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In moments of shame or despair, Phoenix Ark has been very troubled at times! But in re-reading Cultural Essays from other writers and artists, many of the blogs here and, above all, turning to readers who have supported, even criticised, we looked with huge pride today at all the work done and the reviews beginning to gather around our publications of Fire Bringer, The Sight, Fell, the Coedition and others. They are climbing again, and seem to inspire hearts, so never surrender and you can beat the B’s! Principles of truth and spirit were fought out here and the Phoenix is what remains inside, the flame.

The work and the stories are all that matter, but that is why, in any wrongs or heartbreaks, indeed any whining, DCD’s editor Susan Van Metre, now Abrams Vice President, should have supported the most fundamental principles. Not just the books she bought, but the absolutely vital working conditions too, that can actually become emotionally dangerous to any author. Books are indeed like children, to go out into the world and grow. She knew David’s track record and his absolute commitment to getting stories right. If the professional was so soured by the personal David was most certainly not to blame alone. Indeed, the chain of arrogance and betrayal began elsewhere entirely and it is part of the absurd political fear we ourselves generate in the world, that was so generated in New York City, but with respect to everyone’s jobs or talents, it is the authors who try to stand up and be counted and also need protection.

But when the Terror Time Spies comes out, it is time to turn again to epic animal fantasy in the edit of Scream of the White Bear. Readers who have followed the story may now understand a little more why it was cancelled, why it has taken so long and why now it deserves full energy and direction again. We do not think we will make August, as we said, but David owes it to himself and to readers who have waited too long to get it right. It will be this year.

PHOENIX ARK PRESS

In the coming freshening up of Phoenix the Cultural Essays page, with some wonderful articles by very talented writers, has been simplified and linked, while now our ‘blog page’ will be used far more sparingly, to alert readers to longer articles and stories inside.

Phoenix Ark Press

Phoenix Ark are pleased to announce we may have missed the 50th party at the Fishmongers Hall, a helpful plug for coming stories on Edmund Shakespeare, Bill’s youngest brother, also a player, and steamy Southwark, but we have now joined The Independent Publisher’s Guild.

“Art thou a fishmonger?” Hamlet

Another huge scandal at the heart of the City of London, and Barclays traders rigging rates. Scandal lurches towards scandal, who really regulates, since Labour’s ‘Big Bang’, beloved of Tories, and how does it corrupt everyone, or make them feel there is no justice or fair playing field?

So when do we wake up to the fact of what money is now, in the complexity of financial packaging, in the game of futures, in the sweeping dissociation of numbers and real lives? A large element of the new thriller The Godhead Game by David Clement-Davies is both the internet and financial systems, and how you might actually beat world markets, but with a better purpose in mind. To buy a copy, exclusive to eBook, Click here

In the coming freshening up of Phoenix the Cultural Essays page, with some wonderful articles by very talented writers, has been simplified and linked, while now our ‘blog page’ will be used far more sparingly, to alert readers to longer articles and stories inside.

Phoenix Ark Press

In a long struggle Phoenix Ark Press now gives its own page to the complaint against and battle with New York Publishing giant Abrams. The Phoenix Founder, David Clement-Davies, reasserts his demand for compensation and an apology, and in time will also bring out an astonishing story, that might wake us all up.

Read the net article ‘Welcome to the Mayan End of Everything’, discussing the countdown to this December and the themes inside The Godhead Game Click here

Also available on Utube at http://youtu.be/Z62x9mzO5NA

We apologise for the mistake with Kindle Direct when The Godhead Game was not actually available for free download on June 22nd. It was mixed up with The Sight and Fell coedition. So we will pick another day soon and let you know. The Phoenix Elf responsible for the mix up has been shot, then brought back to life.

Phoenix Ark Press

It was to Sharyn November at US Penguin that Sarah Van More breached a private trust about David’s split up with Tara Break, then relayed back to him via his own agent Ginger Clarke, who at the time had no idea of the implications of it! In the weird and wacky world of New York publishing Sharyn November had sent a round-robin about her sad split up once, though editors never have to face the public. It shows how wise protecting yourself emotionally can be, especially in New York City.

In their respects for you the reader though, Sarah Van More told David she had not put up a new photo in ten years. Yet at Abrams David had to go on working with an editor whose actions and attitudes became the most absolute invasion to him, who became so bullish and arrogant, the real judge of what should have been private, but never was, yet like her best friend Tara Break refused to stand up and take responsibility for anything important, in life, law or in publishing. Imagine the hypocrisy of being told to keep your mouth shut, then threatened under contract if you did not, for months trying to work, which caused a kind of psychological torture, while privacies were breached not only internally, but to another New York publisher. Right down the line though the hypocrisy at Abrams in this story is phenomenal.

David Clement-Davies has his own perceptions about the politics and arrogance of editors, but it was also to US Penguin that Macmillan UK granted eBook rights, in another breach of contract. The bizarre impression that an author who was by then unagented, neither existed nor mattered a damn in the money and jobs game, came when David was told to his face a publisher had consulted his ex London agent, which it had not. It was US Penguin that made such a hash of the Fire Bringer paperback, one young reader threw against the wall, and, we actually think in part through the good offices of Sarah Van More, that new, far better and more succesful paperbacks were issued by Penguin.

But don’t believe, in the world of super capitalism and super publishing too, so interconnected, as editors move between company jobs too, and agents bottom feed around them, the echoes of ‘private’ issues do not go everywhere behind the scenes. Do publishers nowadays have McCarthy style blacklists of authors, because any ‘trouble’ might affect their profits? Perhaps that is the real defence of Tara Break’s rights’ to privacy, with no respect or duty of care the other way at all. Experience of it before in the UK was a deep cause of the indignation and crisis over personal and professional betrayal. David had had very high regard for American respect and standards and at Abrams they threw those values into a bin. Imagine what that feels like when love and friendship are involved too. But perhaps unless you are at the top, the truth is you play by their rules, or woe betide you. The authors do not matter in the long run anymore, the publishers do. So David Clement-Davies cannot get an agent, his hardcopy books like Fell have plunged in the ratings, another threat hanging over his head in the background at Abrams, Fire Bringer has now been taken out of print by Macmillan UK, despite 12 years and inspirational reviews, and he waits to see what will be done to The Sight too. Years of work, or the meanings inside books matter not a damn to them. God bless those editors and agents who fight both for truth and writing! He has been a bestseller, his presentations consistently praised, his books loved by readers, they have received Kirkus starred reviews, were 76 selection winners in America and family award winners, and he has heard from Librarians they hardly stay on US Library shelves, he was long listed for the Carnegie Medal in the UK and short-listed for the Tir Na Nog prize. Woe to any guy and author who falls in love in New York city though, or is that just with the likes of Tara Break, Sarah Van More and Harold Rove?!

Phoenix Ark Press

John Humprey’s Panorama report on Greece tonight was sad and deeply worrying. With 20% unemployment, the rise of the far right thug’s party Golden Dawn, as ever blaming immigrants, and above all reminding us both of the danger of abandoning principles of law and justice, and of corruption. The effect of bringing Greece into the Euro was an apparent bonanza for all, with the rich or high salaried commanding the capital, it floating to the top either naturally or corruptly, and Goldman Sachs’ role in it all is deeply suspect, has been to devastate traditional structures and ways of life. The same is evident in Spain and Italy. Is super capitalism’s real legacy a vast imbalance between winners and losers, is it the Eurozone experiment, or is it something endemic to Greece itself? One Greek hero who tore the Swastika down from the Parthenon and was also imprisoned under The Colonels, blames that ‘Troika’ of economic high rollers, yet the problem is that atavistic hatred of Germany. We always argued that Papendreou was right in attempting to force political acceptance, but through democratic means, because how else do you reform a system that clearly seethes with corruption, if the economic gurus at the top are perceived as corrupt. How are those austerity measures turned on the rich too, in asking them to play a part?

Greece plays a walk-on-part in David Clement-Davies’s apocalyptic thriller The Godhead Game, based around this year’s end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar. Since it is set slightly in the future, speculating about possible events in Europe, it might give the game away a touch about Mayan Apocalypses, but its themes are very serious. It wonders, in a world of markets and systems, that the avergae person seems to have no control of, if anyone does, how you might actually beat the market itself!

But above all it also introduces ideas about sacred wisdom, and traditions stretching back to Parmenides, to ask if the Mayan Apocalypse might not be a chance to take new approaches very seriously. It is of course meant to thrill, with a strange email invitation sent to FBI systems man Danny Fabian in Washington, not only inviting him to play the game, as his brother is kidnapped from a World Cup football match, but to change his life forever. The Godhead Game is available from Amazon.com

Phoenix Ark Press