Home / Specialist Markets / Book and Art Market

This weekend sees the return of Manchester’s independent Book Market in St Ann’s Square on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 June. The market, organised in conjunction with Literature Northwest, offers book lovers the chance to sample new titles by some of the North's most exciting independent presses and enjoy readings from talented performance poets and authors.

We talk to Ra Page from Comma Press about what makes the market special.

What sort of literature will be available to buy at the book market?
Independent literature. That's the only unifying feature. The only thing in common is that there won't be anything in common. It'll be diverse in the way that what you find in your average high street bookshop isn't. There’ll be award-winning, internationally minded poetry from presses like Carcanet, ground-breaking urban and politicised fiction from Yorkshire's pioneering Route Publishing, and grass-roots community writing from Manchester's Commonword.

The North West, and beyond that, the North, has some of the most exciting independent publishing in Britain, and the market is the place to sample this. Not just in the performances, but in the books on sale.

Do you think events like this are important when it comes to raising awareness about the North West's independent publishing sector?
Absolutely. High street bookshops like Waterstone's were once great bastions of intelligence – they proved what Jerry Seinfeld once said, “A book store is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.” These days though, if you scan the shelves upon shelves of celebrity autobiographies and TV tie-ins that fill your high street bookshop, it would seem people really aren't thinking at all any more. Not in public anyway. Real thought has decamped to buying online, Amazon and so on. So markets like these – literary equivalents of farmers' markets – offer a rare occasion to do and show that thinking in public, away from the private, furtive, web-browsing thought we're so ashamed of.

What live readings are planned for the weekend?
We've got some of the greats of the Manchester stand-up poetry scene performing – from long-standing icons like Marvin Cheeseman and Jerry Potter (nee Chloe Poems) to rising stars like the truly knock-out Penultimate collective (featuring Ben Mellor, Martin 'Visceral' Stannage, Samira Arhin-Acquaah, Niven Ganner, and others). Penultimate are like Scroobious Pip but without the moral high-handedness. You simply have to see to believe with those guys [Sat 12noon]. There's also a host of great literary writers, Carcanet poets like Linda Chase, flash fictionists like Dave Gaffney, politico poetics from John G Hall, and a range of new writers from presses like Comma and Crocus Press.

Would you recommend the event as a good networking opportunity for aspiring writers?
Like no other. The thing about publishing and writing is it's a form of communication. Aspiring writers sometimes forget this. They submit manuscripts on spec from their garrets, and they don't realise that a writer's ability to communicate is part of what a publisher banks on. It's only on meeting a writer face-to-face (sometimes many, many times) that a publisher can make a decision as to whether to back them. So, yes, if you're an aspiring writer, get out there, introduce yourself, talk to editors, work out what they want, and find the one whose editorial 'thang' aligns with your writerly 'thang' (to use the technical vernacular).

Manchester Book Market, St Ann’s Square, 25 and 26 June, 10am-5.30pm.