This week, you’re not hearing from Jamie, your usual bearer of Valley Press-related news – instead, you’re hearing from me, Rebecca, one of the lucky interns working for VP this summer. You can check out a blog post about my first week as an intern here. So, whilst Jamie is busy working on other important things, it's my job to make sure you’re all up-to-date on what has been happening this week.
Of course, it goes without saying that this week has been a tough one. With the news of a terrorist attack in my home city of Manchester, there has been a strange atmosphere lingering in the air. What happened was devastating, but the love we have witnessed since the event; the people of Manchester offering victims a place to stay, the tireless work of the emergency services, and the kindness of strangers in the aftermath, have shown us that love is stronger than hate.
The important thing to take from this tragedy is that we have to stick together in the face of evil, and we showed that this week – it was beautiful to see the support given to the people of Manchester. Even though the events made me feel so far away from home, I felt the love. Sharing this newsletter feels unimportant in contrast, but maybe it's more important than ever? The fact we have this community, this newsletter, is an opportunity to spread the message that we must come together as one. As our friend Stephen May wrote on Facebook, it's a victory “every time we gather together to celebrate freedom of expression”. It is important we keep in our minds what happened, that we take time to grieve and remember the victims, but it is also important to carry on.
* * *
I am aware that Jamie has already shared the news, in a previous week, about VP's exciting new Chinese translated books project – but, it has now caught the attention of The Bookseller, the go-to magazine for all things publishing. They have written an article this week all about the project, which you can see for yourself here. Since the news spread about our project, there has been a real buzz within the Chinese literary community across Twitter – which is promising!
On Saturday 3rd June, Jamie and I will be attending a literary event in Leeds city centre, a fairly new opportunity to appear on the scene – the Northern Short Story Festival. The day will see lots of published authors come together, along with editors and publishers (Jamie is appearing on a panel!) It’s open to the public, and there are some great workshops to get involved with, but it looks like they’re selling out of tickets quickly, so make sure you head over to their website if you’re interested in attending.
As I’m sure you all know, our new website went live last week. However, it unfortunately experienced some teething problems. The site had a bug, which meant that when some of you ordered books (between Friday 19th at 11am, and Tuesday 23rd at 11am), the orders weren’t being processed properly, which meant no payment was collected, and we weren’t informed of any orders. The issue has since been resolved, so if you would like to try again with your order, please do.
And finally, an update on Helen Burke’s Today the Birds Will Sing: the typesetting of the poetry has been completed, all 248 pages! The book is still available for pre-order, with a definitive delivery date to be announced next week.
* * *
And that is all from me! You are now up-to-date on what has been happening here at Valley Press. I hope you all have a lovely week ahead, and it was a pleasure to act as a stand-in deliverer of news for Jamie.
All the best,
Rebecca Moynihan, Valley Press intern
No comments:
Post a Comment