Amy Jo Philip
-
Wena Poon and Roberto the matador* discuss how they could go about raising money for Wena’s publisher and mine, Salt. Roberto’s old, torn and bloodied matador outfits are out of the running, but he has better ideas. Find out what they are! *One of the eponymous stars of Wena’s new novel, Alex y Robert, generally available…
-
Just spotted the note below on Chris Hamilton-Emery’s Facebook profile and the Salt blog. Please do what you can to help Salt’s brave, ambitious, essential independent literary publishing to survive this rocky, rocky period. It’s not just about me, or even Chris, Jen and their family, or even the growing number of authors Salt supports,…
-
Tania Hershman’s The White Road and Other Stories is a wide-ranging and imaginative debut collection of short fiction, some of it very short. Much of this moving, gripping, entertaining and thought-provoking work is inspired by articles from the New Scientist, making it a unique fusion of the two cultures. I was thrilled when Tania agreed…
-
Michelle McGrane has been generous enough to offer to post a couple of poems from The Ambulance Box on her blog Peony Moon. You can now read “The Invention of Zero” and “Lullaby” on there, along with blurby bits and a short bio. Many thanks, Michelle! It’s turned into quite an encouraging week on the…
-
Dundee — city of jute, jam and journalism; city of Discovery; city of life sciences and computer games — was looking splendid in the sun as I rolled up a week past Friday for my reading at the literary festival. It’s a fantastic train ride up along the east coast from Waverley, not least that…
-
More on my B-Day: I’ve picked up another couple of phrases at work, but nothing scintillating and nothing yet that really feels like it’s likely to spark a poem so I’m just about to repair to a nearby cafe to practise the art of creative eavesdropping. If nothing else, this is certainly making me think…
-
Lean Bugged pickings on the platform this morning, but nowhere near as lean as on the train, where I could hear nary a conversation taking place forby the one I was having with a fellow cyclist! Still, even if I glean no more today, I have a couple of phrases that might start something. We’ll see…
-
Bugged is the brainchild of Jo Bell and David Calcutt. Basically, they’re asking writers throughout the UK to eavesedrop on conversations tomorrow — 1 July 2010 — and submit to them poetry or fiction based on our overhearings. The best work will appear on the website and the best of the best in a Bugged anthology. The…
-
I’m used to literary raffles: the Shore Poets has been kept afloat for years by raffling the delicious lemon cake that Mark Ogle’s widow bakes and Poetry at the GRV now even sports a raffle. But seldom do you get a raffle with as knock-me-down enticing a prize as the Big Salt Prize, in which…
-
It has been, I know, far too long. So I’m doubly sorry you’re not going to get much of a post out of me for the moment. Suffice to say there’s too much to catch up on: the Salt Scotland launch, the HappenStance birthday party and said Fife-based press winning the Michael Marks Award. Plus…
-
What do the big literary prizes really represent? Fellow Salt author and blogger Elizabeth Baines has been posting about rules in the Booker and the Guardian first book award that palpably discriminate against small publishers such as ours. I recommend you take a look. The scary thing is that, if my reaction and those of…
-
The programme for this year’s Linlithgow Book Festival is now on the festival’s website. As you’ll see, there’s a distinctly criminal tone to the proceedings this time, but we’re also welcoming — among others — that Scottish magus the great Alasdair Gray along with his biographer, the novelist Rodge Glass. I’ll be running a poetry…
-
Just a quick note that Alexander Hutchison has been confirmed for the Salt Scotland launch. He joins me, Rob A. Mackenzie, Wena Poon and Ryan van Winkle, with guest Tim Turnbull. It’s shaping up to be a very good line-up indeed, if I do say so myself. I’m particularly looking forward to hearing Wena read.
-
Please note that the times for the Salt Scotland launch reading on 29 May have changed. You are asked to arrive at 4:30 pm for a 5 pm start and we have to be out of the building at 7 pm. I’ve changed the time in the diary page and on the original post. When…
Amy Jo Philip 