<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> T H E B O S U N ' S C H R O N I C L E The official Ezine of the Thomas Kydd Shipmates' network <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> VOL. 6, ISSUE 4, May 2006 Avast, Shipmates and anchors aweigh! + This month we are celebrating five years of "The Bosun's Chronicle" - and there's a very special prize for one lucky Shipmate! See CONTESTS for details. 1 DISPATCHES 2 JULIAN LOOKS BACK 3 PROGRESSING THE MANUSCRIPT 4 SALTY SAYINGS 5 CONTESTS 6 SCRAN 'N PROG 7 BOOKCASE 8 NEW ON THE WEB ==================== 1 DISPATCHES + Out and about Last month was a busy month for Julian celebrating the launch of the UK paperback of TENACIOUS. There were talks and book-signings at venues in London, Bexleyheath, Portsmouth, Redbridge, Plymouth, Poole, Southampton, Fareham and Eastleigh. Check the website for details of future events. + COMMAND cover and chapter one on the website We've posted the cover of COMMAND and the first chapter of the book on the website. Yet another superb piece of original artwork by Geoff Hunt! And don't forget to get in quickly if you would like to reserve a copy of the Collector's Edition of COMMAND. admin@JulianStockwin.com Our allocation of these is going fast! + Last of the Square Riggers books It's always interesting to hear from Shipmates what sea titles they've enjoyed. We're planning a feature on accounts of the final days of commercial tall ships in a future issue - let us know your favourites! + Museum Exhibits Julian donated several items to the Naval Museum of Alberta for a special Exhibition held there last year. The museum has now placed these artefacts (a length of tarred hemp rope and a musket ball recovered from the wreck of HMS "Invincible") on permanent exhibition in the Lower Deck East Wall. The ship was lost in the Solent in 1758 (the year of the birth of Nelson, and also the year in which "Victory" was laid down) en route to Halifax, where she was to be the flagship of Sir Charles Hardy. Although around five hundred miles from salt water, the museum is the largest of its kind in Canada and Julian has fond memories of his visit there several years ago. www.navalmuseum.ab.ca + Salty connections When California-based Shipmate Wes Hill emailed Julian saying he had just finished QUARTERDECK and felt it was the best he had read in the series so far, Julian realised they had several salty connections. Wes is involved with the Sea Scout Ship "Chaser" (Julian is an ex-Sea Cadet). And bemoaning the closing of the local naval dockyard at Mare Island, Wes found a sympathetic ear - during his Navy days, Julian operated with DET 220, the US Sixth Fleet augmentation into Hong Kong. www.seascout.org www.ssschaser.com www.fas.org/man/company/shipyard/mare_island.htm + All at Sea Group sponsor talk Julian was invited by the All at Sea Reading Group to deliver the coda event at the Redbridge Literary Festival last month. The group was started in 2001 and meets monthly. Says Nick Dobson, founder: "We've thoroughly enjoyed Julian's novels. As for a favourite, that's very difficult to say because they all have tremendous pace and brilliant historical detail to enhance the fiction. The first of the series really grabbed our attention. Could the author maintain the interest when the central figure was not the one controlling the destiny of the ship and men under his command? The answer was yes - that first novel ensured we would read on!" [There's a free Reading Group Pack for any group discussing Julian's books. Email the Bosun for details.] ===================== 2 The Kydd Series - five years on Julian reflects on how his life has changed since the launch of KYDD. "April 5, 2001 will forever be a very special memory for me. Kathy and I were guests of honour at the magnificent KYDD launch party organised by Hodder & Stoughton at Admiralty House, Whitehall (the official residence of the First Lord of the Admiralty from 1788 to 1964, and the strategic centre for the Royal Navy in Kydd's day). Since then there have been more parties, often at splendidly salty venues such as Britannia Naval College and Portmouth Historic Dockyard, hundreds of book-signing events, author talks, media interviews - but in many ways that first launch was the happiest day of my life. It can all get a bit hectic at times, but I feel very privileged to be able to have met so many of my readers and hear how much they have enjoyed the books. In terms of how my life has changed I suppose the biggest thing is that there is now an annual cycle. Before, when I was involved in computer systems design, the project schedule dictated my work pattern. Now, January is location research, February - May is additional research and planning, June - November is actual writing, December is a careful re-read and revision. The manuscript is delivered on January 1. Fitted in to this broad schedule are things like answering editorial queries on the manuscript, promotional talks and appearances, interviews etc. I am fortunate to have Kathy to act as my 'reality manager' and she contrives to keep day-to-day intrusions at bay to free me to concentrate on actual writing. And of course Kathy and I now work together fulltime as a creative team. As both of us are fairly strong-willed individuals, used to managing our own departments in different professional spheres, this could have been a recipe for conflict - but I'm happy to report no problems in this ship's crew! Our 'holidays' now tend to be location research and have taken us all over the world - Canada, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and much more. Although they are hard work they are extremely enjoyable as there is a genuine focus to our activity in these locales - finding out what it was +really+ like there in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Someone recently asked me were there any things about being an author that I disliked - and I couldn't really think of any. I must admit I am enjoying myself more than at any other time in my life and see this continuing for many years to come. Of course the hours are long and you have to be disciplined, but that is no real hardship if you're having fun! If there is any sort of burden that I have found, it is this - becoming a writer, at least in my case, has meant that I have become a more sensitive person. I feel things more deeply now, and become very concerned at what befalls the characters in my novels. I really "feel" their pain and their disappointments, their hopes and dreams. I also now find that in nautical museums, seeing a tiny shred of a sailor's letter, or a piece of battle-scarred clothing can be a very emotional experience for me. As I look at the physical item displayed I play out in my imagination all the personal stories that could lie behind it... ==================== 3 FEATURE + Progressing the manuscript When Julian tells people he is now working on book eight they often are surprised as it will not be published until October 2007! Assistant Editor Alex Bonham at Hodder & Stoughton works very closely with Julian on the Kydd series and takes us through a year in the life of one of Julian's manuscripts: "It is always a thrill to see a book I have worked on in a bookshop but by then we know the book very well indeed. We'll have received the manuscript almost a year before publication and taken it through many stages in the journey from Julian's 100,000 words in an electronic file to a handsome hardback in the bookstore. After we receive the manuscript in January and read it, there are always some editorial queries or comments for Julian to respond to and we then make any agreed changes to the manuscript. Meanwhile, I'll tell the art department what the book is like and give them some cover ideas. The designer will arrange a photo-shoot and commission Geoff Hunt RSMA to paint an original work that will be the basis of the cover. The final draft goes to the copy editor. She tightens up the narrative, checks grammar, spelling and accuracy. Then it's back to Julian to respond to. When all this is done, the script is sent to the typesetter. Three weeks later, Julian and a proof-reader check the typeset pages. It is amazing how little errors still annoyingly creep in... The editorial department and the marketing department meet to discuss how best to sell the book - there's publicity campaigns, tours, advertising, promotion... It's a different mix of these for each book we publish. A couple of months before publication the sales team will have garnered orders from around the globe. We decide on the number of books for the first print run - and then the presses roll and the final product is shipped out to bookstores and distributors world-wide." ==================== 4 SALTY SAYINGS Skyscraper Few cities in the world today are without these majestic buildings soaring skyward. Chicago's Home Insurance Building, erected in 1884, is generally considered to be the world's first tall building supported by an internal frame, and was dubbed a "skyscraper" by the press. The origins of the name are definitely salty. In Kydd's day a skyscraper was the highest sail in a ship, a small triangular canvas set above the skysail in order to maximise effect in a light wind. [Sometimes a square sail was set in the same place and this was called a moonraker; and if one was set above this again was a star-gazer.] ==================== 5 CONTESTS Conway Maritime (see BOOKCASE) has generously donated a very special prize for this issue, a limited edition of "The Marine Art of Geoff Hunt". Beautifully presented in an embossed slipcase, and signed/numbered by Geoff Hunt, the RRP of this book is GBP 75.00, and its value can only increase over time. It seems a particularly fitting prize for this month as Geoff has illustrated Julian's covers right from the start, and in the book he actually talks in some detail about three of the Kydd cover paintings. To enter the contest email the Bosun with the name of the ship that graces the book's cover. Please include your full postal address. First correct entry drawn on May 25 will be the winner! And if you don't win this splendid prize, there's a KYDD paperback for four runners-up - to pass on to a friend who has not yet discovered Julian Stockwin... Congratulations to last month's winners: Paul Lefebvre won a copy of "The 44-Gun Frigate USS Constitution" and the CD "Julian Stockwin in Conversation" went out to: John Costello, Derek Neilson, William Meekins and M Miller. And here's the second question for our COMMAND Launch contest (see April issue for details) - << In ARTEMIS Kydd tastes "bibingka" - name two of the ingredients.>> ==================== 6 SCRAN 'N PROG - a taster of food and drink + Bammy bread In SEAFLOWER, chapter 13, Kydd and Renzi go upcountry, stopping en route for a snack from a roadside stall of akee (a local fruit tasting a bit like scrambled eggs), salt fish and bammy bread. Bammy bread is a Jamaican flatbread made from grated cassava root, often served with fish. A number of specialist stores around the world now sell frozen bammy bread. If you can get hold of cassava, you might like to try making some yourself. Place about one and a half pounds of grated cassava in a muslin cloth and wring out excess fluid. Add a pinch of salt. For each bammie, press one cup of the mixture into a greased frying pan and cook for about ten minutes each side. Then soak the bammies in coconut milk for about ten minutes and fry or grill until golden brown. Serve hot and buttered. And back by popular demand, the recipe for the rum punch Kydd enjoyed in the Caribbean - one part sour (lemon or lime juice); two parts sweet (sugar syrup); three parts strong (dark rum); and four parts weak (water). Mix well, sprinkle with grated nutmeg then serve well chilled with plenty of ice. ==================== 7 JOTTINGS FROM JAPAN Julian is attracting a large fan base in Japan, where his books are published by Hayakawa, the largest English-Japanese publishing house in the country. In 2005 Hayakawa chose KYDD as their 1000th title, a great honour as they also publish many other genres. Ms Yoko Ohmori translates Julian's books into Japanese. She recently gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Yokohama about the series and is currently putting the finishing touches to QUARTERDECK, which comes out in Japan next month. Ms Ohmori has excellent credentials - as well as being a very experienced translator she has voyaged in tall ships across the Pacific. But despite this, taking a work about life in eighteenth century England, and rendering it meaningful to a modern Japanese audience is a tall order! The construction of Japanese is completely different from English, and all other foreign languages except Korean. Among the many challenges facing Ms Ohmori, there are complexities arising from differences in cultural practices. For example, there are many words in Japanese for "I", depending on the speaker's age, sex, education, character and so on. Ms Ohmori also writes a "translator's afterword" for each book. This is about 6000 words in length and sets the scene for each story, with historical background, and an explanation of some of the technical terms that might be unfamiliar to some Japanese readers. Mr Tamukai, Julian's editor at Hayakawa, says the series appeals to a wide range of Japanese readers because it transcends barriers of age, generation and time. =================== 8 BOOKCASE Conway Maritime The Bosun's Chronicle is delighted to have a special relationship with Conway Maritime Press, whose superb non-fiction sea books are of great interest to many Shipmates - and are highly valued items in Julian's reference library. The Bosun recently caught up with Publisher John Lee. Bosun: How many maritime books do you bring out each year? John: We always look to publish 12-15 new naval and maritime books every year. These are in addition to the Warship annual, the four issues of our modelling magazine "Model Shipwright" and our reissue and paperback publishing for Conway. New books are often commissioned 2-3 years in advance of publication to allow for the considerable research, writing and preparation that goes into Conway titles. Bosun: What has been your most successful maritime title since Conway began in 1972? John: Brian Lavery's "Nelson's Navy" has been phenomenally successful for nearly two decades, as indeed has "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" by John Harland and Mark Myers. These are now truly classic volumes and contribute greatly to our understanding of the history of the sailing ship. They are no doubt very familiar to many of Julian's readers. In more recent times "A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates" has found a very wide readership as has "The Royal Navy Handbook" that we produce with the Ministry of Defence. Bosun: Which maritime title for this year are you most excited about? John: In the Autumn we are publishing Brian Lavery's "Churchill's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation 1939- 1945", which is in many ways a sequel to his bestseller. This new volume is breathtaking in terms of the depth of research and original material. John Blake's "Charts of War" is a bit different too: it looks at naval history 'from above' describing the roles that some 150 charts have played during naval battles and operations. John's ability to find so much new interesting material never fails to impress me. I've also been working closely with Jean Hood as she prepares "Come Hell & High Water", which is a study of 20 harrowing shipwrecks including the terrible French ship "La M%duse" immortalized by G%ricault's famous painting in the Louvre. Bosun: Which maritime title has been the most rewarding to publish? John: It was an honour and a pleasure to work with Geoff Hunt on his first volume of marine art: it was not difficult to make a great book when working with an artist - and now author - of such talent. Julian of course contributed a smashing Foreword to the volume. Shortly before this we worked with Ian Hawkins on his anthology of naval accounts of the Second World War, "Destroyer". This is an outstanding book in itself and one I know that has inspired many readers to join the HMS Cavalier Trust. When one learns that Ian is confined to a wheelchair and paralysed down one side after an attack on him by an alcoholic in Oman we're into superhero territory! It is always a pleasure to receive the Bosun's Chronicle to see what Julian, Kathy - and Kydd - are up to. I truly appreciate how much effort goes into keeping the wheels turning on such an endeavour and indeed creating and maintaining an excellent website. Congratulations to the Chronicle from all at Conway for the first five years - and roll on many more voyages to come! =================== 9 NEW ON THE WEB Click on NEW on the front page of the website to see a list of all the items that have been recently added to the website. =================== Yours aye, THE BOSUN ++ Back issues can be downloaded from the website ++