INTERVIEW: BARRINGTON STOKES PUBLISHERS 2

SquareOne Features

by Karen Combe

Part Two

Crime writers and male interest subjects seem to dominate the 2007 catalogue somewhat, but Murray insists this is what reader's want: "It just so happens that the authors who are interested in us are crime writers, and we are looking for good authors. Ninety per cent of our readers are male, so many of our titles do have male leading characters. But we do have some titles such as No More Victims by Natasha Cooper and One Mistake by Joanna Hines, with female leading characters that will appeal to all readers."

Zanily titled gr8reads, for ages 12-16 but with a reading age below eight, deals sensitively with the grown up issues of pregnancy, love and serious illness. But in Deadline, by John Townsend, a terrorist intent on blowing up a plane en route to Washington with a portable anti-aircraft missile system gets his comeuppance and ends up well and truly splattered, definitely a story with a moral.

Classics are beginning to appear to balance out the range and exciting themes continue to keep reluctant readers interested. Murray is very keen to push forward in this direction and says: "This is a project we approached in conjunction with City Literature earlier this year. Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped was adapted into a graphic novel by comic artist Cam Kennedy (better known for his work on Batman), with writing partner Alan Grant and was really well received. The next classic Jekyll and Hyde will be even better. It's got the perfect story for us and is it's due out in 2008."

They are pleased to say that their books are reviewed on a level playing field alongside mainstream books and Brown is clear about their position in the publishing world. "We were the Independent Children's Publisher of the year in 2006 and the books and the company are always received well. We do have much smaller book runs compared with large publishers, and are not seen as competition as we are a specialist publisher with schools constituting a quarter of our market. We don't accept unsolicited manuscripts, though people do send them in believing it is easy to write in this style."

Barrington Stoke continue to flourish, and unlike most other publishers are not restrained by what publishing guru Steve Ferris refers to as 'fashion, trends and crazes.' No doubt in their tenth anniversary year they will continue to forge ahead in their own unique direction. Murray says: "To celebrate our anniversary we are having a bumper publishing year with a new series Solo for really struggling readers and extra print runs from all our ranges. We will back at the Edinburgh Festival again with a theme relating to our new projects and of course we will be having a big party."

Seven of their authors are long listed for various prestigious book awards including James Lovegrove, author of Kill Swap, who is long listed for the Manchester book award 2008, will be celebrating too.

EDINBORING

SquareOne Opinion

by Dave Hynes

Edinburgh Castle has just been painted pink for the rest of 2008, with a proposed change to deep purple in 2009. Leith Walk will be turned into a blue and yellow Champs Elysee once the tram is finished. Plans to turn the Cowgate a light turquoise are being discussed at Holyrood today. Or maybe not.

I love Edinburgh, I really do. It’s a city that offers so much; culture, entertainment, the arts… battered mars bars. It has some beautiful buildings too, so beautiful in fact the city seems to sparkle with colours of every hue. Well, actually, no it doesn’t because unfortunately Edinburgh is almost uniformly grey. The use of granite may make Scottish buildings practically eternal, but I think the city is in dire need of a facelift.

The architecture of cities often reflects a civic personality and speaks a lot about its citizens and its history. Greyness may say a lot about Edinburgh; hard, proud, no- nonsense, intelligent- even beautiful. But it also says another thing . . . boring! What Edinburgh needs is an Antoni Gaudi to spruce up the place, someone with a vision that goes beyond the dour greyness of Edinburgh’s esteemed edifices. Where is Edinburgh’s imagination? Why do our buildings have to be so serious?

Give me black or give me white, but I’m afraid I’ve had enough of grey. A greyness which in the short winter days kinds of adds to the dourness of the season. Between George IV Bridge and the Royal Mile colour is so scarce it’s as though a grey sheet of architectural fog has descended. Edinburgh has surely one of the greatest cityscapes in the world; Princes St and South Bridge overlook a magnitude of beautiful architecture but my goodness aren’t they mostly grey.

Grey, grey, grey is what Edinburgh is today. Where is Edinburgh’s Pompidou Centre or its Sagrada Familia? Edinburgh’s cityscape needs imprecision and audacity, and most of all it needs humour. In some ways Holyrood Parliament has at least attempted to tickle our funny bone but it’s unfortunately the jokes is a bit s_t.

Colour is light-hearted and I would prefer another architectural catastrophe than a more traditional, sublimely built but dull grey monolith. What Edinburgh needs is a little imagination, and one that goes beyond the trams. We need a facelift, a make-over which looks towards Edinburgh’s future rather than taking pride in its past. We need colour, especially during winter. Edinburgh’s buildings should reflect the vibrancy of life in this city; they should stand out not so much for prestige but for daring and endeavour. Let’s have a bright ochre statue in George St, and a maroon pyramid on Charlotte Square. Let’s turn our theatres bright green and our libraries shining white.

Not everything in life is black and white. But sometimes it should be and in Edinburgh’s case, shades of grey are no compromise at all. Just add colour!

Got any good suggestions for where Edinburgh could do with a lick of paint. Fancy the castle painted like a rainbow during festival time? Should we renovate the Cowgate into deep crimson or how about an ocean blue for Holyrood Palace? Let the SquareOne News team know.

SquareOne - Scottish Cities In A Word

1 Glasgow - mental

2 Edinburgh - grey

3 Aberdeen - cold

4 Dundee - why?

5 Inverness - rural

Photo by absolutwade

EDINBURGH MEADOWS FESTIVAL RETURNS

SquareOne News

by Pere Fornes

SquareOne can reveal that, following a two year absence, the popular Meadows Festival will return this summer.

The event, which ran for 30 consecutive years until 2005, will see a variety of stalls, activities and performances run on the weekend of 7 and 8 June, and for the first time will be run by the Meadows Festival Association.

The charity takes over responsibility for the event after the bank account and official documentation for the festival were formally accepted during its AGM in November. At a recent meeting, Linda Hendry, chair of the association said: "The Meadows Festival was run for 20 years by a family that decided to quit in 2005. There was a two-year gap and some people tried to organise it but this couldn’t be done until after November."

There will be different attractions at this year's festival, like stalls selling crafts, second-hand clothing and jewellery. Food will be available and local school children will participate in a football competition. There will also be performances, such as African dancers and a kids' area will offer face painting and story telling sessions.

This year the festival plans to be more environmentally friendly with a power pod being used for the first time to generate electricity.

Community councillors from the surrounding area are involved in the organisation of the event and are looking for volunteers to act as stewards, distribute programs or pick up litter.

A volunteer form can be found at http://meadowsfestival.blogspot.com/ or you can sign up at the Pavilion Cafe on the Meadows.

Applicants for stalls should send a stamped addressed envelope to PO Box 12758, EH8 9YP.

Photo by Daveybot

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL LAUNCH

The Hub

by Chris Hammond

SquareOne Entertainment

The Launch of the Edinburgh International Festival at the Hub, was so I thought, going to be a fantastically frivolous jaunt. Here I expected to swagger in to find myself surrounded by whimsical nubile arty young women and ruddy faced homosexuals pontificating on War poets and the best way to eat an egg. A promiscuous net-workers dream, I envisioned an evening where even my most mildly debauched anecdote would seem hilariously avant garde. I was going to get numbers, I was going to meet people and I was going to consume an impressive amount of free alcohol.

Were things as expected? Not quite. As I sauntered into the guts of the Hub I was confronted by a collection of coves so crusty a couple could have been cadavers. Oh dear. Spider senses tingling (largely this manifests itself in a dull ache in my left testicle) it dawned on me that I was out of my depth. Even the fail safe mantra of “what would Richard Sharpe do?” couldn’t help me. Not to worry as long as nobody spoke to me I couldn’t cause any damage and as long as there were speeches going on nobody was going to speak to me. But as detailed in outlining events as festival director Jonathan Mills was in his speech, it did of course have to finish.

Afterwards polite applause ensued. Polite this is except for me, who caught up by the fact there actually seemed to be blood pumping in the audience after all, had embarked upon what can best be described as the kind of over zealous palm slapping witnessed only at football grounds. I was drawing glances, but then that could have been because of the urinal splashback which seemed to have deposited itself all over the toes of my badly polished shoes.

I was being sized up. A crumpled, jaded, 24 year old hack in crumpled jaded untucked shirt was fair game for this wizened selection of tweed clad society types. A younger sort (mid 60’s perhaps?), beefy, handsome but wearing a deranged smile came over: “what do you think of the bill?” Mind focusing I replied “I don’t think it’s been the same since they axed Reg.”

Frequent feckless festival themed faux pas aside, I began to hit some sort of stride and can confirm now, as I did that evening to many, that the Edinburgh International Festival 2008 will be ‘s_t hot’.

SquareOne’s International Festival Picks 2008

1 Roby Laktos and Ensemble

2 Alfred Brendel

3 Matthew Bourne New Dventures of Dorian Gray

4 Devils Ship

5 Class Enemy

Don't take my flippant word for it visit the International Festival website for more www.eif.co.uk