Tag Archives: Sam&Sam

50 years of ‘small publishing’: what has it taught me?

Posted on October 21, 2024 by Patrick Miles

It has turned out that since Musk took over Twitter we cannot, after all, post our own Calderonia Tweets at the bottom of the Subscribe, Categories, Comments etc column on the right of the home page — though we can, … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged anniversaries, bibliographic rarities, biographies, books, editors, Elon Musk, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Nikolai Berdiaev, profit and loss, publishing, quality, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Sam&Sam, samizdat, selfie publishing, small publishers, Sofia Koulomzina, Twitter, Ukraine | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 28

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Patrick Miles

11 February 2024 Do not be put off trying an ‘Escape Room’ because you fear claustrophobia: you aren’t actually locked into it, you simply have to solve a series of problems (often involving locks) in order to complete a narrative … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Aleksei Navalnyi, androconia, Armageddon, asteroids, birds of prey, Brimstone butterflies, butterflies, catacomb Christians, Christ's Harrowing of Hell, counterpoint, Dmitrii Medvedev, Dmitrii Peskov, drones, E.B. Ford, escape rooms, games, German language, Green-Veined White, Hölderlin, icons, Ivan Turgenev, metres, Petr Tchaikovsky, puzzles, resurrection, Sam&Sam, Sam2, scents, science fiction, space station, The Cleopatra, The Myrrh-Bearing Women, The White Bow:Ghoune, Twitter, verse translation, Vladimir Putin, Vlamiri Nabokov, Wenn aus der Ferne | 1 Comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 27

Posted on February 5, 2024 by Patrick Miles

16 January 2024 I translated a few poems as a teenager and student (Rilke, Brecht, Hölderlin, Pushkin, Tiutchev, Mayakovsky, Yevtushenko, Brodsky), but bothered to see only a couple published. The fact was, I didn’t take verse translation very seriously. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged afterlife, Alcaic metre, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekhov, appeasement, BASEES Conference, Belarus, Belorussia, Bertolt Brecht, Brest, British Rail, Christian era, death, Diotima, Estonia, Fedor Tiutchev, Flavinus Stone, Friedrich Hölderlin, Henry Vaughan, Hexham, Hexham Abbey, Joseph Brodsky, Jürgen-Joachim von Sandrart, Kaliningrad, Latvia, Leonid Brezhnev, Lithuania, memorials, Munich Agreement, NATO, Old Cambridge Tales, poetry, pronunciation, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rightmove, Russia, Sam&Sam, security messages, St Wilfrid, Susette Gontard, Suwalki Gap, train travel, translation, Ukraine, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Putin, Winston Churchill, Yevgeny Yevtushenko | Leave a comment

NEW YEAR

Posted on January 1, 2024 by Patrick Miles

Whether you are stalwart subscribers to Calderonia since 30 July 2014, or casual callers from across the globe to posts on, say, limericks, John Hamilton, paradoxes, the Third Battle of Krithia, dogs or Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I wish you a … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged archbishops of Canterbury, BASEES Conference, biographies, biography, blog announcement, Book of Revelation, Calderonia, chrysanthemums, comments, freesias, freshness, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, King Lear, Kittie Calderon, Michael Ramsay, New Year, newness, oldness, Osip Mandel'shtam, publishers, Rowan Williams, Russia, Sam&Sam, sermons, Ukraine, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Writing’s weird workings…

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Patrick Miles

My fortuitous review of Keith Dewhurst’s excellent novellas, combined with John Pym’s spontaneous submission of his post about Henry James’s story ‘The Death of the Lion’, has suddenly concentrated my mind on my current project and alerted me to things … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged 'My First Communist', Autumnia: Three Novellas, Cambridge Tales, chronotopia, Ghoune/White Bow, Henry James, John Pym, Keith Dewhurst, manuscripts, notebooks, Sam&Sam, short stories, William Blake | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 22

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Patrick Miles

24 February 2023 A recent study made by a reliable Moscow source indicates that 22% of the Russians polled were fervently in favour of the war on Ukraine, 20% were deeply opposed to it, and the rest (58%) ‘had no … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Personal commentary | Tagged acting agencies, Alexander Pushkin, Alexandra Cann, autocracy, ballet, Ballets Russes, biographies, books, Boris Godunov, Call My Agent, Callimachus, comments, democracy, Dix pour cent, France, freedom, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Balanchine, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Granta Publishing, independent publishing, James Miles, Jennifer Homans, Lincoln Kirstein, literary agents, Michel Fokine, Moscow, Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, New York City Ballet, opinion polls, responsibility, Russia, Sam&Sam, School of American Ballet, theatre agents, theosophy, Ukraine, Vladimir Soloviev, Volodymyr Zelensky, William Rothenstein | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 21

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Patrick Miles

7 January Almost themed, one could say, in Calderonia, Cambridge academic Ruth Scurr has written a meaty review in today’s Spectator of Claire Harman’s experiment in biography All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything. Anyone who writes … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged Alexander Vampilov, Anton Chekhov, armaments, baseline studies, biodiversity, biographies, biography, birds, Bottengoms Fram, butterflies, Calderonia, Cambridge, Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Theatre Company, Church of England, Church Times, Claire Harman, claustrophobia, Clays of Bungay, comments, conservation, cyber warfare, death, ecosystems, entrapment, Erich Ludendorff, Francis Kilvert, funerals, General Douglas Haig, General Foch, ghosts, hackers, Henry Vaughan, Ice Cold in Alex, James Miles, John Constable, Katherine Mansfield, last, Last Summer in Chulimsk, Next to Nature, paranoia, Peter Hall, Ronald Blythe, Russia, Ruth Scurr, Sam&Sam, security certificates, servers, short stories, Siberia, Spring Offensive 1918, Suffolk, Sylvia Syms, T.S. Eliot, The Great War, The Spectator, The Times, The Web, Tree Belt, Ukraine, Victim, wildlife, wildlife corridors, wildlife havens, World War I | Leave a comment

A year of hope

Posted on January 1, 2023 by Patrick Miles

A happy new year to subscribers and viewers, and thank you sincerely for following us through our ninth year of existence. The question of Calderonia’s future is always in my mind, but I can assure you we shall continue at … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged A Message from Ukraine, BASEES, BASEES Conference, Boris Johnson, Bucha, Cambridge, comments, courage, despair, Dnepro, Elon Musk, hope, Joe Biden, Justin Welby, Kiev, Kyiv, New Year messages, pandemics, Russia, Sam&Sam, the pandemic, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky | Leave a comment

How would I write it now?

Posted on June 30, 2022 by Patrick Miles

Many authors never re-read their own books. One can understand why. Some must feel that it’s not necessary as it can’t change anything (unless the book is about to have an ‘improved’ edition). Others, like George Orwell apparently, simply don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged 'real time', Archie Ripley, Ashford, biographies, biography, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Corbet family, Earlham, future biographer, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gerge Orwell, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Kent, Kittie Calderon, Mrs Shapta, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Professor Rose, publishers, Sam&Sam, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 17

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Patrick Miles

24 January 2022 I have received several emails commiserating with me over my ‘anxiety’ and ‘nightmares’ about marking examination papers. The writers clearly assume I am Dr Robinson in my story Ghoune — that the story is strictly autobiographical and … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Ghoune', 'Sleep and Death', A.J.A. Symons, Alexander I, Amazon, Andrew Tatham, angina, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, archivists, Baron Corvo, BASEES, BASEES Conference, biographies, biography, birds, butterflies, Cambridge Tales, Carole Angier, Cheshire Cat, Chris Packham, Clays of Bungay, comments, conservation, death, democracy, examinations, Frederick Rolfe, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George Sandison, heart attacks, Kittie Calderon, NATO, Niccolo Machiavelli, page margins, printers, RSPB, Sam&Sam, short stories, Speak, Speckled Wood, Taganrog, The Edwardians, The Holocaust, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment iin Biography, trimming, typesetting, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, W.G. Sebald, W.H. Hudson, Winterwatch | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 16

Posted on January 6, 2022 by Patrick Miles

17 November 2021 Today at 9.54 a.m. I emailed my 408-line poem Making Icons to the excellent Long Poem Magazine, the only organ in Britain that publishes poems at least 75 lines long. The magazine appears twice a year and November … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Making Icons', Academe, Adolf Hitler, Amazon, anti-Semitism, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, Aryan myth, BASEES Conference, biographies, butterflies, Cambridge Tales, Christmas, chrysanthemums, Congress for the History of Religions, cut flowers, Dreyfus Affair, ethnology, George Calderon, Ghoune/White Bow, holly, ivy, Japan, Jesus Christ, Jewish people, Long Poem Magazine, marketing, Nazis, Norman Cohn, Okhranka, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, religion, robins, Robinson College, Sam&Sam, spotted laurel, Tar-Baby, Twelfth Night, Warrant for Genocide, Yalta | 2 Comments

A year of promise

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Patrick Miles

A very happy new year to all Calderonia’s subscribers and viewers! Thank you for staying with us through 2021, which was our eighth calendar year, and I can promise you at least another year of posts from me and my … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, BASEES, biographies, British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, Calderonia, comments, COVID-19, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gleb Yakunin, Jim Miles, pandemics, promises, Robinson College, Sam&Sam, Sergei Bychkov, Spanish Flu, The Great War, World War I | 2 Comments

National Aphasia Awareness Month: A message of hope

Posted on June 14, 2021 by Patrick Miles

This is National Aphasia Awareness Month (NAAM), but the campaign is global. Aphasia is a disorder that impairs the expression and understanding of language, as well as reading and writing. It may be caused by head injury, a brain tumor, … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged aphasia, Aphasia Awareness Month, AphasiaAwareness, body language, brain, carers, comments, communication, CommunicationAccess, Dutch, Edna's Diary, French, hope, intonation, NAAM, National Aphasia Association, National Aphasia Awareness Month, physiotherapy, Sam&Sam, speech and language therapy, Stroke, Stroke Association UK, stroke care, stroke clubs, strokes, the human brain, Wales, Welsh, wheelchairs | Leave a comment

There!

Posted on May 17, 2021 by Patrick Miles

To our astonishment, Amazon suddenly announced to the world that Edna’s Diary had been published on 6 May — which was before they had told us it had been accepted! So here it is, folks, fully available now in ‘real time’: … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Amazon, aphasia, Aphasia Awareness Month, book covers, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, Edna Miles, Edna's Diary, independent publishing, publishers, Sam&Sam, self-publishing, speech and language therapy, Stroke, Stroke Association UK, strokes, Tippex | Leave a comment

Nearly there…

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Patrick Miles

We have now signed off our fourth proof of Edna’s Diary from Amazon. Really, the last two proofs were necessary only to tweak the back cover. I think this is often the case: you can rapidly get the contents right, … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Amazon, Amazon KDP, aphasia, Aphasia Awareness Month, book covers, cover designs, Edna Miles, Edna's Diary, proofs, quality control, Sam&Sam, self-publishing, speech and language therapy, Stroke, Stroke Association UK, Tippex | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 14

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Patrick Miles

1 February I received an email from Sam1 (Russia) in a Moscow hospital. His whole family has gone down with COVID. The others are coping with it at home, but he was rapidly losing lung capacity and had to be … Continue reading →