[Fanfare] Summer Short Story Competition Results [/Fanfare]

Hear this, or alternatively read it. The much-awaited results of the Summer Short Story Competition 2006.

Winner:

'The Better Craftsman' by Martin Tyrell.

Runners up:

'Crater Beelines' by Robert Ewing.

'The Space Between' by Jo Cannon.

Commended:

'Viento' by Angela Dodson.

'Everything She Touches' by Chris Williams.

'The Gordon Highlanders' Farewell to Helpmakaar' by Steve Connolly.

'White and Red' by Graham Dickson.

'Ghost Fishing' by Simon Lake.

'Maiden Voyage' by Lynne Voyce.

'Jam' by Jo Cannon.

***

Congratulations to all who entered and most especially to the good people above. All of these names are quite new to us here at Leaf. And lots of them are men, we notice, which is faintly notable. Well done to them. All of the above stories will be published in a Short Story Anthology to be produced at the start of the new year: do keep checking for further announcements about that, because there will very much be some.

That aside, the next point of major interest should be the results of the Coffee and Chocolate competitions, to be announced jointly, hopefully some time in January. That's the plan. Hurrah.

Sam.

A New Post.

Matt tells me I haven't made a blog post in some moons and have so to do, therefore I am. But I embarked on the whole process without anything in the way of a subject in mind, so you're going to have to sit quietly through the vocal exercises and tuning up before the essential meat cometh along.

Memememememememememememememeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Things are relatively quiet on the entering competitions front at present, its being close to Christmas and all. They are less quiet on the ordering books front, very likely for the same festive reason. Probably we shall have to get more copies of The Final Theory printed, which we find a hugely exciting prospect. Hugely. No, really. The trouble with hating exclaimation marks, which I pretty much do, is that genuine sentiment ends up looking awfully sarcastic. What I need to do, or you can do it if you've seriously nothing better to be getting on with, is invent a punctuation mark that conveys the same WOOHOOishness at which the exclaimation mark is so adept, but is simultaneously kind of tasteful. I'm just checking the keyboard for a spare one. ~ <-- Does that have any specific purpose? Can we use that? Probably I should bagsy it swiftly.

We're thinking of putting info about us on the website, and photographs. Note DO NOTE that I do not say true info, nor do I say photographs of us, but the issue is being borne seriously in mind. Thank you.

(And we didn't drown that time we went home in the rain. We were smacked fairly offensively in the collective face with handfuls of surprisingly sharp water, but we didn't drown. Go us.)

Sam.

Christmas Holidays CONFIRMED

I don't much mind Christmas, you know. It's a bit like Easter only much better, I suppose, but not half as good as Summer, which is like Christmas and Easter but infinitely longer, warmer, and more illuminative.

I'm not a religious sort of fellow but I'm all for the socialist element. Not that I'm much for socialism either, but if we're apportioning political standpoints on to what is essentially a pleasant few days in which to give the people you like a present or twelve, then we might as well say that Christmas is the most kindly.

Not that I give twelve presents to people I like, mind, but there we are. I also feel for those less fortunate, and this Christmas is no exception -- on a personal level at least -- since my entirely beloved is abandoning me for three weeks to fart about in the Australian sunshine.

I am most displeased.

In terms of Leaf Books, which is possibly what this was meant to be about, we're going on our Christmas holidays between the 21st of December and the 3rd of January.

If you place an order or enter a competition or send us a novella extract in this time then we're sorry, but it won't much be processed until we get back. However, emails are probably going to remain accessible, so we'll do our best.

Did you like how I turned into We just there? A subtle narrative development.

We're turning back into Me now. I don't deserve the responsibility.

In more significant news I have bought myself a new pair of jeans, which means I'll no longer require the safety pins I'd emplaced in my last pair. Should I happen to walk past any errant magnets they will not pose me any danger. Furthermore, my new jeans make me look more convincingly like a real human adult male, as opposed to a scruffy street urchin, and I will no longer sponge up the puddles I walk through. Nor will I so readily reveal my underpants when bending over to fulfil your orders.

Sam claims to have bought me some kind of gift that involves me 'needing to wear the provided safety equipment.' Personally I am hoping for a crossbow, because combining a crossbow with these jeans would help me look very adult and flash indeed.

Sorry that this update contained nothing of importance, save those two dates.

Matt.

The Brilliant Box of Books

Yes, hello, and a very fond December from me.

Our newest book -- The Final Theory & Other Stories: The Leaf Books Short Short Story Anthology 2006 (breathe...) -- is very beautiful and quite available to everybody. But then you already knew that, didn't you?

What's more exciting, though, as I'd like to tell you, is a box I made today.

Leaf is so transparent that we're stupidly amused to tell you that we re-use envelopes when we can. Particularly we recycle the ones with bubble-wrapping in them. However, so moral are we that we also consider bubble-wrapping a double-edged... protective device... because as sure as it protects our beautiful wares it also takes about seventy million years to biograde. Precisely like a banana doesn't.

So. Today we had an order that was larger than most, and so needed some custom box-building to sort it out. Taking an old box to task -- which mostly involved me setting about it with a pair of scissors and a craft-knife -- I became very much the Dr. Frankenstein and ultimately engineered such a staggering piece of art that I just had to write here about it.

The merits of my home-made (work-made?) box are thus:

1) It's flush to the books it contains, meaning rattling won't occur.
2) It's got bubblewrap sellotaped neatly to its interior, meaning the books won't get bashed by reckless postal service machinery and/or vans.
3) Its corners are reinforced, much like an armoured vehicle.
4) Its postal label is set in 28 point Sylfaen, which I promise is a nice font for a postal label.
5) It contains beautiful books.
6) It is recycled.
7) It is not from Amazon but could well be, given the utter professionalism involved in its creation.
8) It is neat.
9) It is not naff.

That's all. If you'd like a box made by me, or any of the others, then do please order a large amount of books.

I hope you have considered your christmas presents wisely.

Love,

Matt.

The Final Theory

Right. The website update happened. My eyes are too much burned by monitors to spend much time in floridly typing, but the news I was waiting to inform you of was that The Final Theory & Other Stories: The Leaf Books Short Short Story Anthology 2006 is back from the printers and up for sale. Here:

http://www.leafbooks.co.uk/readers/books/finaltheory.html

It costs £6.99, or you can buy it in a bundle with Razzamatazz (the poetry anthology) for £12 the pair. It's great. There is nothing else to be said.

The rain is very sideways and I don't much want to walk into it. Matt and I lack cars and have to do feet, and then trains, and then feet again. And the rain is sideways. Pity us slightly.

Sam.

I am not sick.

There was an expression of concern for my welfare in the comments of the underneathmost post, which is really very gratifying. I do notice that there has been essentially nowt in the way of posting for a week. A primary reason is that I can't tell you about Something until an update relating to Something has been made on the website. A secondary reason is that I was actually going to post earlier in the week but then the databasing took an entire day and I couldn't. The very good news is that databasing is being excitedly rotated between the four of us so I shouldn't have to do it more than once a week (plus one extra day per month, presumably, thinking about it mathematically, like), which actually quite thrills me. I'll be much happier not getting a wage for not-databasing.

What I would say if I was posting is [censored due to Something] and also that we really truly are judging the Summer Short Story competition AS WE SPEAK, and also the two themed ones. We are quite busyish really with the judging. Also, because it's not as though two alsos per paragraph be sufficient, we had an interesting notion about the Summer Short Story competition. T'original plan was to make a flip book (as in Tea Dance at the Waldorf/Sex with Leonard Cohen - and greetings to the people at the Leonard Cohen fansite who've paid visits to our own site on occasion) out of the two winning entries. But what we've found is that there are significantly more than two entries we consider publishable, and we'd frankly quite like to publish them. So we're wanting to do a short story anthology, basically, with a winner and a runner up and then a small fleet of commended stories, and we think it'll be quite great. What do YOU think?

Plus I had my, ooh, what, two dozenth rejection from a short story magazine this morning (resubmitted this afternoon with no further editing - plucky or nonsensical?), so I'm well up for the idea of reducing notifications of rejections.

I wonder if we shall have Christmas decorations in the office.

Sam.

Mostly extending the poetry comp deadline, but also a little bit of singing.

The song that contains the following words is possibly my favourite song in the whole world:

#I once had a whim and I had to obey it to buy a French horn in a second hand shop;
I polished it up and I started to play it in spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop.
De-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly....

Except really the diddlies are Donald Swann on the piano.

Hello there.

#To sound my horn, I had to develop my embouchure.
I found my horn was a bit of a devil to play DIDDLE-UM-DIDDY-DUM....

You'll possible be wanting some news.

News. Yes.

Oh right. Now, listen to this bit. Don't get distracted by comical song lyrics because it's actually kind of important.

The DEADLINE for the OPEN POETRY COMPETITION is being EXTENDED by ONE MONTH, so it now closes on 31st JANUARY. We've had a little bit of understandable flak in the past for extending the deadline on the Writing for Children competition, which upset some people who'd rushed to make the earlier deadline, and we do apologise profusely if anyone feels similarly pillocksed about on this occasion, but we're primarily doing it because we don't think it's really on to expect people to rush to finish their poems over Christmas. We hope very much that you approve. There.

#WHO. SWIPED. THAT. HORN? I'll bet you a quid somebody did, knowing
I'd found a concerto and wanted to play it, afraid of my talent at playing the horn,
For early today, to my utter dismay, it had vanished away like the dew in the morn.
De-dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-diddy etc.

Otherwise our news is fairly low key, if not mildly tragic in a sort of mundane and essentially privileged fashion. Primarily we had a brief stationary crisis in the office yesterday, wherein we found ourselves quite horribly deprived of both A4 paper, clean and scrap, and sellotape. But we're over it now, and my back hurts a little, because I've spent a good forty minutes of the day bearing the ream of paper across country in my rucksack, in the most dreadful rain, and my umbrella has rusted into several fairly pointless sticks wrapped in soggy cloths, but what of it? We can print words off the computer screen, and then we can tape them to things. We ask little more from life.

Tomorrow we're having another meeting in the pub. This is mostly why our office is possibly just a little bit happier than yours.

#I miss its music more and more and more. Without that horn... I'm feeling sad and so for-lor-ooooooooooooooooooorn....

And if anyone knows where my French horn is, please to be letting me know in comments.

Sam.

On Publicity & Marketing & Having Sore Eyes

The keenly-eyed and beady-fingered (?) of you might well have noticed the posh banner we've got occurring in the sidebar over there ---->

Well, that's been made to facilitate the new media world that is blogging, myspace, livejournals, the lot. Believe me I'm quite the turbo geek so it's of no surprise to me that these things work. Essentially it gives us a 'click-through', that is, that someone clicks it and flies through to the Leaf website whereupon they fall over, marvelling at how brilliant our books are.

I meant to say something earlier but by all means please take one for your own blog, myspace, livejournal or even website. I know writers are more keen on having official websites than scrawly blogs but there we are. If you don't know how to embed one then don't hesitate to email us -- I'll say something nice to you with instruction. Otherwise you can email and request that you very much want to use the code, and with forthright politeness I'll send you it at once.

After that you can place it in your HTML editor, or your 'edit profile' page, or any place really that might happily support a spot of pan-internet sorcery.

Our appreciation is -- and always will be -- legion.

Matt.

PS: I sourced out my own safety-pin thank you. And elsewhere my eyes are behaving wrongly and are resolutely hurting my upper-face. And... and and and... if you're doing the National Novel Writing Month... well. You understand precisely what I mean, and good luck to you. I'm 8,000 words behind schedule myself.

I would like most of all to be printing (or in New Zealand).

What I'm doing right now is primarily passing time until the printer on the desk behind me ceases to be in use by people who are not me. It's fairly frustrating. Not that I'm begrudging the other printer-user. Well, I am slightly, but I'm aware that my begrudgement is unreasonable and somewhat mean, so mostly that makes it all right. It's sort of intermittently in use. The printer. I keep thinking the coast's more or less clear for me to get cracking on the sizeable-ish printing job I have to do, then it whirrs again into action - as it did just then - and I have to pretend I was just wheeling my spinny chair in its direction for the sheer bally joy of the thing. Oh woe.

Also we're slightly out of envelopes. And we badly need brown paper. The brown paper acquiring mission was set for last Friday, but it sadly failed when the designated vehicle broke down and stranded the operator, who is even now housebound and socially isolated and having to order food over the internet. Goodness knows how people without cars manage to do ANYTHING AT ALL. Possibly that was slightly low. I apologise. I genuinely feel sorry for people whose legs and train timetables have been eaten tragically away by their cars.

On the plus side, the sun has somewhat come out. But the printer is only deceptively silent.

Sam.

Razzamatazz and Other Poems.

Razzamatazz and Other Poems landed happily in the office earlier this week, and very keenly and with many salutations was it received. We're all agreed that it's an inordinately smart little publication, and chock full of really very excellent poetical offerings. I discover that I really quite despise the word 'chock'. Razzamatazz and Other Poems (it has a subtitle as well that I can't offhand recall - has something to do with its containing the winning poems from the 2006 Short Poetry competitions, which is nothing short of the truth) is available for purchase from the website. As are numerous other jovial publications. Did you know you can buy a Leaf Super Mega Turbo bundle type thing? I don't think it's exactly called that, but that's very much the idea behind it. It's the entire back catalogue in one absurdly exciting package, and it sets you back only about 89p per book. So, you know. That's rather jolly.

The Final Theory and Other Stories, which is the microfiction compilation, is due to go off to the printers very much shortly. There was an exciting blip with the cover at one point, where in these clever tilted monitors decided to hide from us the fact that the cover had gone kind of stripey, and it was only noticed when Matt stood up and looked at it a bit sideways. But that's all been beaten back into shape now, and everything is pretty much well. And I wish to apologise at this juncture for the fact that the Short Short Story competition results never went up on the news page, which is sadly unnewsworthy at present. I'd update it myself only the software's gone wonky. Badger Gav slightly in the comments and he might perhaps oblige.

We are mostly quite well. Matt still waits in vain yet touching hope for his safety pin. He is unravelling sadly from the ankle upwards. I told him he should've offered a free book.

Sam.

Also!

Because I am a scruff and because I wear my jeans too low, I have a hole at the bottom of my left trouser leg.

Would anyone be kind enough to include a decent-sized safety pin in their next postal submission to us?

The first person to do so will get a photograph of my repaired jeans placed here, with many kind thankyous added to the post. In effect they will receive an entry dedicated entirely to them .

No really, they will. I can't actually walk in them. It's very sad. They are my favourite jeans.

Help.

Matt.

Surprisingly for a publisher this post is actually about our books

The Final Theory & Other Stories is finished and very much about to fly off to the printers, having been lovingly crafted and commented upon by all as smashing. A perfect companion piece to Razzamatazz & Other Poems, which is due back from the printers today or perhaps tomorrow or perhaps never, because they're so good and clever they might well've turned sentient and ran off to their respective authors to appear on their welcome mats as smiling complimentary offerings.

And I might add that it is cold, and that even with two pairs of socks on my toes are possibly frostbitten and are probably only still attached to my feet because my laces are done up so tightly.

Anyway, there'll be a sneak preview of the new book's cover (The Final Theory's that is) up on the website over the weekend, with those having patiently awaited the poetry book hopefully fulfilled and happy by next week.

Otherwise, I smell massively of lockets again.

Are any of our readers doing The National Novel Writing Month? If you are... well. Let's hope that for Leaf's sake you fail and end up writing a stonking short story instead. Or if we pursue this novella idea your 50,000 words are edited nicely into something well below 40,000....

Can I do a smily?

I think I can do a smily:

:)

Matt.

Novella.

Tut. What's Gav going on about down there? Paragraphing, is it? Gav has a thing about paragraphing. We find it best to nod politely and then find a less upsetting job for him that has nothing to do with paragraphing.

My thing is mostly comma splices.

The printer behind me is churning out envelopes with a soothing whirr, and my blue spinny chair makes me feel most wondrous like an emperor. And what a fine day it is to talk about novellas. Novellae. I was too late for Latin. Don't tell me it's Greek. Possibly French. Yes, I am fairly ashamed.

The novella in all its darling fewer-than-40,000-wordedness cropped up in our Monday morning meeting. We were having a thought. A devillishly fine one. How about, we were thinking, a novella competition? 'Cause we don't do novels. We do bite-sized morsicles like poetry and microfiction and the jolly old short story. But a novella encompasses petiteness like pretty much no other form. 'Cause it's like a novel, only knowingly diminutive. We love them anyway and we think they sit well with the whole Leaf ethos, especially the bit about publishing new and struggling but downright excellent types. We were reckoning, so we were, that folk with a novella to display to the world at large are probably not having a lot of luck with their mission.

And we rather want to know what you think about that. Unburden yourselves. Are you faintly in love with the whole juicy idea of the novella? Do you write 'em? And how are you faring when it comes to getting them accepted by a publisher? Would you be well up for the idea of a novella competition? Would you enter in your droves?

Please say yes. OH DO.

(Razzamatazz should be with us in the next couple of days, by the way. It's almost painfully splendid. Have a squint at the website and then have a bash at ordering a copy. £6.99 a go. It's a damnably fine book, ma'ams. Sirs. Damnably fine.)

Sam.

A New Convention

I've taken 20 or so Summer Short Story entries home to read this weekend. A task I rather enjoy, but I do have an observation and a question. Eight out of the twenty entries what I'll describe as having internet paragraphing: so each new paragraph is a block of text rather than being indented.

Now the reason that text on a web-page such as this one is done in blocks is down to the way a web-page is constructed and the language (html) it is coded in, though this is changing with the advent of a language called CSS that can replicate print conventions.

A separate paragraph should denote a scene-break or a significant change but if they are used continually then the flow is interrupted and the writing can feel stilted.

So I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts about why this new style of internet paragraphing is becoming so widely used in the real-world?

Gav.

Breaking things for fun.

Momentarily at a loss for something to do before the minor deluge that was the arrival of the post, I was pleasantly surprised when I inadvertantly scattered several hundred paper clips across the carpet and was obliged to dedicate a good ten minutes to their retrival. We have a very fine collection of paper clips. One of them's purple, one of them's industrial in size and significance and another is entirely round. Ceci was speculating as to whether we made a net loss or a net gain when it came to paper clips, but I'm fairly confident that we harvest from competition entries more paper clips than we subsequently commit to bundles of paper in need of shepherding.

Next, I might, for my own amusement, dismantle and remantle the photocopier.

Sam.

Minor hauntings.

Hello. Have you been neglected slightly? What were you wanting to know? We could tell you about the proofs of the poetry book (Razzamatazz & Other Poems: The Leaf Books Poetry Anthology 2006) that returned at the end of last week and were great and fine and approved. The book's looking ever so splendid and should be available for purchase in about a week's time. We'll let you know when this promise comes to fruition.

But the big news of the day is that one of the toilet cubicles is haunted, or plagued, or possibly beset by or with scorpions. I was occupying said cubicle and was not unnecessarily perturbed by anything I encountered therein until I emerged to learn that people had been lingering around outside talking about 'something scary within' and hoping to zap it, and when it was free they flooded in on a mission of sorts and they wouldn't tell us what was going on. I am faintly disturbed.

(Also we have a new telephone number, which we mentioned once before, but we meant to mention it again. It was the lack of telephone calls that reminded us. It's on the contact page of the website. Possibly putting telephone numbers on blogs leaves one open to telephonic spamming, and that would be somewhat miserable.)

Yes.

Sam.

A mostly polite note about free books.

Dear peoples,

Just to be letting you know, anyone who from this point onwards does not specify their free book or books when entering competitions online will not be contacted to discover which book they would actually like. They'll be sent a random one picked by ourselves. This is not because we wish to be mean and undemocratic but more because it makes things sadly confusing when we have to wait for people to get back to us with their selections, and then we forget who's been sent what and when and it's all a bit unhappy. So we're quite sorry about that.

Matt smells massively of Lockets.

Sam.

The wrong 650 words.

There was going to be... an intention existed... this was the plan... that the blog post of the day... was going to be 650 words in length and planted amongst the blog posts at that 'History Matters day' collection of other blog posts with a view to elucidating the reading public of the year 2347 about the daily ongoings of a small and unfunded and strangely noble but not entirely hapless publishing company. But I just ambled over there and it turned out to be mostly schoolchildren talking about breakfast cereal, and I'm not entirely sure that's what the reading public of the year 2347 are going to be interested in reading. Or maybe the schoolchildren know better than me, but either way we're scuppered, because our working day simply did not involve breakfast cereal. A flapjack came into play at one point. A flapjack with seven unique e-numbers and a flapjack the consumption of which I would have no willing part in. But not breakfast cereal. Though I could, as it happens, seriously demolish some cornflakes.

Mostly we databased, in the new office to which we have recently repaired. I am still settling into the new office, personally, having spent a week at home coughing and inhaling lemsip. We live in a partitioned-off section at the end of a biggish suite. We are quite cut off. We can observe the enemy through cleverly positioned holes in the partition. Really there is no enemy, but pretending so makes the afternoons pass more swiftly. I mean the afternoons when we're databasing. Not when we're reading your delightful work. I'm not being sarcastic. I actually mean that. No, I mean that bit too. Everything looks so sarcastic without exclamation marks, and so cheap with them. What to do?

I wish I had a bassoon. I was thinking what fun it would be to sit behind the partition and randomly blow through a bassoon, and no-one on the other side would have the faintest idea what I'd done. They'd think I have magic lungs.

We get the proofs for the poetry book ('Razzamatazz and Other Poems') back tomorrow, with any luck. And we're currently in the process of sculpting the Short Short Story Competition Anthology (which is to be called 'The Final Theory and Other Short Short Stories'). I'm not sure if the two Others should be capitalised or not. Bear with me. And we databased like woah. We printed off envelopes, and sometimes we printed them the right way up. A special bonus prize to anyone who receives an upside down envelope from us will not actually be offered, because I don't think I have that kind of jurisdiction. But still, it's a nice idea.

And like I say, we didn't eat much in the way of cereal. Tomorrow I'm going to have crumpets for breakfast. Still nothing will be solved.

I hope posterity gets something out of it all the same.

Sam.

Staples.

From our submission guidelines...

4. Please number pages and staple them together. Do not put staples through cheques.

My thanks are this morning extended to whoever ignored that. There is now indeed a diminutive hole in my left forefinger and I've bled a little bit on my t-shirt which yes, is black, but probably isn't much to do with the point.

Matt.

All Change. Next Stop...

Without much fanfare or razzamatazz Leaf Books has moved offices this week. The only thing that's changed to the outside world is that we have a new phone number and we'll be able to get our post a little bit quicker.

Sam has a cold, which means she's missed the move. I think we've moved all her stuff. Yeah, I'm sure we did.

Leaf are off to coast tomorrow morning to say hello to the folks at the Welsh Books Council. I haven't been to Aberystwyth in years and I'm determined to have chips on the front. Though this will depend on the weather; nostagia is nice but not worth getting soaked for.

Speaking of Razzamatazz, the new format A5 Leaf Books Poetry Anthology (containing the winning entries to the short poetry competition) has just been sent on CD to the lovely people at the printers. So that should be on sale shortly.

Next stop... Christmas.

Gav.

I think the new books deserve two entirely similar blog posts.

This must be more or less how Amundsen and that lot felt after they did the equivalent of finally getting their books back from the printers. Do I mean Amundsen? Shall we assume I do?

There's really no means of adequately conveying how stunning these tree-derived beasts are. Mostly we're terrifically excited about the spines, and the colours and also the lack of staples.

I think you people should be buying them. Hugely. I did, and I work here, which is a bit like laughing at your own jokes. Oh they ARE so great.

Great like flying ponies.

Sam.

The New Books

THE NEW BOOKS ARE HERE

AS IN NOT THERE

OR ANYWHERE CLOSE TO THE WHEREABOUTS THEY OCCUPIED WHEN IN TRANSIT

IN FACT THEY ARE PRECISELY WHERE THEY WERE MEANT TO BE

AND

THEY

ARE

BRILLIANT

Matt.

Would that be a vanload of books?

OH the excitement. I think actually naming the excitement by name goes someway towards killing it mammoth-dead. And yet. The books are coming. Today. This very afternoon. Of course you believe me about as readily as you'd believe me had I claimed that Mr Charles Pooter c/o George & Weedon Grossmith, who mostly lives in my rucksack, had peeled himself off the printed page and taken up residence in the recycling bag. But you're WRONG, you see, to doubt me, you're wrong, and this time we win, because Ceci telephoned the printers and they confirmed that the books are en route to us right now, as I type.

They mentioned nothing about a delay-induced discount. On which point it is perhaps best to remain silent.

So currently I lie in wait, like a wolf, for the man to come with the van and the trolley and the clipboard. I hope Gav gets here soon, because there might be some heavy lifting involved, and I don't much fancy it.

In other news, the poetry book that the chaps were wrangling about yesterday (see previous post) is now fairly well corrected and more than moderately wonderful and will be send to the printers - not the same printers - on the morrow. You can see a picture of it on the front page of the website. And the time, I think, has come to introduce you to Leaf's new format. We are branching out somewhat into A5 books, mostly because we can. Our material will remain essentially pert and bite-sized, being poetry and micro-fiction and jolly old short stories. Razzamatazz & Other Poems: The Leaf Books Poetry Anthology 2006 is to be the first in a hopefully significantly longer line of A5 Leaf books. We do love our dinky little A6 pocket-sized booklings, and we do intend to make more in the future (the upcoming flip-book for starters), but the good old A5 format does have many advantages that it would be undeniably shirkworthy not to recognise and celebrate in a solid and papery form. First off, they go better on shelves and in shops, having height and bulk and legible spines and all those things that booksellers seem to value. Second off, they have more in the way of stature and import and properness and good old legitimate reality about them. And thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, you can fit more authors into them. We rather like publishing as many new and established and essentially perfectly spiffing authors as is humanly possible, so really we feel that Leaf and A5 are destined to be fairly happy together. That's what we think anyway.

Of course, we're always fantastically keen to know what you think as well. So tell us. Comment. Talk to us, sometimes. I THEE IMPLORE.

That'll do. Don't want to sound desperate.

(We might take photos of the books tomorrow. We shan't be able to express our joy in mere words. Well, no. Obviously we shall. Words are our trade. We simply choose... not to.)

Sam.

On Having Started An Office War: The Four-Point Plan Concerning Premeditated Nuisance

1) When typesetting new Poetry book, upset delicate aesthetic balance of previous designs by using different fonts to what (according to Matt at least) used to be house-style.
2) When making new Poetry book covers, use and forthrightly argue relentlessly and without mirth for a cover n0-one else wants.
3) When succumbing to group consensus, sulk.
4) Having got over oneself, use new cover, decide it's in fact much better, send it to everyone, have everyone say, 'Yes Matt, it's better,' and crawl back into small space between chair and monitor.

I banged my head four times yesterday, on various consistencies of metal or wood, and though this isn't necessarily as important as your caravan or your pesto recipes or the Chateauneuf du Pape you're saving to throw at someone prominent in the publishing industry, it is deserving of the utmost sympathy.

Sympathy is best addressed to 'F.A.O Matt, Leaf,' and is indeed helpful if in cheque or bung form.

I'm not at all keen on the word 'bung' I might add.

Today's super-smashing word is:

Pogonotrophy

which is quite frankly the cultivation or growing of a beard.

This word is derived not only in Greek but in Anatomy. Pogon is beard, whereas pogonion is the foremost point of the midline of the chin.

Discuss.

Matt.

The Next Thrilling Instalment.

Scene setting. Slightly parched rose petals being wafted in a tepid breeze. Children sing Ring-a-Ring-o'-Roses with a creepily off-key harmony. A lone sheep bleats plaintively on a distant hillside. Patrick Stewart reclines in a patch of purple heather, playing 'The Skye Boat Song' on a battered tin-whistle.

The books didn't come. The 'phone-call was not returned. VERY LITTLE is as it should be. And I'm waiting, honestly I am. I'm waiting as hard as I can. What more can I do? I cannot engage in warfare on the printers lest the books succumb to the ensuing rampant fires. I can't 'phone the printers because I'm scared of the telephone. Well, moreso because they don't really answer. I can only wait. I fear I may have to wait through lunch, because the office is currently manned by myself and myself alone.

Send sandwiches to the postal address on the website. Except they won't come in time. Can you send sandwiches by telegram?

Sam.

The Books (part the first)

Today started not altogether well. En route from the station to my place of work, a person of sorts drove past me (the narrator) at full pelt, through a fairly hefty puddle of very cold and very stagnant water, and soaked me quite publicly from head to foot. The general public maintained a decent and unlaughing silence. I had an umbrella, but because the BBC told me it wouldn't rain and because I didn't actually expect to assaulted horizontally by monsoons, I had no coat. I was quite drenched. And I had to spend the remainder of the working day quite drenched with my shoes and socks and jumper having an exciting and not entirely fruitful excursion on the radiator. I downloaded the final few entries to the Summer Short Story competition in a not altogether bouyant and merrisome spirit, but I downloaded them none the less, and now they are databased, and all is fairly well on that score.

And as for the new books?I don't know! I went home before the designated deadline for their arrival, because I needed to change my socks. They may have come. They may not have come. Only Gavin knows the answer.

TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT THRILLING... ooh, QI on UKG2. Acronym heaven. Later.

PS. Ceci. Tomorrow. BBC Radio Wales. 7.20am. I know, but I thought I might as well tell you all the same.

Sam.

News and Advice, mostly in Bold.

Hello, readers. You've been fairly impressively abandoned of late. It's not that we lack news. It's more than I wasn't entirely sure how to work the blog after it moved to its new location. The answer is in precisely the same fashion I used to work it previously. What do you know.

But news. Such news. I forget what it is for the moment. You'll know about the new website, won't you. We're all very proud of the new website. That was mostly Gav's doing. I propose a few cheers for Gav. Three, I think, is customary, but the size of the donation is ultimately up to you.

The best thing about the new website, in my opinion, is that it's vastly reduced the number of complaints we receive about the impossibility of entering competitions online. That's fairly great of it. I hope you're all finding it similarly smooth and silky. It's not been entirely glitch free, to be honest: we've had a couple of cases of people paying for one entry and then submitting three all at once, which wasn't really supposed to happen. Just to make it clear: the Summer Short Story Competition costs £6 per single entry, not for an unlimited number of entries; likewise the poetry competition and two themed competitions cost £4 per single entry. Yes. We can see the weird little symbols too. We can't, sadly, physically forbid you from inadvertantly paying for one entry and then sending us more than one, because we're not quite that fantastic at web design - so please make sure that the number of purchases on the Paypal form matches the number of entries you intend to submit. That'd be more or less great.

And people... please to be specifying your FREE BOOK when you enter a competition. All our competitions entitle you to a free Leaf Book of your choice, provided you choose one that's actually in print, but very few of you are actually telling us which book you'd like. You can mark it in on the comments section of the online entry form, and we'll pop it in an envelope and send it to you, and really no-one loses out. And if you enter twice, and pay twice as well, you get two free books. Which I think deserves at least a muted hurrah.

I'm enjoying all this bolding.

(I've given no specific advice as yet to non-online entrants. What I'd mostly like to say is please, please write your name and all contact details quite clearly on the entry form. Some people are not writing their names and contact details particularly clearly, and that makes us sad and confused. Don't worry though. I'm not going to do any naming and shaming. Mostly because I can't read your names.)

Now then. NEW BOOKS. Don't get over-excited. It's not as though they're actually here or anything. But we have yet another estimated time of arrival, and this time I think I believe it. They're now supposed to be here next Monday. Sorry, grovellings, sorry again, but it's been out of our hands for some weeks now. The latest stage in the saga has something to do with the binders' having cut the books too high (which I think must be a technical binding term that outsiders are not necessarily supposed to understand), and now they all have to be re-printed and re-bound. It's terribly sad and a little bit tragic, but everyone's being pretty heroic about it and the printers are pulling a couple of all-nighters and hopefully the whole sorry tale will conclude next week with some really shiny and properly cut books.

Finally. Other Stuff. Well. We've judged another competition. That was fairly exciting. It was the Short Short Story competition. All the winners have been informed, except for the ones who live in far away countries and haven't provided us with email addresses or telephone numbers, and the date of their knowing the happy news is entirely dependent on the whims of the postal service. Let's send hopeful and hurrying thoughts to the postal service. We'll put the winners up on the website and on the blog at the beginning of next month, which is very soon really. And then we'll open our new Short Story competition, which has a terrifically handy word limit of 1,500-5,000 and is utterly open in topic terms and invites you to submit stories on any subject whatsoever (such as grapes or athlete's foot or paper clips or the offside rule or professional trampoliners or integral calculus or peanuts - we are full of ideas). But don't submit them until October the 1st, after which time we will welcome them with open arms.

And that's about the size of it.

Sam.

Well Hello and Welcome

As I hope you've seen Leaf Books has a bright and shiny new website. Like the previous one you can get information on all Leaf Books titles, our authors, and check on the details of our current and previous competitions.

Hopefully, we've also made it easier find all the information you need. We've also made it easier to order books and enter our competitions.

If you have any thoughts or feedback about the new site we'd love to hear from you.

Gav.

In which we struggle to overcome our numerous disappointments.

Good morning. And isn't it a lovely morning? Well, frankly, no. I mean, the sun's biffing about over the yard-arm and the lark's getting on with whatever it is that larks are proverbially best at. But we have no new books. And our website is down. And we have no new books. I'm mostly quite upset about the lack of new books. It's not wholly fair. Especially now the website is down.

This thing about the website's being down. We're sorry about that, but please be assured that it's all in a good cause. There's going to be a shiny new website, with bells and foliage and a double-glazed conservatory and, more honestly, a great deal of improved functionality. We have every confidence that it will make considerably more sense than the old one. You'll even be able to submit work online without risking the attendant coronary incidents that the previous procedure generally provoked. See me alliterate plosively. As we speak, Gav's hacking manfully away at the old HTML coalface, which I understand is how websites are generally hewn and shapen. And it's coming. I promise you. In the meantime, there's a holding page through which you can enter all our competitions.

(We thought the books were coming then. A silver van pulled up and there was a man with a clipboard and everything, but it wasn't the books. We are truly inconsolable.)

In other news, spiders are developing a fort of some description in our storeroom, between the copies of the 'In Love' poetry anthology and some discarded polysterene. We're being fairly brave about it.

Sam.

Out with the old

...And in with the new. There is only so much prodding and poking you can do: Leaf Books's old website is no more. The new one, should, with a little luck, be online later this evening on the link of www.leafbooks.co.uk (with no hyphen). It’s the same one that is in all our literature. I'm hoping that any confusion will be minimal.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

More later.

Gav.

They are coming, truly they are.

I know you don't believe us about the new books. You're well within your rights. I'd be all doubting and dubious and hurrumphing too if I didn't know what an essentially honest and decent and hardworking collection of bods we are at heart. Not only at heart but also on the surface. By which I do not mean superficially. We are decent bods through and through. We don't wittingly tell fibs about new books.

This is the current state of affairs. The new books very genuinely are at the printers. We know for a fact that the printer chappie started spitting them out of his machine last Friday, because he telephoned us on the telephone to ask if we were quite sure we didn't want them laminated, and we said 'ah, go on then', so that's what's happening. In the time it takes for the printer chappie's machine to disgorge ten bulging boxes of the dinkiest, shiniest, most eloquently written little books you could ever hope to meet, the new books will be here. They will come in a silver van (with wings... and driven by a PIXIE). It will be more than very exciting.

I know the wait is vexatious. But it's so character building and you'll be glad of it in years to come.

Otherwise we are pimping our new poetry competition left right and centre. So why not here? It's new and it's great. It's the Leaf Books Open Poetry Competition 2006 and it kindly invites you to submit poems of up to 25 lines in length on any subject whatsoever, such as hats or donkeys or oblate spheroids or free will or cabbage soup or Norfolk. It cost £4 to enter, and that £4 entitles you to choose one of our existing 19 titles and have us pop it in the post to you with a sweet little compliment slip and a newsletter. So off to the website with you now. To the submit work page, to be precise, where you can download and print off an entry form or enter online or all manner of jolly things.

And you might want to have a stab at entering the Summer Short Story Competition as well while you're at it. It's not that we're in any way DISTRESSINGLY SHORT OF ENTRIES or anything. It's just, you know, a good and worthwhile and SOMEWHAT UNDER-APPRECIATED competition. That's all.

No other news of great import. The sun is coming in at an unkind angle through the window, because we've been on the blinds waiting list for about seventy-two years now. The office is a little untidy. Possibly we may have to commit a spot of arson on it later in the week. The weather is not unseasonable. Our lunches were digested with little in the way of complaint.

Oui.

C'est more or less ca.

Sam.

Luddite vs. Databasing

You've got nine thousand online entries looking up at you, ostensibily screaming Notification and Wages but mostly kicking you in the frontal lobes with the databasing/juggling prowess involved in even starting to correlate paypal numbers with the website's dedicated index. And you're not usually one to complain about things, but swear there's some sort of sinister plot afoot when you're scrolling (slowly) through a table-field like a lunatic to find the files and the email addresses and (perhaps) a good story to cheer you at the end of it.

So that's sometimes what the end of competitions can herald. You're wondering whether or not to procrastinate; read over some hardcopy entries, visit the kitchen for a brew, not frown so much (rather express vacant bemusement) at the entries from people who've not read our guidelines or file any sort of injunction against that chap who rings weekly wondering why we don't much like his violent erotica.

You're ok though. Lunchtime is approaching and you're feeling important because Sam's giving you Documents of Imperative Worth to proof.

Matt.

Slightly incompentent but mostly great.

Today I printed off a (well) hard copy of Leaf Books' September 2006 newsletter and Ceci, who is less scared of machinery than I, photocopied it about several billions times with a view to our disseminating among those who, you know, like that sort of thing.

Now. This would've been a happy tale and fit to tell the young ones had I not made a fairly massive error in the shape of printing off a fairly shambolic draft containing two not entirely insubstantial typos and then not proofing it. Nobody, in fact, proofed it. We simply put our faith in its inherent goodness.

The first lesson that we can take from this story is that we are trusting.

I hasten to add that we do proof all our books many more times than several billion, but we, or mostly I, suffered an extreme moment of fallibility this morning.

The second lesson that we can take from this story is that we are endearingly human.

I did not mince the rogue newsletters. I corrected the errors (firstly, poor Lynette Craig, one of our Commended entries in our recent Short Poetry competition, was denied her own surname; second, the maximum line count in our NEW OPEN POETRY COMPETITION that is worthy of capitalisation read not so much '25 lines' as it was supposed to, but more sort of 'specify length', which was less than ideal). I corrected them painstakingly, with a pen and with my own hand. Possibly this makes us look a wee bit unprofessional. Mostly it SAVES TREES. IT SAVES TREES, people.

The third and fourth lessons we can take from this story are that we are unbelievably tenacious and environmentally friendly.

So, to recap.

1. We are trusting.
2. We are endearingly human.
3. We are unbelievably tenacious.
4. We are environmentally friendly.

Wow. Essentially, go us. We shall now consider the matter closed.

By the by. Did you want to see the minutes of that meeting we went to last Thursday? Did you? Ha. Well, you shan't. You shall see the menu instead. That's infinitely more of a treat.

Ceci and I originally ordered the vegetable curry, but were thwarted by its being off.
I went for fish (grilled) and chips (less so) and vegetabalious matter instead.
Ceci had Glamorganshire sausages. Those meatless jobs. Dandy.
Matt had a great big manly pie with animals in it.

A splendid time was had by all. We came away quite motivated, and also slightly bloated.

And someone who shall remain unnamed had half a bitter at lunchtime. You may write in with your educated guesses. Don't proof my blog post unless you can simultaneously come up with half a dozen reasons why we're wonderful. Thank you.

Sam.

Short Poetry Competition Winners Announced

We're pleased to announce the winners of our resoundingly successful Short Poetry competition. It was judged by renowned poet Sheenagh Pugh, who read all 525 entries submitted and commented on the impressive standard:

For a small competition the standard was high - far higher, certainly, than in the last big-money competition I judged. A lot of the poems felt very fresh and individual; though technically accomplished, they were not mere technical exercises. - Sheenagh Pugh, judge.

The winning entry was 'Tundra' by Alice Allen, a poem that, Pugh says, 'leaves the reader's mind a little marked, altered from what it was... that is what, as poets, we are all trying to do'.

Highly Commended were 'Clear Night' by Pat Borthwick, 'Razzamatazz' by Rosi Beech, 'Owl-Night' by Marc Harris and 'Love' by Charles Evans.

Commended were 'Gulls' by Christine Lowes, 'Boxes' by Emily Gale, 'Stepmother' by Simone Mansell Broome, 'Thought While Driving Home From Swansea' by Rona Laycock, 'Ophelia' by Kate Noakes, 'Office Block' by Michael Price, 'Mountaineer' by Rosy Wilson, 'Alien on a Train' by Marguerite Colgan, 'Reflections' by Carol Boland, 'Afghan Dream' by Caroline Clark, 'New Age' by Rosi Beech, 'The Accomplished Lover' by Rosi Beech, 'Doorstop' by Katherine Stansfield, 'Family Reunion' by Paul Cuddihy, 'On the Doorstep' by Clive Gilson, 'The Winning Score' by Marc Harris, 'Whale Watch' by Pat Borthwick, 'Vodka Kicks + Teardrops' by Charles E. Baylis, 'Early Childhood' by Tom Dowling, 'Matthew' by Sue Anderson, 'Her Sons' by Frances-Anne King, 'Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre' by Juliette Hart, 'Orang-utan' by Merryn Williams, 'Cuttlefish' by E.V. Brooks, 'War of Attrition' by Geraldine Mills, 'Five Rhythms' by Rosemary McLeish, 'Fuel' by Jo Verity, 'Commandment No. 5' by Ben Barton, 'The Trampoline' by Dawn Schuck' and 'Durer's Mother' by Lynette Craig.

Leaf.

Short Poetry Competition 2006 - Judge's Report

I'd just like to mention first that I read all the poems. There wasn't a sift, as is often the case these days. There were 525 poems submitted.

A few had to be disqualified after one reading, primarily due to a limited acquaintance with modern poetic practice: reading some contemporary poems before spending good money on entry fees is sound advice.

But there weren't many of these. Most of the poems had at least something that would call you back for a second reading. That's when the judge starts making three piles -yes, no and maybe -and hoping that the number of yeses will make it unnecessary to revisit the maybes, always the most problematical pile. Often, maybes are poems that have a lot going for them, but also something working against that general good impression. It may be one or two weak lines, and in that case it can make a lot of difference where they are. It is easier to forgive a glitch in the middle of a poem than a weak ending, which stays in the mind as the poem's final word. Sometimes, though, a maybe is just a poem that needed to be read more often, perhaps one that makes its impact more subtly, and when you read it that one more time, it turns into a definite yes.

There were 35 poems I thought worthy of inclusion in this anthology. For a small competition the standard was high - far higher, certainly, than in the last big-money competition I judged. A lot of the poems felt very fresh and individual; though technically accomplished, they were not mere technical exercises. There was a musicality about some that particularly pleased me; I would mention in this context "New Age", with its rhythmical refrains, and "Vodka kicks and teardrops", a personal favourite of mine for reasons I'm not entirely sure of, but I think it's because it sounds not only like a song lyric but genuinely artless. Which means, of course, that it is no such thing; it takes great craft and effort to appear artless.

There was also a great variety of subject matter, and some of the most difficult, i.e. political and popular subject matter, actually came off. I thought the idea behind "Afghan Dream", a fantasy in which the undervalued women walk out of the country en masse, leaving the men to their own devices, was brilliant, though I think revision could probably improve the execution. It was delightful to see a poem celebrating football that actually worked ("The Winning Score") and a persona poem in the voice of the eponymous "Orang-utan".

In the end I narrowed it down to 5 poems, all impressive in very different ways. The unrhymed sonnet "Love" is extremely accomplished; at first its line breaks look odd, but they are designed, in a way more reminiscent of US than UK verse, to throw a great deal of stress on the first word of the next line. It strikes me as completely in control of its language and ideas; if I'd been asked to find a runner-up, this would be it.

"Owl-Night" is a poem of senses and observation so sharp, it sends shivers through an alert reader. "Razzamatazz", from an author who has, I think, achieved three poems in the anthology, is another with a great deal of musicality, and also joy, an emotion surprisingly difficult to convey convincingly in poetry. "Clear Night", set very convincingly at sea (both real and metaphorical) carries a heavy freight of emotion. It also has an unstated back-story, which gives it its haunting quality and is, I think, almost always a bonus in a poem. Our reader does not have to know everything that happened before he came in; we can often achieve a more powerful effect by making him create some of that story for himself out of the hints we have left him in the language and imagery.

This thought was at the back of my choice of winner. "Tundra" is not a poem that explains itself neatly. We can assume the woman is some kind of archetypal refugee; we can recognise the universality of the contrast in verse 3 between her anguish and the indifference of the cosmos:

how the sky though beautiful
had neither watched nor cared
formal in its corridors of silver

But whether that baby was real or an illusion, and what happened to it, is far more equivocal. What is certain is that it exists in our minds after reading the poem, as do the woman and her situation. The language and imagination of the poet were haunting enough to put them there and leave the reader's mind a little marked, altered from what it was. That is what, as poets, we are all trying to do.

Sheenagh Pugh

New Competition - Open Poetry Competition 2006

Following the success of our Short Poetry Competition, which received over 500 entries of an impressively high standard, we are launching the Open Poetry Competition 2006.

We invite poems (maximum 25 lines) on any theme.

Selected entries will be published in a Leaf Books Collection. For more information and to enter, click here.

Leaf.

At the Printers - 8 New Titles

At the Printers - 8 New Titles

Eight new Leaf titles.

Featuring:

For Children

Barry's Barnet - Gareth Rafferty (Children's Short Story Competition Winner)

Barry has always been a bit of a loner. This is because he doesn't wash, he smells, and he has a lot of hair. Now, indeed, he's got so much hair that it's coming to life, growing rows of very sharp teeth and eating things. On the plus side, he's finally found a friend. Pity it's getting bigger....

Kafka meets Roald Dahl in this wickedly humorous tale of a hygiene-shy boy with literally uncontrollable hair. Adults and children alike will be delighted by this highly original story.

Pat Hopper - The Gang of Three (Children's Short Story Competition Runner-Up)

Emma wasn't happy. She'd just seen her big brother jump into a fairy ring and vanish in a puff of smoke. She must get Jason back. With Al Cappuccino the frog perched on her foot and Miss Pretty the cat in her arms, she follows Jason into the fairy ring. But there’s trouble awaiting the Gang of Three....

Lora and William Gill - The Monkey and the Diamond (Children's Short Story Competition Runner-Up)

What would a monkey do with a diamond? Greed leads to unwise choices in this lyrical and beautifully illustrated tale of a jewel and its ever changing parade of would be owners. Perfect for younger children.

Moira Andrew - The Very Useful Bag

Henry is itchy and very bored indeed. He can't find anything interesting to do until he finally hits on a really splendid idea: making useful bags for all the family. But these are no ordinary bags....

A gentle, funny and imaginative story. Ideal for younger readers.

For Adults

Robert Wilton - In No Man's Land (Winter Short Story '06 Winner)

50 years after the First World War, a group of veterans returns to the trenches where they fought each other. Some have come to remember, some to forget. But neither process turns out to be as straightforward as they expected, as a series of revelations challenges their memories and values. The importance - and perhaps the impossibility - of the attempt to come to terms with our own past is exposed in this unpredictable and moving story.

Kathy Mansfield - The Steady Bookkeeper (Winter Short Story '06 Runner-Up)

Paul Phiri is an ordinary, decent man in an ordinary, decent life: taking care of his family, holding down a 'good' job, respected in his community. He is just one of millions of people living ordinary lives in Africa, neither starving nor caught up in a war. But Africa is not ordinary, and doing 'the right thing' is not a straightforward decision.

Maria Lalic - Paper Dolls and Coconut Mushrooms

Three sisters enjoy a childhood of innocent games and make-believe. They share everything - except, perhaps, paper dolls and coconut mushrooms - in this collection of funny and honest autobiographical episodes showing that none of us ever quite grow up.

Conrad Williams - The Cryptanalyst

Meredith has been painting the city in code. His secrets are written on bus shelters, factory walls and public toilets. Raglan's on to him: a loner, a spy, a man who likes to spend his time unpicking knots. Raglan and Meredith, scorpion-dancing all over the city's streets. And I was there to watch it go horribly wrong....

An intense, adult and darkly comic tale by a noted fantasy author.

More Details Coming Soon.

Leaf.

Databasing, books, poetry, hearty food.

I shall open with an apology for the previous post, in which I was apparently channelling Dame Edna Everage to an unsettling degree.

I shall speak to you for the length of one paragraph about databasing. Yesterday, in the space of perhaps three hours, I spent twelve long years databasing competition entries. It is undeniably a worthwhile endeavour. It prevents us from losing your contact details should we absentmindedly consume your entry forms. But it's not creative work. I suppose I could compose a song, of sorts, about it. A database shanty. Yes. I'll let you know how that comes along. I'll be sure to include plenty of 'heaves'.

I shall briefly mention the upcoming titles, details of which are available on the website. The proofs, which are too darling for words really, have been proofed and the slightly tweaked files are going to be sent to the printer practically before you'll be able to blink. And then shortly after that there will be books. Keep checking the website. That's my advice.

I shall also say that the results of the poetry competition are due to be announced more imminently than I can possibly express. Keep checking the website. That's my answer to everything.

And I shall close by telling you that, this very lunchtime, we're all going for an executive meeting. IN THE PUB.

Do write and tell us tales of your envy.

Sam.

In which bemoaning triumphs over stiff-upper lippedness in the form of the proofs' coming back.

Yes. The proofs came back from the printer veritably the day after I bemoaned their continued absence. That's one up to bemoaning. Bemoaning once again fells patience. And the proofs, dearests, are very shiny indeed. The colours are all suitably colourful and the words are mostly if not entirely in the right order and mistakes there are few decreasing rapidly to none. On Wednesday, we hope to have them thoroughly gone over and the marginally tweaked files returned to the printer so the final books can be churned out of their glorious book machines and into your waiting laps. I think that's how it works. Hurrah.

In other news, Gav suggested in the days shortly before I remembered we had a blog that we ought also to have a motto. You know the sort of thing. 'Leaf Books: Unfunded But Game'. Etc. Mostly we said 'piffle' and 'like heck do we need a bally motto', because we're pretty erudite like that, and also verbally dated. Gav only very nearly took these as genuine suggestions.

If you have genuine suggestions, do feel free to make them. And I jolly well hope they're comedic.

Sam.

The Emergency Office Poncho is quite well, thank you.

It is morning. Not a winter's day in a deep and dark December. I am, nonetheless, alo-o-o-one. There is no street below the window on which I can gaze. I can take the song references no further.

It is still morning. Today, thus far, I have unfolded the emergency office poncho to check for general wear and tear and suitability for use should aforementioned emergency - which presumably has a lot to do with its being wet outside and everyone stupidly forgetting to bring umbrellas and having a desperate need for a sandwich and a flapjack around about elevenish - arise. All is well. I have procured water for myself to lessen the probability of my succumbing to death by dehydration, which I feel would be detrimental to the company's future. No-one else would've thought to check the poncho. I have altered the date on the whiteboard so it more closely resembles the date of the day in question. In green pen I have altered it. I have listened to the static on the answerphones. I have read the emails in the email thing, and responded to those to which I can respond. I have deleted a certain amount of vaguely pornographic spam.

I have updated the blog. Still it is morning. Later, I may or may not sharpen a pencil.

This is essentially a valuable insight into what happens in a small publishing house when the tremendously exciting upcoming books, with spines and multicolouring and general fantasticness that the website will tell you all about no less, are stranded at the printers. We are sad about this. Frankly, I hope you're fairly sad about it too, not because I wish you ill but because I want you to care pretty much fervantly about the speed at which you get to see our books, and also because you may find it character building in the long run.

The wait is vexing. The books are exciting. This is the important thing to remember.

Sam.

No excuses

Though there are in fact nine.

The reasons for not updating the blog are as follows:

1) Matt developed a strange affliction that mostly attached his hands to removable furniture for about a week, furthermore to an internet-less computer and further still to Adobe Indesign's facilities for typesetting NEW BOOKS.

2) The Editor, for whom dignity involves being called Sam, has been making boxes in which to transport books by turning another box inside out to start with. She's also been making phone-calls, answering phone-calls and critiquing. And critiquing. And indeed critiquing.

3) That in this period of time throughout which Matt procrastinates, Sam's neck makes funny noises.

4) Gav has been websiting, gambling in Las Vegas, sleeping and websiting.

5) Ceci has been gallavanting about New England, concurrently performing things to the audience of tax office and generally roping us all together so that we don't fall over.

6) Persons aside, we had a long haul preparing the NEW SET of 8 smashing NEW BOOKS but they're now with the printers and we're now able to sleep again, except for Gav, who usually manages to sleep while simultaneously geeking out on his Mac anyway.

7) It's true, we've a new set of 8 books. They have spines! They have new-style covers! They're coming soon!

8) (Four adult titles, we might add, and four children's.)

9) We took a visit to Dartington Hall in Devon, to perform some brilliance at the Way With Words literary festival. Here we met numerous other small presses who were super champs and lots of people who weren't ever vulgar but in fact lovely and well-wishing. Maria Donovan read from Tea for Mr. Dead and Confidence and Sam the Editor sections from The Greengrocer's Apostrophe and Out of Love. We gave away loads of leaflets and sold numerous books and garnered happy interest and tried to discover secrets that didn't involve being a) funded or b) already minted. So quite -- if a donor's out there, wishing both to love us and pay us then please, email or kiss us.

Be sure to check the website for new competition details and DON'T FORGET TO WEAR SUN CREAM.

Cheerio!

Matt.

Hay Festival Report

And so it was that Leaf went to Hay, to there perform some readings. And the readings were enterprising and successful and all involved wore smiles. Everything bar public transport occurred without drama; the books were nicely-received and a great deal of interest was generated in and around the Literature in Wales tent.

Thanks must again go to our writers/readers, whose charisma and (obviously) super writing made the dates as enjoyable as they were.

Below are some pictures of the Thursday event and Leaf Books adventuring throughout the festival site.

Hay!

Michele, Maria and Ruth.

If ever there could be a picture to so aptly explain...

Leaf Reader #1

An audience with...

Leaf Reader #2

So that was that. More pictures to follow I'm told. If anyone happened to find and read one the books we so elegantly hid throughout the festival trees, support struts, bushes, Guardian promo stands and so on - let us know what you thought. And we know at least most of you did because Matt sat next to one fellow having a good old look-through, while Sam, Ceci and Gav - who tactically decided they'd go different days to Matt - saw similar.

Cheerio

Rhiwbina Event and Hay-on-Wye Festival

Yesterday afternoon, three of our writers read a five minute snippet of their respective stories in the lovely Victoria Fearn Gallery, Rhiwbina.

A jolly crowd of non-rabble turned up to watch Ruth Joseph, Shelagh Middlehurst and Jo Verity read from Tea-Dance at the Waldorf Astoria, Sex with Leonard Cohen and Think Like a Bee.

Here's a nice photo of them.

In other news, we've just been confirmed for an appearance at the Hay-on-Wye festival. This'll mean a 15 minute slot in which to perform super feats of reading, and us whizzing around with The Books. More news/updates on this closer to the date (26th May - 4th June.)

UPDATE

The skip is still in custody.

Miscreant Skippery

Further to our last post, in which it was revealed that a gruff man outside was attacking the floor with a stupidly large implement of steel, today we can reveal that a new folly has beset our vision.

There is now - and there is little much in the way of explaining otherwise - a big yellow skip in a fenced enclosure. Said incarcerated skip is doing nothing but sitting there, with some pipes in it, and two men keep playing with the fence. I suppose it is a little bit like a miniature Belmarsh for naughty skips. It's also unnervingly close to our front door. If there are monsters in the skip intent on stealing us after departure for respective trains then we will simply have to fight them with sharpened Leaf Books.

Otherwise, we have seen two dogs wrapped in flourescent coats, an unnecessary amount of rain, six cars moving and nine cars remaining sedentary.

We are not moving until the ground-bashing water abates.

We are somewhat cold.

And slightly peckish.

Writing for Children competition winners should be announced soon.

'Yeah, by the end of the month,' says Sam.

Matt nods.

short short short short story competition

There is a man in braces outside wielding an instrument that flattens earth. We have mostly found this upsetting.

Elsewhere is a mechanical digger also doing things to dirt. We cannot see the digger but the vibrations and noise would suggest that we should be upset by that too. There are large black tubes sprawling from the ground like the limbs of some grotesquely toasted octopus. It's unfairly not clear why.

It is quiet in the office.

Except for the digger.

And our gentle weeping.

We have a new competition though: details are here on the website.

Leaf on the BBC

Ceci was on the news! Ceci was on the news! The Welsh news, to be fair, but the news all the same. Wales Today! On the BBC! With Leaf Books!

And then they cut to the weather. It was great.

"Hilarity"

It's snowing outside and looks really very nice.

Matt: 'How great is snow?!'

Ceci: 'It's snow great.'

I ask you.

Closing time

The submission window for our Writing for Children competition closed yesterday.

Not much else to report, though a few things will be announced in the next few weeks. Don't forget that our Winter Short Story comp ends 31st of March, with our Short Poetry comp continuing up until the end of July.

The new website is now fully operational too, with Paypal features and all sorts of other spangly things going on.

And don't forget to clean your teeth before you go to work, as I did today.

LEAF IN MEDIA BLITZ

Yesterday we had a lovely feature about us written in the Western Mail, which can be found online here. This morning Ceci and one of our writers - Shelagh Middlehurst - were interviewed on BBC Radio Wales. You can wrap your ears around that here.

A veritable media bonanza - loads of grins in the office today.

Matt.

Fame.

Look at me, posting away.

Today was tremendously exciting. The Western Mail (a charming and delightful publication) did a one-page spread (can you call it spread if it's only on one page?) about Leaf Books, and pretty dashed comprehensive it was too. So we bought all the copies in the neighbourhood and stroked them and sent them to people. Then, in the afternoon, a bright young chap from the BBC came along to interview Ceci for Radio Wales. 'Good Morning, Wales', to be precise, to be broadcast tomorrow morning at some dire morning hour. We were obliged to hastily summon one of our beloved and much prized authors, Michele Toler, who was brave and dutiful and answered lots of questions. And then, because evidently things weren't quite as absurd as they possibly could've been, another person rang from the BBC and arranged a second, live interview, with one of our eminent directors (Ceci again, who's good at microphones) and a second magnificent author, Shelagh Middlehurst. Also for tomorrow morning. It's all too much.

Today South Wales, tomorrow the world.

ARGH

Today, right, is incomprehensibly, ridiculously, obscenely busy. Not that it isn't usually, but today is extra-more-so.

And Barrie wanted a mention. So here's her mention.

Stands and things like that

Thought it'd be prudent to actually show off the book stands that we get very silly about. And must also say a thanks to John for his brilliant family of rulers which have today been launching elasticated rubber at my colleagues. I'm the child you see.

Also: next series of book arrives today. This is good.

Also also: New website still making everyone cry but will be up "any moment," according to Ceci who is sat rather comfortably with an enormous pile of invoices and a clever stamping machine that puts our address all over everyone's letters/wrists/cheeks.

Also also also: There are no satsumas in the building.

A very busy day

Today is a very busy day in the Leaf office. As I write only two people are in, running through submissions/writing emails/writing stuff for the new website/filling in stands for retailers.

"It's great," says Sam with an enormous grin.

We've also got the proofs for our second set of books arriving today, which is lovely. No doubt we'll then spend the rest of the day playing Twister over enormous sheets of laminate paper that'll furnish the entirety of the office carpet.

In other news, Matt just drank some Fanta that had been left on the side for a while. Sam thinks this Fanta was poisoned and that Matt might therefore fall over and die shortly. (He's also convinced that North Korea is after him.) It could've been Gav's though. "Sorry Gav, he says. "I only had a sip."

But what's most important is the remainder of the Christmas cake in the cupboard and who exactly will eat it.

Leaf forum

It's a bit like a party on your screen. Your web browser will love it too. You could even marry it if it wasn't merely a collection of boxes with writing in them. And if you really want, you could kiss it. But I wouldn't.

So yes, a link to the new Leaf Books forum has been added to the links section OVER THERE >>

They're here

The 'In Love' and 'Out of Love' Poetry books came back from the printers today. That was exciting!

They looked great. Hoping for fantastic Valentines Day sales. So if anyone wants to buy something for their beloved, or their not beloved get one of these. Only £2. Send Leaf a cheque, or wait with eager anticipation for the new web site to go up next week. Or maybe the week after.

a new competition

Short Poetry Competition

Leaf are looking for short poems (16 lines or fewer) on any theme. £2.50 per entry: cheques made payable to Leaf Books. The closing date for this competition is July 31st 2006. All selected poems will be featured in a Leaf Book. The overall winner will receive £200.

And then there was a blog...