Some of you might remember that last year around this time, some of my BookMachine articles were featured in the Snapshots II, a collaborative book produced by BookMachine and Kingston University Press.

Well this year, for the third year in a row, the Kingston Publishing MA students have got together to pick their favourite BookMachine articles and turn them into a blook – and this year THREE of my articles are going to be featured in it! Most thrilling.

The launch will be held on the 8th June, not far away now, and – gulp – I will be doing a five-minute talk as part of the event. It’s the first time I will ever have talked about publishing in public, so I’m very excited and not a little nervous. Hope to see you there!

GET TICKETS HERE

Hold your breath. This week I got to interview How To Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell – and it was as awesome as it sounds! Read our full conversation over on BookBrunch, or get stuck in with this excerpt right here:

There can be no argument that Cressida Cowell’s children’s book series HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON has been extraordinarily successful. Testament to this, perhaps, is the fact that Cressida calls me for our interview from a cab between meetings, but that is not to say she doesn’t give me her full attention. In fact, Cowell is as genuine and enthusiastic as you could possibly want. We talk isolated Scottish islands, what it’s like being a parent, and that last How To Train Your Dragon book.

From books to screen

Cowell discovered she wanted to write seriously after studying English at university, during a brief stint as an Editorial Assistant. “I realised that I didn’t want to be on the business side, I wanted to be on the other side – the creative side – so I then went back to art school,” she says. “I was quite a long time in education. In the end I did an MA, but now I look back and think I couldn’t have missed any bit of it. It was all kind of crucial even though it took a long time.”

Continue reading “BookBrunch | How to move your readers: An interview with Cressida Cowell”

This week has been one of my favourite times of year: London Book Fair! I actually think it’s genuinely possible that I get as excited about LBF as I do about Christmas. The LBF video team cornered me at the Quantum Conference about my experience of the Fair, which you can see here, and is probably the most articulate I can be about why I love it so much.

Continue reading “Report from London Book Fair 2016”

Much excitement today, as I’m preparing my readings for tonight’s Open Pen Anthology launch at Clapham Books in south London. Come on down and lend your support to a fabulous publication!

Wednesday 6th April 2016
7pm – Clapham Books
Open Pen Anthology Launch

Readers include: James Vella; Mat Woolfenden; Liam Hogan; Ben Byrne; Darren Lee; Peter Higgins and myself. Look forward to seeing you there!

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve given you an update on the BookBrunch interviews I’ve been writing, so here’s a little list of March’s chats – and keep your eyes peeled, I’ve got a real winner coming up this week!

Continue reading “March’s BookBrunch interviews!”

This week for the BookBrunch interview I had to curb my enthusiasm as I got to interview author of The Lie Tree and recent Costa winner Frances Hardinge:

Just when you think publishing’s getting staid, it turns around and does something delightful to change your mind. The Costa Book of the Year to children’s and YA author Frances Hardinge for her novel The Lie Treewas one of those moments.

Against the odds
Hardinge is only the second children’s author – after Philip Pullman – to win Book of the Year since the Costa (previously Whitbread) adopted this format in the mid-Eighties. “That’s, of course, one of the reasons why I didn’t think I’d get it,” she says, with what is becoming known as trademark modesty.

“At first I just felt completely stunned, then I felt stunned, sleep-deprived, and as if somebody had attached me to a sort of media rollercoaster. Now, I’m working my way around to it sometimes actually sinking in. There’s been a great deal of happiness throughout. On the occasions where it has sunk in, I have a tendency to giggle… I still can’t really quite believe that this is actually happening!”

Continue reading “BookBrunch | Endlessly Curious: In conversation with Frances Hardinge”

Super-exciting news! The Open Pen Anthology, which will feature a piece of my microfiction, ‘Desk Drawer’ is now available for pre-order!

Even better, order your copy before 10th March and receive it postage free. For those of you who are really enthusiastic, you can also order the beautiful boxed set with fancy extras. Click here for more information and to order.

The book will be launching on 11th March at Brick Lane Bookshop, with further launch events to follow on 15th March at Yurt Cafe and in south London at Clapham Books on 6th April (I’ll be at the south London one – hope to see you there!) For more info about the events, click here.

This week on the BookBrunch Interview, a discussion with the lovely Chris and Jen Hamilton-Emery from Norfolk-based Salt Publishing about what is being heralded as the ‘Silver Age of the small press’:

Despite, or perhaps because of, the dramas of the past, there’s no doubt that 2016 is off to a good start for Salt. It’s already been nominated twice for the 2016 Dublin Literary Award, The Good Son by Paul McVeigh is the City Reads 2016 title in Brighton and Hove and The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies has been dubbed a 2016 Regional Read. And while this success comes on the back of a hugely positive past year, the small press hasn’t always had an easy ride, as I discovered when I sat down with Chris and Jen Hamilton-Emery for a cup of tea under the big Norfolk sky to discuss the many reinventions of Salt.

Continue reading “BookBrunch | Independent Publisher Focus: Salt on the Silver Age of the small press”

There’s a new column starting up over on BookBrunch: the BookBrunch Weekly Interview. Starting with last week’s chat with Louis de Bernières, a new interview will be posted every week with someone (or someones!) from the publishing world.

This week, I got to talk to Eloise Millar and Sam Jordison, who run one of my all-time favourite indie presses, Galley Beggar Press:

Continue reading “BookBrunch | Galley Beggar on short stories, industry flaws and the ups and downs of success”

There comes a moment for every writer where you are told it’s time for a Facebook page. For me, that moment is now. For some reason, I find Facebook scarier than Twitter, so please do lend you support – and your ‘likes’ – over at:

facebook.com/jasminkirkbridewrites

The page will be updated with news about just my writing, so if you like what I write but aren’t as interested in Publishing in general as my Twitter feed is, this is the place for you!

Thanks in advance and looking forward to our Facebook chats!

A Valentine’s Day special for all you poetry buddies out there: a conversation about love poetry with the irrepressible Louis de Bernières, written up for BookBrunch. Read the full article for free right here:

Louis de Bernières’ house is exactly as you imagine a writer’s house ought to be. Cozy yet somewhat labyrinthine, half-open doors giving hints at rooms packed with curiosities beyond: a half-built guitar on a long dining table, the flick of a cat’s tail around a doorframe, stacks of musical instruments and books. One would expect the man who lives in this house to write love poetry, and de Bernières’ latest collection, Of Love and Desire, doesn’t disappoint.

First love: poetry
De Bernières has made his career in novels, notably Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994), which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and the more recent The Dust That Falls From Dreams (2015). In recent years, however, he has begun to publish poetry, which he has been writing since he was very young. The latest collection includes poems from his 20s right up to the present day, the earliest one being “On Giving a Silver Heart to a Cruel Lady”.

Continue reading “BookBrunch | Of Grief and Desire: Louis de Bernières on writing love poetry”

I’m very, very excited to announce that I have officially won the TSS January Monthly 500 prize for a piece of flash fiction I wrote!! You can read it here for the next couple of months:

http://www.theshortstory.co.uk/competitions/flash-fiction/

This is the first time I have won a prize for my writing. I’ve been shortlisted before, or won third place, but this is the first time I’ve ever come top of the pile and I’m completely over the moon.

After several months of writing regular articles for them, I’m very pleased to say that I have now officially joined the BookBrunch team, assisting the editors Neill and Nick.

BookBrunch is a publishing news and views site, with a daily newsletter and lots of opinion pieces. It’s been brilliant working with the team so far and I’m really looking forward to undertaking more responsibility, alongside my other freelance projects.

You can visit the website and subscribe to the mailing list right here.

This fortnight on BookMachine, in honour of a bright, shiny New Year, an upbeat take on publishing’s future! As always, if you want to finish the article, carry it on over at the BookMachine website.

This will actually be my last regular BookMachine article for a while, as I turn to focus my energies on building up my freelance business. Stay up to date with any ad hoc articles on publishing I’m writing on my blog’s Publishing & Industry page.

Some weeks ago, I was explaining the returns system and how integral it had become to the industry to a friend.

“I get it,” he smiled, “publishing’s built on its broken bits.”

The comment was said without malice, but it gnawed at me. Is publishing really that ‘broken’? I don’t believe it for a minute, but is that naïve idealism, or do we have a real reason to hold out hope for the future?

Continue reading “BookMachine | Hope and Confidence: An optimistic future for publishing”

I’m very pleased to say that Seven Stages has been shortlisted for The Short Story Monthly 500 Flash Fiction Competition for January 2016. Final judging is pending, but you can view the rather exciting shortlist, and December’s winners, right here.

Seven Stages has previously been shortlisted for the Kilburn Literary Festival Flash Fiction Competition 2016 just a couple of months ago, and I’m really delighted to be announcing its publication so soon afterwards.

Congratulations to all the other shortlisted authors and good luck to all of us!

Happy 2016 everybody! Wishing all of you the best things for the year ahead and beyond!

This new year has brought some particularly big changes for me, and it is with great pleasure that I am announcing I am now officially freelance! That’s right, I’m taking all my strings on all my bows and going totally independent.

Writer for Hire

Journalist

Editor

Reader/Reviewer

Designer

From now on, I will be taking on long and short term jobs inside of publishing and out of it, so please do get in touch if you have any upcoming projects. I’d love to talk about collaborating.

The decision to go freelance has been a couple of months in the making, but I’m pleased to say it’s already lead to some really exciting projects, with more possibilities arising every day. I am really looking forward to continuing to work on a diverse portfolio of jobs and to getting to know more of the fantastic, imaginative people in our industry.

Look forward to hearing from you!