An open book

Having started as an intern on Monday at Granta Books with Granta/Portobello I have been inspired by some of the great writing I've come across there, and surprised by the amount of poor or unsuitable manuscripts they are sent. If you want to check out some good writing, the Granta magazine on "Work" seemed really interesting, and the new one on the theme of "Going Back" has a moving piece about one reporter's feelings towards Sarajevo recalling the awful seige there, which is titled The Book of the Dead. Each of the magazines is like a small book, and contains fiction, non -fiction and occasional poems.

Meanwhile I came up with this opening to a story. Here's my idea: Why don't you finish it? Enjoy the challenge.

"Don't just leave me here, then!"
The sky was fast melding into a blue so deep it didn't seem real, but I couldn't tell you if this was just what creation was doing then or whether it was due to the knock I had taken in the fall.
The sky has funny way of capturing my attention like that. Even then, when I had no idea where Misha had gone. The sky continued to turn itself over as I tried to make out what had happened to the blurry figures who had left me.
Misha's words stank in my ear. Hoarse, they troubled me, like a poison. I felt the guilt he wanted me to feel, and I knew I felt and understood his hurt now. But right now I needed to get up and out, in case he came back.
I'd known he hated me. But I could not have forseen today, in a million years.

Visiting Penguin publishing in London

So last Thursday I travelled up to Penguin Books for a day called "Getting Into Publishing". As you can see, it wasn't hard to find the place :)

I met some fantastic people: editors, publicists, publishers, sales and finance and marketing and book production people, assistants, and students and graduates looking for work. It was exciting to be amongst so many great people who were really passionate about books.

This has thrown up some more questions for me: I love working with words, ideas and communicating the best aspects of a book, the experience I've had with it, the fresh take it gives on big themes. So do I want to work in marketing, focusing on how to promote a book through its cover, informing the trade press, writing newsletters, etc. Or do I want to work on actually producing the books themselves? And then, there's other questions, such as children's or adult? Fiction or non-fiction?

Hearing how publicists make opportunities to spotlight books by generating news stories was interesting, and explains a lot. I guess this fuels the book industry, and gives newspapers a lighter story or a story in a completely different area that wouldn't have come up otherwise. Of course it also helps sales in independent book shops (which are struggling) as well as helping Penguin make money!

It was a really interesting day, and hopefully not the last time I visit Penguin. They gave us lot of tips about how to start with Penguin, and generally in publishing. We were also given some books, including "Twitterature" which is so WRONG but so FUNNY.