In Praise of Small Press Publishing

The coming weekend, on Saturday 17th March, is the annual States of Independence here at De Montfort, a one-day festival celebrating independent press publishing. And, as ever, there's a full programme of events, readings, talks and happenings, as well as a small army of publishers, booksellers and the like here on campus. It should be an excellent event, and the full programme can be found here. I'll be doing a joint panel on happiness along with my old friend Suryacitta from happy-buddha.co.uk. Both Suryacitta and I have recently published very different books on happiness – mine a kind of free-wheeling and practical exploration of various philosophies of happiness from the Cynics to Zhuangzi (it can be bought here), and Suryacitta's a thoughtful, nuanced and practical approach from a Buddhist perspective (which you can get hold of here).

Small and independent presses are the life-blood of the literary world, providing a kind of literary biodiversity in a world that increasingly tends towards monocultures; and so States is always a great event in its ability to remind us that there are greater riches out there than may be apparent from the pile-'em-high 3 for 2 offers in Waterstones. And – did I mention this? – it is entirely free of charge. If you are near Leicester, you should really come along.

Meanwhile, in other small-press related news, I've just had a couple of stories published in two lovely publications. The first is my piece "Precious Treasure Chicken", a non-fiction piece about an encounter with an alien in the Chinese city of Baoji (宝鸡), and it is published in the annual anthology of the Lowestoft Chronicle based out in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The anthology is called Far-Flung and Foreign, and is edited by Nicholas Litchefield. Luke Rhinehart, no less, says that the collection is "both provocative and enjoyable", and so it's well worth getting hold of.

The second piece is my story "How Many Things?" that has been published in the beautifully-designed Frogmore Papers, which is looking particularly handsome in this issue, the cover somewhere between a tablecloth in a French farmhouse and a Dutch momento mori painting.

"How Many Things?" is about a present-day heir of the philosopher Shao Yong (邵雍), who sets out to enumerate all of the things in existence. The Frogmore Papers is available on subscription by going to the website of the Frogmore Press, who are found here.

If any readers of this blog are thinking of coming along to States, then do track me down and say hello. I'll be running around for much of the day, helping out with organising, attending events and so on; but as usual I'm hoping to have time to spare to chat, to buy books, and to generally have a good time.