Carmen Capuano at the BritAsia TV World Music Awards.
Carmen at BritAsia
Category Archives: Agency
Our ‘Woman of the Year’
These are exciting times for our client Carmen Capuano. She has been invited to have a book-signing event at the Women of the Year Awards! This is an honour she certainly deserves.
Carmen says, “It can be daunting chatting to these impressive, powerful ladies who have made such a huge impact on industry and commerce, as well as on our daily lives, in ways that we often don’t stop to think about, as role models and innovators in their fields…”
She is particularly looking forward to meeting fellow Glaswegian Michelle Mone, founder of Ultimo, of whom she says “… I wonder what her particular reading-taste will prove to be…”
If you happen to be going to the Awards, look out for Carmen.
Are you the next Jo Nesbø?
Seriously, are you the next Jo Nesbø?
We’re looking for good quality, well-plotted, well-written crime fiction, on behalf of a publisher who is hoping to publish and market books in that genre. No pot-boilers, nothing clichéd, nothing facile with stereotypical characters. Something that’s well within the genre but at the same time extraordinary, gripping, and page-turning.
Do you think you’re that kind of writer? Have you got that kind of novel in you? If so, please feel free to get in touch.
Go here for our guidelines for submitting work.
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Prof. David Crystal
Every year I make it my business to spend some time at the Edinburgh International Book Festival – sometimes at the Book Fringe too, if I can make it, but definitely at the Book Festival in Charlotte Square. In addition to attending events and writing reviews, I get to meet a lot of interesting people, at book-signings, in the media yurt, and just round and about.
Ben Crystal
This year I have been lucky enough to rub shoulders with, amongst others, Professor David Crystal, the UK’s foremost academic in the field of linguistics, and his son Ben Crystal, Shakespearean actor and expert on the ‘original pronunciation’ experiment. It was a great thrill and privilege to meet David and Ben, and to talk to them, as my field of study has touched on their fields of expertise. I have several books by David Crystal, and lately have bought their jointly-edited Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary.
Meera Syal
Other names I’m able to drop this year include poet David Kinloch, Paul Merton, Anthony Sattin the biographer of T E Lawrence, actor Meera Syal, Nicolas Parsons, Helena Nelson of Happenstance, and political geographer Erik Swyngedouw. I was also able to listen to the music of Scotland’s alternative hip-hop band Stanley Odd. Not that any of these people are unapproachable, as there is an opportunity for anyone to meet them at book-signings.
One feature that grows and moves in the village that Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square becomes, is the collection of photo-portraits taken by the Festival’s resident photographer, Chris Close. During the long fortnight he has the task of photographing the writers, celebrities, and others against a white screen, and displaying them around the Festival walkways. This has to be one of the best jobs at the Festival!
Stand-out moments from this year – for me – include the following: Ben Crystal’s presentation, to a young audience in the Baillie Gifford Imagination Lab, on getting into Shakespeare; engaging Erik Swyngedouw in discussion about dissent, trades union membership, democracy, and such; the tray-bakes in Café Brontë; the ‘end-of-term’ antics around the media centre on the last day. And just about everything else; if it is not a complete oxymoron, I would say that everything stood out. And what’s more, the sun shone all the time I was there.
I always try to escape for a while, and to take in some of the other events in Edinburgh. This year I was lucky enough to be alerted to and invited to Brite Theater’s one-woman version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, featuring Emily Carding, which was totally captivating. On my last day there I took some time to stroll through Princes Street Gardens and the Royal Mile, taking in the stalls, buskers, and Fringe events. The end of the Book Festival always seems to mark the end of summer for me. Back home the apples and Victoria plums are ripening and we’re testing out the central heating system.
Paul
‘Insight Radio’, who broadcast on behalf of the RNIB, had interviewers in Charlotte Sq.
Anthony Sattin
Helena Nelson
Nicolas Parsons being interviewed in the sunshine.
Erik Swyngedouw (left)
Photographer Chris Close
‘Busy doing nothing’ outside the Media Yurt.
Cedric Villani © Chris Close
Maggie O’Farrell © Chris Close
Ronnie Browne © Chris Close
Irving Frankel © Chris Close
Veronika Elektronika and Solareye of Stanley Odd.
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All the images in this update are © Paul Thompson, except for those from the official collection of Festival portraits, which are © Chris Close and are used here by his kind permission. No further use may be made of any of these images without the direct permission of the copyright-holders.
Can you stick poetry to a fridge door?
Can you stick poetry to a fridge door? If so, then a haiku e-zine called the zen space. would like to hear from you. They are looking for people who can make expressive images, words-and-images, or images-with-words that convey something that is brief and ‘in the moment’. If you reckon you can do that, then why not drop them an email? Find out more here.
One idea is simply to use children’s fridge letters like the ones shown here, but according to the zen space there are many, many more ways of tackling this.
We told you August was going to be a busy month!
… and so it has turned out to be.
Carmen Capuano, as you can see from the previous update, has been busying herself arranging too have her brilliant new novel Split Decision in the window of WHSmith. Carmen actually found time to tweet “I’m so happy I am singing” a couple of days ago. She deserves to be!
Carmen recently featured on the ‘Silver Threading’ blog. Go here if you would like to read more about her and her writing technique.
Marie Marshall has several things ‘bubbling under’ at present, so we won’t mention them until they come to the boil. However, if you would like to read eight of her poems that have never been published before now, either on line or in print, you might like to take note of this. Marie accepted an invitation from the Texas-based Poets Collective to contribute to their new anthology Collect the Day, in which more than thirty poets have written about various times of day. If you are a follower of Marie’s daily blog of poetic fragments, you will be familiar with her A dem●n’s diary series; well, there are four new poems in that series included in her eight.
Ben Crystal
Meanwhile Paul, the mainstay of this agency, has been out-and-about at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and will be until the end of the month. In Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square, Paul has been rubbing shoulders with authors, poets, publishers, actors, academics, TV personalities, and other festival-goers. He was thrilled to meet Professor David Crystal, the UK’s foremost expert in Linguistics, and to have a long chat with his son, Shakespearean actor Ben Crystal, of whom Paul is a great fan.
Paul may write an account of his Edinburgh fortnight later in this update column. He has still to see Meera Syal and to attend a one-woman version of Richard III at a Fringe venue, amongst other things.
The August busy-ness continues!
‘Split Decision’ for all to see!
Our client Carmen Capuano got in touch in great excitement yesterday, with some important news. She’ll be counting the cars racing by on the Aston Expressway this autumn, when the large digital billboard located there is displaying an advertisement for her latest book.
“I really can’t believe that my novel will be up there for everyone to see – it’s almost beyond my wildest dreams!” said Carmen, whose reputation as an author is gaining momentum as her popularity grows. “Thousands of cars pass that spot every day – and now they will see the cover of Split Decision!”
To add further to Carmen’s excitement, WHSmith will be stocking the newly released book on its shelves, facilitating its shoppers’ searches for a good read. Said a WHS spokesman, of the decision to put Split Decision on display in a prime spot in the window, “We are aware of exactly what our customers are looking for in a book. They want something they can fully immerse themselves in; good writing with a great plot. So if they haven’t already discovered Carmen Capuano for themselves, we are happy to bring her to their attention.”
So things may not quite be ‘written in the stars’ yet for our client, but they are certainly getting higher in the sky.
Carmen Capuano’s ‘Split Decision’ print launch!
If you can make it to the Artwork Cafe in Edgbaston, Birmingham, from 6pm to 8pm on 30th September, then you will be able to catch the launch of Carmen Capuano‘s novel Split Decision. Check out the poster below!
Bookseeker Literary Agency 