Six pamphlets by Tyne & Esk members are now published. They are:
Mike Davenport: Fish Alive ISBN: 0-9553965-3-0 £4.00
Anna Davis: Wind Tied Door ISBN: 0-9553965-0-6 £5.00
Anna Dickie : Peeling An Onion ISBN: 0-9553965-2-2 £4.00
Alan Gay: The Boy Who Came Ashore ISBN: 0-9549257-4-2 £5.00
Mary Johnston: Smaa Spangs: Deutsch to Doric ISBN 1-905126-77-8 £3.95
Judith Stewart: Reunion ISBN: 0-9553965-1-4 £4.00
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Anna Dickie's book is available at £4 plus postage. Email Anna at madick@supanet.com |
Alan Gay's book has been published by
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 Cover illus by John Bellany |
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Judith Stewart's collection is available from her at £4 (incl postage). Judith Stewart |
| Wind Tied Door; poems and paintings, is available from Anna Davis at £5 from anna.davis11@btinternet.com or by post. Anna Davis 2 Whittingehame Mains Road WHITTINGEHAME EH41 4QA |
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Smaa Spangs; Deutsch to Doric, includes a CD of Mary reading her poems. It's available at £3.95 by email: maryjohnston.mail@virgin.net or by post. Mary Johnston 20 Broomieknowe Gardens BONNYRIGG EH19 2JD |
Michael Davenport's Fish Alive Michael Davenport |
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The magazine Sphinx, which specialises in reviews of chapbooks and articles on independent publishers, asked me for
a piece about the Pamphlet Power Project. This is what I wrote:
Tyne & Esk Writers and the Pamphlet Power Project
It started with a casual conversation. Drew Campbell, then Writing Fellow for Midlothian and East Lothian, led a workshop for the Dunbar Writers group one evening. As we left the Library, we stood on the steps and talked about how the standard of writing in the seven Tyne & Esk groups had risen during the period of his Fellowship. Wouldn’t it be great, we agreed, if some of our writers could make their work available to a wider audience through publication? The other writing group reps were enthusiastic.
I spoke to Gavin Wallace at the Scottish Arts Council, and he suggested that we approach Awards For All for possible funding. That was the catalyst Drew and I needed. We were determined that literary quality would be the primary consideration for providing support for applicants, and that ‘publishability’ would be the second. We drew up a set of conditions which applicants would have to meet, and devised an assessment process that we thought would guarantee fairness and recognise quality. Then we applied to Awards For All for a sum we thought would be enough to help a reasonable number of writers. We had no idea what the demand might be, but we settled on six, thinking maybe four, but we might as well be ambitious. The reply came through very quickly: we were awarded all we’d asked for.
By then Drew’s term as Writing Fellow had finished, and it was the committee of Tyne & Esk Writers who carried everything through after that. We set up the assessment panel and asked the Librarians of the two counties to find anonymous reviewers from their staffs to act as independent assessors. I toured the groups, telling members about the project, giving advice on putting publications together, and going through the guidelines and the application form. I also discussed the project with individual writers considering applying. We set a deadline of the end of June 2006, after which the panel met. Eight MSS were submitted; all but one being poetry collections, although we would have considered story collections too. We agreed to provide financial assistance from the Award to six of them.
The authors were asked to find their own printers and to negotiate with them - it would have been prohibitively time-consuming to do otherwise. But when it came to assigning ISBNs, we thought it would be wasteful and expensive for each writer to apply for their own block of ten numbers at a cost of £94 each, so Tyne & Esk Writers bought them. That’s how Tyne & Esk Writers became a publisher in its own right. Two of our members had found independent publishers, but T&E published the other four.
We launched the six pamphlets with public readings in October and November 2006, and they have all been well received. Initial reviews have appeared, and our authors have demonstrated considerable individuality and energy in promoting and marketing their work. It’s a condition of the project that if authors make a profit within a year, they’ll return all or part of the grant to Tyne & Esk, so we can set up a publishing fund to assist other writers in years to come. Three of our writers have already sold their initial print run, and are now reprinting, so I’m confident that the project will have long-term benefits for writers in Midlothian and East Lothian, the catchments of the rivers Tyne and Esk.
Another thing: I’d been thinking about a website for the groups, for a variety of reasons, so we did that, and poetry buyers can purchase copies of all six via the site.
Michael Davenport: Fish Alive. Tyne & Esk Writers
Anna Davis : Wind Tied Door. Tyne & Esk Writers
Anna Dickie: Peeling an Onion. Tyne & Esk Writers
Alan Gay: The Boy Who Came Ashore. Dreadful Night Press
Mary Johnston: Smaa Spangs. Poetry Monthly Press
Judith Stewart: Reunion. Tyne & Esk Writers
Copyright © Colin Will 2007
The Dunbar group decided that they'd like
to work together to publish an anthology showcasing the work of members. It contains
prose and poetry by Jackie Anderson, Donald Busby, Valerie Cameron,
Jo Gibson,
Donald McKinney, Maureen Powell, Margaret Robertson, Brenda Thomson,
Colin Will, Russell Willens, Scott Willens and Kenneth Wilson. It's published by
Calder Wood Press
and it's available from Colin at £3.50.
Gerald Urwin's book - A Feat of Arms: the Siege of Haddington -
was published by Calder Wood Press in December. It's available
from Gerry at £9.99 + postage or from Kesley's Bookshop in Haddington.
Details of both above books on the Calder Wood Press website.
Colin Will's fourth poetry collection - Sushi & Chips - was published
by diehard publishers of Callander in August. It's available from
bookshops in Haddington and Dunbar, or direct via Colin's website
(www.colinwill.co.uk) or email Colin at colin.will@zen.co.uk .
Price £5.20 in the shops, or £5.75 (incl postage) by mail order to:
Colin Will
1 Beachmont Court
DUNBAR
EH42 1YF
Ken Angus has a CD of poems and verse - Heterogenius - available for £5.
Contact Ken at 12 Temple Village, Gorebridge, EH23 4SQ
This is a sample poem -
Walkies in Heaven.
Dunbar group member Donald McKinney has a number of his books and
CDs available through his extensive Celtic Circle website, including:
Celtic Angels Book
Celtic Angels Meditations CD
Walking The Mist Book
Celtic Meditation CD
East Linton writer Martin Bates, who attends the North Berwick group,
has published a pamphlet called "Exploding Cicadas" (White Adder Press,
£4.00 incl postage) . It contains poems written during a recent spell
as a volunteer in Nicaragua. It was runner-up for the Callum Macdonald
Memorial Award 2006.
Available from Martin or through the Scottish Pamphlet Poetry organization.
For reviews of members' publications, check the Reviews page.
We hope that members will support the local writing community by
buying their work, and by encouraging others to buy it
- self-help is what we're all about.
Page last updated: October 6, 2007