if:book cafe update

The Unlibrary space at Hornsey Library is soon to be used for other purposes and we’ve decided to rename the café upstairs THE IF:BOOK CAFÉ, our future of the book place and a new kind of space for reading and writing. The Hornsey Unlibrary project, founded by Anke Holst and I with encouragement from Diana Edmunds, is ended, and now at IF:BOOK we’re working with Robin Stevenson, who runs the catering side of the café as a sole trader, Big Green Books who supply our book stock, and the wonderful staff and users of Hornsey Library to build a lovely place to hang out and a sustainable creative community of writers, readers, artists and all kinds of digital makers. We’ll be launching our first if:book reading experiences early next year.  

Please excuse us as we reconfigure things on the site and in the space over the next few weeks.

Follow the Café on twitter at @ifbookcafe and join the If:bookcafe page on Facebook

I’m delighted to be working with Lisa Gee, author and ex-editor of the Orange Prize for Fiction website. Among other projects Lisa will be helping with our input to the Young Poets Network. 

Meanwhile Sasha Hoare, filmmaker and associate with loads of experiences in literature and education work, will be helping us with our Stories To Touch project with Winged Chariot and London schools. Kati Rynne has moved on and we wish her all the best with her theatre career.

MEANWHILE in December Chris is off to Australia, not only to speak at the OWOVM.COM conference in Melbourne but also to run a series of consultation sessions as part of the creation of a Writing Strategy for Queensland. Thanks to if:book Australia for putting us in touch. This is a wonderful opportunity to participate in an important and forward looking initiative.  

if:book is also delighted that we'll be working with the Discover Childrens' Story Centre and Winged Chariot on their Story Cloud project,  as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad London Festival.