Friday 1 July 2011

Parish news

Yesterday was the day when I went to Oxford Brookes in the morning to receive recommendations on how CBe can Sell More Books. And I felt pretty happy: change! evolution! better & better! Today I’ve sobered up, and am thinking how much work.

I spent much of the afternoon chatting with Heathcote Williams, on the lame excuse of enticing a free poem out of him for the printed programme for the September book fair. If the name is not familiar, it should be: look him up. He has views; one of his recent poems has Obama and Hilary Clinton wanking to a video of Bin Laden being shot. A sunny afternoon, a kitchen that felt like home (books, heaps, every surface – covered with cards, drawings, messages – a palimspest), a leafy garden, and talk. I may have no income right now, but this was better.

The Slovenian writer and film-maker Miha Mazzini has won a Pushcart Prize for his first story to be published in a US magazine. He has written 23 books (including the all-time bestselling novel in the former Yugoslavia) and directed and written screenplays for films. His first book to be published in the UK, The German Lottery, will be published by CBe in February next year.

Meanwhile there are excerpts from Days and Nights in W12 currently being featured on the London Column. Go there. Buy.

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