The third book in the Magpie Sagas series by local children’s author Berni Fiddimore (pictured right) was launched to critical acclaim on Saturday 6th December by local publisher Academic Inn Books at the Stan Rosenthal Gallery in Rye followed by a book signing afternoon at Martello Books.
The Magpie Sagas begin with The Wicked Magpie collecting silver paper and the first book ends with Maggie’s downfall as she moves on to stealing jewellery from people’s homes. Driven out by her angry victims and by the other birds in Merrybury Woods, in the second book Maggie’s Difficult Winter , the miserable magpie is punished for her crimes condemning her family to the same fate. In the latest book Maggie Makes Amends, Maggie is given a second chance. In a breathtaking adventure she ends up the heroine of the tale after calling on all her friends to fight off a gang of bullies that were making the local schoolchildren’s lives a misery. Berni and her illustrator Mike Avery have already completed the fourth and final episode of the First Magpie Sagas, The Magpie’s Secret scheduled for publication at the start of the school summer term. All four books will be available as children’s story tapes for Christmas 2004.
Academic Inn Books is a confederation of small partnerships. Each partnership issues 48 non-transferable shares and is owned by its wordsmiths (16 shares), magicians (16) and merchant adventurers (16). A further 16 transferable shares are available for free shareholders in exchange for work (free labour shares) or money (free capital shares). Free shareholders are invited to back specific book titles for a share of the profits. As John Seymour expressed it in 1995,
“Rewards are unlikely to be as high as those for winners of the National Lottery, but then the odds are a lot shorter”…
He went on to say that Academic Inn Books was an “…altogether new sort of publisher with a rarity value that had not been exploited half enough in the way of local publicity. Indeed he thought we were eccentric enough to make a good local ‘story’ which any South East coast radio, telly or newspaper out to jump at…”
The Magpie Sagas now have a colourful website which is attracting visitors from all over the globe eagerly downloading the beautiful colour illustrations created by local artists Mike Avery and Connie Lindqvist who died just a year ago at the age of 52.
For the latest news click on www.fly.to/maggiesworld and read the Magpie Chronicles online each month. Click here for the latest issue.
Contact – Peter Etherden
Academic Inn Books, P.O. Box 36, Rye TN31 7ZE; Tel: 01797 230507; e-mail: [email protected] ; Online at www.fly.to/maggiesworld
Rye’s Own January 2004
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