With their sarcastic, self-deprecating, who-gives-a-fuck slogan �Popular Books For Popular People,� Creation Books is a small English publishing house who have been putting out cutting-edge sedition editions for nearly two decades now. They publish fiction and non-fiction works on subjects as diverse as mad cult movies, experimental cuntemporary literature, confessional damaged hardcore sex novels, apocalyptic culture, tentacle-fuck manga dementia, the cyberfucked 21st century, the surrealists, the Warhol factory, genocides, poncey French classics�if it�s challenging and frightening and disturbing and enlightening they�re there to put out to an elect select audience of deviants and, well (cough) �popular people,� as they say.

They�re also vaguely interested in a book I am dragging my carcass towards finishing, if that says anything about the journalistic separation of church and state here. I�d always thought they put out good works, and I owned several of their volumes, otherwise you wouldn�t be reading this. If you�re looking for some shit to twist yer head off give their website a look at www.creationbooks.com. Until you do, though, I emailed an interview to founder James Williamson. His short, to-the-pointless answers reflect the publishing house�s anarchic contemporary tempo ethos and ethic and heretic esthetic, in that he says as little as possible and lets the works speak for themselves. Either that or, more likely, he couldn�t be bothered typing much and found the interview boring. And I am chuckling as I write that. Whatever; who fucking cares. So without further ado�

Graham: How long have you been in the publishing business, and how and why did you get started?

James: 19 years. Started as part of Creation Records, because we thought it would be cool to make books as well as records.

Graham: What was the first book you published with Creation?

James: �Raism� by James Havoc.

Graham: What was and is your publishing agenda with the company? Do you find it has changed over the years?

James: It�s never changed. We publish books that use extremes of the imagination.

Graham: Fave books or movies or artists?

James: Gilbert and George.

Graham: What do you look for in a work being submitted to you?

James: Violence.

Graham: Seeing any common themes in the writing being submitted to you these days? How is modern Britain/the world in general being reflected in new works?

James: No. Unknown.

Graham: Anything you�d like to see more of? Less of?

James: Don�t care.

Graham: Favorite writers, both of your own and your company�s?

James: Pierre Guyotat, Stephen Barber.

Graham: You publish some older works as well as new stuff. Why is this, and what is it about an older work that would make Creation want to put it out?

James: Most of the best books are old. Many are royalty-free, which is a huge help to an independent publisher.

Graham: Any literary discoveries you�re particularly proud of?

James: No.

Graham: Ever had a book submitted that even you found too offensive to publish? Or had a writer spice something up to make it more interesting?

James: Nothing is offensive. Books are either good or bad.

Graham: What constitutes good writing to you?

James: Writing that I like.

Graham: Ever had any controversies over anything you�ve published?

James: No.

Graham: How many books have you published, and how many do you put out a year?

James: About 300. Currently, we publish around 12-15 a year.

Graham: What is a general print run, and why do you do smaller limited editions?

James: If you�re lucky you might sell 1,000 copies of a book. Limited editions are used solely to raise capital for printing, which is expensive.

Graham: What�s been your biggest selling book, and how many copies, on average, does each new release sell?

James: Hard to quantify because books that are 10 years old will obviously have sold more than books 1 year old. The fastest seller was Stephen Barber�s �Caligula: Divine Carnage.�

Graham: What�s your distribution like?

James: Functional.

Graham: Do you now have an established audience for each new release?

James: In theory.

Graham: What makes you want to publish Japanese works?

James: Japan has one of the world�s most interesting cultures.

Graham: Do writers always approach you with a work, or have you ever approached a writer because of liking something they�ve written? Ever commissioned a work on a specific topic?

James: 90% of books are commissioned - we supply the ideas. We have sporadically attempted to acquire books by writers we like, but usually get turned down because they want large sums of money.

Graham: How has the publishing industry changed, if it has, in the years since you�ve been in business?

James: It�s much smaller and more difficult now.

Graham: Find certain titles are more successful in certain countries? What do you find different national tastes to be?

James: No discernible differences.

Graham: Will the tired obsolete antediluvian Jane Austen literary canon ever truly die off?

James: No.

Graham: What do you think of the Kindle from Amazon.com? Do you think electronic publishing is the way forward? Ever put out an e-book or made one available on Kindle for download?

James: Pathetic. Electronic publishing has no future. We have made a few books available as e-books but only ever sold 11 copies.

Graham: Think books will ever become obsolete? I understand second-hand bookshops are becoming very difficult to find, in America at least.

James: Never. Check out www.abebooks.com - over 100,000,000 books for sale.

Graham: Anticipate any future trends in writing?

James: We announced the future with Kenji Siratori�s �Blood Electric�, but nobody listened.

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Graham Rae is a Scottish scribbler from the cheery charming picture-postcard-perfect post-industrial up-and-coming internationally renowned tourist destination of Falkirk, now resident in the US. He has been writing for as long as he can remember (started at any early age, carving graffiti into womb walls) and am halfway through my first novel (well, third, but the other mishmash misfires don�t count),� Weekend Warriors.� He has been writing about film for various electronic and print publications for 18 years now, and you can see a sporadically entertaining eclectic selection of his ramble/rantings at www.filmthreat.com.

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© 2009 Laura Hird All rights reserved.