They

September 17, 2014
They say that that’s what they say. They say that. They do say that. That’s what they’re saying I heard it on the radio. They do say that that’s what they say they say that they do. But do they? But do they they do. Believe me they do. No but do they? I don’t know I just heard it on the radio that’s what they’re saying. They said the same thing yesterday. Did they? Yes they did they said the same thing yesterday they’re always saying that. They’ve been on about it before. You don’t want to take too much notice of it. They’re always on about it. You don’t want to pay too much attention. But everybody’s talking about it they say everybody’s talking about it they say it was on the radio. They’re talking about what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen? I don’t know but they’re talking about it right now. They’re talking about it it was in the papers it was on television it was on the internet it was everywhere what they were talking about that’s what they’re talking about. That’s what they’re talking about but nobody knows really. Nobody knows really they may talk about it but they don’t really know. There’s a lot of talk but when it comes down to it they don’t know. Do they? No they don’t they don’t know. They really don’t know. They don’t know what’s going to happen. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

from A book with no name - work in progress

 

White zone and green zone

August 9, 2014
There is a white zone of the province where white people live. They have lived there for generations tending their crops raising their children. And over on the other side live the green people. That is called the green zone. The green people have been there for centuries. From even before there were zones. The white people know nothing of the green people. The green people know everything about the white people all their culture and history and everything because they have read about them in...
Continue reading...
 

Export Zone commended

July 9, 2014
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 ...
Continue reading...
 

let me tell you on the radio

June 13, 2014

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.



Continue reading...
 

The English Fascist Party (2)

May 26, 2014
This is what Fascism is like. It's not a comical foreigner screeching incomprehensibly before an adoring crowd. It's not shaven-headed bully boys in uniform. No, this is the English version. It's waking up on a damp, grey Bank Holiday Monday morning to hear ignorant people squawking "The country isn't what it was", "Politicians - they're all the same", "They don't listen to us". And neither the media nor the mainstream parties can challenge this - they don't dare alienating these people by te...
Continue reading...
 

The English Fascist Party

May 15, 2014
When I was a small child in Gibraltar I remember my mother telling me how she as a child herself had heard gunshots across the frontier. That was the Spanish Civil War. She also told me that in Britain you were allowed to criticise the Queen, but if you publicly criticised Franco in Spain you would be put in prison.

More recently, one of my aunts, now living in Spain, was reminiscing about her deceased husband, my uncle, who got into serious trouble in the 1930s when as a young man he attended...
Continue reading...
 

Live at the Palace

May 7, 2014
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...
Continue reading...
 

Next year on Reality Street

May 2, 2014
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...
Continue reading...
 

Rough trade

March 7, 2014
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 ...
Continue reading...
 

Reading in Brighton

February 21, 2014
Just getting over the inaugural REALITY STREET LIVE at the Electric Palace, here in Hastings. Excellent night. Philip Terry read magnificently, and I enjoyed myself reading a short story from Down With Beauty and (most of all) performing with Elaine (who played flute and accordion) in a dramatised extract from Bardo. Amazingly, almost every seat in the 50-seater cinema was filled, mostly with people I didn't know, so that's a good omen for the rest of the series, which continues on 19 March a...
Continue reading...
 

About ...


Ken Edwards This blog is written by Ken Edwards, co-founder and editor/publisher of Reality Street, and it's mainly about the press. Ken's personal blog can now be found at http://www.kenedwardsonline.co.uk