I’m not sure that a red polka dot headscarf is my best look and I’m definitely not sure about this painting but it’s all for a good cause. Thankfully there are some infinitely better artists supporting us, and at 4:30 pm (16:30) BST on Wednesday April 14th we are holding an online auction of some of the items you have generously donated to our ELNet cause, such as three original Axel Scheffler illustrations and a signed first edition of Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker winning Girl Woman Other. We will reveal all our lots for auction on Monday 12th April and you can decide ahead what you’d like to bid for. So gavels and paddles at the ready!
It can hardly have escaped your notice that Rosie The Riveter (Goldsmith) is in full riveter mode, sleeves rolled up, campaigning tirelessly with her team to raise money to support the European Literature Network and the six Riveters running it. As a result of Brexit and Covid, for over a year, we have earned nothing for our ELNet work – stop and think what that means! Hence our loud and proud month-long Crowdfunding campaign: #ELNetneedsyou, from March 22nd and to April 18th. On our gorgeous Crowdfunder page, there are already some brilliant ‘rewards’ – for which THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! Check out the bundles of books and Rivetermagazines, team videos, celebrity endorsements galore, even a week’s holiday in our house in Italy. But please, please, dear publishers, authors, translators, bankers, rich people, artists, fashion designers, jewellery-makers, delicatessens and wine suppliers we need more of everything for our campaign and auction (that crate of Romanian wine went especially quickly!). Just email us or donate directly – it’s easy.
In Other News
We launched The Dutch Riveter at a truly sparkling event on March 17th in collaboration with the British Library and New Dutch Writing. Thank you to everyone who participated. You can access free copies of the magazine in print thanks to our distribution partner and you can read the digital Dutch Riveter – as well as each article, individually – on our website (just cast your eye over to the left of this column!). ELNet has also signed up to the independent online bookshop hub https://uk.bookshop.org where you can purchase the books featured in our events and #RivetingReviews pages. If you’d like to review for us, this month’s deadline is 12th April for publication on 16th April. Our May deadline for reviews is May 17th for publication on 21st May. Thank you as ever to our very dedicated, always dapper (even on Zoom!) Editor, West Camel. Email him with your books for review: west@westcamel.net. Look out for reviews of the European titles on this year’s wonderful International Booker Prize longlist.
Next month ELNet will be conducting a survey to ask YOU about US. We are submitting a major Arts Council application and want to make sure we are indeed doing what you need us to do. In June we would like to hold a virtual Networking meeting to discuss the survey, All Things Riveting and to welcome you all back into the ELNet fold – we’ve missed seeing you very much.
Please continue to enjoy our free reviews, blogs, video and audio podcasts and Riveter magazines on this website – and the work of Translators Aloud, our latest team crush. There are also our regular columns Poetry Travels, The Italianist and – drum roll! – starting on April 12th, La Espagnola, the brainchild of our intern Alice Banks who is going to blog for us about contemporary Spanish literature.
I say ‘intern’ but no longer! I have another happy announcement to make because this month we are officially elevating our two outstanding interns, Rosie (The Riveter) Eyre and Alice (In Wonderland) Banks, to full ELNet-Riveter status. Anna, West, Max and I are blessed to have them both on board.
One more very important piece of news – especially for those of you already working towards an October edition of The Italian Riveter. It is still happening but will be bigger and better and postponed until Spring 2022. Save all those wonderful Italian ideas, articles, reviews and extracts – we still want them! – and I’ll be in touch after Easter with more details. Funding and Arts Council grants permitting that means we will be publishing three Riveter magazines in 2022! Happy Days ahead.
Happy Easter everyone. And please, if you can, donate to ELNet, because it really is true that every little helps.
Love and thanks, Rosie the Riveter