Venti: A book, an artist, a launch

Venti is out! Official Launch #1 took place at thomas tosh last night. A handmade artist's book, it comes in three different cover colours -
Ta Da has an embossed label
Ta Da
and looks jolly nice when stacked up. Though obviously you'd have to buy quite a lot of copies to do this.


It is hand stamped


and even comes with its own presentation envelope!


But above and beyond all this, the book features the art of the fabulous Matt Kish, who is currently producing a drawing a day for every page of Moby-Dick. Yes, really.


I found Matt's blog through someone who left a comment after I posted a Melville-inspired poem, and was blown away by the beauty, scope and graphic genius of Matt's art. Then I started thinking, and asked Matt if I could use some of his work in my book. Matt agreed, as did his agent and publisher - the whole series is going to be published at the end of the project as an art book by Tin House Books.
You can find Matt's blog here: http://everypageofmobydick.blogspot.com/
and his website here: http://www.spudd64.com/
He is, as we say, a very nice man.

Two images by Matt Kish that appear in Venti


And so to the launch, which took place on a balmy evening at thomas tosh in Thornhill. It was the first of what are intended to be a series of non-pretentious Literary Salons, and featured myself, Vivien Jones and Hugh McMillan. Vivien was launching her first collection, About Time, Too, and Hugh was launching Willow Pattern.

Books on display. Kind of focused on mine.


Stuff about Matt amongst the expensive unguents


Paul of thomas tosh warms up the crowd.


Hugh, centre-stage as ever. He was exceedingly brilliant and brought his own hecklers. Who even kindly heckled me.


Vivien's sly humour cracks me up. She was great - sophisticated, clever material.

And me, mostly shiny but featuring a most excellent jacket.

Not ready for my close-up, Mr deMille.

Meanwhile, someone was stunningly underwhelmed by the whole experience.

Venti is available for a skinny £10 (and it takes ages to make one copy, trust me!), plus £1 postage and packing. And look, I've found out how to make a paypal button! Not exactly sure what happens when someone buys one, but I'm sure I'll work it out...