QueenSpark Books – 50 years of community publishing in Brighton
Our story is the story of Brighton’s people and its histories. We were formed in 1972, as part of a grassroots campaign to convert the 1824 Royal Spa in Brighton’s Queen’s Park to a nursery school – instead of a planned casino.
The struggle succeeded, aided by the circulation of a street newspaper called QueenSpark, which provided information about the campaign and also the Sparchives column, focusing on a series of reminiscences of the area.
In the early years we published books documenting the lives of local people as part of a pioneering movement that highlighted working class lives, autobiography and writing through oral history recordings, diaries and workshops.
More recently, our books have included histories of the cinema and theatre in the city; accounts of some of the newer communities to arrive, and autobiographies of Brighton and Hove residents. We have also used the graphic novel as a form in which to explore and illuminate the history of Brighton, and published a groundbreaking and important book documenting the lives and histories of Trans*gender people living in the city.
In 2017 we celebrated our 45th anniversary by looking back at aspects of Brighton in 1972.
Timeline
February 2016
First Book
The success of the campaign and popularity of the 'QueenSpark' newspaper inspired others to continue writing about life in Brighton [...]
Personal Stories
Many of the early books written in the mid to late seventies were based on individual people’s memoirs of life [...]
Political Themes
Published in 1983, Brighton on the Rocks was a more overtly political book than QueenSpark Books' previous publications. Intended as [...]
Group Authorship
The publication of several anthologies during the late eighties and early nineties continued QueenSpark's Books' tradition of collaboration and group [...]
Urban Records
In 1988 QueenSpark published Backyard Brighton in association with the Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre. It included photographs, like this [...]
Market Books
In 1991 a new generation of books known as Market Books were introduced to the QueenSpark Books collection. Market books [...]
Community Focus
Alongside the Market books series, QueenSpark Books continued to produce its main collection, including the popular Daring Hearts in 1992. [...]
January 2016
Local landmarks
In the nineties personal memoirs featuring Brighton landmarks continued to be published. Examples include: 'Deckhand, West Pier' (1993) Arthur Thicket's [...]
Cultural Diversity
Since the turn of the century, QueenSpark Books' publications featured some of the different communities that have made Brighton & [...]
The Millennium
The year 2000 was commemorated with the publication of a child’s-eye view of the Millennium, based on diaries and project [...]
Brighton Fiction and Graphic Novels
With the publication of 'Alt Future' in 2005, QueenSpark took a foray into fiction with a book featuring local people’s [...]
November 2012
40th Anniversary Fundraiser
On 8 November 2012 QueenSpark Books celebrated its 40th anniversary with a fundraising event that reached its target towards the printing [...]