The Book That Made a Dutch Bookseller Cry Is Headed to Amsterdam

Want to Write Fiction That Matters? Start With These Rules. Plus free GRQ film screening, Q&A with the stars, and a sold-out launch in London? Yes please.

A very happy Friday Scribblers,

As you read this, I’m likely on my way to London for the sold-out launch of tragic-comic novella, GRQ (Get Rich Quick) by Steven Bernstein at Trafalgar Square Waterstones – I’ll take pictures and videos! We actually have a last minute treat for you, which is that there will be an exclusive preview of the film at All is Joy Studios, Soho, London, on Tues 10^th of June at 7.30pm – it’s completely free, and there will be a Q&A with director Bernstein and actor and comedian Tom Walker (Jonathan Pie) after – plus a chance to grab a copy of the novella from the team at Pages of Hackney, who are remote bookselling for us! RSVP TO: grqfilmlondon@gmail.com – first come, first served.

I can’t wait to chat with you about the nuances between the film and the book. The omniscient narrator in the novella, our unreliable financial advisor, made me see the characters he lorded over in a sneering light, whereas the film put me right in the situation of Marlon and Viola – their grief, their desperate search for money and for trust in each other… I felt every earthquake, physical and emotional!

Talking about earthquakes…moves me onto climate fiction! (Vaguely smooth transition.)

I am absolutely thrilled that John Ironmonger is going to Amsterdam to work with a very special bookshop, who specially reached out to me before ‘The Wager and the Bear’ was published to say how much they VALUED John’s work, and all his books which are set in the small Cornish town of St Piran, where small is mighty, and magical things happen that might just change the whole world.

(Discover 9 Books That Inspired The Wager and the Bear by John Ironmonger via Bookshop.org here)

On ‘The Wager and the Bear’, Bookseller Julie from Boekhandel Van Rossum said:

“This is Ironmonger at his best!! What a wonderful book, tackling a modern issue, with a story that is as clever as ever with characters and a plot full of humanity, typical of Ironmonger's books. Reading The Wager and the Bear we laugh, we cry, we learn, we realize thing and it makes us want to act while being delightfully entertained. What a talented author and a wonderful book!”

We may not have any readers of this Substack based in Amsterdam, but I am emotional about this for multiple reasons!

1. It’s our first display in a European book, and since Brexit, that kind of progression for a small press has seemed impossible

2. Persuading someone to read climate fiction that is genuinely uplifting and life-affirming is tough – they often don’t believe you.

   I’m currently reading ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ (added to my reading list on Bookshop.org here which we get an affiliate payout for, if you fancy reading too) - I’d call it a gratitude-inducing ecology memoir, or a way of embracing a more expansive definition of motherhood, to include mother nature, and the author says we just have no idea how we benefit the land that we live on. We can’t even picture a reciprocal relationship. So we need stories, to picture what our future could be like – and preferably, not as many dystopian-thriller tales.

3. Passionate booksellers make or break a book – so I’m thrilled that John will be getting to meet Julie and the team in Amsterdam next week!

   Now for any writers wanting to tackle climate change in their fiction – and John argues that if you are writing about our contemporary times, it’s impossible to avoid this filtering into your narrative SOMEHOW, John has outlined both the challenges and opportunities for our creative writing below…

Cli-fi is the new genre everyone wishes didn’t need to exist. Leading practitioner John Ironmonger sets out what it is and how to write it