Category: Spotlight on Publishing

the inside take

Media Release | Empire Windrush: Reflections on 75 Years & More of the Black British Experience (ed.) Onyekachi Wambu | Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 22 June, 2023

In this authoritative anthology, Empire Windrush: Reflections on 75 Years & More of the Black British Experience, journalist and writer, Onyekachi Wambu, collates some of the most significant writing to mark seventy-five years since the arrival of Empire Windrush at a critical juncture in modern British history, in June 1948. 

The ship’s name is apt for undertaking the dual tasks of this broad-based and authoritative anthology: first, reflecting on the experience of seventy five years of ‘Windrush’ post-Brexit and the Second Elizabethan Age. Second, meditating on over a millennia of earlier ship arrivals and departures, carrying other human cargo, alongside the troubled intricate business of Empire. Continue reading Media Release | Empire Windrush: Reflections on 75 Years & More of the Black British Experience (ed.) Onyekachi Wambu | Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 22 June, 2023

Spotlight | Highlights, Beyond Words Festival, 2023 | Institut Français du Royaume Uni

This year’s Beyond Words Festival featured a great line-up from across the Channel. Throughout the week, the  Institut Français du Royaume Uni in South Kensington, London, was bustling with people eager to see their favourite French authors in conversation with their British counterparts discussing not only their latest books, but many things words and ideas from France, past and present.

The first event I attended was A Gallic Evening with Muriel Barbery, Antoine Laurain and Jean-Baptiste Andrea, chaired by Viv Groskop. Gallic Books publish “the very best of what the French are actually reading.”  Over the past decade, they have brought over one hundred authors to the British reading public.

Continue reading Spotlight | Highlights, Beyond Words Festival, 2023 | Institut Français du Royaume Uni

Spotlight | A Tale of Two Cities: London and Paris Book Fairs 2023


London Book Fair is like speed dating for book trade professionals as they tell each other stories while buying and selling rights during half hour meetings. Negotiating rights deals – foreign language, film and TV, audio etc – with international partners is its core focus. On another level LBF provides opportunities for publishers, literary agents, authors, booksellers, librarians, literary organizations, and suppliers to network and exchange ideas, as the latest offerings are showcased and promoted at their stands or at seminars, conferences and author events. LBF’s spotlight focus this year was on Ukraine. Opened by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, the fair’s headline authors were Colson Whitehead, Kate Mosse, Ann Cleeves, Dapo Adeola and Robin Stevens. All the press and PR was handled by Midas PR.

Tables in the International Rights Centre (IRC) where rights professionals meet had sold out in the blink of an eye, and there was a long waiting list. So a number of agents and scouts ended up sitting at someone else’s table: no bad thing for swapping tips and info since each market has its own unique nuances and preferences, and what works in one market may not work in another. Walking around, the humming of voices was so loud you could hardly hear yourself think. Continue reading Spotlight | A Tale of Two Cities: London and Paris Book Fairs 2023

News | Celebrating Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, 7pm 18 January 2023, Irish Cultural Centre, London

A celebration of 25 years of Banipal Magazine translating and publishing contemporary Arab literature in English is being held at 7pm on Wednesday 18 January 2023 at the Irish Cultural Centre 5 Black’s Road, Hammersmith, London W6 9DT.

All are welcome however registration by way of an RSVP to the editors of Banipal Magazine via this webpage is essential in order to be included on the Guest List and gain entry.  Continue reading News | Celebrating Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, 7pm 18 January 2023, Irish Cultural Centre, London

2022 in Review (part 2): Fiction and Nonfiction from 5 Indie Presses, Andrey Kurkov & The Children’s BookShow

Lack of time has meant that mastering the TBR&R pile has been a frustrating challenge this  year. Many fantastic books have been published in 2022 by independent trade publishers championed via The BookBlast Diary over the years. The intermittent support is mightily appreciated of a couple of donors who stepped into the breach when official funding organizations turned us down not once but three times – apparently due to form filling-errors on our part, and our being based in London as opposed to the regions. Titles which caught the eye in 2022, listed in order of publication month, include:

LES FUGITIVES | The Child Who, Jeanne Benameur. Translated by Bill Johnston | 136pp May 2022 ISBN 978-1838490423

“In your head of a child there are sudden bright skies wrested from a low, lingering, unfathomable sadness. Your mother has disappeared. Never mind that she was never entirely present, it was her smell, her warmth, her silent hands, that you relied on to feel that you truly existed.”

Continue reading 2022 in Review (part 2): Fiction and Nonfiction from 5 Indie Presses, Andrey Kurkov & The Children’s BookShow

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