Word Count 100: Severance script, poison book detector, Unbound update
Plus Boston bookshop changes lives, Copurrnicus update and a visit to Galton & Simpson's archives.
Hi there,
Welcome to the 100th edition of the Word Count newsletter! The very first newsletter was sent back in May 2022, and if you’ve been with me since those early days, thank you. Here’s to the next hundred newsletters!
Read the Severance S2 finale script
Deadline has made available the full script for the Severance season 2 finale, Cold Harbour, complete with an intro by showrunner Dan Erickson. Severance is Apple TV+’s most watched TV series. It racked up 14 Emmy nominations last year and is expected to get a healthy slate of nominations again this year.
I’m a huge Severance fan, not least because I appreciate a TV show that assumes its audience is smart enough not to need everything spelt out in 50m high neon letters. Indeed, trying to work out what the hell is going on is a large part of the show’s charm. So it’s fascinating to see just how much the script says and how much information comes through from the acting and cinematography.
Suw’s news: Fieldwork ABC and Galton & Simpson archive
I had a fabulous time up at the University of York, speaking at the ABC: Art, Biodiversity and Collaboration event, organised by Fieldwork co-conspirator Prof Pen Holland. The talks from the other speakers were fascinating, I particularly enjoyed Dr Richard Carter’s visualisations of his glider flight paths, which he had turned into a sort of kinetic poetry by adding flight-related words.
My introduction to the Fieldwork eco-sitcom was received very enthusiastically, which is always lovely. And Pen and I had the chance to sit down and come up with a plan to move the project forward and get closer to day one of recording. Watch this space!
Most exciting of all, though, was my visit to the Borthwick Institute for Archives where Gary Brannan, Keeper of Archives and Special Collections, showed me some of the highlights from the Ray Galton and Alan Simpson collection. I wrote a thread — with photos — on Bluesky about it, but the best bit was getting to see and touch the original script for the Hancock’s Half Hour episode, The Blood Donor.
What I loved the most was seeing how they rewrote. Sometimes, it’s clear to them as soon as they’ve typed something that it’s not quite right, so it gets crossed out with Xs and they rewrite on the spot. Other times, they come along later and refine a line by hand. It’s a delightful reminder that no one, not even Galton & Simpson, gets it right first time.
Poison book detector invented
Nineteenth century bookbinders really liked emerald green book cloth. Unfortunately, the bright green colour often comes from copper acetoarsenite, a nasty mix of copper and arsenic which still has the power to cause health problems. Every now and again a new poisonous books will be discovered, and many libraries have quarantined all green books from the affected era, just in case. That can lead to tens of thousands of books pulled off the library shelves.
But now two scientists from the University of St Andrews’ astronomy and physics school, Graham Bruce and Morgan Facchin, have developed a handheld tool which can quickly, cheaply and easily identify dangerous books. Their starting point was a tool used by geologists to identify minerals in rocks using visible light reflectance patterns. When they identified that arsenic’s emerald green has a unique reflectance pattern, they could develop a tool to screen books, allowing toxic tomes to be stored safely, and unaffected books to be put back into circulation.
Boston bookshop changes lives
More Than Words is a Boston-based bookstore that works with young people who’ve had a rough start in life, whether that’s homelessness, problems with school or experiences in the foster care or court system. It has been incredibly successful, helping young people learn how to begin to fulfil their potential.
More Than Words’ support goes beyond job training. There’s a paid “on-ramp” of six to 12 weeks in which the program helps with everything from housing and food costs to making sure participants have suitable work attire. Youth development managers offer support in a range of areas, including future employment, housing, transportation, financial planning, and navigating the legal system. After graduation, young people can access career services and bridge funding for tuition, rent, and child care so they can further their education and training.
Books can change lives. So, it seems, can book shops.
Unbound/Boundless scandal rumbles on
Many authors who were still hoping to get paid by Unbound/Boundless, and were thus keeping quiet about their experiences out of a very understandable abundance of caution, have opened up after Boundless emailed authors to renege on their promise to pay outstanding royalties. According to PrintWeek, Boundless CEO Archna Sharma announced in The Bookseller that they would not be paying royalties owed until they were “cash stable”. She also mischaracterised these payments as “historic goodwill payments”, rather than as money these authors are owed.
In a video, games writer and novelist Daniel Hardcastle explained that he had lost £40k.
Tom Cox appeared on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours to discuss the catastrophe (begins around 19 minutes in) to discuss what happened and why he went with Unbound as a publisher in the first place. He says he lost over £20k.
Laura Kate Dale lost £7k and wrote a long thread about her experiences and the signs from that Unbound was already in trouble in 2024. She said:
The TLDR as I understand - the company expected an incoming investment for a magazine project, took money out the author royalties account to pre spend the investment, the investment fell through, author money can't be repaid by investment.
That's my good faith understanding of those events.
Joel Morris, who’s previously said he’s lost about £8k, talked about an example of astonishing incompetence and a total lack of giving a fuck from Unbound.
On Nielsen Bookscan’s database, the author of my book was entered as:
Joel Morris
I had no previous publications. I was a new, unproven author.
On the database under “Morris, Joel”? All my bestselling books.
Unbound had detached me from my sales history. So nobody ordered my book in.
[…]
They [Unbound] did nothing about it.
That an author with 7 million sales of their previous book had failed to be stocked anywhere was not a problem.
Effin’ Birds was owed around £75k, and also shared that Unbound had said one of his books had been a flop, when it had actually sold out its print run, which sounds very fraud-adjacent to me.
There are many, many more such stories, more people who’ve lost significant amounts of money which they will, in all likelihood, never be paid.
Some authors reclaimed their rights as soon as they first experienced a missed royalties payments and have already found new homes for their works. Others are still in the process of legally reverting the rights. So if you’re thinking about buying a book to help an Unbound/Boundless author out, check first to see if that money will actually go to them or not. In many cases, the money will still be funnelled through to Unbound/Boundless and the author won’t see a penny.
I have heard that at least some authors are lawyering up, and I do hope that they will be able to find some sort of justice, though I fear they are unlikely to get the money they are owed.
Being a writer is precarious at the best of times, and for many, the loss of even just a few thousand pounds in royalties can be a crushing blow. All my sympathies go out to everyone, whether writer, freelance worker or book supporter, involved in this giant mess.
Obligatory cat picture
This week’s obligatory cat picture is another one of Copurrnicus. You might remember that in the last newsletter he’d had a bit of a rough time after getting bitten by another cat, a wound which developed into a very nasty abscess. After two and a half weeks in his shirt and jacket to stop him licking at and reopening the wound, I’m happy to say that he’s all healed up and is back to his cheeky ol’ self!
I think he missed me whilst I was away, so here he is being very cute on my desk.
That’s it for now.
Cheers,
Suw