Bookworm: “Some try to change the world with bombs, other with poems”

Snippets from the past week in the literary world

SOPHIE’S VOICE

Sophie Hannah is such a talented writer that in our front-page interview we didn’t even get around to mentioning her other career as a poet. Only this month, Candlestick Press (candlestickpress.co.uk) chose her to introduce its latest collection of gift poems, Thirteen Poems of Revenge. I can’t see it doing as well as its other £4.99 “instead of a card” collections on gardening and dogs – why send a present to someone you hate? – but at least there’s a good line in Hannah’s introduction.

When her poetry publisher, Carcanet Press, finally reopened its doors after the 1995 IRA bombing of central Manchester, writer and academic Gerald Hammond made a speech in which he declaimed: “Some try to change the world with bombs, other with poems.” “At which point,” writes Hannah, “the poet Steven Blyth whispered in my ear, ‘Surely there’s some kind of middle way?’”

CHINESE GIVEAWAY

According to online journal Publishing Perspectives, now that the Scandinavian crime-writing phenomenon has peaked, the next big thing will be central Europe. I’m not convinced. For, while I go along with Clive James’s dictum that “crime fiction is the new travel writing”, surely we’re only intrigued by important countries that, deep down, we don’t understand but wish we did. On that basis, there is surely only one candidate: China. Remember Arkady Renko in Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park? That was back in 1981, but my bet is that the world is secretly itching to read about his contemporary Chinese equivalent – a Beijing detective trying to stay on the right side of party officialdom while investigating a series of deaths among the city’s illegal workers, say. Bound to be a worldwide smash, and I’m giving you the idea for free. A nice, appreciative note in the acknowledgments or a dedication will do.

For the rest, it’s up to you. You’ll get some hints from the How to Write A Crime Novel section in the Crime Readers Association’s new website www.thecra.co.uk, but they tend to be rather obvious.

You’re bound to get more from Scottish crime writers Caro Ramsay and Alex Gray. They will be interviewed by BBC Scotland’s Edi Stark at the annual Edinburgh lunch in aid of the children’s charity Action Medical Research at the George Hotel from noon on Friday 23 March. Tickets are £49.50 from [email protected] or 01236 782820.