Cinnamon Press Newsletter MAY 2008

andrewo · Founder Joined: 13 Jul 2007 Posts: 69 Location: Saddleworth

Meirion House
Glan yr afon
Tanygrisiau
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Gwynedd LL41 3SU
www.cinnamonpress.com

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Welcome to the May Cinnamon Press Newsletter:

In this edition:

New titles for May
May book offers
150 issues of Envoi
Invitations and Events
Cinnamon Writing Awards
Other Writing Opportunities

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April was the busiest month we’ve had since the beginning of Cinnamon. Dan Healy’s launch in Cambridge was a fantastic start to the month – great hospitality in Heffers and a great audience all helped, but best of all was Dan’s reading – exquisite pared down poems introduced with succinct wit. A week later we were in Cheltenham for a reading of Eva Shell by Kate North at the University of Gloucester – a really well-attended event and another fantastic reading. The next week we were off to Swansea where Lloyd Rees launched Simple Arithmetic at the Dylan Thomas Centre – more wonderful hospitality and an open mic session contributed to a wonderful evening. Then on to Cardiff for the joint launch of Kate North’s Eva Shell and Holly Howitt’s Dinner Time – two of the most innovative titles we’ve published to date and two young writers who clearly have brilliant futures ahead of them. While we were jaunting around launches other Cinnamon authors were reading in Devon, Bath, Merthyr Tydfil and Cardigan.

May is set to be another bustling month with launches and readings in Cardiff, Newcastle, Hay and York, plus forthcoming June events in Dublin, Limerick and London. We hope many of you will be able to join us for an event or take advantage of our new publication offers.

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New titles for May:

This month sees the launch of two wonderful books – Mike Jenkins’ long awaited novella and Joan Hewitt’s superb debut poetry collection. Both books are on special offer on the website and both have launches lined up – two books that are not to be missed.

Praise for The Fugitive Three:

In the South Wales town of Cwmtaff Shelly Bush, a fiery, intelligent girl whose mother died of a drug overdose leaving her at the mercy of harsh ‘care’ system; Sam Taylor, who seems adept only at getting life wrong and Mary Croft, a gifted A level student who feels alienated from her father, after the death of her mother and betrayed by her boyfriend find their stories coming together as insists on hope and rebellion in the face of overwhelming odds. Sharp, funny, fast paced and precisely executed The Fugitive Three is a dazzling display of dialect, plot and characters who, despite their flaws, are completely believable and eminently likeable.

“….narrated in a clipped, cartoon-like manner, blunt and humorous… The Fugitive Three is about isolation and the loss of the mother. It concerns the indifference (and worse) of society and shows how youngsters may be scarred but still possess a razor-edge resilience that can help them survive their wasted lives.”

John Pikoulis

Praise for Missing the Eclipse:

We all want to be told tales, and we want the voice telling us to be funny, passionate and often poignant, wise to the momentariness of joy and capable of conveying how stunned we are by loss. Missing the Eclipse does just that, and as a result is full of tenderness and estrangement: poetry for adults.

W.N.Herbert

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May book offers:

We have even more great offers this month – Jane McKie’s Morocco Rococo, winner of the best first book of the year in the Sundial Scottish Arts Council prize, is still on offer for only £6 inc p+p in the UK together with some of our newest poetry titles from Kentucky, Wales, Ireland and New Zealand:

Joan Hewitt’s tender, honest poetry tales in Missing the Eclipse, Kelly Moffett’s achingly beautiful Waiting for a Warm Body to Fill It, Daniel Healy’s crisp, refreshing Winter Lines, Lloyd Rees’s finely observed, ironic Simple Arithmetic, Catherine Brennan’s vibrant, sensuous Beneaththe Deluge, Iain Britton’s precise, visceral Hauled Head First into a Leviathan and, hot off the press, Frank Dullaghan’s On the Back of the Wind – a distinctive voice already attracting attention for this precise, lucid debut collection.

Or the best in new fiction:

The fast-paced, compelling dialect novella, The Fugitive Three by Mike Jenkins, the multi-genre innovative novel by Kate North, Eva Shell, the superb, gripping collection of microfictions, Dinner Time by Holly Howitt or Herbert Williams’ award winning, funny, poignant novella, The Marionettes – all for only £6 per title inc p+p in the UK.

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Envoi – celebrating 150 issues

Envoi 150 will be published next month with a gala edition of 112 pages (instead of the usual 96) so now is a great time to subscribe.

Also to celebrate 150 issues of Envoi in June this year we have now launched the the Envoi bookclub – all subscribers to Envoi automatically belong to the bookclub – simply take out a subscription to Envoi if you don’t already have one (£15 for three issues) and you will be entitled to receive 20% discount off the full price of all our books plus free post and packing when ordering by post using a cheque – that’s only £6.40 for any poetry book and only £7.20 for any novel any time of the year (alternatively of course you can also still take advantage of other special offers)

In addition we now have a new reviews section of the Envoi website featuring excellent reviews from our talented team of poet-reviewers. Take a look at www.envoipoetry.com

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Exciting launches for May – please join us if you can

Launch of The Fugitive Three at the Wales Millennium Centre: May 8th

Cinnamon Press & Mike Jenkins, in association with Academi, invite you to the Cardiff launch of Mike’s fast paced novella, The Fugitive Three.

Thursday 8th May, 7.00 for 7:30pm ,

at the Glanfa, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

RSVP to jan@cinnamonpress.com

Jan Fortune-Wood, Tŷ Meirion, Glan yr afon, Tanygrisiau, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, LL41 3SU

Please arrive between 7:00pm & 7:15pm for a complimentary drink and the chance to buy signed copies of this excellent novella.

About The Fugitive Three:

In the South Wales town of Cwmtaff Shelly Bush, a fiery, intelligent girl whose mother died of a drug overdose leaving her at the mercy of harsh ‘care’ system; Sam Taylor, who seems adept only at getting life wrong and Mary Croft, a gifted A level student who feels alienated from her father, after the death of her mother and betrayed by her boyfriend find their stories coming together as insists on hope and rebellion in the face of overwhelming odds. Sharp, funny, fast paced and precisely executed The Fugitive Three is a dazzling display of dialect, plot and characters who, despite their flaws, are completely believable and eminently likeable.

“….narrated in a clipped, cartoon-like manner, blunt and humorous… The Fugitive Three is about isolation and the loss of the mother. It concerns the indifference (and worse) of society and shows how youngsters may be scarred but still possess a razor-edge resilience that can help them survive their wasted lives.”

John Pikoulis

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Cinnamon Press & Joan Hewitt invite you to the launch of Joan’s debut poetry collection, Missing the Eclipse.

Thursday 15th May , 7.00 for 7:30pm ,

at the Old George Inn, 10 Cloth Market
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1EE

Free event with bar.

RSVP to jan@cinnamonpress.com

Jan Fortune-Wood, Tŷ Meirion, Glan yr afon, Tanygrisiau, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, LL41 3SU

Praise for Missing the Eclipse:

The poems in Missing the Eclipse unfold like short stories told by moonlight. Their subjects are the enduring puzzle of family, love and identity, set against seaside and city, Europe, near and far. The recurring motif of the camera serves as reflexive eye, filter and captor, framing these ongoing moments that are evoked in language that is both sturdy and spare, unflinching.

Linda France

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Two Events at the Guardian Hay Festival, Hay on Wye:

Cinnamon Press is delighted to taking part again in the Hay on Wye literary festival, both in the main programme and as part of the Welsh Books Council programme. We hope to see you there.

Full details of the festival programme can be found online at: www.hayfestival.com

Winning Stories:

Eagle in the Maze

Literature in Wales Stand, Hay Festival

Monday 26th May, 1.00 p.m.

Join Cinnamon Press in association with Academi and The Rhys Davies Trust at the Literature in Wales stand for the launch of Eagle in the Maze, selected by Tessa Hadley and Meic Stephens, the anthology of the winning entries of the 2007 Rhys Davies short story competition. Hear excerpts of some of the winning stories and learn more about this prestigious prize that is helping to keep alive the short story form in Wales.

The Literature in Wales stand is a collaboration between Academi, The National Library of Wales, The Welsh Books Council, Welsh Assembly Government and Arts Council of Wales.

“You can put a whole world in a short story or next to nothing at all: anything’s permitted. In all eleven winning stories, what matters is that subject and form and language combine to make the sparks fly, to make something happen, something new.”

Meic Stephens & Tessa Hadley

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Because We're Brilliant:

The Hay on Wye launch of

Dinner Time by Holly Howitt, Eva Shell by Kate North and

The Fugitive Three by Mike Jenkins

Thursday May 29th, the Guardian Hay Festival, Hay on Wye, 11.30 a.m.

Join us for an exciting event featuring three engaging and distinctive works of fiction – Holly Howitt’s innovative, surprising microfictions, Kate North’s multi-genre, multi-layered debut novel, Eva Shell and Mike Jenkins’ sharp, witty and convincing novella. Jan Fortune-Wood will be introducing the authors: a chance to hear excerpts of these two innovative, engaging books, ask questions from the audience and buy signed copies.

Praise for Dinner Time, Eva Shell and for The Fugitive Three:

“…these characters really do seem to be more alive than the characters in most books (and perhaps some people!) seem to be. … one might think it relevant to recall Virginia Woolf’s praise of Middlemarch as `one of the few novels written for grown-ups’.”

John Freeman

“Holly Howitt’s microfictions confront the reader with an unsafe world on the edge of implosion or disintegration, a world where the contours are forever folding in upon themselves. … Nothing is quite what it seems here; a quality which intrigues the reader, inciting one to turn the page and discover where we are going next. The tales are gripping, the writing is intelligent, measured, funny, frequently delicious and Ms Howitt knows how to apply a sharp twist of the knife, often in a way that is as poetic as it is unsettling.”

Richard Gwyn

“….narrated in a clipped, cartoon-like manner, blunt and humorous… The Fugitive Three is about isolation and the loss of the mother. It concerns the indifference (and worse) of society and shows how youngsters may be scarred but still possess a razor-edge resilience that can help them survive their wasted lives.”

John Pikoulis

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Other Events in May and June:

Cinnamon poet, Bob Beagrie, author of Yoik will be performing in York on May 14th:

The Speakers' Corner, York, Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 Open mic for poetry, storytelling and spoken word performance. With special guests Bob Beagrie, Andy Willoughby and Shaun Lennox Upstairs at the Yorkshire Terrier, 10 Stonegate, York YO1 8AS Doors open 7.30 for an 8pm start Admission £1. Information: 01904 785138 or info@aestheticamagazine.com

Ek Zuban: One Voice - where the social meets shamanism – a spoken word and musical collaboration by poets Bob Beagrie, Andy Willoughby and blues musician Shaun Lennox, performing poems from 'The Flesh of the Bear' Anglo-Finnish Exchange.

“The combination of Lennox’s multi-faceted musicianship and Waits-like growl, Willoughby’s elastic sound-mimicry, and Beagrie’s sheer relish of language makes for an electric performance. These guys are truly original, not content in either form or content to relax into cliché, they are kicking language into hidden corners. This is at once challenging and entertaining stuff, and demands to be heard."

David Woolley (Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea)

Cinnamon poet Judy Kendall, author of The Drier The Brighter , invites you to the Contact Theatre Manchester for Diabolic Kyogen: a comedy double bill directed by Jonathan Man Wednesday 14th to Saturday 17th May 2008, 7.30 pm; Matinees Thursday 15th and Saturday 17th May, 1.30pm
£7 / £4 concessions. Two plays. Japan vs Britain in this comic culture clash:

Weighed Down By Love, translated by Judy Kendall with Iris Elgrichi – a unique chance to see a knockabout Japanese kyogen comedy. Two sparring servants scheme to undermine their dominant master with disastrous results &
The Diabolic Banquet, a new play by Rob Hayes with dramaturgy by Noel Grieg. Wiith a corpse in their living room and a street full of nosy neighbours, two reclusive housemates decide that there's only one way out: Murder, and lots of it! It’s a case of East meets West via The Young Ones and Beckett!
Contains strong language – suitable for 15+ due to severely bad morals.

www.contact-theatre.org Box Office: 0161 274 0600

Special behind-the-scenes talks after Thurs & Sat 1:30 shows (45mins):
Thurs 15th May: “When East meets West” with award-winning writer Judy Kendall & leading British Chinese theatre director Jonathan Man.

Judy discusses her Noh theatre adaptation, produced in Japan winning the UNESCO Uchimura Award for director Abel Solares. Jonathan discusses the EA:ST project for young British Chinese pioneered at Contact, and his current cross-cultural work.

Sat 17th May: “Meet the Creative Team” with writer Rob Hayes and actors Adam Robert Brody, Jay Oliver Yip & Jamie Zubairi, chaired by director Jonathan Man. Rob discusses his passage from being a competition winner at Contact through to his first play being professionally produced. Former Contact Young Actors Company member Adam and British East Asian actors Jay & Jamie discusses share their journeys as professional actors.

Special congratulations to Judy who has also been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship for the month of July for her poetry.

June will see the launch of Frank Dullaghan’s debut poetry collection On the Back of the Wind – available now from the website. Frank will be reading from his new collection at Lauderdale House, London on June 12th and will also be launching the collection at two venues in Ireland:

Dublin Launch of On the Back of the Wind and Beneath the Deluge:

Tuesday, June 3rd @ 6.30 p.m. Poetry Ireland in association with Cinnamon Press presents the launch of Beneath the Deluge by Catherine Brennan &On the Back of the Wind Frank Dullaghan, Unitarian Church, 112 St Stephen's Green West, Dublin 2

Frank Dullaghan was born in Dundalk, Ireland, and read Economics at University College Dublin. He also holds an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Glamorgan University. He was one of the main organisers of the Essex Poetry Festival and led the panel of judges for the Young Essex Poet of the Year competition. For many years, Frank also edited Seam poetry journal.

'Frank Dullaghan's quietly spoken poems move between tenderness and terror with a humane warmth. They deal with the business of the world as experienced by a fully human being. The language follows and embraces a wide range of affairs, touching on loved, known and dangerous things - the texture of experience - lightly, unfussily, with a lovely ear for the plain cadence that is, for most of us, the sweet-sad music of being alive.'

George Szirtes

Prize winning poet Catherine M Brennan was born in Dublin and now lives in London. In this, her debut collection, she brings together her finest work: fresh, distinctive and honed with an eye for form and an ear for exact language.

‘Beneath the Deluge is a deliciously sensuous first collection, exploring the nature, both physical and metaphorical, of earth and water, drought and flood. In powerfully physical and resonant imagery, water floods, courses, thunders, slants and bubbles through the poems, sweeping the reader along an elemental, passionate, but always beautifully balanced and controlled journey. This is writing which lodges in the body, under the skin and in the senses, 'rich with the scents/of crushed coriander, hot peanut oil/incense rising above traffic fumes.' Pound urged poets to 'Make it New;' Catherine Brennan has achieved this in a body of work which urges us to reflect on our relationships with nature, with catastrophe, with memory, and with our own bodies. ‘

Catherine Smith

Frank reading in Limerick Wednesday June 4th @ 9pm Whitehousepoets White House Poetry Revival readings at the White House Pub, city centre. ( 52 O'Connell Street )

If you can’t make it to any of the launches or events then why not join us online – you will find Cinnamon on Second Life and on Facebook or come and read our new blog (launched to celebrate the publication of our 50 th title, Waiting for a Warm Body to Fill It) – read a bit about the day to day workings of a small press and leave us your comments. You’ll find the blog at: http://cinnamonpress.blogspot.com/

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Writing Opportunities from Cinnamon Press

With our publishing schedule full well into 2010, Cinnamon Press writing awards offer not only cash prizes, but the prospect of a publishing slot with a contract for first poetry collection/first novel or novella and short stories. Previous winners and runners up have proven their quality not only in the competition, but by going on to critical acclaim and further awards – Jane McKie, only yesterday announced as Scottish book of the year best first book for Morocco Rococo; Ruth Leader’s The Peacock Room shortlisted for best first poetry collection in the 2007 Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize and Bill Greenwell’s Impossible Objects shortlisted for best first collection in the Forward prize. Some of our best novels, like How to Marry the Dead and Marilyn and Me, came through the competition as well as our first ever novella, The Marionettes and there are more brilliant new novels and novellas in the pipe lines from recent competitions. So why not submit your work.

Cinnamon Press Novel/la Writing Award:

first prize –£400 + publishing contract for debut novel of 50 – 80,000 words. Or debut novella of 20 – 45,000 words (adult or teen novels/novellas) Entries by post + sae. Submit first 10,000 words. Sep arate sheet – name, address, email, working title, nom de plume, novel/la word count. Five finalists submit full novel/la & receive appraisal. Deadline – 30 th June 2008. Entry - £16 per novel/la.

Cinnamon Press Poetry Collection Award:

first prize –£100 & publishing contract for first collection. Runners up published in anthology. Entries by post + sae. Submit 10 poems up to 40 lines. Sep arate sheet with name, address, email, collection title, nom de plume. Three finalists submit further 10 poems, any length. Deadline – 30 th June 2008. Entry - £16 per collection, includes free copy of winners’ anthology.

Cinnamon Press Short Story Award:

first prize –£100 & publication. Up to ten runners up stories’ published in winners’ anthology. Entries by post + sae. Up to Length 2,000 – 4,000 words. Sep arate sheet – name, address, email, working title, nom de plume. Deadline – 30 th June 2008. Entry – £16 per story, includes free copy of winners’ anthology.

Full details www.cinnamonpress.com

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Other writing opportunities

Poetry in your inbox : Oxford Brookes’ Poetry Centre has launched a new initiative: a Weekly Poem. Its aim is to bring contemporary poetry to a wider audience by emailing a weekly poem direct to peoples’ inboxes. The participating presses range from the smaller and newer to the larger and more established, providing access to a range of new poetry and voices: Anvil Press, Bloodaxe, Cinnamon, Enitharmon, Heaventree Press, Landfill, Peterloo Poets and Salt Publishing. Details and sign up to get a new poem each week at:

http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/poetry/weeklypoem.

Events at the Ceridwen Centre:

Room To Write: Spiel Unlimited will be running a series of courses at the beautiful Ceridwen Centre in Carmarthenshire during 2008. www.ceridwencentre.co.uk The courses are multi-genre with a variety of exercises, discussions, readings etc and are led by Marcus Moore and Sara- Jane Arbury. Course dates are Friday 13 – Sunday 15 June and Friday 26 – Sunday 28 September. For full details phone 01285 640470 or email courses@spiel.wanadoo.co.uk

Caribbean Houseparty, 9-11th May 2008, Ceridwen Centre (www.ceridwencentre.co.uk ) organised by Maggie Harris with Caribbean artists are musicians Keith Waithe and Jo Jo Yates and poets John Lyons, Elly Niland, and Sherree Mack. The weekend will include tuition, and full board with Caribbean-inspired meals. For further details email maggie729@btinternet.com or call 01559 371070

Aesthetica Annual Creative Works Competition: £500 for winning entries of fiction, poetry and artwork. Runners up published in Aesthetica Annual, available at Borders stores nationwide from November. Further details www.aestheticamagazine.com

KUDOS (formerly Competitions Bulletin) lists all the latest writing competitions and opportunities in six issues each year. A free sample of a back issue can be emailed as a pdf file. Details of around 250,000 pounds in prize money each issue. At least 50 competitions for poetry, around 40 for short stories. Plus collections, anthologies, playwriting, non fiction, books etc. Only 2.50 per issue; 6 issues: 15 pounds; Cheques to Carole Baldock: 17 Greenhow Avenue, West Kirby, Wirral CH48 5EL carolebaldock@hotmail.comwww.kudoswriting.wordpress.com

The New Writer magazine: Prose and Poetry Prizes 2008
F or short stories, novellas, single poems, poetry collections, essays and articles; offers cash prizes as well as publication for the prize-winning writers in The Collection, special edition of The New Writer magazine each July. Closing date 30 November.Further information including guidelines and entry fees at - http://www.thenewwriter.com/prizes.htm

The New Writer: the contemporary writing magazine which publishes the best in fact, fiction and poetry is published bi-monthly, annual sub £27.00 (UK), £33.00 (Europe airmail), £37.50 (Rest of World airmail). Big reductions for 2 and 3 year subs - see website http://www.thenewwriter.com/subscribe.htm For a free recent back copy of the magazine send 2 x first class stamps (UK) or 5 International Reply Coupons (Overseas) to: The New Writer, PO Box 60, Cranbrook, TN17 2ZR.

No other literary magazine combines … New writing; Recommendations and reviews; Thoughts on old books as well as new; Essays and Interviews with authors, actors and other media personalities … four times a year and with ever-growing success:

Get a free copy of The Reader when you subscribe

We’re offering each recipient of the Cinnamon Press newsletter a copy of the latest edition of The Reader completely free if you take out a subscription – for anyone you know that is passionate about reading! This means that instead of four issues for £24, you get five – a saving of nearly 30%. For further details about how to subscribe visit our website at www.thereader.co.uk, send us an email to readers@liv.ac.uk, or call us in the office on 0151 794 2830. Please quote ‘Cinnamon Press’ in your correspondence to ensure you get your free copy.

Launch of Missing the Eclipse at the Old George Inn, Newcastle: May 15th