The dust, cold and asthma have really been getting to my chest lately and making me cough, a lot. Which is totally exhausting and very annoying.
But the light and growth really helps lift spirits as does meeting up with friends for a coffee and chat.
What I've been up to these past two weeks
One of the fun things that I got up to in the last fortnight was meeting up with a friend in York and it was so lovely catching up.
Whilst we were there it would have been remiss of us not to pop along to the opening day of a new bookshop!Criminally Good Books has just opened in 14 Colliergate, just along from Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate and is a specialist in crime fiction and non-fiction.
There is a brilliant selection of both and it is ran by really friendly and knowledgeable staff, inside is beautiful as well.
York is a wonderful little city for independent bookshops and though I've not visited them all it's something I want to do eventually, and drop off the little book bear badges for them.
Here are the ones I know of, if there are any I've missed please let me know;
The Blue House Bookshop
Criminally Good Books
Fossgate Books
The Grimoire Bookshop
The Little Apple Bookshop
Lucius Books
The Minster Gate Bookshop
The Portal Bookshop
Janette Ray Booksellers
Ken Spelman Bookshop & Gallery
On Monday the 11th I was in Newcastle for a book launch at the Lit Phil, first bookish event I've been to for a long time.
This was the launch of Steve Chambers' thriller 'The Dark Months' Set in the north east; a privatised poisons lab, a rogue hedge fund, an innocent trapped in a web of secrets.
A wonderful night out where I also met Martin Ellis of Zymurgy Publishing, the books publisher, and had to buy the book as it sounded fascinating from Steve's readings.
Then on Tuesday the 12th I was working the wonderful event where Hannah Kaner was in conversation with Laura Steven.
It was interesting listening to them both talk about their writing process and the conception of The Fallen Gods trilogy.
I'd just like to say that it was Godkiller that has got me back into reading fantasy, it was so refreshing after so many cookie cutter stories out there.
Indie Bookshops website additions
Criminally Good Books (directory)
Indie Publishers website additions
nothing in the last two weeks
Upcoming books
Oracle – Thomas Olde Heuvelt – Hodderscape (9781529331929 – 19th)
Ghosts in the Hedgerow: A Hedgehog Whodunnit – Tom Moorhouse – Penguin (9781804991954 – 21st)
Song of the Huntress – Lucy Holland – Macmillan (9781529077407 – 21st)
Why Surrealism Matters – Mark Polizzotti – Yale (9780300257090 – 26th)
Alien Clay – Adrian Tchaikovsky – Tor (9781035013746 – 28th)
Book Reviews
Nights. Volume 1 (01/03/24)
The Man from Maybe (05/03/24)
Black Hole Cinema Club (06/03/24)
Bite Risk: Caught Dead (09/03/24)
Not a River (12/03/24)
The Photography Ideas Book (12/03/24)
Other blog posts
Rolls of £20 Notes (07/03/24)
Starting Over (09/03/24)
Questions for Authors
The Author Q&A has been running for a few years now and there are 79 interview's on the blog.
There are still about ten interviews in the pipeline but I’m always on the lookout for more authors who would like to be involved so please contact me if you’re interested.
Here’s a list of questions, just answer what you want (at least six please) and feel comfortable with and feel free to adapt where necessary  🙂
The finished Q&A will go on my blog and a separate newsletter.
If you would rather fill in a Google Form you can find one here where you can upload images as well – Author Interview Series Google Form
tell us what inspired you to write your first (debut) book?
what came first the characters or the world?
how hard was it to get your first (debut) book published?
how long did it take to write?
do you have a writing playlist? If so do you want to share it?
How many publishers turned down your first book?
what kind of reactions have you had to your books?
what's the favourite reaction you've had to one of your books?
what can you tell us about your next book?
do you take notice of online reviews?
would you ever consider writing outside your current genre?
what did you do before (or still do) you became a writer?
what author(s) inspire you?
which genres do you read yourself?
what is your biggest motivator?
what will always distract you?
how much (if any) say do you have in your book covers?
were you a big reader as a child?
what were your favourite childhood books?
do you have a favourite bookshop? If so which?
what books can you not resist buying?
do you have any rituals when writing?
how many books are in your own physical TBR pile?
what is your current or latest read?
any books that you're looking forward to in the next 12 months?
any plans or projects in the near future you can tell us about?
any events in the near future?
and finally, what inspired you to write in the genre you do?
please remember to add your socials, a small bio, and a few photos and email the answers to bigbeardedbookseller@gmail.com
thanks
Stephen
What's happening in the next two weeks
It's back to normal at work after a week off, sporting a refreshed head and new tattoo and preparing for the Easter Holiday in the shop with activities and story times.
There are a couple of book reviews in the pipeline as well as a couple of author interviews for the Big Bearded Bookseller blog, I'll also reformat a couple and add them to this Ko-Fi.
I've also got a few art manifesto ready to put up on the Stephen Baird website that will go up over the next couple of weeks.
I'm always looking for more contributors to the author, illustrator, and blogger interview series, if you're interested click on the links to take you to the pages which will give you all the details you need.
Supporting these projects
One of the main way of supporting me in these projects is to follow me on one of my social media accounts and like/boost as this means people are seeing what I'm putting out there.
If you want you can always subscribe to my Ko-Fi to help me earn time to work on these projects with more consistency and eventually make this my go to work.
The membership will see you have exclusive access to the various documents that I'll be producing over the next year.Â
These will include booklets of the bookshops around the world broken into geographic area, specialisms, and checklists of the same.
There will also be a publisher document with all the information on the site compiled into a booklet, then there will be smaller booklets for children's publishers, etc.
For links to all the projects and social media accounts go to my linktr.ee