Two Decades of Venom

Happy 20th birthday to Serpent's Tail. Not sure when the exact day of it is, but last night was the party so it must be around now. Great party, BTW. Very Serpent's Tail.

An interesting point was made by either John Williams or Stella Duffy (who both gave little speeches to honour ST), I forget which. Pete Ayrton is one of the few remaining bone fide publishers. By "publisher" I mean a guy who selects his list according to his own taste. Of course he has his editors (most notably John), but everything goes through Pete (15th most "powerful player" in publishing?), which is why this independant publisher has been able to survive and thrive in today's corporate book world. The role of "publisher" used to be a much stronger one, with guys like Jonathan Cape, Victor Gollancz, and John Murray giving their names to their lists (which survive today, of course, albeit in disembodied form). So really Serpent's Tail could be known simply as "Peter Ayrton".