Score stars meet

Interviewees Ranulph Fiennes and Victor Greenberg met for the first time at the Radisson Hotel in Liverpool, when Ran came to talk to guests of Rensburg Sheppards – one of the sponsors of SCORE. David Owen (pictured 2nd left, below) of Rensburgs was delighted to introduce the pair before the lecture, and to see Victor signing a copy of SCORE for Ran. Ran then returned the favour by signing a copy of his autobiography for Victor in a positive flurry of ink.

A Parliament of Scores

With the help of Business Liverpool, Liverpool Vision, and Liverpool Lane Develoment Company, we sent copies of SCORE to every MP (646 of them) plus various peers and MEPs. Why? because business is no longer a traditional route through for politicians, and few of them have any business experience. Since business is such a massive element of their constituency's health, and enterprise is the buzzword of youth and media these days, we thought they could do with an easy read to help them learn what 'enterprise' actually means.

Pictured is Ben Chapman, MP for Wirral South (that rare creature, a busincess-savvy MP) taking delivery of books for his colleagues. Piling on the agony is Paul Whitehead of Business Liverpool, and some old trout we dragged off the street for the purpose.

Scoring with Minis

Enterprise Week was fun - was at six events in London and Liverpool, talking to MPs, young entrepreneurs, enerprise graduates, GCSE students, and primary school girls. It was mostly due to SCORE, our latest book about entrepreneurs. The enthusiasm and excitement from every group was infectious and I have signed up for all kinds of projects and schemes over the next year to keep the excitement going. More of this later.

Inspired by Enterprise Week and the number of comments I heard that suggested that lots of MPs, journalists and others don't understand what enterprise is, or what kind of creature an entrepreneur is. So we've sent a copy of SCORE to every MP (646 of them) plus MEPs, some peers and journalists. Addressing and signing over 700 letters is not something I care to do every week, but if they enjoy the book and get the message, it's well worth it.


Before all that we had our last book launch of the year, waving off LEAVING, volume 5 of Mersey Minis. With the fifth volume we could launch the set in its chic PVC belt, clear, so you can see all the colours and cover illustrations. Very cute. AND we had an exhibition of all the illustrations at the same event. Lots of fun, and bundles of books vanishing with new owners - lovely.

Poetry Kit magazine now online

A message from Jim Bennett:
Poetry Kit Magazine is now online at

http://www.poetrykit.org/pkmag/index.htm

With POETRY from: Patrick Frank - Lyn Lifshin - Sam Silva - David W Rushing – Kaye Aldenhoven - Rosemary Quinn
Raud Kennedy - Lynn Strongin - Ian C Smith - Lorn Macintyre - Ashok Niyogi - Laura Solomon

POETRY FEATURE using autobiographical poetry by Alan Corkish - S. K. Iyer as a start point for responses from other poets.

REACTIONS from: Sherry Pasquarello - Waiata Dawn Davies - Stuart Nunn - James Bell - Catherine Kanaan
Philip Johnson - Gary Blankenship - Jonathan Shaw - Irene Hossack - Sally James - Barbara Philips

and including the following FEATURES
An Introduction to Hyperpoetry by Edward Picot
Legal Deposit at the British Library by Richard Price
Writers Forum - Lawrence Upton
Interview with Michael Levy
New York and what I did to it - Rosie Lugosi

Stella Duffy and Rupert Smith on books, writing, and getting published

Have a look at this. It's on Homotopia TV, so there's - unsurprisingly - a gay & lesbian angle to this conversation, but whether you're whether you're gay, straight, or confused, Rupert and Stella talk a great deal of sense about the process of writing, getting published, attracting readers and selling books. Have a watch. Go to the festival!

Hit http://homotopia.tv/ or go to 'Stella & Rup on writing' in the links list (opposite & down a bit)

Countdown to L Day

Less than three hours to go now until Liverpool's 800th anniversary. Eight centuries since Bad King John did a Good Thing and signed the first charter to turn Liverpool from a fishing village into a charter town, albeit with a modest seven streets. And it's at the bottom of one of those original streets, where the Mersey used to lap at the wall of the chapel, that we will be launching Mersey Minis 3 tomorrow afternoon. Huzzah thrice! Happy jollies to us!

So delicious you'd want to lick them

We've now got the whole series of Mersey Minis back from the printer, although Volumes 4 and 5 won't be launched till Sept and Nov respectively. They are scrumptious – shouldn't brag, I suppose, but they are just yummm. The spines of the set, lined up together, look like ice cream strips - blackcurrant, pistachio, strawberry, blueberry and peach. Positively lickable. And in a tin (which they will be come Christmas) we might sell more in food shops than bookshops.

And that's just the colours. The illustrations are fabulous – beautiful linocuts, for te covers and the 15 icons scattered through the text. And as for the reading matter – fascinating, enchanting, poignant, wry – all those jolly adjectives.

There's been nothing like them before – the combination of design, size, and content – little things, postcard sized but with plenty of good reading - perfect for pockets and handbags for reading en route or sneaky distraction in boring circumstances.

They're very different to our normal case-bound, colour photography look, and we're thrilled to bits with them, and (more to the point) with people's reactions to them. How lovely it is to have one's babies admired and cooed over....