Cover for O Conto do Covarde - from Bertrand Brasil

I found this on Twitter - the Brazilian edition of The Coward's Tale, to be published later this year by Bertrand Brasil.

A busy month!

I see I last posted on 8th March - goodness. A lot has happened since then:

From 7th to 17th  March I was at Anam Cara, my  (I wish it was 'my - I mean it's where I go...) wonderful retreat in West Cork, Ireland, where I managed to push the word count of the next novel to 92000 wds. No - it's not 'nearly there' as my husband brightly suggested... but it is going in the right direction.

Then there were a couple of visits to some more rather wonderful places - slightly different -and  for different reasons:
18th March, the Mayor's Parlour in Brighton, where a fab tea was served, and I met the Mayor's chauffeur. Good guy - he explained all about the mace - a vast thing which has to be carried upside down if the Queen visits.
19th March, another tea, this time at the House of Lords. This was a fundraising/profile-raising event for the Post Adoption Centre (PAC), a charity that is both wonderful and close to my heart. The tea was punctuated by bells calling the great and the good from their cream scones, to vote.

Then, some food for the soul - an evening with wonderful poet Sasha Dugdale, thanks to The Lewes Monday Literary Club. Sasha read from her moving and wonderful Bloodaxe published translation of the Russian poet Elena Shvartz. She also read from her own collection The Red Book, and from some new work. I now have The Red Book, a new favourite  on my poetry shelf...

Sasha Dugdale, who read from her translation of Russian poet Elena Shvartz

Sticking with poetry - I am tweaking the manuscript for The Half Life of Fathers, which ought to be out in September, ready for the Glad Lit Fest ... see below.

I've been blogger in residence for the Bridport Prize website for three months and have enjoyed that enormously.I'll do another post linking to all the articles and discussions in due course.

Some Coward's Tale news - it seems a long while since the novel came out, and it is still giving me surprises. It has been absolutely wonderful to receive letters and emails for readers who have loved it. Give me love and/or hate over 'It's OK' any day! And thanks to all who give up a few precious hours to read my work.

It was particularly lovely to hear from a US reading group who had been meeting for years. The Coward's tale was voted one of their all time favourites, and they took the trouble to send me a picture, with Welsh flag, singing map, and all. That makes all this worth while!

The Coward’s Tale was longlisted for The Waverton Good Read Award http://www.wavertongoodread.org.uk/longlist-2012.html I was really delighted - didn't know about this award, which is purely reader-led. Good stuff. So here's the info on the award. http://www.wavertongoodread.org.uk/story.html

Recommended in the St Albert Gazette, in Canada http://m.stalbertgazette.com/article/20130227/SAG0308/302279965

Discussed in Cleveland Ohio http://www.cleveland.com/hillcrest/index.ssf/2013/04/sun_messenger_calendar_of_even_72.html

Recommended for Spring and Mum’s day gifts on  the Australian website Books and Music: - http://www.bookandmusic.com.au/images/catalogues/April_13.pdf

Other stuff:

In September, when I'm writer in residence at Gladstone's Library, they have decided to have a literary festival! I am absolutely pixillated and hope to reassemble myself in time to appear alongside luminaries such as Damian Barr, Wendy Cope, Stella Duffy and Sarah Perry.

Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story - is to become even bigger and better - with the inclusion of new chapters - either penned by or interviews with the following: Scott Pack, Tom Vowler, Professor Patty McNair, Stuart Evers. And more... It’s due out in August... watch this space! 

The gorgeous new Short Circuit cover...

 On 19th April, last Friday (phew, nearly there...) I read at the event flagged in the last post here - at The Word Factory,  in Sutton House, Hackney, in the excellent company of  poet Katy Evans-Bush, writer Tom Lee and singer/song collector Sam Lee. The best moment - when Sam responded to Silver Leaves for Judah Jones (an early version of part of TCT) by singing an impromptu, very beautiful song. 

Reading in the Elizabethan Chamber, Sutton House

I taught on Saturday 20th April for London's Spread the Word, at Toynbee Hall.  The day was on refreshing your writing, returning to when it was just fun, exciting stuff. Much enjoyed by the tutor, who shared some favourite writing games and exercises...

Finally - here's a brilliant article sure to get your blood either fizzing with recognition or boiling with indignation!   Dont let me know which, just enjoy. Or not. http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/most_contemporary_literary_fiction_is_terrible/

I think that's enough...
Happy writings!

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY to THE COWARD’S TALE!

7th November 2011 seems a long long time ago - but it is only a year. An awful lot of firsts have happened since then: 

• a real first birthday party for a gorgeous granddaughter, 
• a successful first year completed at Newcastle University for my younger son, 
• my first trip to Athens thanks to the British Council, celebrating the launch of an anthology, 
• a first translation of my work into Greek. 
• I went to Ghent for the first time. 
• Had my first commissions from BBC radio -  a short short and an appearance on Radio 3’s The Verb, a short story on Radio 4. 
• I attended my first residential poetry course back in August, led by Pascale Petit and Daljit Nagra, 
• had my first acceptance from The SHOp in Ireland for a poem I’d sharpened on said course.  
• I read my first novel by Julian Barnes - loved it - started a flurry of finding and reading his others. 
• Just been teaching in Vienna for the first time, staying with a writer I’ve ‘known’ on the net for years but have just met for the first time, the indomitable Sylvia Petter.  

All those firsts - and it just goes to prove that life goes on, even after your first novel comes out with a big publisher!

UK paperback

UK hardback

US trade paperback

More firsts. The Coward’s Tale was my first novel. I had reviews  and interviews in the national press for the first time.  I had a book come out in the USA for the first time. A book by meself was chosen as a book of the year (Financial Times, thanks to critic and writer A N Wilson) for the first time. 

Guess what? Nothing changed.

Strange, maybe we writers new to the world of publishing think things are going to change? A bit like waking up the morning after losing your virginity - you expect the world to be different (if I can remember back that far...!) and it just isn’t. Everything looks the same as the night before, and so do you. Ha! 

Oh sure, for a very few writers the world changes hugely.  But for the vast majority - take it from me - the world keeps on turning at exactly the same pace as before.  

So - would I change anything? Not at all. It's been an interesting year, and I have learned a lot.

Did it go as I expected? No!

What advice might I give myself, if I could have a quiet word with ‘Me, a year back’? It would go something like this:

Dear Me,             

           The world of books is a vast and complex one. Your book will fall into the maelstrom like a drop of rainwater into a sea, and become part of something exciting, ever-moving and unpredictable. For all the wonderful efforts of the professional marketers and publicity people, your efforts will be important too. Don’t take your eye off the ball. 
           Don’t expect anything. Be thankful for every review you get, whether from a professional reviewer in the press or from a kind reader on a blog or a website. Don’t keep dates free because there is a big literary festival on that week, and you might just... You probably won’t. 
          Do your best by this book, just as you did when writing it. Start something new, and gradually, gradually, transfer your allegiance. Write another novel. Write poetry. Make a cheeseboard.
                     With lots of love, 
                                              Me.

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY!

The Coward's Tale travels to Stockholm and New Jersey

Have book, book travels - not the writer, but at least her words...

First, an interview - some excellent, searching questions on the processes behind the writing of The Coward's Tale, from Dr Adnan Mahmutovic of Stockholm University,  for their anthology Two Thirds North, reproduced on Roses and Thorns. 
And a lovely message came through from a Professor of Literature and Writing in the US - having read the novel,  'The Coward's Tale' is to be on his curriculum at a college in New Jersey. I couldn't be more delighted!

And now, off teaching in Ireland. Back soon to host some author visits, from Alison Wells and Nuala Ni Chonchuir.

Video interlude

Here is a new video, featuring meself and a rather smart Bloomsbury down-pipe...

in which I natter for a few minutes about where The Coward's Tale came from, then read you the opening. Enjoy!
If you visit, leave a message - it would be lovely if you have read the book, too - let me and the other viewer know what you thought...

PUBLICATION IN THE US LOOMS...

The US edition of The Coward's tale is on the chocks, and comes out officially early next week, although I think they are shipping already! With thanks to my US editor Kathy Belden and the Bloomsbury team in New York.

And two US literary blog reviews came in recently. First, a site called Seeing the World Through Books. Quite a fantastic website, a goldmine of in-depth reviews of books set in countries other than the US. The owner, Mary Whipple begins her amazing review thus:

"It has been two years since I have added a new book to my list of All-Time Favorites, but that has just changed with the release of this novel which deserves a special place on my Favorites list. Set in the mining country of southern Wales, Vanessa Gebbie’s incandescent new novel captures the cadences and speech patterns that lovers of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood have celebrated for years, and as I read the book (as slowly as possible), I felt as if Richard Burton, the Welsh narrator of Under Milk Wood, were whispering in my ear."

Please follow the link above for the whole review. I am particularly moved to see she has sourced pictures of the Gleision colliery disaster last September to underline the fact that mining tragedies are not a thing of the past.
.
And secondly, a site called Tzer Island, where the review begins:

"When we take the time to look beneath the surface, people are not always what they seem to be. Sometimes those who seem cowardly are not cowards at all. Sometimes atonement is mistaken for guilt. In her unapologetically humane novel, Vanessa Gebbie reminds us of the patience and effort that is required to understand another person, and of the rewards awaiting those who make the effort."

and it ends:

"Gebbie writes musically rhythmic prose, forming sentences as sharp and shimmery as broken glass. Both instyle and content, The Coward’s Tale is an outstanding novel".

The complete review is via the link above. Another terrific website.

BARNES & NOBLE LINK - for easy purchase in the USA.

AMAZING MUSICAL MAPS!

I was asked by Bloomsbury to make a map of the town invented for The Coward's Tale - and to help myself orientate everything, I put in all the main characters - expecting Bloomsbury to take them out and just make an ordinary map. Instead, they liked the idea and left all the characters in, surrounded by beautiful illustrations that echo the book's cover.
Then they asked for a line or two for each character... so I thought - ah! Wouldn't it be fun if...and then wouldn't it be even more fun if there was music? Now what music should it be??

The Coward now has a Musical interactive Map!

The Amazing Musical Map is waiting to be opened, listened to - and there might be something else - characters hidden, waiting to speak... To find the Map turn on thy speakers, put on they wellies, grab a brollie and get thee to The Coward's Journey Blog, HERE
and follow the directions...

The Coward's Journey has recorded every step in the process of getting this novel ready for publication - since acceptance. All about working with Bloomsbury, the editing processes, copyediting, writing catalogue copy, writing acknowledgements - and all the rest. This is a very exciting bit!

COVER!

Well, I was going to wait until a few tiny tweaks were done by the wonderful Holly of Bloomsbury, who is doing this work of art by hand - but as it appears in the Bloomsbury catalogue, yer tiz! I love it, love it. We are having fun going backwards and forwards making the two characters a little tattier, and less clean cut.
No photo could do the jacket justice.. the six leaves either side of the title are hand blocked in silver, and it is a thing of real beauty.
Thank you so very much from the author to the artist.

Author's Photograph

This is copied from The Coward's Journey - a blog following my novel through the publication process...HERE!!
Ahem.
And along came the inevitable request for a high-res photo of meself, to adorn or otherwise the catalogue, the book, the Bloomsbury website.

Oh how tempted I am to copy other authors and dig something out from years ago, when my neck and chin didn't have constant illegible conversations, when there was space enough for a splodge of subtle but glorious colour on the eyelid and the eyebrows didn't insist on dropping in to see what all the fuss was about.
Wouldn't it be loverley to pop down to the local cementworks and order a facial. Then a makeover, where all the lines were filled with filla, hedges clipped, topiary toped. A quick blast of sellotape behind the ears to restore the jawline, a new drenching of the tired old locks. A streak or twain (not in the football sense of course..) and the subsequent hiring of a top photographer for a week.
A week? Oh yes. Then I could have photos of me in every mood. In every item of clothing I posess (a la OK!, or Hello!) black tee after black tee after black tee. Then the green one!
I could have images of moi, sultry in bed in the morning, dog's breath and all, wincyette nightie fetchingly askew. Moi at brekkie, chomping toast. Moi feeding the cat and the husband in that order. (Husband makes less noise). Moi on the phone to the GAP Year son Somewhere in India. Motherly love and red lipstick, black shiny phone. Cool.
Moi in black rollneck, posed lightly over arm of sofa. Taken from above, natch. Or moi carefully posed at desk, fixed, intelligent yet quizzical and beguiling expression on physog. Fingers( light pink nail varnish?) ready to type on keyboard... and on the desk, randomly scattered tomes that always live on my desk, of course, just found in a box in the roof - the poems of John Donne! Shakespeare! Roget's Thesaurus! A carefully angled silver frame, containing, if you look very very carefully, a signed photo of Martin Amis...or yet again, moi, with a wind-up clown, a pile of books, in an artisanal setting and wearing a blonde wig? Yes, I did, and no, never used it.

Oh fer gawd's sake.
I can't find me desk let alone me keyboard. It is under a heap of stuff. Mostly mine. Actually I lie - if I look down, I can see the following:
1. A Ordnance Survey Map of Pulborough, Worthing and Bognor Regis.
2. A pencil sharpener in the shape of a plastic Loch Ness monster wearing a tam, emblazoned Nessie!
3. A copy of 'Contented Dementia' - ( for my Dad's carer - but who knows, soon enough, for moi...)
4)Another pencil sharpener, in the shape of a cat. I won't tell you where you stick the pencil but it miaous piteously. (From GAP Year son, Christmas last.)
5) Papers, papers, papers. More papers. Hiding yet more.
6) A reel of white cotton.
7) A box of earplugs.
8) Nine more books slipping off the side - among them, The Biography of the Bible, the short stories of Flannery O'Connor, The Mapmakers of Spitalfields by Manzu Islam..
9) Notebooks, files, more paper.


See, that's me. What would a makeover do except make me look rather daft when I turn up to do readings or somesuch, without the makeup team in tow?
I'm using the same pic I used for 'Glass Bubble' and 'Storm Warning' -here you go. Taken in 2007, it made me look rather grown-up.
I've just about caught up with it.