eight cuts

Three Minutes of Thunder

danholloway — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:15:04 +0000

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(everyone’s links to follow tomorrow!)

Where to start? I don’t know but I’ll try to do it briefly. For years now I’ve wanted to do a show north of Birmingham and having finally got the chance, the lovely people at For Books’ Sake suggested I might want to consider Three Minute Theatre at Afflecks as a venue.

In what seemed like a mix of fate and extraordinarity, John and Gina, the lovely people behind this marvel of a venue, not only said yes but welcomed us with open arms, so much that when I turned up to meet them for the first time on the afternoon of the gig they felt like old friends.

I’ll be devoting a whole piece to this place, but for now I’ll just say that it’s a dream venue – a perfect underground lair with its urban art tables, electric guitar wall-hangings and leather sofa on stage; yet with top notch professional sound and lighting. I think everyone agreed we couldn’t have had a better setting for what turned out to be a remarkable night. And their ginger wine and lemonade became an instant cult hit.

Venue was just the first problem I had to face putting this together. There was the little matter of a line-up. New Libertines gigs have lots of performers. I didn’t know lots of performers in Manchester. I did know a few, however, who were in the vicinity. But Laura Jarratt, Rachel Genn, Elizabeth Baines and Michael Stewart all fall into that category of “way more talented and successful than me.”

Nonetheless, when I did the cheeky thing and asked them they all said yes. And the wonderful poet Paul Askew agreed to come from Oxford. But five writers don’t make a show. Yet again, For Books’ Sake came to my help. Not only are they the best thing on the web. They’re pretty much up there in real life as the tippest toppest people you could meet.

With their help I found three more stunning acts to round out our programme: Claire Robertson, Sarah-Clare Conlon, and Sian Rathore. And then it kept going – the people behind Manchester’s top spoken word night Bad Language all pitched in for open mic (thanks again to FBS!). eight cuts favourite Neil Schiller turned out to be available to read. It was getting overwhelming.

There was also the date question. Rather, there wasn’t. I had one date free. January 23rd. A Monday. The only piece of advice everyone shared with me was to avoid Mondays. Mondays are promotion hell. Super. But Monday it was, and with Veronika von Volkova’s amazing poster in place, I was ready.

But I had no idea what to expect.

What we ended up with was the most receptive, friendly crowd (of around 50-60 at its peak) I can remember. Not only did they take everyone to heart and genuinely seem to enjoy it all (or, at least, the ginger wine), they were remarkably generous with their applause and their laughter – reacting in just the right way in just the right places to

Rachel Genn’s painfully acute observations in The Cure, even oohing painfully at the appropriate junctures of Laura Jarratt’s heartbreaking Skin Deep.

And if Paul Askew’s The Crow had sides properly splitting, nothing could have prepared anyone for the reaction to Sian Rathore’s mesmerising, machine-gun hypomanic piece of messianism “I’m so jacked.”

I can’t remember the last time I heard a response like that to poetry.

Talking of Paul’s Crow, it quickly became clear that there was something of a bird theme to the night (I felt I should take everyone out for KFC afterwards). We had Michael Stewart, author of Not the Booker winning King Crow pairing up with Paul, Elizabeth Baines, author of Too Many Magpies, and the open mic gave us pigeons, starlings, and chopped chicken.

But the night was more than Sian’s brilliant but unsettling humour, Paul’s glorious absurdism, Laura’s porcelain-delicate emotions, and Rachel’s achingly painful observations.

Michael Stewart’s exquisitely-crafted Couples poems untangled relationships with the deftness and care of a scientist unravelling starnds of DNA.

Elizabeth Baines gave us a remarkable piece of what could best be described as gentle observational nihilism as meaning’s attempts to push above the parapets of the practicalities of life are repeatedly crushed.

Claire Robertson’s performative storytelling took us on a remarkable all-sensory journey as she integrated the pages of a scroll, props, the collective consciousness and her own body to reflect upon the cycles and fulness of life in the Year of the Dragon. It was an all-encompassing tour de force that immersed us in a collective dream.

Sarah-Clare Conlon edits Quickies: the night’s best-selling book – a collection of delicious filth. And her flashes featuring sex toys and uniforms disrobed were a heady mix of subtle, sensuous and smut, pitch-perfectly delivered.

And the open mic was a box of treats stuffed to brimming. Neil Schiller kicked off with beautiful, haunting prose read to perfection.

For Books’ Sake Alex Herod gave some gorgeously poignant observation.

Bad Language’s trilogy of Dan Carpenter,

David Hartley and

Fat Roland offered respectively Batteries, which felt like a 21st century take on Bright Lights, Big City in more senses than just being in the 2nd person, and was a serendipitous counterpoint to Metropolis, which had been showing on the screen behind the stage before we started; The Supermarket exploded, a series of post-consumerist satirical microfictions; and Bigger Than This, a quietly heartbreaking piece of nostalgia.

Ben of the Green proffered an extraordinary piece of what he later described as 4% Dada which featured a digeridoo rendition of Inspector Gadget. Just for starters.

And Anna Percy left the audience stunned with three pieces that probably resonated most with what I’ve been trying to achieve in recent work. The quiet brutality and emotional depth of her poems was deeply affecting.

Afterwards there was time for much chatterage, plenty more ginger wine and lemonade, and reconvention at The Castle, Bad Language’s monthly home.

Living Room Stories

danholloway — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:40:11 +0000

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The last time we recommended Andy Harrod’s extraordinary, exquisite Living Room Stories, it had sold out by the time the post went up. Since then it has had a rave review from the fabulous Sabotage who talk, inter alia, of “Harrod’s extraordinary ability to attach a lyrical and poetic quality to his descriptions” and note “Harrod’s work should be regarded as a new form that calls on influences from literature, poetry and music. This project is a stunning marriage of the three, and I cannot wait to see what comes next.”

Well, I am delighted to say the second edition is now available. So why are you still here?!? GET YOUR HANDS ON A COPY HERE

Philistine Press: Submissions Open

danholloway — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:51:32 +0000

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You’d be forgiven for thinking Philistine Press is actually a venture I run in one of my guises. After all we’ve written about them here. And here. They’re not. They’re actually run by Frank Burton, author of The Prodigals. With whom I’ve just this evening been sharing a drink at FULLFAT, a rather fabulous poetry night in Brick Lane. But that’s by the by. What’s not by the by is that Philistine are, simply put, the best press currently operating. We reported in our last post on them that submissions were temporarily closed. Well, now they’re open. Anyone who loves what we do and writes for passion, for art, because they *have* to, and who likes any of the stuff we do here, get your work over to them. The details are here.

Overshare

danholloway — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:37:51 +0000

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I met April Hamilton when I was at the very beginning of my self-publishing life, and she was a source of endless inspiration. She is a tireless force for good and support in the independent writing world, and Publetariat, the site she brought to life over two years ago now, is the best repository of information for self-publishers available anywhere. Her new book, Overshare, takes a fascinating look at our relationship with social media. Told in screenshots, constructed making full use of Creative Commons material, it unravels the consequences of our forays into the social networks we construct and that construct us. In its subject and its presentation it’s absolutely fascinating, and it was a genuine privilege to talk to April.

1. I’m intrigued by the formatting of this as an ebook. You’ve taken what’s essentially a dynamic format – social media – and made it static through screenshots. Was that driven entirely by wanting people to be able to access via an ereader, or are you making wider comments about the elusive nature of the web?

The book was inspired by real-life events. I’d become acquainted with another writer online, and this person was very active with social media. At some point it became obvious this person’s life was unraveling, because the frequency and nature of posts and status updates changed, but the person didn’t seem to realize exactly how much was being unintentionally revealed in this manner. In Overshare, I wanted to recreate the same experience I’d had for readers, but with fictional characters, events and content. Doing so required me to simulate and capture social media sites and posts in the book. Creating realistic imitations of social media websites demanded a heavily illustrated, full color presentation, which would’ve been prohibitively expensive in a print book format.

Secondly, I believe ebook releases are less costly and risky for indie authors, and ebook sales growth has been very dramatic year over year since 2007 so it’s a market authors and publishers are wise to tap. Finally, those who are very enamored of print books, to the point of rejecting e, aren’t likely to be part of my target audience: people who embrace new technologies and are heavy users of social media.

2. The reader of Overshare is required to do a lot of work to get at the narrative. Are you inviting people to construct narrative in their own way, within their own contexts? Are you expecting/hoping the reader will draw any particular conclusions?

My primary goal with Overshare was to duplicate, or at least approximate, the experience I’d had following this online acquaintance’s social media updates. It provided a powerful combination of empathy for this person coupled with new insight into how much the typical person reveals through social media on a regular basis—particularly how much is revealed through non-explicit and unintentional posts and updates. For example, much can be inferred when someone chooses NOT to comment on certain things while being effusive about others, is ‘tagged’ in a photo or post by someone else, is ‘checked in’ at a geographical location by someone else, or suddenly removes content he or she posted previously.

Different people come away from any form of art or literature with different interpretations and conclusions, this is nothing new. But to me, one of the most interesting aspects of this project is knowing that different viewers will come away from the book with different narratives as well. This is experimental lit, in that the viewer of the content is ‘authoring’ the story him- or herself, according to personal preferences, habits, beliefs and background. For example, where some readers may pick up on the rise and fall of “Like” and “Comment” counts as a barometer of the protagonist’s social circle and support network, another may miss that aspect entirely and have a different experience of the book as a result.

As the author, I find it exciting to know the reader is taking an active role in the creation of the story in real time as the content is viewed. However, it’s also challenging to surrender control to this degree. I know many of my intentional touches will be missed by at least some readers and those readers may have a poorer experience of the book as a result. But since my primary goal was to recreate what I’d gone through in following this other person’s social media updates in real life, now that I’ve assembled the content I have to let it go and allow the experience to unfold as it will for the reader.

If there’s one thing I’d like readers to take away from this book, it’s a new appreciation for the demands of privacy and security online. It’s not enough to simply limit certain content’s accessibility, one must also look at the big picture of what the sum total of his or her online presence is revealing to the general public.

3. If you don’t anticipate something, is that a reason to protest when it happens?

I assume you’re making reference to the people whose Creative Commons -licensed photos I’ve used in the book. I’m fairly certain that, while they all posted their photos on sharing sites and licensed them as acceptable for commercial (money-making) and remix use, none of them anticipated this type of use. Do they have a right to protest after the fact? Certainly. They also have a right to change their photos’ licensing terms at any time. However, they cannot retroactively change the licensing terms.

Also, in the American legal system ignorance of the law is never an acceptable defense, and no one could argue that the rights holders were in any way misled or coerced into licensing their images for commercial and remix use at the time they chose to do so. Given that the rights holders had to take specific steps to apply those licensing terms, and were directed to read the full text of the license they intended to grant before granting it, I’ve done nothing wrong nor illegal in exercising the rights granted under those licenses.

Consider this: if I release a short story under a CC license that allows for commercial and remix use, then find someone has rewritten parts of it, adapted it into a film and made millions of dollars as a result, would I be entitled to bring a legal claim for monetary damages or intellectual property theft against the writer or producers of the film? Absolutely not, because I specifically granted them the rights they’ve exercised when I applied the CC licensing.

4. Do you think the way people live is changing to accommodate the way it’s shared? In other words, how would you sum up the balance between the active, life-shaping elements of socila media and the passive, life-capturing events.

I think this is definitely true. How often do we hear someone say, “I’m Facebooking this!” People who are active with social media know their online ‘friends’ have certain expectations of seeing one another’s lives documented online, and that virtually any social event they attend will likely end up in this online documentation. I think it’s pretty well established that people behave differently before a camera than they do otherwise, and it seems cameras are everywhere now that people are shooting pictures and video specifically for the purpose of being able to post it online.

But I think most users don’t fully appreciate the pitfalls of this online documentation of lives. While social media allows users to carefully construct a multimedia autobiography online, it also allows other users to tamper with that careful construction as well, whether on purpose or unintentionally. Then there’s the issue that’s been around ever since cameras became a consumer product: purposely documenting life events tends to interfere with actually living them.

5. Creative Commons. Why does it matter to us as artists? Is the creative commons movement a force for good or a force for bad?

CC licensing empowers authors and artists as never before, both in terms of offering their content for public consumption and re-use, and in terms of exercising the CC licenses of others. Overshare, in its current form, would not have been possible without the CC-licensed images I’ve used. Without CC licensing I would have had to either pay licensing fees for stock photos or pay a photographer and models to create the ‘candid’ photos I needed. Either option would’ve been too expensive to make the book a worthwhile endeavor, and neither would’ve lent the necessary realism.

As Tom Anderson, the man whose images I used to represent my protagonist Michael Ayres in Overshare commented via email about my use of his images in the book:

You’re quite right to say that that this is not a kind of use i had ever anticipated! Still, that is precisely the point of open licenses like Creative Commons. An aphorism of Rufus Pollock’s springs to mind:

The coolest thing to do with your data will be thought of by someone else.

CC licensing leads to innovation, and new forms of art and creativity. I see that as a very good thing.

Analogue Christmas Presents

danholloway — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:46:59 +0000

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Last week we brought you our favourite digital finds of the year for those fo you looking for indie Christmas presents of the electronic variety. Now, here are some of our favourite things made of actual stuff! As before, just piccie teasers. Click the images to get the low-down.

Chapbooks

Three of the fabbest poetry collections you’ll find, all a fiver or under

Handmade stuff

Subscriptions!

What could be better than receiving beautiful books throughout the year. Here are the two best publishers’ subscriptions

stationery

OMEGA competition

danholloway — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:17:24 +0000

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We don’t usually promote competitions, but when we were asked to mention this, it was an easy choice. A former flatmate of mine was helped greatly by an ME support group, so I’m happy to do anything I can to raise awareness. Here are the details in the organisers’ own words

OMEGA is the, Oxford Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) Group for Action. We Are a support and campaign group for ME/CFS sufferers and their carers in Oxfordshire.

We would really appreciate your help in encouraging people to take part and bring our competition to the attention of as many people as possible.
Poetry from the Bed: Life with ME/CFS

Competition rules

(1) It is open to everyone in Oxfordshire

(2) It is for original unpublished poetry on the subject of life with ME/CFS.

(3)We are asking for one or two poems, maximum 300 words each.

(4) There are three categories: Under 11 years, 11 – 18 years and Adult.

(5) There are first place and runner up prizes for all categorieslisted, plus contributors will have the chance to have their poetry published by OMEGA.

How to enter

Please send the poems (maximum 2) by 12th Feb 2012 with name, contact details and category. By e-mail to poetry.omega@gmail.com or by post to: Poetry Competition,4 St Denys Close, Faringdon, Oxfordshire, SN7 8NJ. I will send you a poster in another e-mail. It would be really great if you have the poster in your zine and on your website.
For more information on OMEGA and ME/CFS please go to www.oxnet.org.uk/omega

Lucy in the Pub With Cider

danholloway — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:01:33 +0000

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If you know our live shows, you’ll know Lucy Ayrton.

That’s her.

That’s her again, performing at the 2011 Not the Oxford Literary Festival. Lucy is one of the most enthralling, crowd-pleasing, engaging, intelligent poets you could hope to meet. And a lot more besides.

One of those besides is that she co-hosts Hammer & Tongue in Oxford, just about the number one slam around. Whatever you do do NOT miss this coming Tuesday’s event featuring the one and only Kate Tempest.

It has been my absolute pleasure to get to ask Lucy some very intimate question about her poetry, her life, and her ambitions, and I can’t thank her enough for her insightful, honest, and inspiring answers.

1. Creatively speaking, what one thing is it that Lucy Ayrton does?

I tell stories.

2. Things break a lot in your poems. Not just relationships, but actual, physical things. I often think listening to a set of yours is like being with this lovely person you want to hug who has brittle bone syndrome.

My Mum has this story about me when I was very little. She claims I was helping her with the washing up, and she handed me a glass and said, “Careful Lucy, if you drop that it’ll break.” And I, very deliberately, threw it on the floor, and when it shattered I burst into tears. I’ve always been fascinated and horrified by moments of destruction. Possibly my favourite scene in all of culture is the moment in The Snowman where the little boy wakes up the next morning and the snowman’s melted away. It conjours up this kind of sadness that’s almost ecstatic in it’s intensity. And sadness, unlike, say, anger, or joy, is a slow burning feeling. It’s difficult to shake, it’s like it’s sticky. That’s why I like working with it so much. But at the same time, I never write directly about things that I feel are broken in my own life until the issue is firmly, safely resolved. I left a rubbish job last spring and I only started performing a poem about it a couple of weeks ago. When I’m genuinely unhappy, I don’t write anything. I’m maybe happier right now than I’ve ever been, and my major current project is a show about disappointment.

3. And wistfulness. If I had to say a word other than fragile, it would be wistful. But I never quite sense if you’re wistful for something that’s lost or something that never was.

Probably something that never was. I feel that culture sells us a lot of ideas about the things we should have and the things that we should want to have, and they often directly contradict each other. As a woman in my mid twenties, I feel there are so many things I’m “meant” to want – to be single, to be married, to have a very high powered career, to stay at home and bake cupcakes for my adorable toddlers … and not only do I don’t have any of those things, it would be impossible for me to have them all. So I think in poetry I indulge those “what if” feelings.

4. You don’t have a website. You do make little booklets of your poetry. What does that say about you?

That I’m obsessed with paper. We have a family friend who’s an artisan printer, and when I was seven, she showed me how the press worked – the kind where you put little wooden blocks in a massive machine and everything smells of ink and stories. It was just like how books were made in my head. Later, I worked in a second hand bookshop with a book bindery upstairs… I’ve always loved books, and as soon as I worked out that I could make them in any small way, I wanted to. Having said that, making a website is still very much on my to do list, and I did start a blog recently – lucyinthepubwithcider.tumblr.com

5. You’re also a singer. Have you consciously chosen poetry over singing and if so why?

I didn’t actually choose poetry at all, it was a complete accident. I was doing an MA in Writing and very much focussing on fiction, I wanted to be a novelist and still do. But there was this extra evening course on called The Apprentice for Artists, where we tried out a different art form each week. So, one week radio plays, the next cartooning, we even tried stuff like experimenting with telepathy. The idea was to try as many different forms as possible in a year. And one week it was poetry slam. They showed us a load of youtube stuff, Adrain Mitchell through to that year’s international champion, and announced that we were holding a slam the next week. And that was it. In love. I’d already stopped singing really by that point because I was uncomfortable that I wasn’t writing my own stuff. I’m starting again soon actually! There are songs in next summer’s show.
There’s a huge amount of crossover between singing and performing poetry. From technical stuff like rhythm and using pauses to knowing what’s the right amount of eye contact and how to make the microphone not do that screechy thing, there are tricks that I carry across. Also structure, story and use of refrain are lifted directly from traditional English folk, and I think blues has had a lot to do with the way I express emotion onstage.

6. “Fabulist” is a bit of a buzzword at the moment so I try to avoid it, but it does seem apt in the context of your work. You take us on the most wonderful journeys, and you have a very distinct style, even when you write in the first person, which is definitely that of a narrator leading us on that journey. Is this something you’ve consciously chosen to do?

It was once I noticed that I was doing it, but that took me a while! I’m a big fan of a three act narrative structure, and I think especially in performance poetry, using a familiar form of can be helpful to an audience – it’s easy as a listener to get lost. I think a sense of journeying anchors the audience more firmly into a piece and makes it more accessible. I hope.

7. Which leads to whether you’ve chosen the style because it effectively gets right to the emotional core, or whether you’ve chosen it because precisely because it keeps the audience at arm’s length from you emotionally.

Oooh. I had not thought of that. I’m inclined to say it’s because it keeps them at arms length. I know a lot of performers thrive on creating discomfort in a room, but I always want audiences to feel they can relax. It’s much more comfortable for them, and me, to pretend that these difficult emotions aren’t happening to me, myself, it was some other person, obviously fictional, no need to get embarrassed. I am quite English in this way. But at the same time, I want to reassure people (I say people. I probably mean myself) that these are universal feelings, and there’s nothing wrong with having them, it doesn’t make you damaged.
Emotion and performance is a very interesting subject. I think there has to be a balance. On the one hand, if it means nothing to you, why say it? On the other, if you let it overwhelm you, you’ll get too thrown by the feelings you stir up and, on a practical level, start crying, which will totally screw your diction.

8. Poetry and politics….

Yes. Cracking combination, but one I really struggle with. I only have two overtly political poems. I start them all the time, but it’s a bit like the emotion thing – it’s almost too important to me, so I get overwhelmed and stop. But in a way my politics run through everything I do. My core political belief is that things should be fairer. I hope that comes across.

9. What one thing would you describe as your creative goal?

To get good. Then, to get better.

Digital Christmas Presents

danholloway — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:25:16 +0000

(We have a Facebook page – do come and “like” us and say hi )

Mmm, so it’s that time of year again. You know, when we tell you about the fabulousest books we’ve found this year and say – if you’re getting someone a Kindle or Kobo or Nook or some other kind of e-reader for Christmas, load it up with these. Or, why not get someone some fab ebooks for Christmas. Or even, if you know someone with a computer or smartphone and want to get them a wonderful, rewarding indie Christmas present that costs less than a glow stick and lasts ten times as long, consider these. It would, of course, be remiss not to start with our own pieces of wonderment. And we won’t repeat ourselves, so do also check out what we recommended last year. It’s as good now as it was then. Most links will go to the Amazon UK store, but fear not – the books are available elsewhere – just click the covers. And don’t worry, there will be an analogue equivalent of this post To make this more fun there are no blurbs – suffice to say 1. the covers are so good they speak for themselves, and 2. everything here will appeal to anyone who loves what we do at eight cuts

Verruca Music by Stuart Estell

The Zoom Zoom by Penny Goring

My Memories of a Future Life by Roz Morris

Strangers and Pilgrims by Vivienne Tuffnell

Tartare by M Trevelean

Quintessence by Andrew Meek

Oblivious by Neil Schiller

52ff by Marc Nash

The Other Room by James Everington

Claire-Obscure by Billie Hinton

Trompe-l’oeil by Russell Bittner

Daisychains of Silence by Catherin McLeod

Filtered Light & Other Stories by Heikki Hietala

Olives by Alexander McNabb

EVERYTHING FROM PHILISTINE PRESS (CLICK FOR THEIR FREE DOWNLOADS)

And if you’ve scrolled faithfully this far, I’ve written a couple of books you might enjoy

Coming to Manchester!!

danholloway — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:01:58 +0000

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Advance notice of something rather exciting. The poster says it all really (though more next week to say that same all at greater length, and with the addition of more confirmed poets), but for the sake of SEO or whatever, in short: eight cuts gallery, new libertines, three minute theatre, afflecks, manchester, elizabeth baines, michael stewart, veronika von volkova, for books’ sake, open mic, free

Philistines!

danholloway — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:12:22 +0000

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Over a year ago, we introduced you to the remarkable Philistine Press. It’s my absolute pleasure now to bring you an interview with the site’s inspiration-in-chief Frank Burton, who keeps his patience with me whilst I ask him about what genre he’d define his genre-busting fiction as, and why Philistine’s books are all free (did I mention they’re all free? I can’t actually think of a single sane reason not to go and download them all now before you begin reading this).

1. There must be an anecdote behind Philistine Press…

I’ll tell you where the name came from. There’s a short story from my book, ‘A History of Sarcasm’ (Dog Horn, 2009) called ‘The Nature of Human Happiness’ which is a parody of a philosophical text, published by a fictional company called ‘Philistine Books’. It was written a few years before Philistine Press was launched. I thought at the time it would’ve made a good name for a publisher, not thinking for a minute it would end up being one.

Setting Philistine Press up was a bit of a spur of the moment decision – I had the idea and a couple of months later the site went live. That’s one great thing about the internet – you can get things done very quickly. I can’t imagine how long it would take to do things the conventional way – or indeed how much money it would cost.

2. You make a lot of saying there aren’t specific words to define Philistine books, but it certainly feels like there’s a Philistine kind of book, though I’d struggle to say what that is. If you were free associating for 30 seconds, what would you come up with?

I’d probably come up with the word ‘random,’ which I mean in the new sense of the word. It’s come to mean strange, weird, unusual – which could be applied to most if not all our releases.

Far from being random in the original sense of the word (they’re all carefully selected) our releases are often wildly different to anything else, and wildly different to each other.

So, I guess the word ‘different’ would be the most apt adjective.

3. I’m intrigued that you say you’re looking to reissue out of print books. That would seem to go against the idea of promoting books the mainstream wouldn’t publish?

What we’re really looking for are small press print books that are no longer available – so, still non-mainstream stuff. That being said, I certainly wouldn’t discourage out-of-print authors who once had major book deals from submitting – that would be cool. They’d have to be good, mind you – and of course there are many great mainstream authors whose books are no longer available.

I firmly believe republishing out-of-print work is important. The vast majority of small presses are only interested in original unpublished work, but I’m sure there are thousands of great books that aren’t available anymore – and that’s a shame.

Andy Hopkins’ ‘Dark Horse Pictures’ is a prime example of that – it was initially published with a limited print run and was only available to purchase for a very short amount of time. It’s a great poetry collection and it deserves more than that.

4. One of the things I love about Philistine is that the books you champion are markedly outside of the norm, but you don’t fall into the “too shocking for the mainstream” approach, either in terms of content or format. I wouldn’t say Philistine is stubbornly esoteric or intellectual, nor is it full of paraphilia, yet your books remain challenging…

Being challenging is important. I can’t think of any great works of literature that don’t challenge the reader in some way. Challenging doesn’t necessarily mean controversial or anti-establishment. I’m interested in anything that makes the reader see the world in a different way.

Some of our writers’ work could easily be called shocking (Mr If perhaps being the best example), but not in a ‘Look at me, aren’t I outrageous?’ kind of way. Those kind of tactics rarely work to a writer’s advantage.

5. You say you’re looking for more non-fiction. That’s got to be a massive challenge in steering the line between the kitsch, the nicher-than-you, and the downright obfuscatory.

Ha ha, yes. To be honest, I’m not dead set on publishing non-fiction and I’d only publish something that would sit well alongside our other books. I just like to keep the parameters for submissions as broad as possible. I’d hate to turn away the 21st Century equivalents of The Origin of Species or The Communist Manifesto just because they don’t fit within our guidelines.

6. Free is fabulous, but do you find yourself coming in for criticism for it, and if so from whom?

We don’t get criticised very often because people who aren’t interested in free online fiction don’t really acknowledge it or see it as important. A lot of readers aren’t interested in ebooks, free or otherwise, and that’s fair enough.

But plenty of people disagree with the idea of being non-profit. A lot of magazines aren’t interested in reviewing our work because it’s online and because it’s free. A magazine editor once sent me an incredulous email saying, ‘I can’t imagine any writer agreeing to have their work published without payment.’

I guess that kind of attitude ignores the fact that most writers are never going to make significant sums of money, and for many writers, money is of no concern.

7. One of the many things that impresses me is the quality of your products. Not just the editing or the excellent texts you select, but the way the digital files are put together. They’re beautiful things. Is that important to you?

Yes, absolutely. The work deserves to be packaged properly. Funnily enough, I’m in the process of redesigning most of the book covers and they’ll be online very soon.

I can’t take credit for any of the artwork – I’m not an artist or a photographer. I try to find the best artwork I can for each book. Sometimes I don’t need to look too far because the writers do it all themselves. Sarah Ogilvie’s illustrations for Rob Sherman’s poetry in Valve Works are perfect.

8. You give your work away for free, but certainly in my case (and I know I’m not the only one) you are *the* aspirational publisher for writers who care about the future of literature. Do you see yourself taking submissions again any time soon?

Yes, as soon as possible – most likely in the early part of 2012. I’m itching to reopen submissions but it’s not practical at the moment. We already have some forthcoming releases sorted, so I’m just focussing on them for the time being.