Showing category "Reality Street" (Show all posts)

Valediction

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, July 12, 2016, In : Reality Street

With the publication of Gravity as a consequence of shape by Allen Fisher, Reality Street ceases publication of new titles.

Since 1993 the press has published 67 books of adventurous new writing in poetry and prose, 52 of which are still in print. Reality Street will keep all these in print for the foreseeable future – in the case of those printed before 2003 by conventional means, so long as stocks remain; in the case of those issued or reissued since then as print-on-demand, until further ...
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The bumper books of Bill and Allen

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, June 10, 2016, In : Reality Street

Phew! Allen Fisher's Gravity as a consequence of shape has at last gone to press - all 596 pages of it.

We're expecting the proof copy next week, and shortly thereafter will be sending out copies to the nearly 80 people who pre-ordered it as Supporter subscribers. The book, which collects together all the poems from the Gravity project (1982-2005) together for the first time, will also be on general sale from the end of June 2016.

Bill Griffiths' Collected Poems Volume 3, which weighs in at a s...
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Out again soon!

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, August 5, 2015, In : Reality Street

I still have vivid memories of the day Out of Everywhere, that pioneering anthology of innovative writing by women, was launched in London in 1996. The small art gallery in Portobello Road that Reality Street had booked for the launch was inadequate for the number of people who turned up, and several had to strain to listen to the readings from the pavement outside. It cemented the reputation of the press, and the book has been in print ever since, and still sells.

There was never any intentio...
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Compensation

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, June 9, 2015, In : Reality Street

Cheque in the post (a rare thing these days) and a note ordering a copy of Peter Hughes' Quite Frankly. But the cheque is for £12.50, the purchase price of the book only, with no provision for p&p (which should have been £3.50). I pack the book off, with a friendly (I hope) scribbled note on the receipt saying "I'll let you off the p&p this time." A few days later the person, who is known to me by name, sends me a copy of their own poetry pamphlet, a small envelope tucked inside it containi...
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El Ombú

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, May 22, 2015, In : Reality Street

Reality Street is about to publish, under the ReScript Books imprint (ie not part of the regular Reality Street programme of contemporary writing) a new edition of WH Hudson's El Ombú - an important book in his oeuvre (1st published 1902) which is not currently available in a decent edition. This one is edited with an extensive introduction by the poet David Miller. We're very pleased with it. You can already order it from the RS website, and it will soon be available from online and offline...
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When Reality Street was live...

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, May 13, 2015, In : Reality Street

I'm so pleased and relieved Reality Street Live 2 (Sunday 10 May) went off almost without a hitch, and that the readings, the music and even the weather were so enjoyable and enjoyed by all.

I suppose I wish I could replay it all now, because I was a bit too wound up - having to cater for guests, deal with the venue (the staff of The Crown were great), work out the scheduling, do the publicity (designing and printing flyers, doing online stuff), practise my bass so as to at least give a passab...
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Storm the Reality Studios

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, February 20, 2015, In : Reality Street

It's an astonishing thought: the full run of REALITY STUDIOS, the magazine I founded in 1978 and ran for ten years, is now online. All of it - all 10 volumes, every one of the more than 1,000 pages. The early ones were typed onto mimeograph stencils on a manual typewriter. And now those words I typed have been magically transformed into downloadable, searchable and copy-and-pasteable text.

This miracle I owe to the University of Pennsylvania/Kelly Writers House/Jacket2 (never sure about the r...
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Lou Rowan and Peter Hughes to print

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, January 5, 2015, In : Reality Street

Lou Rowan's Alphabet of Love Serial and Peter Hughes' Quite Frankly have now been uploaded to print, with the names of 84 Supporters inscribed. If all goes well, copies will start to be distributed to those Supporters and to reviewers within a couple of weeks.

Lou will be in the UK in May, so we're taking the opportunity to launch his and Peter's books then - at the revival of Reality Street Live on Sunday 10 May in Hastings. This will be an afternoon/early evening event (probably starti...
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Support us in 2015

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, October 17, 2014, In : Reality Street

Really gratifying results from the first promotion of Reality Street's 2015 Supporter programme.

Within a month of announcing it, we already have nearly 60 Supporters for our package of three books. A lot of old friends rejoining: some who have been with us since the beginning (16 years ago - the press itself has been around for 21 years, though we forgot to celebrate our coming of age); but quite a few welcome newcomers too.

Typesetting and design of Peter Hughes' Quite Frankly and Lou Rowan's...
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Export Zone commended

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, July 9, 2014, In : Reality Street

Andrea Brady's poem "Export Zone", from her 2013 Reality Street collection Cut From the Rushes, has been Highly Commended by the judges of the 2014 Forward Prizes. You can download the poem here.

Famously, Jeremy Paxman headed the panel this year, but we suspect this commendation owes more to the influence of Vahni Capildeo, one of the panel members. Thanks, whoever it was.

This is the first time a Reality Street book has ever tickled the judges of any major poetry prize. We must admit we gave ...
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let me tell you on the radio

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, June 13, 2014, In : Reality Street

Paul Griffiths has adapted some of the words from his Reality Street novel let me tell you as a libretto for an orchestral composition by Hans Abrahamsen. It receives its UK premiere next Wednesday 18 June in a concert at Symphony Hall, Birmingham (starting 7.30pm BST), with soloist Barbara Hannigan, soprano, and is broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

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Live at the Palace

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, May 7, 2014, In : Reality Street

Reality Street Live at the Electric Palace cinema, Hastings, ended on 23 April with a wonderful and rare reading by Denise Riley of new work, bookended by two remarkable ones by Richard Makin, aided by Miranda Gavin's images projected onto the screen behind him.

The series started in February with a visit to Hastings by Philip Terry, reading from his 1066-themed Reality Street novel tapestry, and also from his reworkings of Shakespeare and Dante. I read from Down With Beauty and with Elaine Ed...
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Next year on Reality Street

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, May 2, 2014, In : Reality Street

Sorry I've gone a bit AWOL from this column recently. Since the fanfare of the publication of the second volume of Bill Griffiths' collected poems I've been taking a sabbatical from Reality Street business, to concentrate on writing. Yes, writing. That's where it all started for me, and will finish. I never really meant to be a publisher.

But I thought I'd better do an update on Reality Street's plans for the future, just in case people were beginning to think that was all over.

So the upshot i...
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Rough trade

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, March 7, 2014, In : Reality Street

Book trade frustration ... A university bookshop contacts Reality Street, wants to order 30 copies of tapestry by Philip Terry, which is up for a major award. I question the quantity, but they insist they are ordering 30 each of all six titles on the shortlist, and they don't want RS as a small press to be disadvantaged in terms of display space. Oh, and can they have 45% discount, and can it be sale or return? I point out that our book is print-on-demand and therefore I will have to pay for ...
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Bill breaks the record

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, February 1, 2014, In : Reality Street

Attracting 120 subscribers, the promotion of Bill Griffiths' Collected Poems & Sequences (1981-91), just out, has smashed the record for the Reality Street Supporter scheme, which has numbered 70-85 subscribers annually on average over the past few years.

The Bill Griffiths volume is the only new title to be published by Reality Street this year. This is because I am taking a little breather, and trying to focus a bit more on my own writing during 2014. The success of some of the press's title...
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let me tell you

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, January 7, 2014, In : Reality Street

Paul Griffiths' Reality Street novel let me tell you has been condensed into a poem that has been set for soprano and orchestra by Hans Abrahamsen. Here, the composer talks with Paul and with Barbara Hannigan, the soprano, who was evidently key to putting this project together.

The composition itself is a beautiful piece of about 30 minutes in length, and for a short while at least you can listen to a performance (with the Berlin Philharmonic) broadcast on Portuguese radio.

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After the Goldsmiths rush

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, November 14, 2013, In : Reality Street

Well, it's all over, and the result was both a disappointment - I can't pretend I didn't hope that Philip Terry's tapestry might win the Goldsmiths Prize - and a relief - not only that the suspense is finished with, but also ... well, the world of literary prizes and what they entail is not one that I am familiar or completely comfortable with, and now I don't have to deal with that.

For the record, the worthy winner was Eimear McBride for her disturbing and poetic novel A Girl is a Half-Forme...
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"I like sentences that seem to run away with my thoughts"

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, October 8, 2013, In : Reality Street

Johan de Wit's Gero Nimo hasn't had nearly the attention it deserves since it was published in 2011. So it's a pleasure to read Jim Goar's excellent interview with him in The Conversant. It's the latest in a series of "transatlantic interviews" wherein two poets can converse online about what it means to write poetry.

Johan talks about where his sentences come from and what happens to them when they get there. And how he gets started, overcomes blockages, revises.

"Day after day, chapter after ...
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Shortlisted

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, October 1, 2013, In : Reality Street

When Reality Street took on Philip Terry's strange and wonderful novel tapestry it was, well, because I thought it strange and wonderful, and not with any expectation of public acclaim or commercial success.

Oddly, it was the second Oulipo-influenced novel with a lower-case title that we had published - after Paul Griffiths' let me tell you - and also the second after that book to achieve national press reviews, in the most recent instance, Nicholas Lezard's pick of tapestry as paperback of th...
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Free Verse returns

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, August 14, 2013, In : Reality Street

Free Verse, the poetry book fair, returns next month for the third year. The date to put in your diary is Saturday 7 September, from 10am-5pm. This year, having outgrown its previous venues, the 60+ participating presses and poetry organisations will be selling their wares at the Conway Hall, London. Reality Street will be there.

This is the familiar site of the not-to-be-confused-with Small Publishers Fair, which has been running for many more years than that, usually in November. It looks l...
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Down With Beauty on Stride

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, July 31, 2013, In : Reality Street

Forgot to mention earlier that Andy Brown has reviewed Down With Beauty at Stride Magazine. He says nice things. Thank you, Andy.

By now, copies of the two most recent Reality Street titles - Allotment Architecture by Peter Hughes and Cut From the Rushes by Andrea Brady - should have reached most Supporters. They will be on general sale pretty shortly. The official launch date is 7 September.

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Sale on

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, July 2, 2013, In : Reality Street

Just thought I'd post that the annual Reality Street sale is on. A chance to catch up on the RS backlist at bargain prices - check it out.

The summer sale always provides a little boost to the press's finances, not to mention welcome movement of authors' works from dusty shelves (or in the case of POD books, not so dusty megabytes) into readers' hands.

As anyone who's ever worked in publishing at any level - from "major" publishers to the smallest of non-commercial presses - knows, the vast m...
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Guardian review for tapestry

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, May 31, 2013, In : Reality Street

In a rare (for Reality Street) emergence into the arclights of national newspaper coverage, Philip Terry's amazing novel tapestry, just published this month, has been given the thumbs up in Nicholas Lezard's weekly column in The Guardian. The online version appeared last Tuesday (28 May) and is in the print edition on Saturday 1 June.

And yes, it is "a nice touch that the publisher is based in Hastings". Our first "local interest" book, I think.

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Sarah Kirsch 1935-2013

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, May 23, 2013, In : Reality Street

The German poet and lyricist Sarah Kirsch died on 5 May following a short illness.

Born Ingrid Bernstein in what later became East Germany, she changed her name to Sarah in protest against Nazi anti-semitism. Later political protest caused her to leave for the West.

Sarah Kirsch's pamphlet, the poem sequence T, with a parallel English translation by Wendy Mulford and Anthony Vivis, was published by Reality Street in 1995. It's a beautiful little item, physically quite unlike the rest of Reality...
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Launch on 21 May

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, In : Reality Street

I'll be launching Down With Beauty and Philip Terry will launch tapestry with readings at The Blue Bus, on Tuesday 21^st May, from 7.30 at The Lamb (in the upstairs room), 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1. Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions).

The books will be on sale at the special launch price of £10 each – or if you can't get there, you can buy them online. Or join the Reality Street Supporter scheme to get these and other books published in 2013.

Ken Edwards: Down With Beauty

A seri...

Belated but welcome accolade for OOE

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, March 4, 2013, In : Reality Street

Reality Street's 1996 anthology Out of Everywhere has been selected as as an Editor's Favourite by online magazine Cerise Press in its Spring 2013 edition.

OOE, edited by Maggie O'Sullivan, has been selling steadily since it was published. A "daughter of OOE" anthology has long been planned, and may appear next year, edited by Emily Critchley.
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Back to life

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, February 19, 2013, In : Reality Street

Reality Street is stirring back into life. Reality Street would support a parliamentary bill to abolish January and February, but it's nearly over. We've had the flu, and before that, the less said about the norovirus the better. Believe me.

Philip Terry's weird and wonderful post-1066 novel tapestry, using the Bayeux images to weave stories in an alternative Middle English about alternative histories of the Norman Conquest, is almost ready to go to press.

My own Down With Beauty follows short...
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Paul Brown reviewed

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, December 17, 2012, In : Reality Street

Here's a review by Michael Peverett of A Cabin in the Mountains.

Michael has also interviewed Richard Makin about Dwelling.

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White

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, November 30, 2012, In : Reality Street

The last of Reality Street's publications for 2012 have now been launched and distributed to subscribers. I don't have anything more to say about The Alchemist's Mind, David Miller's admirable and fascinating selection of narrative prose by 28 writers from the UK and North America who are more widely known as poets. The poetic sensibility manifests itself in a diversity of ways in these extraordinarily varied texts, but the best introduction to the book is - er - the introduction itself, by D...
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Reality Street launches

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, November 9, 2012, In : Reality Street

Reality Street will be be going on the road - well, on the train to London - for three days next week.

First, next Tuesday (13 November) to the Lamb Inn in Lamb's Conduit Street, London WC1, the site of the Blue Bus series of poetry readings, to launch The Alchemist's Mind, Reality Street's anthology of narrative prose writing by poets edited by David Miller. Readers will be David himself, together with Paul Buck, Brian Marley, Stephen Watts and MJ Weller. It begins at 7.30 for 8pm in the uppe...
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New and not so new books

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, September 14, 2012, In : Reality Street

New books by Maggie O'Sullivan and Paul Brown were successfully launched last Tuesday as part of the Blue Bus series at The Lamb, Lamb's Conduit Street, London. Well, not so new, really: both Waterfalls and A Cabin in the Mountains have been out since the spring, but this was the first occasion on which we could assemble the poets to celebrate publication. Also, they both date back a bit: Paul's is the completion of a trilogy that was written back in the 1980s, and Maggie's is a paperback rep...
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Phantom book

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, August 30, 2012, In : Reality Street

The Alchemist's Mind - the anthology of narrative prose writing by poets, edited for Reality Street by David Miller with my collaboration - has gone to press. And very exciting it is. I think it's a wonderful selection, both thought-provoking and entertaining. You can't buy it just yet, as it's scheduled for a November release, but have a look at the list of contributors and download David's introduction for a foretaste.

But here's a thing. I've done the wherewithal (as usual) to get the book ...
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Last week of sale

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, August 23, 2012, In : Reality Street

The REALITY STREET summer sale enters its final week. You have until 31 August to buy selected titles from the backlist at sometimes massive savings.

Biggest sellers in the first few weeks of the sale have been Denise Riley's Selected Poems and The Reality Street Book of Sonnets, followed by Bill Griffiths' Collected Earlier Poems. But there's a lot else too. Have a look. Reality Street continues to survive on its perennial shoestring, and the sale is making a significant contribution to its ...
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Free Verse

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, August 8, 2012, In : Reality Street

This year's Free Verse Poetry Book Fair takes place on Saturday 8 September at Candid Arts, 3-5 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ (nearest tube: Angel). Reality Street will be among 50 poetry presses of all sizes and flavours selling their wares between 10am-5pm. Free entry. Put it in your diary now.

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Reality Street summer sale

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, July 21, 2012, In : Reality Street

The annual Reality Street summer sale is on. This year there are significant discounts (until 31 August only) on many backlist titles including such favourites as Denise Riley's Selected Poems, Bill Griffiths' Collected Earlier Poems and The Reality Street Book of Sonnets, as well as some of my own books and much else.

Just visit the Summer Sale page to see the full list and to buy!

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In Transit (again)

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, June 7, 2012, In : Reality Street

A reminder that Tony Baker's unjustly neglected book was published nearly eight years ago, shortly after the last time the event depicted on the cover happened. We hope it won't be another century before another book from Tony.

30 years on

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, In : Reality Street

To Royal Holloway University of London yesterday to talk to third year creative writing students about small press publishing. Feared I would dry up with nothing more to say and long minutes to go. But in fact, an hour was not enough time to pack in everything, and I had to skip bits.

It's hard to remember that I have been a writer and publisher for over 30 years now (and Reality Street, in particular, is now in its 20th year). A shock to remember too that the students would never have seen a...
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New Reality Street books

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, April 20, 2012, In : Reality Street

Paul Brown's A Cabin in the Mountains and Maggie O'Sullivan's Waterfalls are due to be published on 1 May - but as the books already seem to be available on Amazon and elsewhere (nobody seems to care about publication embargos any more) I might as well put them up on sale on the RS website. So they are.

Reality Street Supporters will be receiving their copies in the next few days - well, some will already have them, and the rest should arrive by the end of next week.

It's a cliché to say a...
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Denise Riley first in a decade

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, March 26, 2012, In : Reality Street

Denise Riley has published her first poetry since Reality Street's Selected Poems more than a decade ago. "A Part Song" is an elegy or lamentation in different modes, following the death of her son in 2008, and appears in the London Review of Books (9 February).

Denise has also written an essay associated with this, Time Lived, Without Its Flow, published as a chapbook by Capsule Editions.

Fellow Reality Street author Peter Riley (no relation) reviews both at The Fortnightly Review. (He interpr...
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Reality Street update

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, February 16, 2012, In : Reality Street

Sorry for the longish silence. The truth is, I've been pretty busy since January: one thing and another and well, you know....

Since putting the finishing touches to Down With Beauty, my collection of prose fictions, I've not been doing much new writing, but music and publishing have taken up an extraordinary amount of my time.

Some of that has been taking part in the recording and mixing sessions for The Moors' new recording, our band's first full-length album. This has been an utterly fascina...
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Reality Street 2012

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, January 3, 2012, In : Reality Street

Reality Street's publication programme for 2012 has been announced. The books are:

• Paul Brown: A Cabin in the Mountains - a long overdue collection of the 1980s poetry of one of the significant players in the British Poetry Revival

• David Miller (ed.): The Alchemist's Mind - anthology of prose narrative writing by British & North American poets
• Maggie O'Sullivan: Waterfalls - paperback reprint of a beautiful work previously only available in a very limited edition

• Sean Pemberton: W...

Dwelling and Head of a Man

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, November 28, 2011, In : Reality Street

John Gilmore launched Head of a Man and Richard Makin launched Dwelling with readings at Stone Squid experimental art space, Hastings, East Sussex, UK on 5 November 2011.

A video of part of John Gilmore's reading can be accessed here.

A video of part of Richard Makin's reading can be accessed here.

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Three or four radical approaches to narrative

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, November 5, 2011, In : Reality Street

This week Reality Street launches three titles in its Narrative series: Dwelling by Richard Makin, The Raft by Leopold Haas and Gero Nimo by Johan de Wit. We're also giving a belated launch to Head of a Man by John Gilmore, which was published earlier in the year.

The Narrative series does not represent a retreat from poetry for the press - rather the contrary, it's a bold venture, an opening out of poetry, by which I mean the art of language, into the realm of imaginative prose.

Narrative p...
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Carol in The Guardian

Posted by Ken Edwards on Sunday, October 2, 2011, In : Reality Street

Well, I never - a review in The Guardian at last. Carol Watts' Occasionals is favourably reviewed by Carrie Etter this weekend. Thanks, Carrie.

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nine days

Posted by Ken Edwards on Sunday, September 25, 2011, In : Reality Street

That was the hardest week I can remember for a long time, including the time I had a day job too.

It started on the weekend of 17/18 September with two Moors gigs - one a wedding in the heart of the Sussex countryside on the Saturday night and the other a Sunday afternoon performance in the open air at the Hastings Seafood & Wine Festival on a tiny uncovered stage where I feared we would have been both electrocuted and swept away had the rain and wind persisted (but fortunately the sun came o...
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Free verse

Posted by Ken Edwards on Friday, September 16, 2011, In : Reality Street

On Saturday week - 24 September - Reality Street will take part in a poetry book fair at Exmouth Market, Clerkenwell, London. The remarkable thing about this is the range of presses and organisations taking part - see above. From Anvil to zimZalla, from Enitharmon to Penned in the Margins to, well, Reality Street. And Mike Horovitz is opening it.

Those reading this from outside the UK without first-hand experience of the stratification of British poetry may have little idea how unusual this is...
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RS sale postscript

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, September 3, 2011, In : Reality Street

I should have learned from last year, but I didn't - the announcement of the September sale resulted in a huge, immediate demand. But I have now managed to fulfil all the orders that came in during the first two days. Sadly, or happily, the previously unknown cache of Barbara Guest books is no longer available, selling out more quickly than anything else. Other stocks are depleting fast. I may put some additional items into the sale to keep it going - watch this space (or the space this links...
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Reality Street sale 2011

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, August 31, 2011, In : Reality Street

This year's Reality Street sale takes place in the month of September. It's a chance to get your hands on some treasures from the past at bargain prices. Go to the sale page to find out more and to buy books. If you can't or won't buy online, and are in, or within reach of London, Reality Street will be at Free Verse, the Poetry Book Fair, on Saturday 24 September at Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QE, where a selection of sale items will be available.

There will also be short readings at that ev...
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and the sonnet is not dead

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, July 27, 2011, In : Reality Street

The ripples created by The Reality Street Book of Sonnets are still spreading nearly three years after its publication. Robert Sheppard has just concluded a 14-part on-line dissertation on "The Innovative Sonnet Sequence" which is in large part an extended review of this excellent volume. I'm not sure it adds a great deal to Jeff Hilson's exemplary introduction to the anthology, but it's worth reading nonetheless. The anthology is not as readily available in the US as I would like, and I am c...
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Reality Street on The Verb (update)

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, July 5, 2011, In : Reality Street

It's been confirmed that Reality Street poets James Davies and Carol Watts will be on the last programme in the current series of The Verb (BBC Radio 3), to be transmitted on Friday 15 July at 10:00pm BST. Listen out for them!

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Reality Street progress report

Posted by Ken Edwards on Sunday, June 26, 2011, In : Reality Street

James Davies' Plants and Carol Watts' Occasionals have now been published and met with a gratifying response, including already a couple of online reviews of James' book and many viewings of the launch videos on YouTube. There have been a couple of glitches sending copies out directly from the printers to Reality Street's currently over 70 Supporters, but I hope they have mostly been resolved by now.

Right now, I'm working on production of Leopold Haas' The Raft, in some ways one of the strang...
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Reality Street on The Verb

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, June 14, 2011, In : Reality Street

Just heard that both the authors of Reality Street's most recent books will be on The Verb, BBC Radio 3's weekly programme about the written and spoken word.

James Davies will be reading some of his "Unmades" from Plants, and Carol Watts, author of Occasionals, will interview him on air.

The programme is scheduled to be recorded on Thursday 7 July - transmission date to be confirmed.

More soon!

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Carol and James launch videos

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, May 14, 2011, In : Reality Street

Knackered today after last night's gig by The Moors at the Jenny Lind, Hastings. Sound problems in the first half, resolved by replacing a mic. I thought we played really well in the second half, boosted by the appearance of the Iceni Belly Dancers, but boy was it intense. Nice that we packed out the pub despite Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick performing just down the road!

OK, I've posted short videos on YouTube, not of The Moors this time but of Carol Watts' and James Davies' readings to la...
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Carol and James launch

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, May 12, 2011, In : Reality Street

Excellent launch in London last night for James Davies' Plants and Carol Watts' Occasionals. There were maybe 30+ in the upper room of The Apple Tree, which I now am told is not after all the pub formerly called the Penny Black - that's another one in the vicinity, but both are/were traditional locals for posties at the now-doomed Mount Pleasant Sorting Office, and both are now converted into shiny gastro-bistro-winebaristico thingies. Though, having said that, I remember the pub we were in f...
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Reality Street launches into spring

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, May 4, 2011, In : Reality Street

Reality Street's 2011 publication programme gets under way on Wednesday 11 May with the London launch of James Davies' Plants and Carol Watts' Occasionals. (James is also previewing Plants in Manchester the day before, at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Cambridge St, at 6.30pm.)

The double launch takes place at The Apple Tree, 45 Mount Pleasant, London WC1X 0AE, the new venue for the Xing the Line reading series, and starts at 7.30pm. The pub is the former local for posties worki...

A chance to support Reality Street

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, March 29, 2011, In : Reality Street

The Reality Street Supporter Scheme has been operating for - I can't believe this! - twelve years now. It started with a casual exchange on the British Poetry discussion list in 1998 about what people could do to support small presses publishing innovative writing. I said I would welcome donations of £50 (I think it was) in return for which I would give the donors free copies of all the press's output for three years and acknowledge their help publicly in the back of the books. To my amazeme...
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Reality Street is grilled

Posted by Ken Edwards on Sunday, February 13, 2011, In : Reality Street

20 questions mainly about Reality Street are answered by me as best I can on Rob McLennan's blog. I hope I got them right.

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Small Publishers Fair

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, November 15, 2010, In : Reality Street

It was great to meet people at the Small Publishers Fair in the Conway Hall, London, over the past weekend. Some of the usual poetry addicts were otherwise engaged at an Olson conference, but there was a good attendance nevertheless, undaunted by the competing attractions in the capital of the Lord Mayor's Show and the rugby international at Twickenham.

This is me taking part in a mini-Bill Griffiths showcase for the Collected Earlier Poems. My co-publisher on this book, Alan Halsey of West ...
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Back online

Posted by Ken Edwards on Saturday, August 21, 2010, In : Reality Street

Apologies if you tried and failed to access this blog or the Reality Street site on 18-19 August. We were offline for a couple of days. The website host, Yola, had apparently been subjected to a hacker attack, and for one heartstopping instant when I read the emergency announcement I thought we might have lost both the Reality Street and Moors sites. However, a small techno-tweak happily restored business as usual eventually.

Meanwhile, let me take this opportunity to remind you that the Reali...
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Reality Street summer sale

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, July 7, 2010, In : Reality Street

First day of the month I announced a big clearout on the Reality Street website. The idea was (a) clear some bookshelf space here; (b) get people reading some of the excellent books the press has published over the years rather than have them gather dust; (c) generate some cash for the press in the doldrums of summer; (d) draw attention to our rather nice website.

Two days later I was absolutely overwhelmed by orders. I just sent out a whole bunch of packets this afternoon and more will follo...
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Fanny Howe launch - brief report

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, June 23, 2010, In : Reality Street

In a rush this morning, as I have to travel back to London to catch up with old work colleagues (and in the process watch with trepidation England's last group match in the World Cup) - so just a brief message to report that Fanny Howe's Emergence from Reality Street was safely launched yesterday at a reading for the Blue Bus at The Lamb. London. Here's a rather poor photo snapped with my mobile phone:

Also reading was Tom Raworth, who prefaced his performance by reading a short selection from...
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New Reality Street books

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, May 26, 2010, In : Reality Street

It's been 15 years since Reality Street published O'Clock by Fanny Howe. It's hard to believe the press has been going that long (in fact, for 17 years in total). But anyway, it's high time we published another book by Fanny, and here it is, out this week and soon to be mailed out to Reality Street Supporters.

Emergence doesn't contain much that is completely new - what it is is a complete reimagining of some of Fanny's poetry originally published in the 1970s, 80s and 90s and now out of print...

Bill Griffiths on Radio 3

Posted by Ken Edwards on Thursday, February 4, 2010, In : Reality Street

Yesterday (Wednesday 3 February) I travelled to BBC Broadcasting House in London to record an interview with the redoubtable Ian McMillan for Radio 3's The Verb about Bill Griffiths' Collected Earlier Poems. The poet Sean Bonney was also interviewed about what Bill had meant to him. I hope they'll also be broadcasting a snippet of Bill reading from a CD I took in.

We talked a bit about how Bill was just getting known towards the end of his life for his work on Geordie pit dialect - indeed, I...
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Interlude on e-books

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, January 27, 2010, In : Reality Street

We interrupt this series to pose a question.

Recently, a couple of authors who have Reality Street books forthcoming have enquired about e-book versions of their published work. Am I planning to make such available? Or if not, do they retain the right to do so?

The answer to the first question is that I haven't given it much thought, but a moment's reflection suggests that there isn't (yet) a history of readers willing to pay for e-book versions of small press poetry collections and works of im...
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New decade, new Bill

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, December 23, 2009, In : Reality Street

Santa Claus arrived early this week in the guise of the courier from Reality Street's printers, delivering eleven large packets containing brand new copies of Bill Griffiths' Collected Earlier Poems. It looks good, and it really is the first occasion on which Bill's poems (up to 1980) have been properly put into their historical context.

So I shall spend some time during and possibly after the holidays re-packing them to send out to all you kind people who have subscribed to it or have become ...
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Live Reality report

Posted by Ken Edwards on Monday, November 16, 2009, In : Reality Street

The Small Publishers Fair at the Conway Hall (13/14 November) was good, if not quite great. There seemed to be more presses exhibiting their wares than ever before, and it was encouraging to see more poetry presses to balance out the artists' book people - eg Shearsman, attending for the first time.

I'd never been for the whole of the Friday before this year, and was surprised at how much activity there was throughout that day. It made me anticipate a truly overwhelming Saturday, but it never ...
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Live Reality

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, November 11, 2009, In : Reality Street

Once again, I'm attending the annual Small Publishers Fair in London this coming weekend on behalf of Reality Street. As I don't have a day job any longer, I shall for the first time be able to man the stand on the Friday as well as the Saturday.

I'll be bringing as much stock as I can carry on the train in a wheelie bag and a shoulder bag, which should include copies of most of Reality Street's titles published over the past five or six years - plus some oldies but goodies and slight seconds...
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Introducing Botsotso

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, September 1, 2009, In : Reality Street

Today Reality Street publishes Botsotso: an anthology of contemporary South African poetry. Here's what I wrote for the preface of the book:

In April 2004, at the Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry (CCCP), I encountered Ike Mboneni Muila from Soweto. He had previously been compared by someone to Tom Raworth, for his high-octane delivery. Opening the Saturday evening session, he amazed me by riffing flawlessly and rapidly in several languages: Afrikaans, English and more than one nativ...

Wendy Mulford and Peter Jaeger

Posted by Ken Edwards on Sunday, May 10, 2009, In : Reality Street

This Tuesday (12 May) I am travelling to London to host the launch reading at the Calder Bookshop of the latest Reality Street books - by Wendy Mulford and Peter Jaeger. Everyone is welcome - see the Reality Street home page for details.

I am pleased that we are doing a book by Wendy. Although she is no longer involved with Reality Street, she is a co-founder of it - part of its heritage is Street Editions, which published Prynne, Raworth, John James, Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Denise Riley and...
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Reality Street update 3: Bill Griffiths

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, April 1, 2009, In : Reality Street

Last week I announced Reality Street's forthcoming publication of David Bromige's Collected Poems. Work on that essential volume is only just getting going, but in the meantime our other major current project, a collection of Bill Griffiths' poetry from his earliest work up until 1980 - the period that roughly precedes the Salt collection The Mud Fort - has progressed apace.

Bill (pictured above) died in 2007. You can read my obituary of him here. He was a poet of wonderful invention and ener...
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Reality Street update 2: David Bromige

Posted by Ken Edwards on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, In : Reality Street

I'm delighted to confirm that Reality Street will be collaborating with New Star Books, Vancouver, Canada, to co-publish David Bromige's Collected Poems. The book is being edited by Ron Silliman with help from Bob Perelman. We're hoping to get it ready next year (2010).

David (pictured above by Andrea Auge) is not currently in the best of health but he's looking forward to this.

There has been some confusion about whether the collection would be limited to David's later books, but I can confirm...
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Reality Street update 1

Posted by Ken Edwards on Sunday, March 8, 2009, In : Reality Street

Supporters and regular readers may like to know that The Land Between by Wendy Mulford and Rapid Eye Movement by Peter Jaeger, both featured on our home page, are now in press. I hope copies will be available within the next few weeks, in good time for the official launch on 12 May.

I am very pleased with them, and I shall have more to say about them both before they are published.

Meanwhile, Richard Makin's forthcoming book, provisionally titled St Leonards, now has the new title Dwelling. Ric...
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