Small Publishers and the Prize Machinery

Elizabeth Baines, fellow Salt writer and blogger, discusses the latest problem to face the world of small publishing.

This discussion all came about after some Facebook posts by various people in publishing - including my own Salteeny Jen Hamilton-Emery, and Neil Astley, editor of Bloodaxe Books, who published my debut poetry collection - criticised the introduction of fees for publishers to enter publications for the Guardian First Book awards.

Prizes and Book Club recommendations: are these more of a curse than a benefit, at least for the publishers, who end up spending huge sums on providing the books involved and accepting vast discounts on sales at the same time?

Horizon Review issue 4

For those who haven't noticed yet, the fourth and most splendid issue of Horizon Review is now live on the Salt Publishing website.

As a tempter, here are the opening paras of my Editorial:

Are British poetry institutions failing poetry?

That is the controversial accusation levelled at the poetry establishment by long-time poet, editor and literary commentator, William Oxley, in this latest issue of Horizon Review. Authoritative bodies such as the Arts Council, Poetry Society, Arvon Foundation and Poetry Book Society are examined for their roles in this ‘establishment-centred’ problem as Oxley suggests that the teaching of creative writing now dominates the poetry world, with few outside poetry actually buying and reading the finished product.

In addition, we present the usual array of in-depth essays on art and literature: Colin Fisher discusses the publication of the first English translation of Kafka’s 'The Trial' in June 1937; poets Craig Raine and Jean Earle are brought under examination; an interesting theory of Beckett’s affinities with Buddhism is put forward by John L. Murphy, while Jon Stone expertly introduces us to the global lit-art phenomenon that is Manga.

Holland's Miscellany

A brand-new site, taking my name in vain, has sprung up overnight at Wordpress.com

It will feature posts on politics, sci-fi, humanism, secularism, and 'whatever else crops up'. Unlikely to be much there about poetry or writing, though you never know.

I'd be really pleased and grateful if anyone interested in any of the above topics would support Holland's Miscellany by telling other people about it - maybe by linking to it on your own blogs, or on Facebook or Twitter, just to give it some momentum in these early weeks as it emerges into the blogosphere.

First few posts so far discuss the new Doctor Who, the paralysing effects of depression, and the ramifications of a hung parliament:

'This is how the LibDems die, not with a bang but a lapdance.'

Hope you will find time to support this new blog, and perhaps leave some comments?

Hard Times

Very disappointed and worried today that Labour failed to get a majority. We stayed up nearly all night to watch the results coming in, and it's hard to describe the despair that comes over me when I consider what may lie ahead for us with the Tories potentially back in power.

This isn't a political blog, so I won't go on about my reaction here. But I was writing something tonight on the Poets on fire forum in defence of Labour and the many good things they have done for our country - as well as their appalling mistakes like the war in Iraq - and I found myself recounting an anecdote about my life in the 'blocked' gap between my first novel and poetry collection and the day I started writing again, some five years later.

It was a time in my life I had almost forgotten about, my quality of life having improved so much since those dreadful days, back in the early years of the noughties. But that experience came back to me forcibly as I wrote about it, so I'm going to share it here as well:

In 2002-03, we were living in a tiny two bedroom rented house in North Cornwall, with a living room barely larger than a bathroom. We shared that space with four children (including baby twins) and had another child on the way, while my partner worked from 6am till late at night in a truly grim job and was too exhausted at the end of each day to do much more than sleep, just so we could afford to keep that roof over our heads.

I had no one to help me out, no relatives in England, and when I went to try and get a night shift in a meat-packing factory - one of the few night jobs available - so I could help with the breadwinning side of things, I was turned away because I was 'over-qualified'. All I had was three A levels, and I was over-qualified for the kinds of jobs you can do at night in a rural community.

Around that time, I got really sick with flu. I remember one day feeling too sick and delirious to look after the twins, but knew I had to, since there was no one else to do it. My other kids were at school, my partner was at work, and the babies were crying. I lay down on the floor next to their bouncers and started to feed them - I was pregnant again at the time; a difficult pregnancy, for we had been warned the child could be Downs - and actually passed out. When I came round, I felt completely alone and in despair, not knowing how we were going to survive.

I'm not wringing my hands over that awful time. We climbed out of it. But guess how? Child and working tax credits were introduced that year, and they made the most incredible difference to our lives.

Thanks to tax credits, we were finally able to afford to move away from that rural area in search of better work for my partner. We got a bigger place, I had my last baby, who was not a Downs Syndrome child but perfectly healthy - thank goodness I never agreed to the abortion I was automatically offered after the test results! - and I started to earn money from writing again.

I cried the day we got our first tax credits payment. That was how bad it had been for us, and how relieved I was to have money in the bank again, to be able to breathe. And I shall never forget that a Labour government did that for us.

New Poem at Stride Magazine

I have a new poem up at Stride online magazine, entitled 'Adventure Sky!'

Those of a delicate or very conservative disposition should sit down before reading it.

The long-awaited fourth issue of Horizon Review is due out very, very soon. Or so I am assured by Chris and his team at Salt.

I also feel it may be time for a facelift at Raw Light. Trumpet chorus. This writing blog has been going since early 2005, and has only had two changes of decor since then. I'm not thinking of anything radical at this stage. Just some light colour and sidebar design changes, perhaps. I shall see what's readily available on Blogger and do some tinkering.

Anything to avoid writing my novel!

And now, here's a very short YouTube film of my youngest daughter, whom I sent out last summer with a camera and instructions to do some filming at Richborough in Kent, one of the earliest Roman ports. Here, she demonstrates a cheerful, journalistic disregard for historical accuracy ...

At the time, she was five years old.

Horizon, Sunshine, and the Creative Writing Generation

I've heard that the fourth issue of Horizon Review should be out soon. Can't wait to see it, though the issue is running a little late now. Since I'm hoping to take a short break after this one, I'm not sure when the next Horizon will appear. Or what form it will take. More on that anon.

Meanwhile, it's been a lovely sunny spring day, and despite two fiction manuscripts of mine being rejected on the same day this week, I'm feeling quite up. Still got a partial manuscript being prepared for submission, and this may be The One!

Spotted another interesting review of Identity Parade on the Irish World website. The phrase 'reference book' seems to have come up in several places now in connection with this new poetry anthology. I was also fascinated to see the attendance of Creative Writing classes singled out as a kind of common denominator for many new poets.

When I first started writing, back in the mid-nineties, there were not many poetry-only classes or courses about. Now, they seem to be available everywhere, and I'm one of those dissenters who feel that people have always written well without being 'taught' how to by some well-meaning tutor, so why are these courses now considered essential training for a poet?

Good to see someone else calling this worthless discrimination into question.

It seems British poetry is turning into a 'This person learnt how to write in X's masterclass or Y's BA course' system, with anyone who either failed to get into those classes, couldn't afford them, or doesn't give a toss about formal training ending up in the Ignored and Unpublished box.

How old is Jane Holland?

This is genuinely disturbing. Found it today whilst trawling the net in search of insults. Who asked this question ... and why?

Identity fraud, here we go ...

Still, this 'True Knowledge' site was completely stumped when I asked it, 'how green is a frog?'  Ha!

I Won't Let You Down

One of my favourite songs from the eighties, Ph.D's I Won't Let You Down was a Top 10 UK hit in April 1982, when I was a highly suggestible fifteen year old.

Thankfully, I'm still pretty suggestible. Just not fifteen anymore.

By the way, if you can't remove the ad strip when watching this, click the arrows (bottom right) to watch it on full screen.

Polesworth Poetry Trail, Warwickshire

Off to the pretty town of Polesworth in North Warwickshire tomorrow, to read some of my poetry and celebrate the opening of the Poetry Trail there, with which I was involved as Warwick Poet Laureate two years ago. Fellow poet John Siddique will also be there, as guest poet, and probably some of the other poets involved in the project. There may be music, dancing, a knees-up, perhaps even booze. Well, music anyway.

My commissioned poem on the River Anker has been set into several matching blocks of granite positioned beside the river itself. So human civilisations may rise and fall, an ice age may cover the earth and then thaw away, but Jane Holland's poem will remain etched in granite beside the River Anker in Warwickshire - no doubt much to the bemusement of future inhabitants.

"The Poets Trail, which was funded through the Advantage West Midlands Better Welcome programme, provides a series of poems showcased on small-scale sculptures.  The ten bespoke sculptures are dotted around Polesworth and up onto the canal towpath.  The poems were sought through a competition which saw entries come in from around the world.  The poems were decided by a panel of judges including the then Warwick Poet Laureate, Jane Holland."

Bad Dates and Toothache

Sounds like a comic novel, or perhaps a cautionary tale told by a dentist, but my day has been all about bad dates and toothache. Last November, my dentist extracted several teeth. One root refused to budge and was left, with the proviso that if it started to 'bother' me, I would have to go to hospital to have it removed. I had some nasty pains for a few months, but slowly, things got better. Until yesterday, when the kraken finally awoke ...

My toothache increased over the course of the morning. We had a session with a consultant for our twin sons, who are being investigated for a whole range of behavioural problems, and emerged with a diagnosis of ADHD for both, and a formal diagnosis of autism for one, whose previous unsatisfactory diagnosis had been of 'autistic tendencies'. It has taken us five long years to get him that full diagnosis, so that was the big plus of the day, and means he will now be entitled to specialist help at school.

They will now be able to start medication for ADHD. However, there's more to come for the other son, whose diagnosis will take more time, and may be more complicated, as he has a range of other symptoms.

So that was my morning. Toothache cranking up gradually. I acquired some ibuprofen and some paracetamol with caffeine, and started alternating them for maximum pain relief.

I got on a train and headed off to London for my poetry gig at the Poetry Cafe.

My first stop was the National Portrait Gallery, as I wanted to see the original Elizabethan portraits I'd only seen in books so far, in connection with the Tudor historical I'm writing.

Next I went to Foyles, flicked through Robin Robertson's new book, The Wrecking Light - and felt a little disappointed, because it read too similarly to his previous book, Swithering (which I very much admired), and if you ain't pushing ahead with every new book, you're just treading water, and we've surely got too many poets doing that at the moment - and then I spent some time over a coffee there, doing some revisions to my current ms.

Naturally, once I've forked out for RR's new book and had a chance to read through it at leisure, I may feel differently. Don't forget the nagging toothache.

After a quick meal in Chinatown, I trolled off to the Poetry Cafe for my gig, and was somewhat taken aback to find a small group of enthusiasts playing what appeared to be Israeli folk music in the basement there. 'No poetry tonight,' said the cheery lady behind the counter. 'You must have got the wrong date.'

My toothache now throbbing like the devil, I sloped back to Euston for the long train journey home, unable to believe how stupid I had been. Bemused and not a little annoyed, I paid up for the WiFi Hotspot internet service so I could check which date I had been given. But no, there in my Inbox was an email from the organiser, sent only this morning, apologising for the lateness of her warning and letting me know that she'd got the date wrong. The correct day is NEXT Wednesday.

I think this must be an abscess that's developed under the root left in by the dentist last November. The pain is now simply excruciating. I can barely think of anything else, it's so bad. I'm maxed-out on painkillers, and am dreaming of large whiskies, and maybe a mallet with which to knock myself out. Under such circumstances, not feeling in a very forgiving mood is perhaps understandable.

New poem in Ink, Sweat & Tears ezine

A new poem of mine is now live at Ink, Sweat & Tears, which is a literary ezine currently edited by poet and all-round groovy person Helen Ivory. (And Charles Christian, she adds hastily, having looked at the site and thoroughly confused herself over who the editor actually is.)

The poem is called 'Collision', and accordingly involves a head-on collision with a coach.

It was a collision which I survived, obviously, but not unscathed. Ten years on, my wrist, thanks to my impatience with my cast, is still broken. Though I only notice it when asked to carry heavy shopping, or in damp weather.

Of course, when I say 'new poem', I mean never before published. It's been lurking in a To Be Revised file for more than five years.

I always intended to expand it. But I never did.

Could this be the kind of Face-Off we need in poetry?

Tricky Fourth

I can't put it off much longer. Camper Van Blues, my third poetry collection, came out in late 2008, in an absolutely gorgeous hardback edition, but alas, it's now spring 2010 and I really ought to be putting some new poems together and considering how my fourth collection will shape up.

I doubt that it will be ready to publish within twelve months. I've been working almost exclusively on prose for the past six months, and new poems have been a little thin on the ground. But mid-late 2011 or sometime during 2012 would suit me fine as a publication date. That would give me a good year to build up a core of individual poems for my fourth, without putting undue pressure on me to spin them out too rapidly, but equally it won't be so long since my last collection that people have entirely forgotten who I am.

Besides, I'm sure poetry books must sell better if the poet isn't constantly chucking new collections out to a less than enthused readership.

Loose Muse

Just briefly, I'll be performing alongside Aoife Mannix at Loose Muse on April 7th 2010, which is a Wednesday.

Loose Muse hosts readings only for women, though men are allowed to attend (but not perform), monthly at the Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, London.

It usually kicks off around 8pm, I believe. I'll be reading a selection of old and new poems, and should have a few books on hand to sell.

Don't like the book you're reviewing? Too bad, you'd better praise it anyway.

I join the growing number of people who are quite rightly disgusted and appalled by recent online attacks on Todd Swift, whose review of the new Bloodaxe anthology Identity Parade - which was not a negative review, but did ask important questions about the selection process - has attracted some astonishingly hostile and aggressive reactions.

See the comment threads at Eyewear for examples. There are plenty in the post I link to and in other posts on the same blog, and on Facebook, Twitter etc.

The fact that most of these people know each other in person, and are almost all key players in the book under review makes the whole thing even more disturbing. Would you see such a public and widespread attack being allowed to happen in the film industry, in theatre, even in book reviewing?

What does all this mean for the future of poetry criticism? As Graham Hardie points out on Eyewear: 'it begs the question are we not allowed as editors to express our thoughts and opinions in our publications without fear of reprisals/witch hunts/obnoxious e-mails etc?'

Horizon Review 4

Marvellous to have finished all the work on Horizon Review 4. The new issue should appear online sometime in the next week or so; the timing is up to Chris at Salt Publishing, and I know he's always very busy.

But the magazine's all done from my side. Some exciting stuff in there, too!

If you've never visited Horizon, there are three issues already online here.

Now, I can finally start work on the rewrites to my new historical novel. It's been frustrating, having that work in the back of my head while having to ignore it, push it away, and crack on with my job as editor. But tomorrow is a new day, and I'm extremely excited to be writing prose again.

Don't get me wrong. I love poetry, but she's not an easy mistress. Novelists, quite wisely, tend to stay home and ignore their peers whenever possible; not so poets. Yet writers are often the hardest people to get along with. So it's with a sigh of happy relief that I can finally retreat to my metaphorical ivory tower and bury myself in a book.

Identity Parade

Found this excellent and thoughtful review of the new Bloodaxe anthology, edited by Roddy Lumsden, Identity Parade at David Green's blog, dated March 13th 2010:

 '... moving from poem to poem one is perhaps overawed by the sheer weight of work on offer and the wide selection of poets with only a few poems each might begin to look like an unwillingness to select more rigorously. Eventually, many of the poems could in fact have been written by roughly the same poet or at least by poets who all studied for the same creative writing MA. One becomes accustomed to the choice adjective, the erudite lexis (intaglio, ingleberried, periphrasis) and the well-read references worn like a casual off-the-shoulder number. Some of these writers are trying a bit too hard. '

There was a more recent glance in its direction at the Times Online site, but since it failed to engage with the actual poetry, it was next to worthless as a review.

Todd Swift was more positive at Eyewear than David Green, but also spotted an absence of obvious frontrunners in this motley pack:

'Also missing are the show-stoppers - the lightning-strike poems - that mark a poet or generation as great. While there are hundreds of good, solid, well-written and often genuinely dazzling or inventive poems included, it is hard to actually recollect a dozen or more whose lines are so memorable as to represent a genuine threat to Ted Hughes, Larkin, or Mahon. As such, it may still be very much a provisional period, not yet fully formed - and the leaders of the pack have yet to fully dominate the minor figures.'

Disgusted of Berkshire

Seen the news story yesterday about the gay middle-aged couple, turned away from a Berkshire B&B because it went against the proprietor's beliefs to allow two men to share a bed under her roof?

Absolutely disgraceful.

Wouldn't it be a shame if hundreds of gay couples now descended upon her without warning, demanding a room for the night?

13 Teeth: Peacock and Pig

From Jane Smiley's '13 Ways of Looking at the Novel' to Mark Gwynne Jones' '13 Teeth: Peacock and Pig'.

The brand-new issue of Horizon Review will be up on the Salt website in a few weeks. Can't really guarantee when, as my role ends when I transfer the files over to Salt.

However, before issue 3 is superceded by all that lovely new material in issue 4, I want to draw people's attention back to one of my favourite items in the last issue, a short film of the extremely talented and mesmerising Mark Gwynne Jones and the Psychicbread, performing

13 Teeth: Peacock and Pig

It's nothing short of miraculous. It's also a tiny bit slow to warm up, so give it a good minute or two if you're not used to live poetry performances. And if you ever get a chance to see this band live - or Mark Gwynne Jones performing solo - do please take the opportunity. Excellent, mythic stuff!

Writing a novel is easy

Looking at revisions to my historical, I dug out 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel (What to Read and How to Write) by Jane Smiley this week.

Some real gems here, but this in particular, since I'm dealing with the necessary awkwardness and imperfection of openings and beginnings, caught my eye:

No novel can be written perfectly because perfect spatial balance cannot be achieved word by word. At the same time, though, writing a novel is easy because there is nothing simpler than adding word to word, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and then going back and reading and writing it over again. To do it, the author simply has to remember that it can't be done, that the ideal edifice that exists in his mind may not be, and cannot be, and will never be communicated, but something will. That something is the novel you don't know you can write until you get it written.

Available from Amazon.