Created in Birmingham

We’ve acquired a nice little pile of booklets and mini publications on the CiB desk which we’ve been meaning to mention, so thought we’d just post them all up together.

First is Ammo Magazine. This cute and colourful little thing is packed with illustration and designer/ artist interviews.

Ammo also accepts submissions, so if you think your work would fit in on the pages of this small but perfectly formed publication, take a look at their submissions page.

This book from Creative Birmingham profiles the 30 shortlisted nominations and 6 winners from the Invisible City Awards. Categories included ‘Things that made me think’, ‘Things that made me smile’, ‘Things that taught me something’, ‘Things that make me proud’, ‘Business things’, and ‘Cultural things’.

Created in Birmingham was up for ‘Things that make me proud’, which is nice, but unfortunately we lost out to Tomorrow People.

This publication for Hello Digital retells ‘stories from a digital city’, with plenty of glossy photos of Birmingham – current and future – along with articles from a range of industry specialists and experts.

This tasteful and nicely designed programme is from the 2010 Supersonic Festival, featuring all the events, activities and artists who performed across the weekend.

While we’re on the topic of festivals, The Independent Festivals Group launched a publication earlier this month, celebrating the cultural value of Birmingham’s independent festivals.

Included in the group are Bass Festival, Birmingham Book Festival, Birmingham International Jazz and Blues Festival, Fierce Festival, Flatpack Festival, Rhubarb Rhubarb and Supersonic Festival.

This publication can be downloaded for free here, and makes for quite an interesting read – Redefining Culture – Birmingham’s Independent Festivals

The New Art Gallery Walsall will be hosting their second Artists’ Book and Independent Publishing Fair from 11am – 4pm on 27 November.

On sale will be books, zines, and multiples by artists and independent publishers across the UK and Europe, including: Books Works, Marbled Reams, Dent-De-Leone, EAK Publishing, Four Corners Books, Stephen Fowler, Simon Goode, Jatinder Kaur Bains, Variant, Wild Pansy Press, Carson & Miller, Alex Pritchard, Karoline Rerrie, Books About Nothing, Antepress, Basement Art Projects, Gandt, Trigger Editions, and colleges from around the UK.

They’ll also have a few other activities going on throughout the day, including a drop-in book making and binding adult workshop from 11am to 3pm with Guy Begbie and a talk on an exhibition of artists’ books, The Cover of a Book is the Beginning of a Journey at 2pm.

Artists-in-residence a.a.s. will also be contributing by constructing new ‘performance scores’ from the exhibition material which they will perform with the help of visitors on the day. To get involved, drop into the artist studio or contact mailto:aas@aasgroup.net

The fair is free entry and will be held in the art library.

After being independently published, Birmingham writer Charlie Hill’s first novel ‘The Space Between Things’ is set in Moseley and looks at the free party people and road protesters of the early 1990′s.

Fellow Birmingham author, Jim Crace, described his writing as ‘intelligent and witty’. Jonathan Coe also gave praise for the book;

What I liked very much about the novel was that it vividly captures a moment in Britain’s recent past, and takes us inside a world and a milieu which most readers won’t have known before. And of course, as a tragic love story, it packs a considerable punch.

The book will be out 1 October, along with a launch event on 14 October at Waterstones’ Birmingham High Street branch.

‘The Space Between Things’ can be pre-ordered from Amazon, Waterstones and London Review Bookshop, but you’d like a head start, Charlie has posted the first chapter online.

A book written and published independently by local writer Matt Wilding.

Tristan Marley is a drunk. He is dishonest, work-shy, selfish and a murderer of kittens. He has no self respect, failed dreams, and feels as though the world, which is crueler to he than any other man, owes him one.

Forced to take up menial employment, and instantly despising it, Tristan concocts a devilish scheme to secure the big pay day that he undeniably deserves. Chewed up, and spat out, Tristan is left at the brink of his own sanity, maimed and drowning in a constant supply of whiskey, when a chance encounter with a magpie changes everything.

If you like the sound of that, you can read the opening chapter in full and buy the book over at Magpie Press.

The lovely cover art has been designed by local illustrator, Charlotte Audrey Owen-Meehan, who also curated the Not My Type exhibition which you’ll probably remember from the CiB Shop.

• Likemind: Birmingham
  A monthly coffee morning that's open to all and has no agenda other than simply to get people talking. Organised by James from Supercool and Lucie from Saint Caffe. The next one is tomorrow 8.30am to 10am at Saint Caffe, St Pauls Sq.
• Another Byte Of Banality
  Midge works at Urban Village and has a new, Birmingham-based blog.
• Perform at the Birmingham Book Festival « The Asian Writers Project
  The Birmingham Book Festival and sampad are looking for writers who struggle to connect with writing communities and audiences because of a barrier of language.
• West Midlands Cultural Olympiad – Find Out More
  This is tonight. The original ticket allocation went quickly so they've taken a bigger room and have made a few more tickets available.

• Changing Faces of Small Heath & Birmingham Exhibition
  An exhibition of photos taken 10 years ago by pupils from Small Heath School and photographic work by Rubina Bibi. Small Heath Library until 30 May.
• Self-published author takes competition to bestseller rivals
  Birmingham-based Irish writer Mary Rochford’s collection of short stories Gilded Shadows (Tia Publishing) has been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award (the most prestigious of its type) alongside Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.
• Inside The Animal Book
  “ITV Local have produced a fascinating behind the scenes look at the making of The Animal Book, the RTS-nominated, stop-motion short by Birmingham’s Second Home Productions”. I can’t get the vid to play unfortunately.
• Ikon Gallery – Ruth Claxton in conversation
  Artists Ruth Claxton and Richard Deacon joined Ikon Director, Jonathan Watkins before an audience during Richard Deacon’s Ikon exhibition. You can click through to the audio. Good to see the gallery doing this, others should take note.
• Birmingham Architectural Association – lecture from Maciej Hawrylak
  What does it mean to be a second city? The next in the BAA’s series of lectures is form Maciej Hawrylak, leading tutor of the urban design course at Wroclaw University of Technology. At the Old Joint Stock, 20 May.
• ArtsFest – Free arts board training weekend for people aged 18 – 25
  Applications are now open for young people aged who want to take part in a training weekend to learn about what being a member of an arts board involves.
• CreativePeople – “CPD for the CPD providers”
  A one-day event on continuing professional development, 25 June at the Hippodrome.