Well grounded

The latest big 26 project ‘Common Ground: Around Britain In 30 Writers’ is progressing well. Thirty members of 26 have chosen writers and places that have inspired and informed their own writing; they have then written chapters to appear in the book to be published by Cyan. The editors (John Simmons, Tim Rich and Rob Williams) are raving about the quality of the writing – and the variety of places and authors covered. You’ll get an idea from the Contents list.

At the moment the book is with Cyan for design and production. The cover’s being designed by Jon Gray (who designed the amazing cover for ‘Everything Is Illuminated’) and there’s a real buzz around the book – it could be big.

Plans are in hand for a launch event at Shakespeare’s Globe in August, and we’re applying to the Arts Council for funding for ‘Common Ground: The Tour’ in the autumn. If we get that funding (we’re optimistic) we hope to have 30 different 26 events all around the country, each based on a chapter of the book. Fingers crossed.


‘Common Ground’ – Contents
1. How Camest Thou in Such a Pickle? Shakespeare’s Stratford by Jim Davies
2. Still Not Much Going On: Edward Thomas and Adlestrop by Richard Medrington
3. A Legendary Lazy Little Black-Magical Bedlam by the Sea: Dylan Thomas’s Laugharne by Niall Griffiths
4. Footnotes: Living a Richard Long Life by Peter Kirby
5. Notes in the Margin: H.W. Tilman and Molecular Connections Between Falmouth and Everywhere Else by Penelope Williams
6. A Nameless Luminous: Dorset, Word-tunes and Mary Butts by Molly Mackey
7. Growing Pains: Living With Thomas Hardy and Dorset by Sarah Burnett
8. Through the Looking Glass in Wiltshire: Jasper Fforde’s Swindon by Maja Pawinska Sims
9. Tunnel Vision: the Reverend W. Awdry’s Box by Will Awdry
10. Lost and Found: Looking for John Milton in Chalfont St Giles by John Simmons
11. (Notes for) (My) Manifest Promise: Me, Julian Barnes and Metroland by Rishi Dastidar
12. This Train Calls At Earl’s Court, Hangover Square and Maidenhead: Stalking Commuters with Patrick Hamilton by Laura Forman
13. Considering Phlebas: T.S. Eliot and the City of London by Jonathan Holt
14. Playing Polo With Pinter by William Easton
15. On a Monkey’s Birthday: Into the Heart of Belloc’s Sussex by Tim Rich
16. Unpretending Orlando: Virginia Woolf and the Downs by Elise Valmorbida
17. Ours was the Marsh Country: In Darkest Kent with Dickens by Robert Mighall
18. The Essex Factor: Rocking in Colchester with Giles Smith by Tom Wilcox
19. Ecstatic Boredom: Will Self and the Great British Motorway (With Special Reference to the M40) by Justina Hart
20. Your Time Starts Now: Questioning What’s Real in David Lodge’s Birmingham by Lorelei Mathias
21. Unriddling the World: Alan Garner and Cheshire by John Mitchinson
22. A Sense of Ulster: Van Morrison’s Belfast by Stephen Brown
23. How to Find Your Voice in Burnley: Raising a Glass to Paul Abbott by Rob Williams
24. I’m Grim Up North: Lying Reminiscences with Keith Waterhouse’s Billy Liar by Roger Horberry
25. Variations on a Serenade to Teesborough: Links That Bind F.W. Lister, My Dad and Me by Sarah McCartney
26. The Rules of Modernity: Not taking the bus round Glasgow with Stuart Murdoch by Neil Taylor
27. Wet Sand and Gasoline: Beachcombing in Fife with John Burnside by Richard Clayton
28. Kidnapped: Stevenson, the Highlands and a Story Under Every Stone by Jamie Jauncey
29. Cromarty & The Black Isle: Hugh Miller’s Voices by Ali Smith
30. Northern Light: Finding George Mackay Brown and Orkney by Stuart Delves

posted by jim @ 11:31 AM