Spotlight | The Brussels Manifesto ‪#‎StrongerTogetherInABetterEurope‬

Last night my French and Belgian guests came up with this for Angela Merkel & co.
Keeping it simple!
Any thoughts?

1. The right for citizens to decide what kind of EU they want.
2. The right for citizens to decide who joins the EU.
3. The right for citizens to initiate legislation directly.
4. The right for citizens to vote on financial union.
5. The right for citizens to vote on how to control borders.
6. The right for citizens to be heard from the bottom up.
7. The right to a free market regardless of being citizens of the EU or European Economic Area.
8. The freedom to keep the Human Rights Act.
9. The freedom to choose how the rule of law frames personal, civil and religious freedoms.
10. The right to clear, non-bureaucratic communication.

BookBlast® celebrates independent publishing | Why Independence Matters, Georgia de Chamberet

“Why this promotion leading up to the London Book Fair in April?” asked one indie publisher as she merrily jumped on to BookBlast’s celebratory bandwagon. Why indeed? Even the smallest trade publisher now has a website and a vital presence on social media, however visibility remains an issue. Added to which self-published authors riding high on the digital wave often call themselves independent publishers: confusion reigns!

The New Avant-garde

Daring, risk-taking independent publishers are filling a unique niche discovering talent, publishing authentic and offbeat books which add value to the cultural landscape. The independent sector is the home of experimental writing, poetic innovation and world writing in translation. Trailblazing authors, poets and translators who write from the margins of culture portray areas of life that the traditional mainstream often ignores.

But so much is published! How can avid book readers, students on publishing courses, Media researchers and stumble-upon book browsers find the good stuff amidst the avalanche of words available online and piled high on bookshop tables? To separate the wheat from the chaff is becoming ever more essential. The need for well-informed curated recommendations and visibility is growing.

Continue reading BookBlast® celebrates independent publishing | Why Independence Matters, Georgia de Chamberet

Spotlight | The Russians are Coming? They’re already here! | G de Chamberet

Russia: friend or frenemy? The Ukrainian crisis and Russia’s direct military involvement in the Syrian Civil War are generally reported with an anti-Russian bias. Britain’s phobia has its roots in the 19th century and fear of Russia’s rising power. Today, still, Russia asserting its national interests is presented as an act of blatant aggression. A Cold War mentality lives on. Yet Western militaristic aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya are portrayed as noble moral endeavours, bringing democracy to the unenlightened.

Colin Thubron opens Among the Russians (Picador 1995) with the words: “I had been afraid of Russia ever since I could remember. When I was a boy its mass dominated the map which covered the classroom wall; it was tinted a wan green, I recall, and was distorted by Mercator’s projection so that its tundras suffocated half the world.” Continue reading Spotlight | The Russians are Coming? They’re already here! | G de Chamberet

Spotlight | The Fifties Woman #OnWilderShores @AuthorsClub lunch @MsRachelCooke

The stereotypical view of the fifties woman is reflected in vintage postcards on sale at stalls in Portobello Market, featuring colourful ads for hoovers, OMO, ‘Empire’ baby pants, or Kenwood chef food processors alongside an immaculately dressed housewife with perfect hair and varnished nails beaming a pillarbox-red lipsticked smile as she does the chores.

Rachel Cooke’s book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties, flies in the face of the clichéd view of the fifties housewife stuck at home ― an appendage to her husband. It may have been the case in American suburbia of the time, but in Britain women had got through the war without their husbands, brothers or fathers. Some had joined the ATS, or WAAF, or WRNS and drove ambulances, or worked in a government ministry. Others ended up at Bletchley Park. When Elisa Segrave came upon her late mother’s diaries, she discovered that her mother had excelled at her work as an indexer in Hut 3, then in Hut 3N, at Bletchley Park, from 1941-43; and was promoted to 4th Naval Duty Officer during Operation Torch, the Allied Invasion of North Africa. She had several jobs in Bomber Command and later saw its effects in the ruined towns of Germany where she had her last job in the WAAF. On her days off she travelled in a weapon carrier with her American boyfriend. The Girl From Station X is an illuminating read.

The war had a liberating effect: women were hardly about to exchange their newfound freedom in peacetime for baking cakes and a life cushioned by nappies. Cooke stressed how the old and the new were pulling against each other in fifties Britain, which was on the cusp of modernity ― heralding the sixties. Women were expected to settle down, marry and have kids, yet having had a taste of freedom,  they wanted to do their own thing and be independent. The way women today juggle home and career and feel guilty about it was not the case then, when women just went for it and did not consider the consequences. The term ‘latchkey kid’ dates from the fifties. Continue reading Spotlight | The Fifties Woman #OnWilderShores @AuthorsClub lunch @MsRachelCooke

BookBlast® Archive | Empire Windrush, Onyekachi Wambu (ed) | Victor Gollancz 1998

BookBlast® was founded in 1997 to give voice to new or neglected writers, and to showcase world writing. The agency was one of the first in the UK to adopt online technology — the company website went live in 2000. It was selected by the curators of Bodleian Electronic Archives and Manuscripts, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, as being of lasting research value and worthy of permanent preservation in the Web Archive of the Bodleian Libraries in March 2015.

At a young age, I was introduced to writers, stories and imaginary worlds from many lands.   To cross cultural boundaries and explore alternate ways of seeing and being is a great gift to give a child.

Sorting through the BookBlast agency archive has thrown up happy and sad memories, not only in terms of the projects and writers I have been lucky enough to collaborate with, but also the visionary commissioning editors who backed untried-and-tested writers and projects.

Continue reading BookBlast® Archive | Empire Windrush, Onyekachi Wambu (ed) | Victor Gollancz 1998
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