Breaking News | The Children’s Bookshow 2023 | book soon, don’t miss out!

The Children’s Bookshow brings the joy of books and reading to schoolchildren across the UK each autumn. This year, the much loved and hugely popular national tour of writers and illustrators of children’s literature features an exciting line up of authors and illustrators celebrating 21 years on the road.

Stories can be like magic. Sometimes they’re the only way to make sense of the world,” Michael Rosen

stone age boy satoshi walker booksThe beautifully written-and-illustrated books showcased in the 2023 Children’s Bookshow feature a wide variety of stories and endearing characters. A favourite is Stone Age Boy by author and illustrator Satoshi Kitamura. A little boy walking along trips up, stumbles and falls into the Stone Age! He meets a girl his own age, and her tribe, and learns all about their way of life. He watches them make tools, clothes, weapons . . . He sees how they hunt, fish, cook, celebrate, and how they paint on the walls of caves. But when a furious cave bear attacks, he wakes up back in his own time where everyone tells him it was only a dream . . . Or was it?

Continue reading Breaking News | The Children’s Bookshow 2023 | book soon, don’t miss out!

Guest Feature | Leila Sackur, Dispatches from the Intern’s Desk

Leila Sackur is a recent graduate in History from the University of Cambridge. She is interested in everyday life, gentrification and urban space. At university, Leila was involved in the student press and politics. She is a freelance writer who enjoys reading and writing narrative-non fiction. @baby_____lei

As an intern at BookBlast, part of my role includes spending some time sifting through the archives of our online journal. What content have we put up recently . . . is there anything I can change or add to . . . would this or that article we published in 2017 be interesting to new Twitter and Facebook followers now, and who might have missed out? I like this activity. It’s interesting to spend time reading over our backlog of posts; piecing together the digital footprint of the work done for BookBlast Diary since it first went live in 2016.

We’re currently in an in-between phase where it’s been exactly one year since the first BookBlast 10×10 Tour, and a year to go until our next one. ICYMI, last year we collaborated with Waterstones to bring together ten independent publishers, their authors and translators, and showcase them across the UK in ten cities. Continue reading Guest Feature | Leila Sackur, Dispatches from the Intern’s Desk

BookBlast® 10×10 Tour | Thurs 18 Oct., Waterstones, Bristol Galleries, 6.30 p.m. Rosemarie Hudson, Peter Kalu, Qaisra Sharaz @hoperoadpubl @waterstones262

The sixth talk of the BookBlast® 10×10 tour, a nationwide celebration of independent publishing, features Rosemarie Hudson, founder of HopeRoad Publishing, (African & Caribbean writing), based in West London.

rosemarie hudson hoperoad piublishing bookblast diary interview HopeRoad promotes inclusive literature with a focus on Africa, Asia and the Caribbean; and vigorously supports often neglected voices. Many of HopeRoad’s YA titles focus on issues dealing with identity, cultural stereotyping and disability. The talk has as its theme Trading Places: Bright City, Dark Secrets. Book Tickets

Peter Kalu is the Manchester-based author of three CYA novels: Silent Striker, Being Me and Zombie XI. Silent Striker is a semi-autobiographical novel that has as one of its themes how the world of a teen boy, Marcus, changes when he finds himself becoming deaf. Marcus appears as a side character in Being Me which features as main protagonist the neuro-atypical, Adele Vialli. He has written nine novels in all, including science fiction, crime and comedy; he has also written for the stage and screen. He has won prizes including the BBC / Contact dangerous Comedy Award and The Kodak Short Film Pitch Award. Continue reading BookBlast® 10×10 Tour | Thurs 18 Oct., Waterstones, Bristol Galleries, 6.30 p.m. Rosemarie Hudson, Peter Kalu, Qaisra Sharaz @hoperoadpubl @waterstones262

BookBlast® 10×10 Tour | Thurs 11 Oct., Waterstones, Norwich, 6.30 p.m. | Sam Jordison, Alex Pheby, Paul Stanbridge, Paul Ewen @GalleyBeggars @NorwichStones

The sixth talk of the BookBlast® 10×10 tour, a nationwide celebration of independent publishing, features Galley Beggar Press (Modernist Contemporary) in Castle Street, Norwich. Co-director, Sam Jordison, is also an author, teacher and journalist. Galley Beggar have an eye for literary talent. Their early success with experimental debut novel A Girl is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride, which soared up the Amazon best-seller charts and won four awards, was a game-changer. Book Tickets

sam jordison galley beggar press bookblast diary interviewOn Thurs 11 Oct 6.30 p.m. @NorwichStones Sam Jordison will lead a discussion with authors Alex Pheby, Paul Stanbridge, Paul Ewen, with as its theme: All Hail the New Modernists! Experimentalism & Contemporary Literature.

Book extract: Lucia by Alex Pheby is about James Joyce’s schizophrenic daughter. It is one of the few surviving portraits of her troubled life. Most other references to her have been lost. We know she was the daughter of the famous writer. She was the lover of Samuel Beckett. She was a gifted dancer. From her late twenties she was treated for suspected schizophrenia. She spent the last thirty years of her life in an asylum. After her death, her voice was silenced. Meet Alex in person on Thurs 11 Oct. 6.30 p.m. @alexpheby Continue reading BookBlast® 10×10 Tour | Thurs 11 Oct., Waterstones, Norwich, 6.30 p.m. | Sam Jordison, Alex Pheby, Paul Stanbridge, Paul Ewen @GalleyBeggars @NorwichStones

BookBlast® 10×10 Tour | Thurs 4 Oct., Waterstones, Brighton, 6.30 p.m. | Meike Ziervogel, Jamie Bulloch, Nashwa Gowanloch @PeirenePress @BrightonWstones

The fifth talk of the BookBlast® 10×10 tour, a nationwide celebration of independent publishing, features Peirene Press which focuses on European & World Literature, much of it in translation. It was founded in 2008 by Meike Ziervogel who is both a novelist and a publisher. She grew up in northern Germany and lives in North London. In 2012 Meike was meike ziervogel bookblast interviewvoted as one of Britain’s 100 most innovative and influential people in the creative and media industries by the “Time Out and Hospital Club 100 list”. Meike is the author of four novels, all published by Salt. Her alter ego, “The Nymph” regularly writes about The Pain & Passion of a Small Publisher for Peirene online and is a must-read blog.

On Thurs 4 Oct., @BrightonWstones Meike will lead a discussion with translators Jamie Bulloch and Nashwa Gowanloch, with as its theme: Inside Out: Voices of the Diaspora. Book Tickets Continue reading BookBlast® 10×10 Tour | Thurs 4 Oct., Waterstones, Brighton, 6.30 p.m. | Meike Ziervogel, Jamie Bulloch, Nashwa Gowanloch @PeirenePress @BrightonWstones

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