I am delighted, chuffed, and not a little excited to announce the launch of a new literary event. The inaugural Firestation Book Swap will take place in August and, if all goes to plan, will be something a bit different for book fans.
The idea is one I have been knocking around for some time and have finally come up with a venue and a format. The Firestation is a new arts centre in Windsor, just round the corner from my house. It has already played host to a great deal of cutting edge comedy, live music and cinema events and is soon to find itself the setting for our Book Swap night. It seats just over 150 people and there is a gallery area, a cafe and bar. It is rather a nice place to hang out and is quickly becoming a bustling cultural centre for Windsor.
The format is, I hope, one which will prove to be entertaining - it had better do as we will need to sell some tickets to make the whole thing worthwhile. There are still some elements to be confirmed but the sort of thing we have in mind is this.
The evening will be hosted by myself and Marie Phillips. Marie is the author of the bestselling novel Gods Behaving Badly
We hope to welcome 2, or perhaps 3 authors to join us on stage for some tea, cake and conversation. Unlike a typical book event, we don't want people to read from their latest novel, we just want to have a good chinwag about all manner of things. Sure, we will touch upon their work and career but will want to delve deeper as well as getting them chatting about things outside of the normal literary subjects - we might ask them to bring along some favourite songs, give us a rundown of the websites and blogs they frequent, perhaps bring along a cake and share the recipe with those in attendance. Anything goes really.
The Firestation Book Swap will also encourage audience participation. Attendees will be invited to write down their own questions for the guests which they can plonk into a question jar for us to pluck out at various points during the evening. The only rule is that the questions cannot be anything to do with books!
One audience volunteer will be asked to man our Twitter account during the evening, tweeting the highlights as they see fit. If we can, we will record the night's events and release it as a podcast.
But the most important piece of interaction will be the Big Book Swap. Every member of the audience, and the guests, will be invited to bring a book along with them. At the end of the evening everyone will mingle and attempt to swap their book with someone else. The plan is that everyone leaves with a new book. As well as, we hope, some good memories of a night well spent.
So there you have it. The first Firestation Book Swap will take place in August, the exact date to be confirmed. Naturally, all of you are very welcome to come along. Windsor is only a 30 minute train journey or car ride from London and is pretty easy to get to from anywhere in the M4 corridor. We really hope to make the night something a bit special and, if it works, we will try to hold it as a regular monthly thing.
What we are trying to do now is sort out the guests for our debut event. I know that quite a few publishers and authors read this blog so if you are such a person and are keen to get involved then do please drop me a line. We are hoping for a nice mix of guests - both the famous and the up and coming, even the completely unknown - and it would be great to have a cracking line-up for our very first night. There will be an opportunity for the audience to buy books on the night so that should make the trip worth the authors' while but the emphasis is on quality chat, quality cake and lots of fun.
I shall keep you informed and updated as things start to firm up over the coming weeks.
Sounds like a great idea. Will there be a Firestation Book Swap twitter account?
Posted by: DJ Kirkby | June 23, 2009 at 06:15 AM
I'll bake you a ginger sponge. It's lovely.
Posted by: SJV | June 23, 2009 at 08:11 AM
DJK - thank you, and yes there will.
SJP - I bet it is x
Posted by: Scott Pack | June 23, 2009 at 08:26 AM
How super!
Best of luck with it.
Alas, I have no transport and it's a long way from here!
Posted by: Rachel Green | June 23, 2009 at 09:32 AM
I've just been talking to Ms Smailes who pointed me in the direction of your blog.
What a great idea for a get together, sounds like a perfect night. Good luck with it.
Posted by: Mel Sherratt | June 24, 2009 at 11:41 AM
It sounds great. I hope that I'm not on holiday on the date that you pick, I'd love to come.
Posted by: Steve Feasey | June 24, 2009 at 05:04 PM
Sounds like a great night. I hope it goes well and look forward to reading about it afterwards. I love the emphasis on books but also not books. I helps to break the 'nerdy' image of the reader. Sure we like books but we are able to care about other things too!
Posted by: jem | July 09, 2009 at 03:57 PM