John Simmons, of “26 Treasures” (a book that has now been fully funded and is on its way to publication by Unbound - click here to find out more about how that worked) has written a guest blog over at the bookstore Foyles’ website on how the book came to be:

The 26 Treasures project began with an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2010 and then spread to Aberystwyth, Belfast and Edinburgh. In each case, an exhibition of 26 artefacts reflecting national culture was accompanied by a booklet in which 26 writers each had 62 words to write about one of the objects. This autumn the concept is taken up by the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, with writers picking one object for each year of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. New crowd-sourcing publisher Unbound publish a limited edition anthology of all the contributions shortly, with a regular edition following in September.

Here the co-founder of the project, John Simmons, reveals its origins, coins a new literary term and asks for the treasures from your childhood.

What’s your treasure? It might sound like an idle thought, a question from a conversation over a cup of coffee. Actually that was exactly how it started. I was sitting in the National Gallery café talking to Rob Self-Pierson. We’re both members of 26 www.26.org.uk a writers’ group - and we were wondering, just between ourselves, how we might write about the Gallery’s collection in a different way. We wanted to find a way that would be more personal, taking us (and others) away from that desultory state of mind when you trail around a gallery or museum, not really connecting with the objects you’re supposed to be looking at in a reverent way.

So the idea grew in and out of the conversation. We decided we would write about individual ‘treasures’ in a way that was not scholarly or academic. Just asking: what does this object say to me? We took the idea to Ben Evans at the London Design Festival and he put us in touch with the Victoria & Albert Museum. We refined the idea: we would ask each of 26 writers to write exactly 62 words (26 in reflection). And we would randomly pair writers and objects.

The V&A loved the idea and their curators chose 26 treasures from the British Galleries. ‘Treasures’ came in all shapes and sizes: the Great Bed of Ware (enormous), a locket (tiny). When we paired writers with objects sometimes it was love at first sight, sometimes it wasn’t. I didn’t warm to my 18th century Rococo candle stand that was almost hidden away in a badly-lit display case. But as I got to know it better, and think about its situation, I came to feel sorry for this curiosity fallen on hard times. I wrote 62 words in its rather petulant voice.

We had 26 pieces, each 62 words. I thought we needed a name for this form so I called it a ‘sestude’. The next thought was: can this go national? So we approached the National Library of Wales, the Ulster Museum and the National Museum of Scotland. The museums chose the treasures, we provided 26 writers to write a sestude each, and the museums then put our words alongside the objects.

That would have been it if I hadn’t had lunch with John Mitchinson. John’s an old friend, ex-Waterstone’s, ex-Harvill Press, founder of QI and now founder of Unbound, a new crowd-sourcing approach to publishing. www.unbound.co.uk I explained 26 Treasures to John, said that writers like Andrew Motion, Paul Muldoon, Alexander McCall Smith, Gillian Clarke and Michael Longley had taken part. Actually there were more - more than 100 writers in all. “Sounds like a great book.” It was a good lunch too. We agreed to publish 26 Treasures through Unbound.

Click here to read the rest.

We’re in the last days of the subscription period for 26 Treasures on www.unbound.co.uk/books/26-treasures. We’re nearly at our target but we still need people to sign up to get the book published. So here’s an offer to treasure….When you pledge to buy a copy of 26 Treasures on Unbound, we’ll give you a free copy of either 26 Letters (the original  26 book, part of the British Library project) or 26 Exchanges (the collaboration with PEN International).

Just let Tom Lynham know tom@tomlynham.com when you subscribe to 26 Treasures on Unbound, and we’ll send you your free 26 book. But you’ll have to be quick – get in before the end of February.

From the 26 Fruits blog by the founder/director of the “26” organisation - John Simmons:

Treasure It 

 There’s so much about 26 Treasures – the book that is different. I’ll be very proud of it when it appears. It still needs a few more people to sign up for it www.unbound.co.uk/books/26-treasures in the next week or so. But everyone’s now confident it will happen.

The book comes out of four exhibitions at the V&A, National Library of Wales, Ulster Museum and National Museum of Scotland. Originally Rob Self Pierson and I went to the V&A to propose the idea: 26 writers from www.26.org.uk would write exactly 62 words (26 in reflection) about objects from the V&A. The V&A loved the idea, the curators of the British Galleries selected 26 treasures, we randomly paired them with writers from 26, and the words and objects came together for exhibition as part of the London Design Festival 2010.

Last year we extended the idea to the three other national archives representing Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The same basic format applied, with interesting variations that reflected the identity of each of the countries. For example, in Wales the writing became completely bilingual: 62 words in English and Welsh for each object.

In ‘curating’ these four projects, 26 had gathered an extraordinary cast list of writers from its own ranks and contacts. Among the famous writers involved are Andrew Motion, Maura Dooley, Gillian Clarke, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Alexander McCall Smith. More than 100 different writers have been involved. And we had invented a new literary form: the sestude. We define it as a study in exactly 62 words.

We felt the project deserved its own book. But how to do it? I knew about a new publishing venture called Unbound, founded by three people including my good friend John Mitchinson. Unbound is a response, by people of great experience in the book world, to the current state of publishing where it’s become so difficult to get unusual books published. Unbound operates on crowd-sourcing principles – through its website it invites interested readers to subscribe to the book. When the funding reaches its full level the book gets printed and published with greater care and panache than authors now expect from conventional publishers. John wanted to publish 26 Treasures through Unbound. 26 wanted to support Unbound too as a new way of publishing.

As I write, the book is nearly 80% funded. The number of supporters needed is now within reach – fewer people than read this blog, for example. Thank you to all who have already subscribed. And thank you to those who will help us hit our funding target in the next two weeks. Subscribers get their names printed in the back of the book’s first edition. So we know the friends of 26 Treasures by name, and I’d like to thank you all for your support. To add your name to the list, and receive a book in June, go to www.unbound.co.uk/books/26-treasures

Check out the 26 Fruits blog here.

This week, we are running a competition for you to win a signed, illustrated copy of Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious & the Monkeys, the charming story of how Precious Ramotswe (later of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency) solved her very first case while still a schoolgirl.

To enter, all you have to do is pledge for the 26 Treasures book on the Unbound site (the book is a collection of poetry by various writers, including Alexander McCall Smith, inspired by items from UK museums). And once you’ve done that, then use the Promoters button on the book’s home page to encourage as many people as you can to pledge using your link. Not only do you earn a £1 credit for every pledge made via your personalised link, the person who gets the highest number of pledges by 5pm on Friday 24th February wins the signed, illustrated novella.

26 (an association for writers, editors and language consultants) has posted a great interview with one of our founders, John Mitchinson in which he shares advice for aspiring writers keen to get published by Unbound…

John Mitchinson is the co-founder of Unbound, a revolutionary crowdfunding publishing concept. He is also the co-author of QI books and director of research for QI. As 26 Treasures builds support on the Unbound website, John tells Elen Lewis why we all need to make sure the 26 Treasures book sees the light of day.

What makes 26 Treasures an ideal project for Unbound?
It’s exactly the kind of book that might get overlooked in today’s rather confused publishing environment. Yet it comes with wonderful writers attached – some well known; many not – and four museums supporting it. It offers us the chance to collaborate with readers to producing a memorable, beautiful object – an artefact in its own right – made from words and images. That kind of idea – one which stimulates excitement and offers the chance for readers to create something new and different seems to be the ones that work best for Unbound.

What advice would you offer aspiring writers keen to be considered by Unbound?
Be bold in your ideas and don’t become preoccupied with which niche you fit into. There’s far too much second-guessing in publishing already. Send us your ideas as a pitch, in your own words explaining why you want to write it, with an excerpt of 1,000 words or so. If we like what we read, we’re pretty sure other people will too.

Click here to read the rest of the interview…

We’re publishing a book by 26, called 26 Treasures - it’s an illustrated anthology in which 26 writers (from established authors like Alexander McCall Smith and Gillian Clarke to up and coming talents like Lucy Caldwell) respond to 26 treasures in 4 museums, using only 62 words.

Click here to find out more about the 26 Treasures book, and how you can support it in return for things like a creative writing workshop with the authors, a museum tour with one of the authors to see the featured treasures and plenty more.