Saturday June 21

For a review of Susan Sellers' Vanessa and Virginia on the Vulpes Libris website, please click on the following link:

http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/vanessa-and-virginia-by-susan-sellers/

Tuesday June 10

Forthcoming events and launches to which the public are invited:

Thursday June 12, 7pm Borders, Buchanan Street, Glasgow: the launch of Cleave. Readings by Margaret Elphinstone, Anne Macleod, Regi Claire, Linda Cracknell, Gerda Stevenson, Pauline Prior-Pitt and Sharon Blackie.

Wednesday June 18, 6.30pm Heffers, Cambridge: the launch of Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers.

Sunday June 1

Today's Scotland on Sunday carries a brief review of George Gunn's The Atlantic Forest: '...spare, lean language honed on brittle, sometimes brutal stalks of feeling ... There is a salty, windswept goodness at this collection's "conflicting heart".' To see the review, follow this link:

http://living.scotsman.com/books/Round-up-Poetry.4138247.jp

Saturday May 31

Today there was a review of Cleave: New Writing by Women in Scotland (ed Sharon Blackie) in The Herald. The review calls Cleave 'a book that stands out from the pack ... an excellent anthology with a sense of direction and common purpose ... an impressive collection of accomplished and thoughtful work.'

In the same issue of The Herald is an interview with J. David Simons, author of The Credit Draper.

Tuesday May 6
Lisa Glass' Top Ten books on The Book Depository website

The Book Depository has published Two Ravens Press author Lisa Glass' Top Ten books on its site today. The link is:
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/
WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/viewblogarticle.php?id=990

Tuesday May 6
Publishing Scotland response to Scotsman articles on Scottish Arts Council funding

Our trade organisation, Publishing Scotland, has today written a letter to The Scotsman newspaper refuting some of the allegations that were made about funding to Publishing Scotland in an article that was published in yesterday's newspaper. The full text of the Scotsman article can be found by clicking the following link: http://www.scotsman.com/arts/Scottish-literature-website-damned-for.4049879.jp. Publishing Scotland's response is printed in its entirety below.

From: Publishing Scotland, 137 Dundee Street, Edinburgh EH11 1BG

Mike Gilson
Editor
The Scotsman
Holyrood Road
Edinburgh 5th May 2008

Dear Sir

The article in The Scotsman (Monday 5th May) on the funding given to the online website BooksfromScotland.com, made a series of errors and misinterpretations. It is important to set out the accurate picture.

It is incorrect that £100,000 was given to the venture. The £100,000 was given for a wide range of projects and equipment renewal, not for the website alone. The funding from SAC over 2 years in 2005 – 2006, used for the site’s development, was £26,000. The audited accounts show this.

Booksfromscotland.com has the primary aim of providing information about Scottish literature; It has succeeded in this aim. We have high traffic on the site, and it is spread world-wide to a gratifying extent, currently receiving around 1.5 million hits per month.

The article – and the leader comment - also misunderstands the figures quoted for the Welsh Books Council website, which is cited as notching up £776,000 of individual item sales. This is wrong: 776,000 is the number of book units sold, not the turnover. The figure does not refer to the website’s sales, but to the Welsh Book Council’s Distribution Centre. Publishing Scotland set up an equivalent service, Book Source, which distributes over £8 million worth of books.

The cutting back of block grants to a number of publishers for the current financial year is a major problem to small and developing companies, but we would like to point out that BooksfromScotland.com is receiving no SAC funding in the current year either; the funding mentioned is for the next year 2009 – 2010, and is to support the broad range of work carried out by Publishing Scotland.

We do regret that the publisher quoted in your article did not address the concerns to Publishing Scotland. He has used the site to highlight his company, to advertise his books, and he has also donated books as prizes for competitions on the site, all of which suggested a degree of engagement with the project. We hoped that he would have brought his concerns directly to Publishing Scotland.

I would also encourage readers to visit the site www.booksfromscotland.com http://www.booksfromscotland.com for themselves whether they intend to browse, buy or just learn about the distinctive and exciting world of contemporary Scottish literature.

Yours sincerely,
Keith Whittles (Chairman) - Whittles Publishing
Lorraine Fannin (Chief Executive) – Publishing Scotland
Publishing Scotland Board

Tuesday May 6
More on Scottish Arts Council funding

The debate about cuts in funding for publishing in Scotland continues to rage. Yesterday Two Ravens Press' Sharon Blackie appeared on Radio Scotland's Book Café to discuss the issues. In Sunday's Observer newspaper there was an article by Brian Morton that we believe is the most reasoned and articulate yet to appear about the issue of why cuts in block funding to small publishers matter. He says:

'...the block grant affords publishers a ... kind of creative 'space' to develop a strong literary list. There is no doubt that the branch of writing which will suffer most under the new - or temporary - remit is literary fiction. Developing a history, (auto)biography or other special-interest list doesn't involve the same level of investment of risk. Such books sell; they don't need to be sold in the same way.'

To read the entire article, click on this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/04/scotland

Thursday May 1
Guardian article on Scottish Arts Council funding

The Guardian today published an article on the Scottish Arts Council funding story. Sharon Blackie from Two Ravens Press is quoted as saying:

Sharon Blackie, co-founder of Two Ravens, a small Ullapool publisher which specialises in publishing new experimental fiction, explained that her company had only heard about the end of the block grants in response to an email.

"We don't rely on funding, which wouldn't be appropriate, but the block grants do allow us to be more adventurous in publishing and marketing those books which are otherwise very hard to sell in the UK's conservative book market."

In response to the news of the increase in grants for individual books, Ms Blackie explained her company would certainly aim to benefit from such grants, but that only block grant allocations give smaller publishers the "confidence to make difficult decisions because you can no longer plan ahead in the same way."

She also explained that no one seemed to know whether SAC would even have a literature division after it becomes Creative Scotland.

You can read the entire article at the following link: http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2277171,00.html

Wednesday April 30
Scottish Arts Council funding for publishers

The Scotsman today published an article on the cuts in funding to publishers by the Scottish Arts Council, who have cut their block funding entirely for the 2008-2009 financial year. David Knowles from Two Ravens Press is quoted in the article:

David Knowles, a co-founder of Ullapool's Two Ravens Press, a new company that has been earning rave reviews for its pioneering book list, said it was told not to apply for a grant.

"It doesn't mean we are going to shut down, but it would have been a major change to our whole financial profile," he said.

He and his partner funded Two Ravens with £25,000 of their own money. "Had we been able to get £15-20,000, we would have been even more adventurous than we already are. We are going to have to be financially cautious."

To read the entire article, click on the following link:
http://www.scotsman.com/arts/Arts-quango-scraps-100000-of.4032762.jp

For an article on this issue by Sharon Blackie and David Knowles, see this month's edition of the literary web magazine Corvaceous.

Monday April 28
Book Depository Publisher of the Week

Two Ravens Press has been selected as this week's Publisher of the Week on The Book Depository website. Have a look and see Mark Thwaite's selection of his 5 favourite Two Ravens Press books, and read the interview with Two Ravens Press. http://www.bookdepository.co.uk

Tuesday April 22
Book Depository Tuesday Top Ten

Look out for some Two Ravens Press authors in The Book Depository's forthcoming 'Tuesday Top Ten' columns — lists of writers' favourite books. The first is Sharon Blackie's list, at http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/
WWW/WEBPAGES/viewblogarticle.php?id=941

Forthcoming Raymond Federman event

Two Ravens Press, in collaboration with The Holocaust Research Centre, Royal Holloway College, University of London and the Imperial War Museum, is proud to present a one-day workshop on the work of Raymond Federman. The course will take place at the Imperial War Museum on Tuesday June 17, from 10.00 to 16.30. Contributors will include Raymond Federman, Robert Eaglestone, Dan Stone, Gaby Hartel and Angela Morgan Cutler. The workshop is open to all, and the idea of the ‘workshop’ format is to explore debates arising from specific issues in Holocaust Studies in an informal atmosphere. There will be a short number of presentations, plenty of time for conversation and a final ‘open’ panel.

Pre-booking is essential.

Cost: £8/ £4 concessions. Payment on the day.
Further information: Holocaust Research Centre, Royal Holloway College: 01784 443201
Pre-booking: Please email a.hobbs@rhul.ac.uk

For more information, please click here.

New Writing Course

A new writing course - The Writing Zone - a course to develop the creative imagination - will be run by Two Ravens Press founder and novelist Sharon Blackie at the Moniack Mhor Arvon centre near Beauly, Inverness-shire from October 3-5 2008. For full details and booking form, please click here to visit www.sharonblackie.com.