UK Indie Lit Fest 2017: They Came To A City

Yorkshire city's grass roots festival offered bookworms their independence day

It's often a struggle for indie authors and small presses to gain attention, writes Mark Cantrell, but the second annual UK Indie Lit Fest held in Bradford offered them the perfect opportunity to flog their books – if they weren't too busy just chatting with readers, that is

Author and playwright J. B. Priestley in the foyer of the Kala Sangam Arts Centre, Bradford. Copyright (C) Mark Cantrell

MOST authors are not exactly flush with cash, but if there's one thing that's as elusive as making money, then it's the opportunity to catch the eye of the book-loving public.

Readers may not necessarily translate into the 'readies', of course, but they are an essential element in the alchemy that –some day – published authors hope will transform their fortunes. The trick is to find them. But that's easier said than done.

Most authors wrestle with the realities of obscurity. Raising and maintaining awareness is critical. That's true even for those that have the machinery of a big publisher behind them. Established names must strive to ensure they don't 'fall off the radar'; newcomers struggle to draw attention to themselves and maybe become a 'name' some day.

Author Joshua Sutton. Copyright (C) Mark Cantrell

For indies and self-published authors, or indeed small press publishing houses, it's harder still to find the space to make themselves heard. In a publishing landscape dominated by the big players, there's little room left in the events and retail eco-system for the 'small mammals' running through the grass roots. That's where the UK Indie Lit Fest comes in.

The festival was launched last year in Bradford, West Yorkshire: the brainchild of local author Dawn Singh and a team of volunteers. Now established as a non-profit community interest company, the event returned in August 2017 – by all accounts bigger and better – promising to become a regular fixture in the county's literary calendar.

“A lot of the literature festivals are very exclusive, and the ones that aren't cost a fortune for authors to come along,” said Singh, who is also the managing director of small press Follow This Publishing. “I applied for one and was accepted. They wanted £70 for a table. Now, to have to travel to another part of England, pay for travel and then possibly stay overnight, and then pay £70 for a table when you're an indie author and don't have much money – it's ridiculous, really. So we wanted a festival that was going to be affordable for indie authors and free for the public.”

So that's precisely what Singh and her team did. This year, the UK Indie Lit Fest was held at the Kala Sangam Arts Centre in the heart of the city. The event hosted 40 authors from across the country, with an international contingent skyping in to talk to visitors about their work and the craft of writing. During the day, it offered members of the public a series of readings, workshops, and the opportunity to chat with authors. Oh yes, they could also buy some books.

Curiously, perhaps, selling books wasn't necessarily as high up the agenda as one might expect; more valued was the chance to meet and talk. Actually, it's not all that curious. Nobody likes a hard sell, but as a literary event it's a fairly safe bet that everyone there was a bibliophile, so it's only natural they'd want to natter about their mutual affection.

In that sense, the event was a great forum for readers and authors alike to shoot the breeze, get to know each other, and see where it all leads. Selling a book or two there and then, well that just serves to make a social occasion all the sweeter.

“Obviously I hope to sell books, but if I don't, I don't,” said paranormal fiction author Joshua Sutton. “For me it's more about meeting authors, finding books I like, and developing more friendships, really. It's not just about the selling: it's also about the meeting people. Really there's no better way for a book nerd to spend a weekend.”

For Irene Lofthouse, author of Strange Tales in the Dales, events such as the Indie Lit Fest are good venues to “have a chat” and “meet people I haven't seen in ages”.

“I never expect to sell. It's always a bonus if I do,” she added. “It's a way of upping your profile; it's a way of talking to people; it's a way for people to find out what you do.”

Author Razwan Ul-Haq. Copyright (C) Mark Cantrell

Razwan Ul-Haq, artist and author of Sultan vs Dracula, explained he was looking for “inspiration and some friendly natter”. He added: “I came along to meet authors and other publishers and just talk and see what's going on.”

For indie authors, then, the value of festivals isn't necessarily found so much in cash sales, but rather in a more elusively defined social capital. As Singh pointed out, however, the wider festival circuit tends to be geared towards the requirements of the major league publishing industry, meaning indie authors and small presses often face being squeezed out.

Events such as the Indie Lit Fest are “critical”, according to Ul-Haq, and not simply because it creates a little space for indies to do their thing. There's a matter of diversity too – the chance to find fresh voices, new ideas, a different take on life and living, beyond the confines of a corporate monoculture.

“Sometimes, if you go to the commercial [festivals], it's not the authors that you are meeting; it's not the publishers – it's the reps,” he added. “If we just leave things to companies and corporations who are doing things for a profit, then we're only going to have a very narrow set of views that people can read.”

Author Irene Lofthouse. Copyright (C) Mark Cantrell

Lofthouse said: “It's difficult for people to get published, by the big publishers or by small, independent presses, because there's such hoops to jump through these days. And of course they're all looking for the big blockbusters, [or] they're looking for a series of different things, so this is a way to network with people, to see what they're doing, and to see books that I wouldn't normally see in a bookshop and I can go, 'actually I really like that'.”

At the end of the day, it's in the human connections born of a shared love of literature where the seeds of literary success are sown. Down at the grass roots, then, the UK Indie Lit Fest offered authors and reader alike some much-needed fertile ground to flourish. 

This article was first posted on Medium, 18 September 2017.

Book Review: Evicted by Matthew Desmond

Eviction has become a way of life in America’s private rented housing market

It's easy to blame the poor for their plight, writes Mark Cantrell, but it blinds us to the cruel truth revealed in Matthew Desmond's expose of America's private rented housing market – evictions are an essential part of making it a lucrative business

FOR many of us, there's a simple way of escaping a dystopian condition: we just close the book. Do that with Matthew Desmond's Evicted, however, and we just shut our minds to the plight of people who have no such easy option. 

We're used to dystopia as fiction, after all, but the sad truth is that millions of people across the world already endure a life in dystopia of one kind or another; they do so under the noses of fellow citizens quick to judge but far removed from the grim realities they endure.

Desmond offers a case in point, with his exploration of the way the private rented housing market perpetuates poverty and social exclusion in the United States. It's easy to blame the hapless tenants for their poor lifestyle 'choices'; Evicted doesn't shy away from such individual failings but makes it clear that ultimately it's the system – the market – that is at fault.

The book deals with the real-life experiences of poor families in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as they struggle to find and keep a home at the bottom end of the city's private rented housing market. It's a grim litany of slum properties, often unfit for human habitation, but which cost the tenants dear – and not just in terms of the size of their rent cheque. Poverty is no easy ride.

The book is 'set' in 2008 and is based on Desmond's immersion in the world of some of America's poorest families. He lived in the city as one of them for two years while he researched the book, recording the stories of those struggling to survive, but also something of their hopes and dreams. The results are all too human.

Written with all the colour and character of a novel, Evicted ensures its subjects – both tenants and landlords – are fleshed-out human beings, rather than cold case studies. The narrative also serves to draw the reader in, immersing us in their lives, and putting us in their shoes as surely as any work of fiction would for its make-believe characters; it makes the chilling realities of their circumstances hit home all the harder.

Desmond presents us with a condition that would crush the spirit of the best of us, yet it's the daily reality for millions of poor Americans, who somehow endure against all the odds. Even so, Evicted reveals they exist at the mercy of a lettings business that is all-too-often an evictions industry, propelling poor families inexorably towards homelessness.

We might call their day-to-day reality a 'misery-go-round' of slum housing followed by eviction, then on to another slum property, followed by eviction, in a cycle that is hard to escape. It wasn't always so, the author points out, and this is why focusing on the supposed character failings of individuals rather misses the point – conveniently so for those profiting out of this state of affairs. 

As Desmond informs us in the prologue, evictions were once a rarity. They were curiosities neighbourhoods would turn out to watch; sometimes, though, they would gather in an effort to resist their neighbour being turfed out of their home. As for the Marshals, they were “ambivalent” about carrying out evictions. “It wasn't why they carried a badge and a gun.” The world has turned since, such that evictions are more likely to be met with a shrug of indifference, rather than neighbourly solidarity.

Those were the Depression-era days, when perhaps communities hadn't been so hollowed-out and cowed by the routine of everyday evictions. Nowadays, as the book adequately demonstrates, an entire economic sub-system has built up around repossessing properties in this way. It's a chilling thought: that the livelihoods of an army of American families have come to depend on the endless displacement of their poorer counterparts from one slum property to the next.

“These days, there are sheriff squads whose full-time job is to carry out eviction and foreclosure orders,” Desmond writes. “There are moving companies specialising in evictions, their crews working all day, every weekday. There are hundreds of data-mining companies that sell landlords tenant screening reports listing past evictions and court filings. These days, housing courts swell, forcing commissioners to settle cases in hallways or makeshift offices with old desks and broken file (sic) cabinets – and most tenants don't even show up. Low income families have grown used to the rumble of moving trucks, the early morning knocks at the door, the belongings lining the curb.”

The dystopia of it all doesn't end here. As Desmond goes on to explain, eviction's “fallout is severe”. It damages families, blights the life chances of children, and it harms communities too, weakening their social and economic resilience. In times past, there might have been poverty, but there was also community. In modern times, going by Desmond's book, eviction nurtures the first but weakens the last.

As Desmond goes on to say: “Losing a home sends families to shelters, abandoned houses, and the street. It invites depression and illness, compels families to move into degrading housing in dangerous neighbourhoods, uproots communities, and harms children. Eviction reveals people's vulnerabilities and desperation, as well as their ingenuity and guts. Fewer and fewer families can afford a roof over their head … We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty.”

If eviction has become commonplace among poor communities in the United States, Desmond makes it clear that it is an experience exacerbated by race and gender. The soul-crushing cycle of bad housing and eviction claims every ethnicity, dispossesses man and woman alike, but some bear its burden more than others. As the author put it: “Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out.”

At the root of it all are the tenants; no, not in the sense of the blame game. In fact, their 'failings' turn out – according to Desmond – to be an essential element that makes the business a profitable one for landlords. It's a bizarre scenario, seemingly counter-intuitive, yet it makes a certain kind of twisted sense – having a tenant behind on their rent can be advantageous to a landlord's business.

“Tenants able to pay their rent in full each month could take advantage of legal protections designed to keep housing safe and decent. Not only could they summon a building inspector without fear of eviction, but they also had the right to withhold rent until certain repairs were made. But when tenants fell behind, those protections dissolved,” Desmond explains.

“Tenants in arrears were barred from withholding or escrowing rent; and they tempted eviction if they filed a report with a building inspector. It was not that low income renters didn't know their rights. They just knew those rights would cost them... Tenants who fell behind either had to accept unpleasant, degrading, and sometimes dangerous housing conditions or be evicted. But from a business point of view, this arrangement could be lucrative.”

Make no mistake; Evicted can be a difficult read – not in the sense of the writing, which is quality, but in the sense of the subject matter. It's a grim journey into some of the harshest conditions any of us will encounter in a supposedly civilised society. It's hard to envision how people can possibly live like this, and yet they do – numbering in their millions; victims of a system indifferent to their hardships, but with a quick eye for an opportunity, whether to make some cash out of them, or to make a moral judgement.

But if reading this book was sometimes draining for this reviewer, imagine what it must be like for those who live the life Desmond recounts: day after day, month in month out, year on year and one generation to the next: trapped in this grinding misery-go-round of bad housing and poverty, fickle eviction, and the crushing loss of security, identity and community that goes with it. It's a miracle any one can live like this at all.

Grim though it is, Evicted is well worth the read. If it doesn't make you angry, then maybe it will at least make you think. And we need more of that if ever as a society we are to begin to change things for the better – for everyone.

Evicted is an American tale, rooted in that nation's social, economic and cultural context, but it has a global resonance. After all, the United States is not the only land where poor families endure the dystopia of bad housing and poverty. We're all haunted by that dreadful spectre...

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

By Matthew Desmond

Penguin Books

March 2017

Paperback (420 pages)

ISBN: 978-0-141-98331-8

£10.99

MC

This book was received unsolicited from the publisher at the offices of Excel Publishing early in 2017. It was originally intended by the writer to run a review in an edition of Housing magazine, however redundancy put paid to that idea. He subsequently first published this review on Medium before posting it here.