Sandstone Vistas

12 Jul 2004 in Highland, Writing

The Need to Read

MOIRA FORSYTH explains the significance behind the development of the Sandstone Press’s Vistas series of short novels

PEOPLE WHO HAVE been reading easily since childhood, and for whom it’s an important but taken-for-granted part of their lives, find it hard to imagine life without books.

But it’s not like that for everyone – people able in every other respect can sometimes miss out on reading skills at school and beyond. When they do begin to master reading and glimpse the possibility that it might be a pleasure rather than a chore, they want to read as widely as everyone else. This great change in their lives often happens with the support of a tutor provided by Adult Basic Education, or other organisations.

But there are not many good books for emergent readers which are not aimed primarily at children or young people. This was the problem raised by Mary Rhind, Co-ordinator of the Adult Literacy Partnership in Highland, when we met one day at an Adult Literacy training seminar, over a not very good lunch. But the conversation more than made up for greasy soup and limp sandwiches.

‘You’re involved in publishing, aren’t you?’ Mary asked me. ‘With Northwords magazine?’

‘I’m the fiction editor,’ I said, but I’m also involved with publishing in another way.’ I told her about Sandstone Press, a new literary publishing house just being established in Highland. And then Mary asked if we would be interested in publishing short novels for emergent readers.

I said I would have to speak to my colleagues at Sandstone – but already I knew the answer would be yes. The challenge was immediately appealing: to publish novellas which would be for adults, with adult interests, but with language, vocabulary and style kept simple and direct, so that they were easy to read and understand. Quite a challenge for the authors too. I realised we would have to find very good writers to tackle this.

However, finding authors wasn’t the first thing we had to do. The first thing, Mary assured me, was to submit a bid to the Highland Adult Literacy Partnership for funding. And so the Vista Group was born, and the first Vista series of novels.

“We didn’t think it was good enough, however, to be enthusiastic about them ourselves. What mattered was that they worked for the audience we had in mind.”

THERE WERE four of us working on this – Robert Davidson, Managing Editor of Sandstone Press; me as editor; Mary Rhind; and Julie Simmons, Adult Literacy Strategies Officer for Highland Council. We are all keen readers, and three of us are writers, so it was something very dear to our hearts even before we began doing the sums to work out what we could afford.

When the funding was secured, we had to look for writers who were not only willing (there were quite a few of those) but also had reputation, and more importantly, as it turned out, the time to provide stories when we wanted them. We were fortunate in the three who eventually signed up to be the first Vista writers: Isla Dewar, Des Dillon and Suhayl Saadi.

The books they produced were each quite different in subject, style and atmosphere. You can find out more about them on the Sandstone Press website: Isla’s The Cherry Sundae Company; Des’s The Blue Hen, and Suhayl’s The White Cliffs. They are perfect as books for emergent readers – novella length, with strong characters in strong stories, simply told. But they are also excellent short reads – for a train journey, a waiting room, a lunch hour or two.

We didn’t think it was good enough, however, to be enthusiastic about them ourselves. What mattered was that they worked for the audience we had in mind. Each novella, therefore, was given to Adult Basic Education tutors to test with a sample group of readers for comment and input.

We tested not just the stories, but the paper colour, type face, and dust jackets, with the sample groups, realising that all these things have an impact on readers. Dyslexic readers, for instance, register words more readily on cream paper than on white. The warm response of the sample group made us feel we’d got it right at last!

“I was privileged to have such professional people to work with.”

THIS WAS after the editing process, most of which was conducted by email between the authors and me, with some phone calls for clarification now and then. The writers were provided with guidelines which we had drawn up before we approached any of them. While bearing in mind the needs of our readers, we were also clear that we didn’t want to impose restrictions on the writers unnecessarily.

All three produced superb stories, so the changes were on the whole textual ones, and agreed between the writer and myself. Editing someone else’s work has to be done with sensitivity, and careful attention to that writer’s style. I was privileged to have such professional people to work with.

It was an exciting project, from that first conversation, through to the launch, a year later. I enjoyed it all, despite the inevitable delays and frustrations which anyone involved in a joint project, particularly one which breaks new ground, will understand only too well. But we had good support from the public sector funding us, an imaginative and flexible graphic designer to produce our dust jackets, a careful proof reader, and of course good Scottish writers to produce the books we wanted. We also had tremendous feedback from our sample groups – what more could we ask for?

We’re looking forward to the next series of Vistas. When the writers are confirmed later this year, visitors to the website will be able to find out more, and can already buy the current series.

Moira Forsyth is the editor of the Vistas series.