After my diatribe on awards last week, it would seem our own Aaron Kite has won a Watty for his YA novel, A Touch of Poison, which will be released later this year by Five Rivers in both print and eBook. You can read more about his success on his blog. And more about the Watty here.
We’re always on the lookout for esoteric, fascinating and intelligently written books. One of our first publications was a dictionary of historical colour names, uses and definitions by Deb Salisbury. When we heard about a project on which Michelle Enzinas was working, we discussed her research with her, and the result of that is a publishing agreement. Michelle Enzinas has spent 15 years as an historical re-enactor and amateur domestic technologies archaeologist, and 20 years dealing…
In the publishing world the turn of every new year raises discussion of marketing strategies for possible literary awards. Marketing strategies for awards, you ask? Indeed yes. Let it not be thought that even in a juried award that some tacit form of opinion lobbying doesn’t take place. And if the award is a people’s choice, well, let loose the mavens of marketing. It doesn’t seem to matter if the literary award is the Giller…
It’s astonishing sometimes what happens at conferences and conventions. Last year at When Words Collide, Derryl Murphy and Five Rivers’ Editor-in-Chief, Robert Runte, sat down over beverages and convivial company. The result of that meeting is a rebirth for Derryl Murphy’s first collection of short stories, Wasps at the Speed of Sound. There are eleven stories in this collection, ten of them gathered together for the first time and one making its début All of them…
Late in December we finalized contracts to publish three books by Bryan Cummins: The Terriers of Scotland and Ireland (a reprint of the 2003 book); the previously unpublished companion, The Terriers of Scotland and England, and, Pub to Pub, Coast to Coast, which examines England’s world renowned 320 kilometre Coast to Coast Walk (and its wonderful pubs!) as an eco-tourism challenge. Cummins completed the two week walk, which is considered to be the second-best long distance walk…