Cinnamon Press blog

White Leaves of Peace
at Drakes Bookshop, 26th April, 2019

by Tracey Iceton

Having already launched parts one and two of my Celtic Colours Trilogy, I should have felt at ease for the launch of White Leaves of Peace, after all, this was familiar ground to me. But the novel is about what it's been like for those growing up in the north of Ireland since the 1998 Peace Agreement. And, as the novel reveals, that experience has not been the carefree childhood that should have been inevitable in the wake of Good Friday 1998.

We had a huge number of entries to this year's Pamphlet Prize, which made our judge, Ian Gregson's task all the harder. But, eventually, he wrangled the extensive long list down to a seven strong short list:

Our first launch season of the year is just… about… winding… down. It's been a mad whirl but they've been a brilliant string of events this month.

Thank you to everyone who entered the Cinnamon Pencil mentoring competition. We had a fantastic postbag, with some really strong writing and a large field so narrowing it down has been hard.

Photo by Arthur Osipyan/Unsplash

by Ian Gregson

Dateline: Derby, 1/10/2018 . . .
Prosecco as you come through the door …
lurid T-shirts featuring the cover of the book …
a documentary cameraman and a group of helpful assistants …
fresh pizza delivered mid-reading …

We had one our biggest ever entries to the first Annual Debut Fiction Prize, for short story collections, novellas and novels. A particularly tough field for our two judges, Tracey Iceton and Adam Craig, to work through. After a lot of deliberation, our duo chose a strong short list of seven:

We're really excited to be launching our new web site, with huge thanks to Sarah Willans of Zipfish.

As a writer and a publisher, it seems self-evident that I should be on social media. Yet recently, I've been questioning this.

Thank you to everyone who entered the 2018 pamphlet competition.

As something of a follow-up to last September's blog — and to (gently ☺) remind you it's on its way, Maria Jastrzębska has posted an interesting article on her upcoming book, The True Story of Cowboy Hat & Ingénue, which will be out in October but can be pre-ordered now.

Ahead of the official launch of The Cinnamon Review of Short Fiction in Paris at the end of the month, here's an extract from Tamsin Hopkins' fascinating and revealing article in the Review investigating her approach to writing short fiction…

Ahead of the publication of Undressing Stone, author Hazel Manuel gives an insight into the novel's editing.

Don't forget poet David Batten will be launching his second full poetry collection, Untergang at Kyffin Café on Friday, 11 May. Fiona & Gorwel Owen will be on hand to give a few songs and Dave will be reading with some bloke called Adam Craig, whose latest novel is apparently In Dreams the Minotaur Appears Last ☺ I'm looking forward to the next T. Lobsang Rampa, myself … hem-hem.

We're very excited to announce that our very own David Mark Williams (author of The Odd Sock Exchange), has won the Hedgehog Press inaugural "Slim Volume of One’s Own" Collection Competition 2018.

This as been a big, ambitious undertaking, in eight sections through the past year, with a big response to read and consider. But we're proud to announce that the results are now in — hearty congratulations to the following writers, who have been chosen to appear in the forthcoming special, limited edition pamphlet Wheel of the Year:

Guest blog by Jay Whittaker.

Thank you to everyone who entered the Debut Poetry Collection Prize this year. We had a very strong long list — congratulations to everyone who made it on to it — which was narrowed down to ten excellent entries from eight poets (2 submitted two entries that were each strong). The short list was: