Waterstones partners with Granta for 'Britain' issue


27.03.12 | Charlotte Williams - The Bookseller

Waterstones has partnered with Granta for its next magazine issue, Britain, with the chain to support the 10th May magazine launch with 20 events across the UK.
Granta sales and marketing director Brigid Macleod said that while the magazine had worked with Waterstones before, including with the Best of Young American Novelists issue in 2006, this partnership was "much more systematic". She said: "It coincides with their ambition to re-gain attention from the more curious, high-end readers—and to channel some of the grass-roots support that the magazine has in many stores, to a much wider community with the Waterstones group.
"James Daunt, Ros Hines, Peter Saxton, Jon Howells and Simon Burke—as well as other key players in Waterstones—have all been critical in making this happen. "
Granta editor John Freeman added: "We've had some large launches in the past year or two—our Ten Years Later launch had almost 50 events, as far flung as Islamabad and Iowa City. This issue felt like a chance to get out across Britain and do something similar —especially since many of the writers in it comment in one way or other on the British landscape."
Freeman said the Britain issue would not just focus on London or London writers. "These stories span Glasgow to the woods of Wales to the Essex coastline," he said.
"We've worked with [Waterstones] before, and with James Daunt aboard, it feels like they're trying to become the reader's bookstore again and that felt like something we wanted to be part of and support." However, he added that Granta would still be working with "a few independents" for the issue, as well as events overseas “in about a dozen cities, from Brussels to Delhi to Chicago”.
The issue's cover was designed by designer Sir Paul Smith, with contributors including Cynan Jones, Adam Foulds, Rachel Seiffert and Ross Raisin


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