good people

Once in a while, my nan used to say, it does you no harm to sit and count your blessings. And here at Ignite, over the last couple of days, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. Maybe – with summer starting to gently fade into autumn – it’s the time of year for reflection, but whatever the reasons behind it, we’ve recently been overawed by how this little project we set up just a few years ago keeps bringing us into contact with interesting, talented, kind, warm, funny, and generous people.

First on the list are our authors. Hard-working, talented and creative people who’ve come to us with an idea they believe deserves to end up in print. Together, we take their thoughts and their imagination and their stories and turn them into the reality of a book you can hold in your hands, and open and read. Which can be bought and sold and passed to friends, and shared, and enjoyed. Which can take people away from the everyday world of work and routine, and transport them to another place entirely. It’s a kind of alchemy, and a magic we never tire of being part of.

Then there are the lovely people we meet, who buy our books, or who sell them. Yesterday we made our way down to Union Music Store in Lewes, where Dave Barbarossa was reading from his novel Mud Sharks and signing copies for everyone who wanted one. The shop was packed (there will, I think, be footage on Youtube at some point soon), Dave’s reading was excellent, the Q&A was lively and very very funny. And Stevie and John – who run the shop – are passionate about what they do, utterly professional about how they do it, and a joy to spend time with. Our heartfelt thanks to them for making us so welcome.

This coming weekend, we’ll be up at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool again, meeting up with old friends and undoubtedly making new ones. We’ll be hearing about what the stories our authors have told have meant to people. We’ll be talking about books we’ve published and books we have planned. We’ll probably have a beer, maybe two, while we count our blessings and think how bloody lucky we are to be doing what we do. You’ll almost definitely find us in the Empress Ballroom on the Friday evening, watching GBH, so come up and say hallo.

We’re looking forward to it already.