Revewed at 'Stuck in a Book'...

Another review, this time by Simon Thomas at Stuck in a Book.

He says:

Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie has a … varied group of scenarios, narrators and themes - but her voice is rather harsher, more concerned with the gritty and the earthy. Occasionally a quieter voice creeps through, which leaves one staring at the page at the sheer pathos Gebbie can create. 'The Kettle on the Boat', for instance, where parents quietly take their Inuit daughter away on a boat; she narrates the journey, and leave her for adoption: "If I am not there to help, how will Mama know when the fish are ready?"

The one I wanted to point to, though, is 'Cactus Man'. 'The Kettle on the Boat' was my favourite, but 'Cactus Man' is perhaps more representative. 'Spike', an enthusiast and collector of cacti, wants to discover his real name because he is getting married. He visits a social worker who can look through his files and tell him.

'I was saying how unusual your case is.'
'Can't be doing with too much usual.'
'Sorry?'
'We feed off being unusual, us lot.'
'Oh, I see'.

The story is one of muted disappointment, understated grief and an eventual path of hope for Spike. Gebbie is at her most subtle here, and manages to evoke the lives of her central characters completely, visualised through the stilted attempts of Spike to gain a firmer grasp on his identity. There is nothing so saccharine as a 'love conquers all' message here …but a sense that hope can be found amongst fragility and discouragement.


I'm glad he picked that one to represent the book. It's my favourite story.

Glass Bubble was reviewed alongside Balancing on the Edge of the World, by Elizabeth Baines... he loved her book, as did I.

The whole review can be found HERE
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Conversations with Amazon

What do you do when Amazon litter your book page with errors?

Here's the product description as lifted from the Words from a Glass Bubble page:


This passionate new book gathers together for the first time many of Vanessa Gebbiea??s award-winning stories. Described by Maggie Gee as a??a prodigiously gifted new writera??, she is a natural storyteller; her narratives unfold with a deceptively light touch, exploring with compassion what it is to be human and flawed. a??Words From a Glass Bubblea?? is about coming to terms with the cards we are dealt.

Good, innit?

There is, thankfully, as system whereby the author and the publisher can change their product pages. I followed the guidelines exactly, taking careful note of the exhortation to take care, as what I typed into the online form would override the existing content.

Good! That's why I was doing it!

But no. The incorrect paragraph is still there, incorporated into the product description, looking ever so, but ever so slightly amateurish...

The conversation continues.

Sigh. It is wonderful to have a resource like Amazon, but...


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Fame...is Page 5 of the Sussex paper...

So they know about me in Lewes, and in Rye, apparently. I'm in two different papers and two different blogs, but they look scarily similar.

LEWES, SUSSEX EXPRESS


RYE AND BATTLE OBSERVER

BOOK LAUNCH...THE SEQUEL

Lots of piccies of me, here, and far too many of my batty writer. But you get a good idea of my beautiful jumper and skirt.. my favourites. Goes with my hair don't you think?





These were all taken by photographer Cora Malinak at the launch party for Words From A Glass Bubble, March 11th. Friends, family, place, people, books, pictures, and a lot of smiles.

Put your speakers on: the music is the Allegro from Handel's Cuckoo and Nightingale Organ Concerto

Handel makes an appearance in the slide show...in terracotta.

But mostly the best pictures are of moi, the book.

The photographer is whizzo. Ace, and all sorts of clever. Not like my batty writer who has just worked out which way up to hold a camera. Huh.

CLICK HERE FOR CORA MALINAK PHOTOGRAPHY

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REPRINTS, BOOKSHOPS and MORE PARTIES

LOts of news!!
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A lovely shop called Skylark, in the Needlemaker's Centre in Lewes, is selling me. I am delighted!
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I am alive and kicking in Waterstones in Brighton and lots of others. And on lots of web shops, like Amazon, and Blackwells and ..and..and..
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I am having another party, in The Garden Room, in Lewes, with readings...

There's a launch party being put on by New Writing South, at The Nightingale Theatre in Brighton, just for moi!
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Monday 31st March, 6.30 to 8.30 pm, free ... and a free glass of bubbles to go with my glass bubbles. Lovely Jubbly!
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(I expect my batty writer will have to be there. One of these day's I'll be allowed out on my own...)

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and

I'm being printed all over again cos they've nearly run out.
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PICCIES!!

My batty writer signing a book...
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My batty writer with Jen Hamilton Emery from Salt Publishing (and half a Big Salt Bag for Salt Books...)
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Mr Kieron Fenton reading moi...
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My batty writer signing moi for Maggie Gee who says nice things on my cover...
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Molara Wood and Elaine Chiew
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More on the party...

Last night, at London's Foundling Museum, Words From A Glass Bubble was launched.

It was the best possible event. I was surrounded by 130 friends - writers and non-writers. The champers flowed, the noise level was high, there were three readings and a constant opportunity to explore this wonderful place with the help of experienced guides.

I will post pictures when they come through... but HERE IS A LINK to Elizabeth Baines' blog, with her piccies, a lovely account of the party, and the book...

And Sarah Hilary, a super crime writer (and winner of one of the Fish prizes this year) has written it up on her blog HERE

Can't ask for nicer words from either of them. Thank you both. It was lovely of you to make the journey to London, one from Manchester, one from the Cotswolds.

I HAD A PARTY!

I did! I had my first party! I must be a party animal, I think. At least that's what people were saying to my batty writer.

There were some brilliant people there. Really brilliant. 130 of them. I counted.

My batty writer read my first story, in three episodes. There was loads of champers and wine, and I wanted a jelly but there weren't any.

SALT WINS AWARD

Brilliant news! Salt Publishing have won an award!!

The Independent Publishers Guild is proud to announce the eleven winners of the 2008 Independent Publishing Awards.

This from their blog:

Salt Publishing received the Nielsen Innovation of the Year Award for its imaginative efforts to increase sales of collections of poetry and short stories despite very challenging market conditions. It impressed with its range of web-based marketing initiatives and partnerships and energetic development of its brand. “Salt is bucking the trend in poetry by growing its sales,” said the judges. “Its innovation in lots of small ways adds up to a major achievement."

CONGRATULATIONS JEN AND CHRIS!

BRIGHTON BUBBLY LAUNCH THANKS TO NEW WRITING SOUTH

Lovely news. New Writing South, my writing association, are putting on a launch party for Glass Bubble. With a free glass of bubbly for everyone!


BUBBLY LAUNCH PARTY... sounds rather appropriate!


It will be in Brighton at a fab venue, on Monday 31st March, 6.30 pm

Fantastic!

Watch this space for venue.

REVIEWED ON NORMBLOG

Words from a Glass Bubble has been reviewed by Adele Geras today on her husband (Norman Geras)'s blog, Normblog.

(I love Normblog. There is always something to provoke, to challenge, to make me think...)

Adele Geras reviews two Salt Collections: Balancing on the Edge of the World, by Elizabeth Baines, and Glass Bubble.

She writes a very good introduction in which she champions the short story.Here is her article in its entirety:

Two short story collections (by Adèle Geras)

Salt is an independent publisher based in Cambridge and it specializes in short stories. I've read two collections by Salt authors recently: Elizabeth Baines's Balancing on the Edge of the World when it came out a couple of months ago, and - the other day - Vanessa Gebbie's Words from a Glass Bubble, to be launched next week.

Some people simply don't like reading short stories and I find this so inexplicable that every so often I'll try my powers of persuasion to win the form a few more readers. Publishers (though not Salt, obviously) think that collections are not a paying proposition and efforts to bind them up individually as tiny little booklets and sell them at railway stations and the like don't seem to have flourished. They crop up less and less frequently in magazines. The broadsheets will carry a story by a superstar writer at Christmas, and occasionally at Halloween, because ghost stories, at least, are perennial favourites. Val McDermid tried her hardest a couple of years ago to get short stories noticed with a superb website and perhaps the internet is part of the future of this genre. But collections like these two show that the form is still alive and well in its printed version.

Those who don't like short stories are disappointed, perhaps, because they expect them to be small novels and they're not. It's like wishing a truly delicious canapé, or an exquisite strawberry tart, were a three-course meal. That isn't going to happen. With a few exceptions, short stories are short - over in a few pages for the most part - and therefore you'd think ideal for journeys, waiting rooms, the time before you fall asleep and any small time slot when getting stuck into a novel means you won't get further than the next few pages and have to leave it hanging till a later time.

Stories, when they work (and in the hands of these two writers they do work), offer us a chance to look into someone else's life. They can throw a stone into our mind that keeps rippling out to the edges of our thoughts all day long. That, I think, is what the blurbese 'haunting' means: you are literally pursued by the story you've just read, as if by a particularly vivid dream. They can terrify you (M.R. James, Franz Kafka), make you laugh (Damon Runyon), and even bring to life, however briefly, a whole distinct world (Katherine Mansfield, Anton Chekhov). They can be extended jokes, or delicious bits of scandal, or an overheard conversation. There are stories to suit every taste.

Elizabeth Baines's speciality is unpacking relationships. She catches perfectly the embarrassment, rivalry, squabbling, envy and love that exist between parents and children and between siblings. 'The Way to Behave' has a wronged wife going to speak to her husband's mistress. Baines is wincingly funny about the creative process and 'The Shooting Script' ought to be required reading for anyone who fancies themselves writing for television. She's both lyrical and clear-sighted when she looks at the world through a child's eyes. Try the stories 'Power' and 'Daniel Smith disappears off the face of the earth'. She moves between the city and the countryside and her internal monologues sound genuine, which isn't a surprise as Baines is a prize-winning playwright. Many of these tales would make good short dramas and perhaps that's one way of approaching them. The difference between drama and stories, though, is this: you have to provide the setting, costume and props in words and Baines does this with enormous aplomb.

The cover image on Vanessa Gebbie's book (which shows the back view of a beautiful red-haired girl going along a road and which reminds me of the Clark's shoe advertisements from the 50s) is an ironic comment on the contents of the book. The stories here are often heart-breaking. The death of children is a recurring theme and tales like 'I can squash the king, Tommo' (with its deliberate echoes of 'Under Milk Wood') are hard to read with dry eyes. Gebbie is never sentimental and the grief felt by her protagonists is brilliantly described. The ordinariness of pain: the way you settle into it, the way you face what's dished out to you, the way you cope, are examined in language that's plain and even brutal when it needs to be, and tender and poetic when that's appropriate. Some of the stories are set in Wales; the seaside is the background for some others. There's a story about an Inuit child which is desperately sad, but still uplifting. Harry in 'Harry's Catch' - which dwells in some detail on the technicalities of fishing - faces the truth about his marriage for the first time. A lowly employee at a hotel works out who wears the shoes he polishes, and in my favourite story, 'Dodie's Gift', you get an entire thriller plot played out in ten pages. It's terrific stuff: wide-ranging, interesting and, like the Baines, very well-written.

I do urge anyone who loves short stories to read these two collections and help me spread the word. (Adèle Geras)

Bubble goes international!

Funny place I've ended up in, I have to say. I thought I was going to be read in United Kingdom places.

(You see, that's nice... I LIKE Kings, always have. I feel a sense of affinity. Must be a throwback to royalty myself. I mean. Look at my hair? Some king was a redhead, wasn't he? QED. Who IS the King?)

But my batty writer has been writing nice things on my title page, wrapping me up in padded envelopes, and sticking stamps on me.

So my sisters and I have gone to England, Wales, France, Finland, and America. Thats just from her box, too. I dont know about the people at Salt.

From this tiny post office in a grocery store in a village in the middle of nowhere much, in UK.

The lady there is nice.

My batty writer and this post office lady had the following conversation:

"Put it on the scales please. Is it inland?"

"No, Finland."

"Yes, inland?"

"No, Finland."

"That's what I said."

"No, Finland. With an EFF"

"Is that inland Finland?"

(I made that last line up. She reckons she's the only one who can make things up round here... pah!)

More on marketing

INTERVIEW

I was interviewed this week by Kelly Spitzer on her 'Writers' Profile' Project.

INTERVIEW HERE

The first day the interview was up Kelly tells me she had 500 hits.



COMPETITION WIN AND PUBLICATION

I won the 2nd Per Contra Prize, announced on Saturday (the same day the book was officially published)

Publication and of course mention of the book in the bio, alongside work by none other than John Updike. Can't get better than that.



ANOTHER ACCEPTANCE

Wei Ch'i, piece of flash fiction, accpeted by the lovely Smokelong Quarterly, for publication this month. Mention in bio, and another interview.