Black & Blue Launch & Book Swap

Join us at The Red Lion in Hoxton on Bonfire Night for the launch of our publication Revolution with a book swap!
(& watch fireworks from the roof!)

HOW DOES THE BOOK-SWAP WORK?

To everyone coming along, please bring a book that you love (and prepare to depart from it!) as well as a short bit of writing about what that book means to you. Cards will be provided on the night to write about your book. We say book, but it could be any piece of literature - a piece of paper, a hand-written poem, a cutting.

You will then have to convince a friend or a stranger to do a direct swap with you. Once your swap is done, that’s it, there’s no turning back.

Bonfire night is a time for gathering round and exchanging little secrets with each other, little gifts and clues, little stories. We hope that by giving something up, and getting something in return, and by sharing our books with each other, we’ll be doing something communal, celebratory, ritualistic, revolutionary & cathartic.

If you want to share your bit of writing about your book in advance, post to this page or email us [email protected] and we'll post up a list of books.

Released on Bonfire Night, our new print publication is called Revolution, and is an anthology of revolutionary creative writing from all over the world. Split into the sections FATHERS, CHILDREN, FUCKERS, WOLVES LIBERTINES MONSTERS, THE DEAD, NO PLACES, PLANTS & FLOWERS, the anthology is a poetic journey through revolutions - political revolutions, internal revolutions, moments of revolution, asylums. paradises, failures, the post-revolutionary world. It is filled with the flux of memory and change which characterises the trope of ‘revolution’, and the publication is a call for social change through creative writing.

MUSIC & PARTY

After the bookswap, we’re in the world of Schwerpunkt, a Manchester based synth DJ, and long-time Black & BLUE comrade, as he performs his enigmatic and unsettling bonfire night set. Check this man out here: And we’ll watch fireworks from the great view of London on the Red Lion’s roof.

Invite your pals and see you soon!