Empathy is a superpower, and there’s no better way to share this than through stories. Whether it’s making a boy visible again after his family became statutorily homeless or two friends who support each other through thick and thin: we’re not surprised that two of our titles have been selected for the 2023 Read for Empathy collection.
Made up of a primary collection with 40 titles and a secondary collection with 25 titles, many of the books help readers understand the lives of those experiencing tough situations, like becoming homeless, or a refugee. Others help children build their understanding of emotions or inspire positive action towards the climate or animals or people in their community.
Download the free guides HERE and don’t forget to mark your calendars: Thursday 08 June is Empathy Day 2023!
Full time or four days pro rata; £30,000 to 35,000, salary commensurate with experience. Hybrid working a possibility.
We are looking for a dynamic, experienced publishing business manager to take on a varied remit with the scope to drive business development at Firefly. Your responsibilities will include managing the sales, marketing and rights teams, and promoting the development of new opportunities in these areas; organising Firefly’s presence at trade fairs; working with the Publisher on business promotion, budgets, targets, royalties, and grant support. Reporting to the Publisher, you will work with a small team of committed staff to maximise the potential of Firefly’s quality fiction and non-fiction lists.
This will include: – Working with sales, marketing and design to developing new sales opportunities for front and backlist titles within the UK and overseas trade markets and into the non-trade direct and special sales markets – Managing the sales, marketing and rights team – Developing rights and licensing opportunities – Overseeing traditional rights sales – Organising Firefly’s presence, at, and attending, trade fairs – Working with the publisher on budgets, targets, royalties, sales data and grant support – Working with the publisher and staff on business and marketing strategies for Firefly’s continued growth.
To apply please send a CV and covering letter to Penny Thomas: penny.thomas@fireflypress.co.uk
The closing date for this position is 20th February 2023.
Bookkeeper
£26,326 pro rata; home or office based, freelance or employed, up to two days per week
We are looking for an experienced bookkeeper with excellent Excel and Xero skills and preferably knowledge of/experience in a publishing environment. You will have strong communication skills, experience/understanding of VAT and keen attention to detail
To apply please send a CV and covering letter to Penny Thomas: penny.thomas@fireflypress.co.uk
The closing date for this position is 20th February 2023.
Firefly Press is a committed equal opportunities employer and employs people on the basis of their abilities. Positions are open to all suitably qualified candidates, and we aim to attract applicants from a diverse base, regardless of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds.
One year on from the day the shadows shifted – showing people their truest selves instead of just their shapes – best friends Teddy, Betsy and Effie plan to risk all and watch the winter sun rise over Copperwell, in defiance of the Shadow Order. But from their hidden vantage point the three shocked friends witness a mysterious woman shouting a dire warning, before being arrested, beaten, and dragged away in handcuffs.
The event leads them on an extraordinary series of dangerous adventures to save their city as they begin to learn the truth about the Shadow Order, the world surrounding Copperwell, and themselves.
‘I LOVED it! Tender and funny, dark and glorious. An empowering story.’ Liz Hyder
Daydreams, missing identity, and a villain in an ice-cream van have all helped start the New Year off with a bang for Firefly, with no fewer than three award shortlistings announced in the first week of 2023!
Daydreams and Jellybeans by author and poet Alex Wharton, illustrated by Katy Riddell has been shortlisted for the first-ever poetry shortlist for the 2023 Lollies Laugh Out Loud Book Awards. Hosted by Scholastic, the Lollies celebrate the best and funniest children’s books in the UK and Ireland with the final winner decided by children around the country reading and voting right here.
And to continue the awesome January we’re having so far, Has Anyone Seen Archie Ebbs? by Simon Packham and Little Horror by Daniel Peak are on the shortlist for the 2023 James Reckitt Hull Award! A collaboration between The James Reckitt Library Trust and Hull Libraries and the Hull School Libraries Service, the award works with participating schools to have their students read and vote on the shortlist. The writers of the shortlisted titles are also invited to the city to work with the young people, an initiative we’re very proud to support.
This month author Eloise Williams takes us on a tour around the Elizabethan London featured in Honesty and Lies.
We’ll be visiting the key places where Honesty and Alice spend their time and Eloise will give you an inside sneak peek into the places as well as what it takes to bring this world to life!
Southwark and London Bridge
The story is set over Christmastide and Twelfth Night. It’s cold. Very cold. Not so many years before the Thames had frozen over and King Henry VIII had ridden his sleigh from London to Greenwich across its surface. I’m a big fan of creating wintry settings and London Bridge and Southwark were so much fun to write about.
The bridge would have been astonishing to a newcomer. All manner of people and animals would have been using it to cross the river and there would have been timbered houses and shops galore. There is nothing more pleasing to my writer’s eye than to imagine an apothecarist, filled with remedies and beaked masks. A mercer draping rippling silk over his arm as if it is trickling water juxtaposed with soldiers and sailors and rats the size of cats. And a candlemaker’s sign blowing in an icy wind sounds romantic for some reason. Or is that just me?
Once over it, having walked beneath a huge gate with the heads of traitors on spikes, you’d reach Southwark.
Southwark was the place of entertainment so when Honesty and Alice are sent on an errand it’s little wonder that they get caught up in the excitement of celebrations. A falconer with a trained bird, carollers, a merry group of boys with a bowl of spiced ale distract them from their duties. Then there are the men on stilts, the jugglers and flamethrowers, and people blowing crumhorn pipes and making a racket with… well… racketts. And, of course, the magic of the Globe theatre! Happy days.
Map artwork by Guy Williams
Of course, they do run into Alice’s father who, having fallen on hard times, is fond of frequenting the many taverns and inns in Southwark. And there is the Clink – a notorious prison, and the danger of having a chamber pot emptied over your head, but not everything can be perfect, can it?
