Kids – win a Kindle Fire!
Posted by Mick North in Books on May 2, 2013
Writers Wendy Storer, from Kendal, and Sheffield-based Kate Hanney, are the brains behind new publishing imprint Applecore Books, specialising in realistic contemporary fiction for children and young adults. To help spread the word, they’re running a competition for 9 to 18 year olds, and the first prize is a fabulous Kindle Fire.
Reviews round up – The Havocs, by Jacob Polley
Posted by Mick North in Audio / Video, Books, New Writing, Poetry, Reviews on April 29, 2013
It may have missed out on the T.S. Eliot Prize, but Jacob Polley’s latest has received mostly positive reviews since it was published last November. Here’s our pick of the best of them by Ben Wilkinson, Miriam Gamble, John Field and Steve Matthews, plus links to poems from the collection published online and a recording from the T. S. Eliot Prize reading in London.
Melvyn Bragg on ‘Grace and Mary’
Posted by Mick North in Books, Events on April 23, 2013
“Grace and Mary is not a book about dementia, BBC broadcaster Melvyn Bragg is keen to point out. Nor it is about his own experiences. Yet without either influences, his latest novel would not exist in the form it does.”
Melvyn Bragg talks to the Liverpool Daily Post before appearing at the city’s In Other Words festival on 11 May, just after the publication of his new novel. Cumbrian audiences can catch him in Wigton on 18 May and Carlisle on 6 June. (See our Calendar pages for details). Read more >>
Electric Blue Poppies
Posted by Mick North in Books, News on April 16, 2013
A book can take fifteen years to write but be out of print in no time and pretty much forgotten – a shameful state of affairs for Angela Locke’s novel Dreams of the Blue Poppy, according to fellow Cumbrian author and newbie independent publisher Kathleen Jones.
Originally published by Robert Hale in 2007, the novel – a historical romance with a botanical twist – has been re-released in an electronic edition by Kathleen’s Book Mill imprint. Read more >>
The Cockermouth Poets 1700-2012
Posted by Mick North in Books, News on February 3, 2013
The anthology we’ve all been waiting for! The Cockermouth Poets 1700-2012 is a labour of love by poetry activist and editor extraordinaire Michael Baron, bringing together 85 poets who have all either read publicly in the town, were born there, or passed though and breathed its sweet air. It’s an idea inspired by disaster, arising out of the ‘River Poets’ shop window poetry trail (also a Baron brainchild) to mark the first anniversary of the great flood of 2009.
Net proceeds from sales of the book – priced £8.50 – go to Cockermouth Mountain Rescue and Save The Children. Read more >>
Heat and owls
Posted by Mick North in Books on November 16, 2012
It’s National Short Story Week, which is a good time to be telling you about two new collections of stories by Cumbrian authors. A publisher – Pewter Rose Press – has at last had the sense to gather up a bunch of Brindley Hallam Dennis stories and put them between a pair of soft covers. Talking to Owls is the result.
Elizabeth Stott has been messing about with Kindle software and has released a trio of her tales – This Heat – as an e-book, available from you-know-where. Read more>>
Margaret Forster: A Life in Books
Posted by Mick North in Books on November 13, 2012
Carlisle-born Margaret Forster (pictured) is one of the UK’s most prolific, respected, and possibly underrated authors. Back in 2003, Cumbrian biographer Kathleen Jones published a pamphlet-length essay by way of introduction to her work. Now, she’s updated and expanded it into a new book issued as a Kindle edition.
The Language of Footprints
Posted by Mick North in Books, Essays & non-fiction, New Writing on October 29, 2012
Cumbrian writer Ian Hill’s submission to Lancaster Litfest for a special publication of new work inspired by Lancashire landscapes is one of three pieces that make up The Language of Footprints, the latest ebook from the festival’s Flax imprint.
‘Instar’ explores and celebrates the liminal landscape of Leighton Moss and Morecambe Bay, where land and water continually change places and struggle for dominance. Read more>>
Jacob Polley makes T S Eliot Prize shortlist
Posted by Mick North in Books, Competitions, News on October 29, 2012
Cumbrian poet Jacob Polley is one of ten poets shortlisted for what Andrew Motion once called ‘the prize most poets want to win’. Polley is in the frame for his latest collection, The Havocs, due to be published by Picador on 8 November.
Wake up call to Kingsnorth readers
Posted by Mick North in Books, News on October 23, 2012
Ulverston writer Paul Kingsnorth is aiming to publish his first novel, The Wake, through the ‘revolutionary’ reader-funded publishing outfit Unbound. Set in the three years after the battle of Hastings, The Wake will tell the story of a fractured band of guerrilla fighters who take up arms against the Norman invaders.
If you like the idea of the book – the author’s ‘pitch’ – you pays your money and you takes your chance. Paul has 35% of the ‘pledges’ he needs for the book to happen. Have your credit card handy and find out more>>
Writing on the Greta
Posted by Mick North in Books on October 16, 2012
“This is the book that deep down I always wanted to write”, says Keith Richardson at the beginning of the foreword to his latest book, The Greta. It’s a labour of love and a hymn of praise to ‘the greatest little river in the world’, lavishly illustrated with superb photographs by Keith’s longtime collaborator Val Corbett.
The pair launch the book at the Theatre by the Lake on Sunday, and you can read the rest of the foreword here>>
Review: If We Could Speak Like Wolves, by Kim Moore
Posted by Mick North in Books, Reviews on September 14, 2012
Here’s a fine and finely-written review – in the ezine, Litter – of Kim Moore’s recent, prize-winning pamphlet, If We Could Speak Like Wolves. “She has, I think, a musician’s ear. Probably two”, notes C J Allen, dryly and with perfect pitch.
Originally from Leicester and now very much at home in Barrow-in-Furness, Moore’s star is on the rise and its light will brighten up your bookshelf. Read more>>
Review: The Other Side Of The Bridge by Geraldine Green
Posted by Mick North in News, Reviews on September 14, 2012
Geraldine Green is Barrow born and Barrow bred, and now lives down the road in Ulverston. Many of her poems are deeply rooted in that neck of the woods but have crossed the Atlantic easily, where poet and critic Djelloul Marbrook is enjoying their “unerring musicality.”
The Other Side of the Bridge is not long out from Indigo Dreams – read the review>>
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