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.

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.