This is a ragbag of a post, but if you don’t do Facebook you will have missed some interesting bits of recent news.
Firs ts that the second imprint of Haggards has sold out ( I still have a few though—-). The third imprint has been ordered and will be available from Red Squirrel Press as soon as possible, and I will have more copies to sell in the shop too. Neither Red Squirrel Press nor I charge for postage and packing within the UK (please add £2 if you live abroad). And I will sign any that you order from me.
This is a glimpse of the new anthology Becoming Botanicals, in which I have a poem. You can find more information on the post, which also includes a link to the fundraiser, and a glimpse of the perks on offer. The proofs are coming out very shortly, and publication will be in June. But don’t you think it looks lovely?
Then another anthology I was involved in, Umbrellas of Edinburgh, which was edited by Claire Askew and Russell Jones and published by the ill-fated Freight, is now going to be reissued by the imaginative and innovative Stirling Publishing (nothing to do with where I live, the reference is to the Commissioning Editor, Tabatha Stirling). It’s going to have a new cover, illustrated maps, a new foreword and some new poems, and should be out by Christmas. And as part of the project, some of the poets (Harry Giles, me, Gerda Stevenson and Alice Tarbuck) will be filming a reading of their poems in situ. My poem, Grassroots in Edinburgh, is going to be filmed in the Meadows, and it’s all very exciting.
A third anthology I’m involved in, Scotia Extremis, is going to have an Edinburgh launch in Blackwells on South Bridge in Edinburgh, on the 3rd of May at 6.30pm.
Now, switching to my editor hat, three poetry collections I’ve edited are going to have launches in the next week. On Saturday 6th April at 1pm in the Scottish Poetry Library, Red Squirrel Press will be launching books by John Bolland (Fallen Stock) and Mandy Haggith (Why the Sky is Far Away). And on Tuesday 9th April, in the Scottish Writers Centre, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, John Bolland, Jon Plunkett (whose debut, A Melody of Sorts I edited), Anne Connolly (Once Upon a Quark) and Thomas Stewart (Empire of Dirt), will be reading from their new publications. It has been an enormous pleasure to be involved with these books, and the events should be a delight.
