Dear friend of Eyewear Blog and Publishing,
I am writing this post to ask you to consider attending an extremely important milestone event
for us as a press. Eyewear Publishing is now two years old, and we are moving
into prose publishing now, as well as poetry.
In 2014, this means more novels, memoirs, and critical essays, as well as
ten new poetry collections. As the TLS recently noted in a review, we publish
stylish books. We are open to poets, poetries, and poetics, across a wide
international spectrum.
A healthy Eyewear press is good for poetry and publishing in Britain and
beyond. However, in order for any small press to survive, it needs readers, and,
by extension, purchasers of its books.
Our move into prose is motivated by a love of good prose – but also a
realistic awareness that prose reaches a potentially wider readership: one that
can underwrite and sustain our growing and frankly exciting poetry list.
As such, our launch of the debut novel both for Eyewear, and for our young
British writer, at Foyles, the Gallery, Charing Cross, on Friday November 8, at 6.30 pm, is a
litmus test. We want to see broad and robust support from the community that
wants small press publishing to thrive, to attend this event.
The novel could not be more timely. Written by a brilliant young British
Muslim woman, Sumia Sukkar, of Syrian ancestry, it tells the story of a creative
young man and his family, enduring the civil war as it begins in 2012.
The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted The War is as thrilling and moving a novel
as The Kite-Runner. It deserves to be celebrated and launched in style, and
welcomed.
I call upon you to spread the word on our behalf, and let people know about
this important launch. Please do attend, and bring a plus one or plus
three.
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