Simon Danes, director of Bedfordshire-based St Mark’s Press, has capitalised on his years of publishing expertise to release a collection of Christmas literature celebrating the festive season, entitled A Christmas Anthology.
The anthology contains a collection of festive short stories, poetry and a seasonal miscellany of interesting facts about Christmas. Contents include The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens, Whatever Became of Tiny Tim?, which is John Mortimer’s sequel to A Christmas Carol , as well as poetry by Christina Rossetti, Thomas Hardy and Steve Turner.
A £1 donation from every book sold goes to fair trade charity Traidcraft Exchange, which is the charity arm of Traidcraft, the UK’s leading fair trade organisation.
Simon explains: "The Catholic Church has a saying: ‘Every person is my brother or sister.’ That's something I really believe in - and it's something that everyone can accept, regardless of whether you're of a different faith or none."
"I'd always been interested in the issue of how best to help people who were in real poverty. Fair trade seemed like an excellent idea (it still does). I was captivated by the idea of providing stable markets for producers in developing countries."
"I wanted to publish something that people could grab as a high quality stocking filler for friends and relatives; something that they could dip into during the Christmas break."
Joanne Wallis, senior public fundraising manager at Traidcraft Exchange, says: "We’re thrilled that someone of Simon’s calibre has devoted so much time and energy into supporting Traidcraft and the fair trade movement. Not only is the anthology a great Christmas stocking filler for people of all ages, but every sale of the book will help us to continue to transform the lives of poor people in developing countries."
The book also features a collection of stories from Traidcraft’s fair trade producer groups in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This section features the producers explaining how they celebrate Christmas and how fair trade has helped them and their families.
Traidcraft will supply resources featuring images of all the producers featured in the anthology, which is available from their website, and can be used in church.
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For further information, high res images or samples please contact Victoria Lamb, media officer at Traidcraft on 0191 4976418 or victorial@traidcraft.co.uk.
Notes to editors
• A Christmas Anthology retails for £9.95 and is available directly from St Mark’s Press, Traidcraft and from online retailer Amazon.
