The success of the campaign and popularity of the 'QueenSpark' newspaper inspired others to continue writing about life in Brighton and QueenSpark Books was born. The first book to be published in 1974 was an autobiography. Written by Albert Paul and entitled Poverty - Hardship but Happiness, it details the poverty and difficulties Albert personally [...]
Many of the early books written in the mid to late seventies were based on individual people’s memoirs of life in Brighton. A typical autobiography is A Town Beehive written in 1975 by Daisy Noakes, shown here in "her first hat that fitted". The hat (and coat) cost £1. Daisy started a family trend - she [...]
Published in 1983, Brighton on the Rocks was a more overtly political book than QueenSpark Books' previous publications. Intended as a critique of monetarist policies and the Thatcher government, it was written as a collaborative venture echoing themes in earlier books such as Les Moss's Live and Learn (1979, out of print) that, although largely [...]
The publication of several anthologies during the late eighties and early nineties continued QueenSpark's Books' tradition of collaboration and group authorship. A typical example is Paper on the Wind published in 1984. This had a strong feminist influence and contained both poetry and prose emanating from a women’s writing group (above) run by QueenSpark Books. [...]
In 1988 QueenSpark published Backyard Brighton in association with the Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre. It included photographs, like this one of Richmond Hill, and reminiscences gathered by Brighton Borough Council with the intention of creating a record of houses that were scheduled for demolition during the 1930s. Backyard Brighton was a seminal book leading [...]
In 1991 a new generation of books known as Market Books were introduced to the QueenSpark Books collection. Market books were intended to be produced cheaply and sold on market stalls by volunteers. Printed A5 size in monochrome, they differed from the more expensive and glossier publications in the main collection. Some market books were [...]
Alongside the Market books series, QueenSpark Books continued to produce its main collection, including the popular Daring Hearts in 1992. Daring Hearts is based on taped interviews conducted by Brighton Ourstory Project with forty Lesbians and Gay men who spoke openly about their lives in and around Brighton which, in the fifties and sixties was [...]
In the nineties personal memoirs featuring Brighton landmarks continued to be published. Examples include: 'Deckhand, West Pier' (1993) Arthur Thicket's fresh and often humorous account of moving to Brighton in the summer of 1970 to find a town, that behind the bright and lively holiday facade, was full of lonely people. 'Our Small Corner' (1994) [...]
Since the turn of the century, QueenSpark Books' publications featured some of the different communities that have made Brighton & Hove their home. Published in 2005, Missing the Nile examines the customs and culture of the Sudanese community living in the Brighton & Hove area. Written in both English and Arabic, it is accessible to a [...]
The year 2000 was commemorated with the publication of a child’s-eye view of the Millennium, based on diaries and project work undertaken in conjunction with local school children. 'The Children's Millennium Diary Anthology' (2001) is presented much like a scrapbook and offers an insight into the thoughts, crazes, hobbies, habits and humour of the contemporary [...]
With the publication of 'Alt Future' in 2005, QueenSpark took a foray into fiction with a book featuring local people’s creative imaginings of a future Brighton & Hove. 'Alt-Future' includes a vision of text-messaging in 2045, a description of how 'Zero Tolerance' might operate on the city’s streets in the not-too-distant future, through to a [...]
On 8 November 2012 QueenSpark Books celebrated its 40th anniversary with a fundraising event that reached its target towards the printing of BRIGHTON: The Graphic Novel The fundraiser was attended by Brighton & Hove Mayor, Bill Randall and one of our patrons, Professor Dorothy Sheridan MBE who reflected on why QueenSpark Boos has survived so long and why it's important that [...]