Blog

Sorry for the absence!

After a slight blogging sabbatical, we are back on track!

Check back here over the coming days for news, author events and other stuff. Thanks for your patience while we’ve been gone. We’ve been working harder than ever at Bluemoose and look forward to telling you all about what we’ve been up to and what we have planned for the next few months.

Moose summer offensive

Leonora Rustamova, author of STOP DON’T READ THIS is on the award winning radio show THE STATE WE’RE IN, this afternoon at 2pm. It is broadcast by Radio Netherlands and can be heard in the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa and all of Europe.

The Bluemoose Summer offensive is bearing fruit. First Russia, then Bulgaria, Holland today and before you know it Col. Gaddaffi will be surrendering to all at Moose Towers. Let us hope the international community are generous with their support.

Sofia, so good

It’s been a busy week in Mooseland. Our foreign rights people have been meeting European Agents. Sounds all very James Bond, but the deal is, prior to Frankfurt, the biggest rights fair in the world, the agents are told about all the new titles that are to be published in the next 12 months and some books they may have missed that we recently published.

This year we have already sold two of our books to a Russian Publisher AZBOOKA-ATTICUS, who are based in St Petersburg. They bought GABRIEL’S ANGEL by Mark Radcliffe and KING CROW by Michael Stewart. Yesterday we sold KING CROW to a Bulgarian Publisher called ARTLINE. Extremely pleased. The book is out with at least another 10 European publishers, so no doubt we’ll have more good news soon.

I phoned Michael to impart the good news that KING CROW would soon be hitting the bookstands of Sofia. He was suitably pleased but the line seemed a bit distant and as he only lives near Bronte country just over the hill I asked why? ‘I’m still stuck in New York courtesy of Hurricane Irene.’ He said. He was on his mobile and I was on the Moose landline. I did a quick calculation and ended the call. He’s back on Saturday and we’ll have a proper chat. I don’t want to be wasting too much money on transatlantic phone calls when I should be investing the hard stuff in new writers.

Wasn’t there an incident on London bridge many moons ago about a Bulgarian diplomat being killed by an umbrella to the leg? Still the wall is down now and we’re all chums, especially when it come to reading the same books.

PIG IRON by Benjamin Myers

Bluemoose editors are in the final throes of finishing the edit for PIG IRON by Benjamin Myers, which we’ll be publishing on May 31st 2012.

PIG IRON is a beautifully written book by a very gifted writer.

The story

John-John wants to escape his past. But the legacy of brutality left by his bare knuckle boxer father, self-styled King of the Gypsies, Mac Wisdom, looms large over his life. John-John’s new job as an ice cream van man, should offer freedom, but instead pulls him into the dark underbelly of life in a northern town where his family name is mud.

As John-John attempts tp trade prejudice, parole officers and local gangs for ‘the green cathedral- – the rural landscape that provides solace for him – the story of Mac’s rise and spectacularly bloody fall unravels.

PIG IRON is the story of a traveller who hasn’t travelled; a young man fighting for his very survival.

THORN signing

Michael Dean, author of THORN, will be signing copies of his new book at Waterstones’s in Chelmsford on Saturday between 11am – 1pm. Award winning writer, David Nobbs, creator of Reggie Perrin, amongst others, has called it an, ‘astonishing and powerful novel.’ Come and meet Michael, myself and Hetha as we bring news of Bluemoose to the southern climes and educate those that have been in darkness for so many years.

The Art of Being Dead

The head of big words at Leeds Metropolitan University contacted me yesterday and said that one of our titles, THE ART OF BEING DEAD, was now being studied as the main text on their MA in Contemporary Literature. The hallowed walls of academia are trembling. A bit. Great news for Stephen Clayton, the author and Bluemoose of course.

Toodlepip, off to dust down the ermine and mitre board.

Happy birthday to us!

I have baked a cake for everyone at Moose Towers today because the Moose is five years old. It is five years since we started publishing here in Hebden Bridge and we have come a long way. Moose titles have been translated into Russian, Hollywood production companies have got excited and readers from Australia to the US have read our titles.

Great stories have legs and find their natural homes amongst readers who are ready to engage and get inspired. I have ranted and raged and waved a clenched fist at the fiefdom of publishing that is run by the posh people in the Metropolis. We have had national reviews, sold rights abroad, been on local and national radio and last weekend, international radio. But the most important aspect of it all is that we have found great stories that have been beautifully written that otherwise wouldn’t have been published because men with graphs and red pens didn’t think they would sell.

How wrong they were. Long live the Moose!

Manuscripts

Reading manuscripts today. Sshhh.

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