October saw the first birthday of Picture Book Club and we were delighted to welcome Tiny Owl Publishing to our meeting to help us celebrate in style. This meeting was ably organised by Kate Poels who led proceedings on the night.
Our speaker was Karim Arghandehpour, assisted by his son Matin. Delaram Ghanimifard sent her apologies as she was busy blowing the Tiny Owl trumpet at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Karim gave a wonderful introduction to Tiny Owl, explaining how the company had started on their publishing odyssey. This was followed by a fascinating insight into their inspiring company ethos; to share the beauty, art and diversity of picture books with everyone. A message Picture Book Clubbers whole-heartedly endorse! Karim and Matin then shared a little bit of the story behind some of their current titles and we were once again excited to have a bit of a sneak peek at some of the new books they have coming out including The Lion Tattoo for older PB lovers and the wordless trilogy, Little Eli, both out later this year and both on my shopping list. Many of us there on the night would happily have stowed the pre-publication copies away in our bags!
Finally Karim spoke about the Tiny Owl call for submissions. They are looking for stories of hope to balance the all too widespread feeling of despair and fear prevalent in the news and media at the moment. What a wonderful aim! I know it has inspired several PBC members to put pen to paper already. Karim assured us that he reads every single submission so if there is a message of hope inside you then let it out and send it to Tiny Owl before the end of October!
Once again, we embraced modernity and you can see the video of Karim’s talk on our Facebook page here.
Karim warmly invites everyone to subscribe to their newsletter on their website so you can keep up to date with what they’re doing and be the first to know about what they are planning. And if you’re bored of watching grim news about Donald Trump and Brexit, Tiny Owl also have a YouTube channel which is full of much nicer things!
As always there was a chance to stroke books and eat cake after the talk and what a treat both of those were! Tiny Owls books are so beautiful to look at and feel amazing in the hand too. I don’t think there were many of us able to resist taking a few home! And Kate’s wonderful cake looked and tasted incredible! We even sang Happy Birthday!
