Employ me!

Hello! I'm currently job hunting, and I'd ideally like to work in marketing. I've made this short video to explain my skills and experience, and I hope you like what you see!

You can also go to my LinkedIn profile.

Please do contact me through this blog, or at helenkatesaunders [at] googlemail [dot] com.

With thanks for reading, and best wishes

Helen

EDIT 2/10/12: My video has come down for some editing. But it will be back up soon!

Book Slam 27/9/2012

On Thursday night I went to Book Slam. Book Slam is a monthly literary event hosted at The Tabernacle, in Notting Hill. 

It was a lovely evening. We arrived, had lovely wine (the staff are very friendly) and ate yummy sausage and mash (£5 a bowl, which you’re allowed to take up to the performance area with you). They play good music while you’re arriving, and the lighting is such that it’s pretty dark yet light up in the right places so that everyone looks beautiful and engaging. My sort of place.

First up was the MC, Charlie Dark, who is a lovely, lovely man with infectious enthusiasm. We did one of those cringey ice breaking things, but thankfully he doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of audience participation. That’s what I look for in a comedy host.

Poet 1 of the evening was Mr Mark Grist. Known by teenage boys throughout the land, apparently. He used to be a teacher before leaving the profession to be a full time poet. He’s on youtube here and here and here. He did some great poems - ‘‘The best of all the gingers’’ and a paean to childhood love Beth Builder stick in my mind especially.

Singer 1 of the evening was Josh Kumra and his videos can be seen here. At first I thought he was just a generic singer/songwriter but then he played his next single and I changed my mind. I was very impressed by his drummer doing backing falsetto vocals too. His bass player was good too. His single will be out in January.

Poet 2 of the evening was showstopper Simon Armitage. I’ve been a fan of his since the wonderful collection Kid. He was promoting his new book, Walking home: travels with a troubadour on the Penine Way , about walking, unsurprisingly, the Penine Way. He’s a wonderful reader: droll, confident, wry. He’s got great stage presence, and he’s very funny. A top chap. He mentioned one review that labelled him the Eeyore of Walking, to which Simon quipped ‘I didn’t think I was that happy’, and I don’t think it’s a brilliant comparison. He’s miserable but insightful, for sure. But Simon does it in a self-aware way, whereas Eeyore is a bit more self-centered. ANYWAY. A beautiful book, a wonderful chap. I was saddened only that he didn’t perform any poetry from Kid, which is an excellent collection.

Get yourself down to the next Book Slam: details here. 

This one isn't really about books

....but websites.

Here we go:

1) brainpickings, which I mentioned in my last entry. It's a super cool blog. In her own words:

Book sorts will enjoy it for her frequent rumination on creativity, writing, how to be a better writer, what books to read, etc. What I especially like about brainpickings is the interdisciplinary aspect - she takes the best of the best to write about - whether that be books or not (but, of course, it frequently is books. amirite?). Today's lead article, for example, is about the successes/failures of Polaroid. Wonderful.

2) Goodreads Make an account, compare with your friends. Simple as. Great fun. You can sign in with facebook if you want to do that slightly creepy 'broadcast everything' thing. Now, internet reviewing has, quite rightly, got quite a bad press recently, thanks to the naughty behaviour of certain writers leaving positive reviews on their own books (on amazon) and negative reviews on their competitors' books. (If you want to read more about this, the wonderful whistle-blowing Jeremy Duns has no end of views on the issue.) But this site - it doesn't record what you BUY, but what you LIKE. Which is obviously the more important of the two. Here, I could go onto a rant about amazon's ''customers who liked X also looked at Y'' feature, but I won't, because it's only 7.54am and there's only so much anger a girl can take at this time in the morning. Goodreads' tagline is ''meet your next favourite book'' which is pretty sweet.

3) I know this is super obvious, but Guardian Books is easily the best newspaper section for books. 

4) I am always impressed also by Stylist's book coverage. Two things: 

i) The quality of content is great. It's not patronising at all, and they don't choose fluffy, silly books, thinking that's all women read. There's nothing wrong with putting a review of, say, Charles Perrault's fairy tales next to an advert for the Whistles sales, and thank god Stylist realises that. Dresses and books aren't mutually exclusive! 

ii) On their website, they even have a tab for books right up at the top - it's not hidden under a 'culture' or 'lifestyle' section. 

Which I think is wonderful. I can only assume they must get the hits that way (ie they track the number of clicks that it takes a visitor to the site to reach their final destination, and have decided that it's best if they put a link for books in a very obvious place) and that's a great reflection on your average Stylist reader.  Also, they once did a whole edition on books, which was great. 

5) I could not admire this girl's tenacity any more than I already do. A Penguin a Week.  And she's studying for a PhD in the meantime! I don't know where these people find the energy. 

6) For smug, self-satisfied giggles, you could do worse than Better Book Titles. It's a good one. Here are some of my favourites:

See? Pretty funny.

7) I have only recently begun to look at this site - so behind the times - but Pinterest is delightful.  The idea is that you have a 'board' onto which you 'pin' images that you like - rather like a traditional cork noticeboard. You can have several boards, all themed differently. This is what mine looks like:

I think it's a great idea, for it's own sake, but it also represents a good opportunity for marketing (or self-promotion) purposes. Lots of publishers have Pinterest accounts, but it seems pretty hard initially to get the loyalty going. But I think the slow-burn rewards are probably worth it. Anyway, I like that the pictures are pretty and you can theme it according to your likes. Mine isn't totally up to date - I've read more books in 2012 than are documented there, and even with that in mind, that's a fairly skewed portrait of my reading/aesthetic taste. 

There we go. That's just a few. What are your favourites?

A few words on what I've been up to recently

Hello!

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. In that time:

1) I read the majority of a book by Elizabeth von Armin, called The Enchanted April. It is about four lovely ladies who spot an advertisement for a holiday villa in the Times. The ladies do not know each other, but head off together for a month. The opening chapters are delightful and it's impossible to read them without wanting to read further, but after a while the novel loses its shine. The characters are generally lovely, but it all just gets a bit too serious and self-conscious. That these are single women on holiday together is intensely interesting and important to the novel, but there's little depth to that idea. I'm sure I'll make my way back to it, but it started to drag and if reading isn't full of pleasure, then give up.

2) I read Brett Easton Ellis' Less than Zero, which I thought was pretty rubbish. I see that the banality and cold narrative is meant to reflect the characters' experiences, but that doesn't really make for an enjoyable novel. [I haven't gone into as much description for this book because (1) I'm meant to be doing something else right now anyway, and (2) I assume people know more about BEE already.] Stick to American Psycho, which is a wonderful, wonderful, brilliant novel. LTZ is little more than a (crap) first draft of American Psycho, really.

3) I also began reading a book about Morrissey, entitled Morrissey: the pageant of his bleeding heart. This is an academic book on Moz. It is a little dry and heavy at the moment but I hope it will pick up soon. My favourite Smiths book is Jonny Rogan's Morrissey/Marr: the Severed Alliance, which will take some beating. What is so good about the latter book is that he realises that Morrissey couldn't be Morrissey without Marr there too. It's like gin without tonic, fish without chips. The overwhelming evidence is that without Marr, Morrissey is pretty crap - does he deserve a book of his own? And if he does, then surely Marr deserves one of his own too? Anyway, I'll crack on and finish it and I suppose I'll be in a better place to offer an opinion then.

4) I left my job at Dorling Kindersley. So, if anyone wants to employ me (on a permanent/temp/freelance basis) do please send me an email: helenkatesaunders [at] googlemail [dot] com.

5) I've been working on James Joyce a bit. I'm not sure if a return to academia is for me, really, but it would be nice to publish on my favourite writer. So i'm immersing myself in his poetry and Exiles right now - it's nice to focus on a writer's less famous output.

6) I found the website Brain Pickings and spent a lot of time on it wishing I was a super hot talented writer.

September, the real new year.

1st September is a date that unfailingly evokes emotion in me: in fact, it is only just behind 25th December and 10th March (my birthday) for the emotional significance I attach to it. I'd wager that September is the real start of the new year.

A friend sent me this a couple of years ago, and it rings true, no matter how many years its been since school:


"The first of September – sharpened pencils, fresh exercise books, new shiny textbooks. We learned it at school; September is a true beginning, far more than an arbitrary midnight in the darkest part of winter. September is the start of new ventures. It’s the same sort of optimism, of “this time we’ll do better” as new love, or the morning after the end of an illness when you wake up feeling well for the first time in what seems like a lifetime, and have sudden and intense respect for your own body. September is away-with-laziness. It is the time to work hard, to lay away stores for the winter, to do those things which, in the long summer days, we kept putting off. In September we understand that we cannot be lazy for ever – that we would not even want to. September is sharp, exciting, alive."

Naomi Alderman


On a far sadder note, here is Auden's poem, '1st September, 1939':

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright 
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can 
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return. 

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire 
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Future Opinion-makers

Hello all

Here's a great opportunity for future literary opinionators. You know the Guardian First book award.....well, here's the opportunity to be on a judging panel.

See below.... the deadline is Sunday, so get on this quickish (sorry for the late notice, but I only just learnt about this recently myself). I urge the literary minded south Londoners among you to strongly consider this.

Thanks

x

Dear Reader,

Thank you for your interest in participating in one of the Guardian First Book Award judging groups. The award is now in its 14^th year and Waterstones have been proud associates for eight of those years. Being the only British literary award to be judged by members of the public creates a unique and rewarding experience. Past winners of the award include Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer and Robert Macfarlane, who all received the award for their respective first books and then went on to become very prominent figures in the literary scene. This means that this year’s winner, whom you have the opportunity to help choose as a member of a judging group, may well become one of the best-known literary names of tomorrow.

This year there will be five Waterstones branches involved with the award: Bath, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh West End, Leeds and London Clapham. Each of these groups will be comprised of seven members of the public who will help select a shortlist of five titles from among a longlist of ten books drawn up by The Guardian.

• What will the seven members of the Clapham reading group have to do?

• Read the 10 books! It is worth mentioning that the schedule is certainly not for the casual reader. Each member will be required to read 10 books in 8 weeks. Some of the books may contain over 500 pages and some fewer than 100. Even if you are an avid reader, it’s definitely a big undertaking and you need to be sure that you will be able to do it before committing to it. Despite all this, previous participants have described it as a hugely gratifying experience and, for dedicated readers, pure joy.
• Attend 8 weekly meetings, where we will discuss the books (normally one per week, although due to the tight schedule, there will be two meetings where we will be discussing two). In the last meeting, we will rank the ten books that we have read and will pass our list to Stuart Broom (Waterstones Events Programmer), who will receive another four lists from each of the other four reading groups. Along with the votes of the Guardian First Book Award judging panel, a shortlist of five books will be drawn up. Stuart Broom will represent the views of all the reading groups at the final meeting of the panel of judges (who include Jeanette Winterson and Kate Summerscale) in November.

• What is the schedule for the Clapham reading group?

• 31^st July – 12^th August: Application forms available for collection from the Waterstones Clapham branch.
• Sunday 12^th August: Deadline for applications. The application forms can be handed in to the shop, scanned and e-mailed to claphamreadinggroup@gmail.com or posted to: Waterstones Clapham, 70 St John’s Road, London SW11 1PT. Whichever the method, please make sure that your application is with us by 12^th August. Applications received after the deadline won’t be able to be considered for the selection process.
• Applicants will be told if they’re successful by Friday 17^th August. The selection of the seven members will be based solely on the answers given in the application form. The succesful candidates will be contacted by e-mail and will have to confirm their place in the reading group by Monday 20^th August.
• The longlist will be announced by The Guardian approximately a week after the reading group members have been contacted (Thursday 23^rd or Friday 24^th August) and the books will be dispatched by The Guardian to our branch around the same date. The seven members of the reading group will be contacted by phone as soon as the books are ready for collection from Waterstones Clapham. This is a rather tight turnaround period and members of the reading group are requested to collect the books from the branch as soon as possible after being contacted, in order to have time to read the first book before our meeting on Tuesday 28^th August (see below). The ten books are provided gratis to all members of the reading groups by The Guardian.
• Tuesday 28^th August, 7pm: First meeting of the reading group. The meetings will always take place at 7pm on Tuesdays in the Clapham branch and will last approximately 1 ½  hours. The eight weekly meetings will be held on the following dates: 

28^th August

4^th September

11^th September

18^th September

25^th September

2^nd October

9^th October

16^th October

The order in which we will read the ten books and the date on which each book will be discussed will be announced at a later date.

NOTE: Attendance to the meetings is essential. If you already know that there is one or more meetings that you can’t attend due to other commitments, please make this clear on your application form. Preference will be given to applicants who can commit to reading the ten books and attending the eight meetings.

• Early December (date TBC): Book prize ceremony. The members of all the reading groups will be invited to attend the book prize evening, usually held at a grand London venue, where they will have the opportunity to meet the winner and the shortlisted authors, the judges and the members of the other reading groups. Every year it has been a very special evening and one which has become renowned in the literary calendar.

• What are we looking for?

Due to the nature of the Guardian First Book Award, members should have a diverse reading interest. The only genre which is not eligible for the award is children’s books, which means that the longlisted books can be drawn from any genre: for example, from fiction, history, music, popular science, biography, poetry – anything! Regardless of age, gender, previous experience etc. an open literary attitude is of paramount importance and members should be individuals who enjoy reading and feel comfortable discussing all sorts of books.

Here at Waterstones, we believe this is a wonderful chance for our customers  - only 35 readers in the country are able to be part of the judging process! - and we really hope that all who get involved are sincerely able to make the commitment required to make the most of this opportunity.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me on claphamreadinggroup@gmail.com or  0207 978 5844.

Summer Nights

Hello!


It's been a while, hasn't it? Apologies. I left Waterstones, and I got a job at a publisher in central London. Quite a big well known one, and I'll be there until mid-September (I started mid-June). Hurrah!


In the mean time, I've been trying to read Anna Karenina, but I've been finding it a bit dull. I did a straw poll among my lovely well-read friends and nobody thought much of it, so I've put it to one side for a bit.


Instead, I'm now reading James Meek's new (for September) book, The Heart Broke In. I only started it this morning: I've already gushed to a friend about it, and nearly missed my stop on the train home. That's a good start, then. I love his dark humour: not allowed to quote it until publication, but there are some fine observations about married life/cheating, and about sex, and about parents, and children, and fucking, and .....well - basically everything he turns his hand (pen) to. The two main characters (siblings) are both excellently written. I mean excellently. The girl, in particular - she's got the spunky character of a twenty-first century Jane Eyre or such. She's a trooper. The boy is despicably brilliant a la Patrick Melrose. These are first-day impressions, and as you can see, they're very good indeed!


Thank you, canongate, for publishing a super lovely book. I really can't wait to go to bed and start reading it again. The Heart Broke In will be a lead title this September - that means it'll be a huge title for Christmas. Remember the buzz about Franzen last Christmas? We're looking at that level of publicity interest, I think. Deservedly so! 


Consider this a little heads-up.....


x