Christina Hollis: Countdown to Launch Day!

We had snow last night—
let's hope the weather's better next Friday!

This is an exciting time for students at the University of Gloucestershire. 22nd November (next Friday) sees the launch of Heritage: New Writing VIII.

Heritage is an anthology of poetry, prose and artwork of work from alumni past and present, young and old. A selection of work from our parter foundation, Humber College in Canada, is included, too.

Creating the anthology was a great team-building exercise for students on our MA course. Our tutor Mike was an éminence gris, overseeing the project while leaving the organisation and method to our group. We managed everything, from call for submissions to planning the launch night, ourselves.

With more than a dozen people involved (and with our typesetter and publisher's baby due at any moment!) it was quite an undertaking.

A special mention must go to Shannon Storm, who created all the promotional artwork together with the book cover you can see below. It's difficult to see the fine detail at this resolution, but the cover includes a map of the world with the countries made up of fingerprints. It looks amazing in real life!

We wanted our theme to appeal to as many people as possible. The title Heritage is ideal as it is open to a wide variety of interpretations. Cheltenham's geography helped with this. As a Georgian spa town and the gateway to the world-famous Cotswolds, there's no shortage of inspiration right here.

The work of our contributors is as varied as they are. We have pieces that look back, appreciate the present, and look forward into dystopian futures.  There really is something for everyone!

Next month I'll give you some more details about Heritage, and report on our book launch.