A quick update to say that our eBook is now available.
We are still waiting for it to go up on the Kindle store on Amazon (expected any day now).
Currently it is available on Smashwords,
and on the Apple iBook store.
ibook listing
Our book launch event two weeks ago was a marvelous affair, perhaps smaller than we’d hoped thanks in part to the London Underground strike action beginning the same evening, but a lovely evening nonetheless.
The book is now available on both Amazon and Waterstones online.
We have created a new section on the site to feature love letters sent since the print deadline for the book, and we do aim to continue highlighting the struggles and loves of people being affected by the Family Immigration Law.
What we’re all eagerly awaiting of course is the verdict from the March appeal hearings…which may come any day now, but we can only wait.
Or can we? There are still things we can do:
You can buy the book here.
Our book, Love Letters to the Home Office, has been published and is now available for purchase on Amazon.co.uk!
There are a few other things happening on the day of the launch as well:
The manuscript of the book is going to to printers today, so it seems a perfect time to do an update.
Book
Love Letters to the Home Office will be available in paperback from all of the major online distributors (Amazon, Waterstones, WHSmith, etc) and we’ll also be seeing what we can do to get it into the small, independent bookstores. You will be able to buy the book by following the links here, which will go up as soon as the book is listed.
We will also be launching an ebook, and the same is true: we’ll be linking that as soon as we are able to.
Joey, who is doing our cover artwork, has a personal relationship with the stories in the Love Letters to the Home Office book, and is currently developing ideas for the cover based on the themes from the stories. Perhaps he’ll write a guest blog to tell us about his process, once he’s created the cover. More will be revealed about that!
Launch
The launch will take place on Monday 28th January. We will give details of the venue as soon as we are able to.
Stories
We are continuing to post stories on the site; currently at the rate of one per day. As well as the stories from the book, we are processing and posting stories as they are submitted to us. These new stories are listed in the Other Stories page. We welcome your story to be included as part of this, so do send it in to us.
Petition
There are currently just over 1,000 names on our petition.
Following contact from someone else who had started a petition about the law (without the same focus on the Human Rights element, but very similar nonetheless) who suggested that we combine petitions, we are now looking for a way to join forces with all of the different petitions out there, each with multiples of thousands of names on them, to create one petition that serves the common interests of all of them, and means that we can centralise and focus a number of different campaigns into one. Together we are stronger!
If you have started a petition, or are interested in getting involved in this process, please contact Jason on [email protected]
1. Our editor is putting together the book as I type this! How exciting!
2. The book will be launched on Monday 28th April. More details will appear here shortly!
3. You can still submit your stories to be used on the website (but not included in the book). So all is not lost! You can submit them on the site or email them to [email protected]
Okay, that’s enough of the exclamation marks for now! (There are fewer of them in the book, I promise!)
Today is our last day for submissions if you would like your story to be included in the book. You have until 10pm tonight!
Some of our stories are only a few sentences long, and are totally perfect, so please know that whatever length you want to write is just great.
If you thought you had missed the original deadline, or have been putting off sending in your story: now is the time! We look forward to reading it.
Stories submitted after the deadline will be posted to the site, but will not qualify to be included in the book. Or certainly not in this first edition, anyway. A second edition is possible… but there are currently no plans for it. Which is all the more reason to write your story today and send it over!
al-Jazeera online published a feature story today about the impact the UK’s “war on immigration” is having on families who do not meet the income requirement for a family visa - and it mentions us!
photo credit Jason Wen - Human Rights Network.
The article presents a good overview of both the issues families face as well as the governmental challenges which have influenced the policymaking. To illustrate the impacts of the law, the author spoke to a number of families who have been separated by the income requirement, and one who has managed to overcome it - our project founder Katharine and her husband Raco.
It’s wonderful and exciting to see our little book of love letters - and the reason we are creating it - get attention from one of the world’s great news organizations. I call it our “little” book, but it’s our country’s big problem, and the whole world is watching.
Read the whole al-Jazeera article here
Sign our petition to parliament
We’ve got a love letter coming soon from a Norfolk couple who are currently appealing their case to the Home Office. Arlene came from the Philippines in 2009 to study in the UK. She got a degree, she is earning a living working in her profession, and the Home Office wants to send her back, apparently because her now-husband Stephen’s new business isn’t yet paying him enough to meet the minimum income requirement.
“I do not want to be separated from my husband.”
According to the article, he was told in the initial hearing that he, a born-and-bred UK citizen, can move to the Philippines if he wants to stay with his wife.
Last week their story was featured in the Great Yarmouth Mercury, which prompted an outpouring of support and a follow-up article yesterday. They are currently awaiting an appeal hearing with the Home Office.
These are the stories we are wanting to tell, and this is exactly the kind of scenario we are hoping to help correct. Please sign our petition to compel the debate in parliament and help change the law that allows our government to let money mean more than family.