Blog

We’re really chuffed to have been asked to join The Arts Council Fiction Group alongside five other award winning Independent publishers. Together we have published some cracking stories that enagage and inspire and stand out from the bewildering output of the big corporates. The publishers are:

• Arcadia Books
• And Other Stories
• Bitter Lemon
• Comma Press
• Dedalus Books
• and our good selves, Bluemoose Books.

Together we will be promoting and marketing brilliant books. Each and every publisher is passionate about getting wonderful stories that are beautifully written into the hands of readers. We’re proud of our independence and that’s what makes us unique, we don’t pander to trends, we set them.

Our month for promoting a Bluemoose title will be June. Watch this space.

The Bookish Supper Society will be wining, dining and listening to authors, Mark A Radcliffe, Nina de la Mer and Irma Kurtz in Brighton on Wednesday 12th February. Good food and good stories. Doesn’t get any better than that does it.

Bluemoose author Socrates Adams, whose novel, A MODERN FAMILY, we published late July 2013, is off to Hollywood. Jack Black will be producing a remake of WIZARDS WAY, co-written and starring Socrates. Socrates, Joe Stretch and Chris Killem made the film for £400. It won the London Comedy Award 2012, was premiered at The BFI last January and will be premiered at the Slamdance Festival in the United States on January 19th. Apparently Jack will be buying the cocktails. Best grab a copy of A MODERN FAMILY before they sell out.

There was a cracking review of Mark A Radcliffe’s second novel, STRANGER THAN KINDNESS in The Guardian on Saturday 11th January. The reviewer got it spot on too, which is wonderful.

Happy New Year to readers everywhere. After a wonderful 2013 for Bluemoose Books, we’re really looking forward to publishing some cracking books in 2014. The first of which is the debut novel WOUNDING by Heidi James, which we’ll be publishing on April 24th 2014. More to follow on that.

We’ll also be publishing BEASTINGS by award winning author Benjamin Myers and the second novels from The Guardian NOT THE BOOKER Winner Michael Stewart, with CAFE ASSASSIN and NEVERHASBEEN by Canadian writer, Adrian Barnes.

Ben Myers, winner of the 2013 GORDON BURN Prize has been chosen as one of the four judges for the 2014 Prize, alongside actor and comedian Julian Barrett, award winning artist Sarah Lucas and award winning writer and poet John Burnside.

We have just sold the TV and Film rights of NOD by Adrian Barnes to 20th Century Fox. This is the first time a Bluemoose Book has been optioned by Hollywood. The writers have been commissioned and a 12 part TV series will be heading to your screen. It is all very exciting, especially for Adrian. I may have to buy a cravat and get out the silver topped cane but then again, perhaps not.

Team Bluemoose were at the Durham Book Festival awaiting the news of who had won the GORDON BURN Prize 2013, sat amidst the Victorian mock Tudor splendour of Durham Town Hall, when we heard those wonderful words…And the winner is…

PIG IRON by Benjamin Myers

So chuffed for Ben. There were tears from my good self, Heth my wife and some were shed by Ben’s family too, who were also present. It is just ace when a book you have fallen in love with, polished within a comma of its life and then wrapped up in a beautiful jacket, finally gets some national recognition. We will post up pictures from the doo, later on this week. There are some brilliant words about PIG IRON from Deborah Orr, one of the judges in the link below. Deborah is a columnist for The Guardian. The other two judges were, Mark Lawson, who is a presenter on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row and award winning author David Peace. Top people, one and all.

More bits and bobs at New Writing North.