The first independent Web Festival has been announced which will take place on 28th and 29th September as part of the Raindance Film Festival held at London's Apollo Cinema in Piccadilly Circus.
The festival will explore the opportunities for independent film-makers arguing that web series are the new short form content that creatives and studio execs are now looking at to try and spot the next generation of film-makers.
Writers, directors, producers and actors all now make their own web content. Raindance is aiming to showcase and celebrate their work. The deadline for submissions is Monday 15 July 2013.
Saturday 25 May 2013
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Gay marriage - why not dump marriage?
I have to first declare that I am neither gay nor married and thus I have been watching the recent furore that has engulfed UK political parties with a degree of abstraction, not to say indifference, but in all the arguments it seems to me that one solution has been missed which seems blindingly obvious. Why not abandon marriage as a legal construct altogether?
I am not here sounding the death-knell for marriage which is a long-standing and vital institution. It is not the place of the state in my view to dictate who should marry whom. The state is only concerned with the legal ramifications of such relationships. There would be nothing to stop you getting married, making a personal and social commitment in or outside a faith context if marriage were taken out of the legal context. At present you have to register a marriage for it to have legal effect.
If I am not writing this as a gay or married person, then I am writing it as a life-long feminist. The status of women has changed dramatically in the past thirty years and I like to think I have had something to do with it. Most of the anomalies in our marriage laws derive from the fact that they were conceived at a time when women were financially dependent on their marriage partners. This is no longer the case. To remove the anomalies it seems to me the best solution would be to simply take marriage out of the legal equation.
I am now for example a single pensioner. Were I to decide to marry to spend my twilight years in someone else's company my pension, which I now hold as an individual, would become swallowed up in a 'married persons' pension' and be payable to my husband. This seems to me deeply unfair and frankly I would have to think long and hard about sacrificing my financial independence. This is an example where the state decides, for no very good reason, to treat a married woman as if she were not an adult person capable of managing her own affairs.
It seems to me that if the law were to treat all individuals, whatever their relationship, as legal equals many of the anomalies would simply disappear. Rights between couples would be established purely by legal documentation - joint mortgages, wills etc. and there would be no situation where for instance a wife might automatically inherit even though she is no longer co-habiting with her husband. In this way the law would be applied whatever the gender of the couple and the whole problem of changing the nature of marriage as a social or religious institution would not apply.
The UK Conservative party has got itself into a terrible tangle by using the term 'gay marriage' which has sent its more conservative members into a tailspin. If instead the party had talked about updating UK law to simply remove the anomalies introduced by treating marriage as a legal condition most people would I think be in favour. It will be complicated because there are so many layers of legal precedent but in the end you would have a fairer legal system.
I am not here sounding the death-knell for marriage which is a long-standing and vital institution. It is not the place of the state in my view to dictate who should marry whom. The state is only concerned with the legal ramifications of such relationships. There would be nothing to stop you getting married, making a personal and social commitment in or outside a faith context if marriage were taken out of the legal context. At present you have to register a marriage for it to have legal effect.
If I am not writing this as a gay or married person, then I am writing it as a life-long feminist. The status of women has changed dramatically in the past thirty years and I like to think I have had something to do with it. Most of the anomalies in our marriage laws derive from the fact that they were conceived at a time when women were financially dependent on their marriage partners. This is no longer the case. To remove the anomalies it seems to me the best solution would be to simply take marriage out of the legal equation.
I am now for example a single pensioner. Were I to decide to marry to spend my twilight years in someone else's company my pension, which I now hold as an individual, would become swallowed up in a 'married persons' pension' and be payable to my husband. This seems to me deeply unfair and frankly I would have to think long and hard about sacrificing my financial independence. This is an example where the state decides, for no very good reason, to treat a married woman as if she were not an adult person capable of managing her own affairs.
It seems to me that if the law were to treat all individuals, whatever their relationship, as legal equals many of the anomalies would simply disappear. Rights between couples would be established purely by legal documentation - joint mortgages, wills etc. and there would be no situation where for instance a wife might automatically inherit even though she is no longer co-habiting with her husband. In this way the law would be applied whatever the gender of the couple and the whole problem of changing the nature of marriage as a social or religious institution would not apply.
The UK Conservative party has got itself into a terrible tangle by using the term 'gay marriage' which has sent its more conservative members into a tailspin. If instead the party had talked about updating UK law to simply remove the anomalies introduced by treating marriage as a legal condition most people would I think be in favour. It will be complicated because there are so many layers of legal precedent but in the end you would have a fairer legal system.
Friday 17 May 2013
The Bookseller: Marketing and Publicity Conference 2013
This year's Marketing and Publicity Conference to be held by the trade magazine The Bookseller will be held on 9th July at Southbank, London. The all-day event will include an award ceremony by the Book Marketing Society. Guest speakers lined up include Karla Greci who is Strategic Partner Development at Facebook. She will be discussing the development of a holistic marketing strategy and Patrick Brown, Director of Community at Good Reads, recently acquired by Amazon, will be talking about opportunities for partnerships between publishers and authors and the digital platforms.Both talks will be followed by a Q & A session.
This year's conference places a strong emphasis on digital publishing/marketing. Sam Eades and Vicki Palmer, Publicity Manager and Head of Digital Marketing respectively, at Headline Publishing will be discussing their campaign for Snow Child while Alice Shortland, Bloomsbury's Marketing Manager, will discuss their campaing for the Polpo cookbook. Tim Davies, MD of The History Press will present his campaign for their Titanic book which gained 120,000 followers on Twitter and generated huge numbers of sales on a very limited budget. Tara Benson, Head of Marketing at Harlequin Mills & Boon will talk about how they engage with their community of readers to ensure audience needs are at the core of Mills & Boon's marketing strategy.
This year's conference places a strong emphasis on digital publishing/marketing. Sam Eades and Vicki Palmer, Publicity Manager and Head of Digital Marketing respectively, at Headline Publishing will be discussing their campaign for Snow Child while Alice Shortland, Bloomsbury's Marketing Manager, will discuss their campaing for the Polpo cookbook. Tim Davies, MD of The History Press will present his campaign for their Titanic book which gained 120,000 followers on Twitter and generated huge numbers of sales on a very limited budget. Tara Benson, Head of Marketing at Harlequin Mills & Boon will talk about how they engage with their community of readers to ensure audience needs are at the core of Mills & Boon's marketing strategy.
Thursday 2 May 2013
UK Book Festivals in May 2013
Here are the main UK Book festivals taking place in May 2013.
The Charleston Festival 17th - 26th May
At this literary festival taking place at Charleston, the former country home of Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, art, life and ideas rub shoulders with themes ranging from the Great Reform Bill of 1832 to the Scandal of 1963, the industrialist Josiah Wedgewood to the discreet charm of Apple's designs, from Jane Austen to the birth of Modernism in 1922, from early balloonists to transatlantic travel, from midwives to Mark with writers (of course) taking centre stage.
http://www.charleston.org.uk
The Boswell Festival 17th - 19th May
The world's only biography festival, named after the biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, the Boswell Festival takes place at Auchinleck House, his former family home. The 2013 Festival will feature BBC Presenter James Naughtie, Actor John Sessions among others and will include a performance of John Byrne's play Bohemian Rhapsody.
http://www.boswellbookfestival.co.uk
The Hay Festival 23rd May - 2nd June
In the words of former US President Bill Clinton 'the Woodstock of the mind' gathers people together in the beautiful Wye Valley in the town of Hay, in the Black Mountains of the Brecon Beacons national park, to think about the world as it is and to imagine how it might be in a big conversation about discovery and intellectual adventure sharing stories with great international novelists, film-makers, historians, poets, philosophers, environmentalists and scientists. At night they promise to party in the company of comedians and musicians. The Festival, which is one of the largest and best known in the UK, is in its 26th year and tickets can be booked online and the Programme menu can be downloaded as a pdf.
http://www.thehayfestival.co.uk
The Charleston Festival 17th - 26th May
At this literary festival taking place at Charleston, the former country home of Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, art, life and ideas rub shoulders with themes ranging from the Great Reform Bill of 1832 to the Scandal of 1963, the industrialist Josiah Wedgewood to the discreet charm of Apple's designs, from Jane Austen to the birth of Modernism in 1922, from early balloonists to transatlantic travel, from midwives to Mark with writers (of course) taking centre stage.
http://www.charleston.org.uk
The Boswell Festival 17th - 19th May
The world's only biography festival, named after the biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, the Boswell Festival takes place at Auchinleck House, his former family home. The 2013 Festival will feature BBC Presenter James Naughtie, Actor John Sessions among others and will include a performance of John Byrne's play Bohemian Rhapsody.
http://www.boswellbookfestival.co.uk
The Hay Festival 23rd May - 2nd June
In the words of former US President Bill Clinton 'the Woodstock of the mind' gathers people together in the beautiful Wye Valley in the town of Hay, in the Black Mountains of the Brecon Beacons national park, to think about the world as it is and to imagine how it might be in a big conversation about discovery and intellectual adventure sharing stories with great international novelists, film-makers, historians, poets, philosophers, environmentalists and scientists. At night they promise to party in the company of comedians and musicians. The Festival, which is one of the largest and best known in the UK, is in its 26th year and tickets can be booked online and the Programme menu can be downloaded as a pdf.
http://www.thehayfestival.co.uk
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