions is on the reading list for Holocaust Studies in US universities. We know little of her here in the UK , being rather inward looking in our literary interests. This is her first biography written in English. Witness to two world wars and Poland’s struggle for independence, Zofia Nalkowska was a woman in a man’s world and rose to international fame as a novelist touring a war torn Europe.

and future projects/dreams if you can?

We have a new poetry list: Macsonnetries by Petra Reid is a feminist rewriting of all of Shakespeare’s sonnets for the iPhone age, some in Scots.

Aspects of Edinburgh by Stewart Conn with drawings by John Knight is a calm and meditative reflection on the city.

Inside and Out – paintings by Christian Small with poems by Gerda Stevenson has just been featured on BBC Woman’s Hour and is a full colour art book.

Burds in Scots by Hamish MacDonald is poetry in Scots and paintings from long ago.

We have just won another PEN Award for a Belarusian novel.

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What’s happening next week?

"OK campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties cause it’s cold out there...it’s cold out there every day."

Next week, and for the next few months my main task will be reading and thinking about historical fiction, but unfortunately not able to talk about what I’ve been reading until later this year, which will be both enjoyable and difficult.

As for this project it’s time to start developing and eBook of all the indie publishers that I’ve got listed and see about releasing that in the New Year.

And, as always, if you have any news or offers you would like included in the newsletter please email me at contact@bigbeardedbookseller.com and I’ll get it on ASAP.

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A reminder that a paid subscription to this newsletter is only the cost of a large coffee once a month. This helps with lots of things but right now it would help with domain and hosting costs for the various projects.

Thanks to the current number of paid subscribers I’ve been able to get a monthly subscription to The Bookseller. Cheers!

All information is going to continue to be free so this is just a thank you to me for collating and developing it all.

The links to the various projects can be found at: