Page number from booklet
It’s the time of year for dark nights, warm hearts and magical tales – well, in the northern hemisphere and its cooler climes it is!
I am busy working on my annual offering of seasonal tales, my head buzzing with old magic and new ideas. But in the meantime hope you will forgive me for reminding you of a tale from a few years ago.
A Little Match Girl is a short, hand printed, hot-metal set booklet which has been a labour of love for all involved. I re-wrote the original Hans Andersen tale – giving it a slightly happier ending – and setting it in smoky Victorian London where ‘match girls’ were both match sellers and women who worked in factories with dangerous white phosphorus. There’s one of each in my tale.
If you are interested in its genesis you can read about the process it went through and see a few videos (you can skip the words, go to the image and captions) on my other blogging site in the post linked to here. (Oh – it was not, as it says in the post, printed on a mechanical press, it was hand-printed on a Vandercook proofing press.)
The polymer block that printed one of the page numbers
Several of you have bought them already – for which many, many thanks. I hope the recipients, if they are gifts, enjoy them, they carry a good message for this hyper-commercial time of year (she says as she tries to sell them!)
It is now getting late for posting to far flung places for Christmas/the solstice/whatever, but there is still – just – time.
I should warn you that postage and packaging costs will be added to the cost of the booklet (£5) itself. One Australian (not a blog follower) cancelled an order when it turned out £3.95 was required to send the tale in its cardboard envelope.
But a lovely American woman called Stephanie made my heart sing with her joyful reaction to her copy, which was duly paid for and posted and arrived on a special birthday.
Here it is then, the website link.
And don’t worry, soon the next tales will start appearing so you can forget all about this post! 
MEMOIRS OF A HUSK 
Your Christmas stories are wonderful, maybe one day I will be in the UK to pick up a copy in person… so nice to have a tangible in-the-hand book. An e-book just wouldn’t work for this. But the postage to Australia, yes… I didn’t even consider it. Fortunately, I have the story to enjoy.
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