Galley Beggars Press

Saturday October 12th. 3.30pm at The Big Green Bookshop

Throughout Saturday, we're giving a carefully chosen selection of the most exciting and innovative publishers around an opportunity to share with you what makes them so special.

This will culminate in a discussion at The Big Green Bookshop in the evening, where a representative of each of these publishers will be on a panel discussing the book industry and its future.

We've given each publisher completely free reign to do whatever they like, but each of them has come up with something that should tempt you give them a visit.

GALLEY BEGGARS PRESS

Simon Key, Festival organiser, writes;

"I was introduced to Galley Beggar, when I was sent a copy of their first publication White Goddess by Simon Gough. It's a magical story somewhere between fact and fiction reliving the authors first visit, as a child, to the tiny village of Deya in 1953 to meet his Grand Uncle,  poet Robert Graves, and the incredible lifelong effect it had on him.

I can't recommend it enough.

Then, when they announced that their next book would be My Elvis Blackout by Simon Crump, a reissue of one of my favourite (and most outrageous) collections of short stories, I realised that this was a publisher who knew a thing about books.

These two books are so different, but they have one thing in common. They are quality.

Earlier this year they published A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride. This is an astonishing novel and centres around a young girl's relationship with her brother, who's been affected by a brain tumour in his early childhood. It's an exhausting, passionate, painful read, but the writing is exquisite and how it wasn't longlisted for the Man Booker Prize is beyond me.

Nikesh Shukla, another magnificent talent, has just published a downloadable short story exclusively for them called the Time Machine

I am very passionate about this publisher. They are doing all the things that I care about and I'm absolutely thrilled that Eimear will be at the festival, as will (with a bit of luck) Simon Gough.

Andrew Lovett, whose new book Everlasting Lane is due to be published by Galley Beggars (a copy of which has just landed on my doormat) will also be there. I have absolutely no doubt it will live up to the quality of the other books on their impressive list."            

There will be readings, discussions and you can learn more about these wonderful authors by visiting them at the Karamel Club at 3.30pm. The authors' books will be available throughout the Festival and they will be very happy to sign copies at the events.