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Get involved in 45 years of QueenSpark Books!
This year QueenSpark Books celebrates 45 years of community publishing, making us the longest-running organisation of its kind in the UK. That's a reason to celebrate, and we’d love you to get involved.
Have you been a part of any QueenSpark Books projects over the past 45 years?
We’re looking back at the year we started, 1972 – do you have any images, memories or memorabilia from Brighton & Hove from that time?
We’re planning to create anthologies of some of our out-of-print books – would you like to join our reading group to choose the best texts?
Were you involved in the Children’s Millennum Diary? We’re revisiting the 2000 project to find out what the children of the Millennium are thinking and doing now, 17 years later.
We’re also making the texts of many of our out-of-print books available for the first time in decades as free (or donation!) PDF downloads.
Find out more here.
Read on to find out how you can get involved!
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Brighton & Hove in 1972 - your images and memories
To mark our 45th Anniversary, we’re planning on looking back at Brighton in 1972 and that’s where we’d like your help!
Do you have memorabilia – gig tickets, festival programmes, Brighton & Hove Albion souvenirs or other items you could share images of? Photos of lost Brighton places, local people, transport, groovy fashions? Memories of work, family life, nightlife in Brighton & Hove?
If so, we’d love those to be part of our celebrations and we're planning an event in the Autumn where we'll display them all, and of course you'll be on the guest list!
Contact us for an informal chat.
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Bringing 45 years of QueenSpark Books archives back to life - get involved!
In the past 45 years we've produced more than a hundred local history books, many of which have now been out of print for decades. So to celebrate our anniversary, we're making those books available as PDF downloads on a pay-what-you-like basis, and planning on using those some of texts to create fresh anthologies.
While these books have been available to browse at the Jubilee Library or The Keep, they've only been available to buy when they pop up in a second-hand bookshop, so we need your help to bring these invaluable and unique memoirs to a 21st Century audience.
Many of the books contain content which is fascinating, and often shocking to a modern reader: the grinding poverty of life in Brighton & Hove, the long work hours for little pay, the joys and fears of working-class childhood, the danger and cameraderie of wartime.
We are recruiting a team of volunteer readers to help select the best texts. Our first meeting is 6-7pm on Monday 24th April at Unit 8, Brighton Open Market. At that meeting we'll choose the book(s) from which you'll select the text, and you'll be paired up with another volunteer to compare notes. We anticipate that you'll need to spend up to six hours over the following couple of weeks reading and selecting the text, then getting back together again to discuss,
The main themes emerging at the moment are childhood, working lives and life during wartime, but many more themes may emerge. Please contact us to get involved or find out more.
Here's our complete book list, so if you see a book that's not currently available as a hard copy or download, contact us and we'll digitise a copy just for you!
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Were you - or anyone you know - involved in our 2000 Children's Millennium Diary?
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This anthology presents a child’s-eye view of the year 2000. It includes drawings and words that reflected the perspectives and views of children aged between five and eleven. The book was compiled from one-week diaries, written over the course of the Millenium Year, by four hundred school children in the Brighton and Hove area.
The book is written much like a scrapbook, and it offers an insight into the thoughts, crazes, hobbies, habits and humour of the contemporary young mind.
Were you or anyone you know, involved in this? As part of our anniversary celebrations, we'd like to revisit some of the contributors, who'd now be aged between 17 and 28, to look back at what they had anticipated for the future, and where they are now!
If you can help, please get in touch via email, and you can read more about the Millennum Diary on our website.
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Brighton & Hove archive Photo of the Day - join us of Facebook & Twitter to see more
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Every day we pick an historic image of Brighton & Hove from our Photographic Archive website. From the quirky to the nostalgic, this is a fascinating collection of local images, many of them rarely seen before. To catch each day's photo, and to find out more news from QueenSpark Books, join us on Facebook and Twitter, and you can see more latest news on our website too.
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Brighton's Graphic War - Tales of WWI Brighton - Created by young people, this graphic novel focuses on the home front, with a cover design by Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell, and Foreword by Comic’s Laureate Dave Gibbons.
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Brighton the Graphic Novel - With 300 years of history, this book features fantastical tales of characters and true events from the city’s fascinating history, Brighton: The Graphic Novel is a unique collaborative collection.
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Brighton Behind The Front - A collection of Brighton & Hove WWII wartime reminiscences of the home front, documenting ordinary people and the lives affected by the experience. Funny and sad tales abound here. A good read!
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