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Edinburgh Book Festival
Just back from a busy trip to Edinburgh, at the final weekend of the Edinburgh Fringe and International Book Festival. Straight off the train on Friday, Bryan and I joined Kate Charlesworth at Word Power, a radical bookshop in Nicolson Street, for an hour or so talking about the making of Sally Heathcote, Suffragette. That evening we were all entertained by Freight Books at a launch party for IDP: 2043, a graphic novel produced in collaboration with the Festival. You can listen to two of the contributors, Denise Mina and Adam Murphy, talking about the book in a radio interview on The Culture Studio.
Saturday 12.30 was our main event about Sally. We were in discussion with Teddy Jamieson in front of a full theatre audience. As the chair finished his preliminary panel introduction, a woman in the crowd called out “Votes for Women!” Then a few moments later, another stood up brandishing an umbrella and shouted again “Votes for Women!” This was the cue for a suffragette choir to march in, singing “The March of the Women” to a drum accompaniment. They were superb. The choir is Edinburgh’s own “Loud and Proud”, of which Kate herself is a member. (The event was filmed and I hope to be able to post a link to it soon.)
Then, after an hour’s lively discussion, we removed to the bookshop for a signing that lasted around an hour and a half. I have no idea how many copies that amounts to.
Kate and I had another fixture later the same day. There were two panel discussions with contributors to IDP: 2043, both chaired by Denise Mina. We were in the second of them, along with Barroux and Irvine Welsh, followed again by a signing session (but not another singing session, more’s the pity…)
Left to right: Irvine Welsh, Barroux, Kate Charlesworth, Mary Talbot, Denise Mina Photographs by Dianne Barry and Vintage Books.
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Arts Council England are offering me a grant!
I feel a victory dance coming on! I’ll be one more in that group of fortunate graphic-novel people to be awarded a Grant for the Arts, joining Katie Green, whose Lighter Than My Shadow came out last year, and Hannah Berry and Paula Knight, who have funding for work in progress. There may be others that I can’t recall at the moment.It’s just four weeks since I put in my application, so I’m very impressed by their speediness (and enlightenment!) I’m most grateful to Paula and to David
Gaffney from the Arts Council for their invaluable advice. It wouldn’t even have occurred to me to apply if it hadn’t been for an encouraging talk about funding opportunities at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival last October. So I appreciate that too.Bryan will be working with me on the project and, by a lovely coincidence, the offer arrived yesterday, on the same day he sent off the final files of Grandville: Noël. So it’s a double celebration! How cool is that?
Watch this space!
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So, here’s my schedule at Loncon 3!
In draft, at least. Loncon 3 is the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention and the first to be held in London since 1965. With Bryan among the Guests of Honour, we’re there for the whole shebang.Here are the panels I’ll be participating in over the long weekend:
Tove Jansson’s Moomins: Their Legacy and Influence
Thursday 12:00 – 13:00
It’s 100 years since the birth of Finnish author/artist Tove Jansson, the award-winning creator of the beloved Moomins. Moomins appeared in novels, illustrated books, comic book strips and today are celebrated with their own theme park called Muumimaailma (Moomin World).
Why did Jansson’s Moomins capture the attention and affection of the panelists, and how do Moomins continue to fire the imagination of new generations despite being nearly seventy years old?
What is the legacy of the Moomins, and how do they continue to influence European comic books today?
Kate Laity (Moderator), Lynda Rucker, Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson, Mary Talbot and Karrie Fransman
Rewriting Gender Defaults
Thursday 18:00 – 19:00
Several recent novels, including Ann Leckie’s “Ancillary Justice”, Kim Stanley Robinson’s “2312”, Kim Westwood’s “The Courier’s New Bicycle”, Deb Taber’s “A Necessary Ill” and Kameron Hurley’s “God’s War”, have tried to imagine futures with increased gender diversity, or changed gender defaults. This panel will discuss how writers in English approach the technical aspects of challenging and disrupting gender binaries: how do issues such as narrative voice or structure affect our impressions of the worlds created? What are the strengths and weaknesses of different choices?
Roz J Kaveney (Moderator), Alex Dally MacFarlane, Julia Rios, Geoff Ryman and Mary Talbot
Revealing the Real World Through Comics
Saturday 11:00 – 12:00
It can be argued that cartoons have a long tradition of grappling with, and commenting on, poltical and domestic problems through editorial cartoons and illustrated satire.
Yet it’s generally considered that the rise of autobiographical comics came about in the 1960s, and has slowly become popular as an means of expression in the intervening decades – especially after Maus won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.
Why have comic book journalism, graphic memoirs, and tackling social issues through the medium of comic books and cartoons become so popular? What can we reveal about the real through a medium that often uses abstract or surreal images combined with text to tell a story?
And why will they earn awards from the literary scene, when their fictional counterparts rarely get listed?
Maura McHugh (Moderator), June Madeley, Grá Linnaea and Mary Talbot
Writing and Pitching ComicsSunday 11:00 – 12:00
A discussion about creating comic books from the writer’s perspective. Breaking into comic book writing can present a unique challenge for new writers, because the route in is usually different than for artists (there are no portfolio reviews for writers).
Then there are basic issues, such as formatting scripts, which aren’t even clearcut.
How do writers craft the pitches that get them jobs as comic book writers? How do they proceed once they get the gig? What’s it like to liaise with artists, colourists, letterers, and editors?
What are the joys and perils of collaborating with so many people?
Maura McHugh (Moderator), Paul Cornell, Mike Carey, Mary Talbot and Debbie Lynn Smith
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Panel Borders podcast of Graphic Lives talk at AusNZ festival
A couple of weeks ago I was in London for a new festival: the inaugural Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature and the Arts taking place at King’s College. I’d been invited to join a panel on ‘Graphic Lives’ with two other creators, namely New Zealander Sarah Laing and Anglo-Australian Evie Wyld. Chairing the session was Alex Fitch from Panel Borders and he’s just released a podcast of the talk, edited and available here. For technical reasons, he was unable to include Evie’s contributions (too much feedback on her mic) so he’ll be interviewing her again at a later date.Photo tweeted from the audience by @LouiseArtist
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Back to the Edinburgh International Book Festival again!
Today the festival have released their programme for 2014. I’ll be there with Bryan again. This time we’ll be with Kate Charlesworth too, talking about Sally Heathcote, Suffragette on Saturday 23rd August. More details here.Kate and I are taking part in another event later in the day. It’s a launch for the graphic novel commissioned by the festival, IDP: 2043. We’ll be appearing with Denise Mina and Irvine Welsh. Details for it are here.
The box office hasn’t opened yet but tickets will be available from Tuesday 24th, later this month. There are lots of other Stripped 2014 events going on too, so we’re anticipating a long weekend that’s as good as last year’s. Hope to see some of you there! -
Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality
Also out this month is a rather different sort of publication that I’ve contributed to. It’s the second edition of an enormous reference tome for students and scholars of gender, sexuality and language. If it’s anything like the first edition, the contributions will all be highly readable scholarship with global reach and relevance. And it’s a snip at £120!The book is The Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality and it’s edited by Susan Ehrlich, Miriam Meyerhoff and Janet Holmes.
My contribution is Chapter 31 Language, Gender and Popular Culture. It contains sections on Popular culture; Magazines, friendship and community; Broadcast talk, gendered styles and professional identities; Talking with the television; Creative engagement: putting gender on the agenda. The last section focuses on cartoons and comics and draws examples from Posy Simmonds and, briefly, from my own Dotter of her Father’s Eyes. Well, fancy that!
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On the road with Sally Heathcote
A flurry of activity for the Sally Heathcote team last week!On Thursday Bryan and I were in London for a visit to Woman’s Hour in Broadcasting House. Our eight-minute slot with Jenni Murray went out live at about 10.30 am. It’s still available for listeners here. Later that day we joined conference goers at Birkbeck College, University of London. The symposium was in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the excellent but little-known BBC drama on the suffrage movement called Shoulder to Shoulder. Listening to the cast and crew reminisce was delightful and I was thrilled to learn who the producer was: the amazing Verity Lambert of Dr Who fame. I had no idea!
On Friday afternoon I presented Sally Heathcote Suffragette. After my talk, which concluded the conference, Bryan and Kate joined me for a brisk signing session in Birkbeck’s Peltz Gallery. There’s been a lovely exhibition of Sally artwork there which sadly ends tomorrow (23rd May 2014).Two more events on Saturday. Signing for one and a half hours solid at Gosh!
Then on to an evening event at the Cartoon Museum, chaired by Hannah Berry.
With Director-Curator Anita O’Brien and naughty Hannah Photographs by Dianne Barry
With Dianne Barry. Thanks for the photos! The tour wasn’t over for Bryan and me. On Sunday we made our way to Norwich for an appearance at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, in the lovely setting of Norwich cathedral hostry.
A green man 
The gates of hell 
4 demons sharing an Uncle Joe’s mint ball (I think) Before we went for our train home on Monday, Bryan risked permanent neck injury photographing all the ceiling bosses in the cathedral cloister. Here’s a few.
While there, I learned that Norfolk was the birthplace of the heroic Edith Cavell, World War One nurse and humanitarian. Cavell treated soldiers of all nationalities – friend or foe – and took part in an underground network that helped 200 Allied troups to escape from German-occupied Belgium. Shockingly, she was shot by German firing squad on 12th October 1915.
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Sally Heathcote sallies forth
It’s been a delightful, busy couple of days. Down to London last Thursday for the opening event of Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, a major new exhibition at the British Library curated by Paul Gravett and John Harris Dunning. Before it began, Kate, Bryan and myself did an interview for Digital Spy, though it was tricky finding a reasonably quiet spot to record, away from the cavernous foyer. The place was filling up fast. I’ll have to go back for a proper look at the exhibition itself. There were so many people that it was hard to get close enough.
In the morning, we called in at Forbidden Planet. Three people signing copies can get a bit complicated, so we had a bit of a production line going on.Then on to Foyles for more of the same, with some Dotter copies for good measure.
Sally’s public appearance was the following evening. The first British Library event linked to the exhibition, marvellously, was the premiere of a biographical film on Bryan combined with the launch of Sally Heathcote, Suffragette. The Graphic Novel Man: the Comics of Bryan Talbot is a lovely tribute created by Digital Story Engine, available to preorder here. Its first screening, I’m pleased to say, had a rapt
audience. Afterwards I shared the stage with Bryan and Kate for an interview with Rachel Cooke. A lengthy book signing followed – and they sold all their copies of Sally! They had a range of Bryan’s books available and he started to get confused at one point. Someone went away with a James Joyce sketch in Sally and a Sally sketch in Dotter. I do hope he was pleased!Then on top of all that, I got to read a flotilla of glowing reviews on Sunday!
The Sunday Express
But Kate’s Ma is furious that her daughter’s only mentioned in its headline (and justifiably so!)Photographs by Dianne Barry. -
A graphic novel for the Edinburgh Book Festival
It’s official! Project X is announced here! Kate Charlesworth and I have been quietly working on a chapter for a collaborative graphic novel called IDP: 2043 commissioned by the Edinburgh Festival. Denise Mina provided the scenario – after the Great Flood of 2032 – and distributed the six chapters to a team of writers and artists. The list of other contributors is pretty impressive: Pat Mills, Hannah Berry, Irvine Welsh, Dan McDaid, Denise Mina, Barroux, Adam Murphy and Will Morris.The collaboration began behind the scenes in 2013, as part of the Stripped graphic novel events at the 30th Edinburgh International Book Festival. The story is set in Scotland 30 years on. It’s a dystopian future, where resources are scarce. The initials ‘IDP’ in the title stand for ‘Internally Displaced Persons’.
Denise asked me to write the concluding chapter, so what could possibly go wrong? Ha! Well, I have to say that when I agreed to contribute it was with some trepidation at joining a group project with a tight deadline. But that was before I knew about the great professional line-up. The book will be launched at the festival in August, when we may finally get to meet one another! -
Launching Sally Heathcote, Suffragette
May is going to be a busy month!Sally‘s official publication date is 1st May, but orders can be placed now. On 2nd May there’s a London launch event in the Conference Centre at the British Library, when we three co-creators will be interviewed by Rachel Cooke from the The Observer (book tickets here). The event begins with a screening of the documentary Graphic Novel Man: The Comics of Bryan Talbot (see the trailer here).
An excerpt from Sally and an interview are scheduled for 4th May in The Observer.
These are some others events lined up in May:
Thursday 8th May
A northeast signing and talk by the creators will be at Waterstone’s, The Bridges, Sunderland at 6pm. Tickets £3 (redeemable against the cost of the book purchased on the night).
12th-23rd May
Sally Heathcote, Suffragette: Remembering Female Suffrage
This exhibition presents artwork from Sally Heathcote, Suffragette by Mary Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot.
Accompanying the art will be a collection of artefacts and extracts from the BBC TV series, Shoulder to Shoulder. These representations of Edwardian female activism produced in the early 1970s explore how the first wave was re-remembered at the time of second wave.
The exhibition takes place in the Peltz Gallery, Birkbeck, in the School of Arts, Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD.
Saturday 17th May
We’ll be signing at Gosh! from 2pm to 3pm. That’s 1 Berwick Street, London W1F 0DR.
In the evening we’ll be in the Cartoon Museum for Shoulder to Shoulder: Sally Heathcote Suffragette. This is an illustrated talk starting at 6.30pm. Free but ticketed (book here)
Sunday 18th May
Bryan and I will be introducing Sally at the Norfolk & Norwich Literary Festival at 4.45pm (details here)Meanwhile, here are some advance reviews and a directors’ commentary that Kate and I put together for the Forbidden Planet blog:
Page 45 review
Forbidden Planet review
Directors’ Commentary
Saturday 12.30 was our main event about Sally. We were in discussion with Teddy Jamieson in front of a full theatre audience. As the chair finished his preliminary panel introduction, a woman in the crowd called out “Votes for Women!” Then a few moments later, another stood up brandishing an umbrella and shouted again “Votes for Women!” This was the cue for a suffragette choir to march in, singing “The March of the Women” to a drum accompaniment. They were superb. The choir is Edinburgh’s own “Loud and Proud”, of which Kate herself is a member. (The event was filmed and I hope to be able to post a link to it soon.)
