Go Home And Sit Still

Factor Fiction & Friends @ States of Independence

States of Independence is our favourite local book festival, and this year we’ll have a stall.

INDEPENDENT PRESS DAY

Free of charge | 10.30am – 4.30pm | Open to all

Clephan Building, De Montfort University, Oxford Street, Leicester LE1 5XY

Workshops | Readings | Panels | Seminars | Book launches

Bookstalls | Independent presses | Regional writers

Fiction | Non-fiction | Poetry | Plays | Artist books | Magazines | Journals

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We’ll have stock of a variety of our publications on the stall. Including:

Cover by Jay Eales

A zine raising money for HOPE not hate and including prose, poetry, comics and more by lots of local Leicester writers.

Two new collections of Lee Kennedy’s autobiographical comics.

We’ll also have a handful of copies of the latest book that includes short stories by Jay & myself:

That night I dream about Whitby. 

It’s the place that Effie says I belong to. I’m sitting in a cosy room, with a small window overlooking a storm-lashed town. I can hear the sea, an endlessly restless noise. The fire crackles in the grate and I’m sipping a very sweet and delicious drink from a tiny glass. The woman called Effie is sitting across the room from me, but goodness – she looks ancient. She’s like a wizened old hag sitting there. 

Effie is talking in between sips of sherry and she’s making plans. Plans of action, of attack. We’re involved in a kind of… yes, series of adventures. She’s talking like the whole world is depending on our working together to foil not one but several kinds of evil menace.

What a bloomin’ palaver! 

Nine brand new stories about Brenda and Effie’s adventures in Whitby by Greg Maughan, Jay Eales, Tony Jones, Andrew Lawston, Matthew Bright, Morgan Melhuish, Neil O’Brien, Nicholas Campbell and Selina Lock, with a prologue by Paul Magrs.

Also available to order from Obverse Books

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We’re also hosting some friends’ books on the stall:

Purple Prose: Bisexuality in Britain is the first of its kind: a book written for and by bisexual people in the UK. This accessible collection of interviews, essays, poems and commentary explores topics such as definitions of bisexuality, intersections of bisexuality with other identities, stereotypes and biphobia, being bisexual at work, teenage bisexuality and bisexuality through the years, the media’s approach to bisexual celebrities, and fictional bisexual characters.

Filled with raw, honest first-person accounts as well as thoughts from leading bisexual activists in the UK, this is the book you’ll buy for your friend who’s just come out to you as bi-curious, or for your parents who think your bisexuality is weird or a phase, or for yourself, because you know you’re bi but you don’t know where to go or what to do about it.

Also available to order from Thorntree Press

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Plus this novel by local author and fellow Speculator Daniel Ribot:

Ludmilla Vatinashkaya already struggles to balance the challenges of marriage and family with her promising career as a captain in Stalin’s army when she is ordered to direct Vampsov, a covert unit created to fight the most implacable enemies of the Soviet Union: vampires. Astonished and initially skeptical, Ludmilla takes her unit on a thrilling and violent trail of destruction as Vampsov hunts down the blood sucking enemies of Socialism. With the help of Vassily, a dark and brooding creature who denies his very nature for his love of the fledgling Soviet state, they confront the most notorious monster of all in his Transylvanian lair.

Vampsov 1938, brings to life in luscious detail the Stalin-era Soviet Union. Daniel Ribot has beautifully navigated this turbulent page of history to create an an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that’s hard to put down and impossible to forget.

Also available to order from Amazon

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Hope to see some of you there on Saturday!

LICAF Highlights

Last weekend we were at The Lakes International Comics Art Festival in Kendal.

Love the extra little touches at @comicartfest #licaf like these mirror stickers.

Our highlights were:

  • Staying with our friend Julie in her lovely cottage and seeing this view at breakfast:

The misty Lake District...

  • The Scott McCloud talk on Friday evening which was inspirational and entertaining.
  • Being on the ‘To End All Wars – Art of Editing” panel and taking part in the TEAW signing afterwards. Sorry I didn’t get to speak to some of other contributors properly! (Selina)
TEAW talk Lakes

Jonathan Clode, Stuart Richards, Selina Lock (I’m looking a tad serious there!) & John ‘Brick’ Stuart Clark at the TEAW – Art of Editing Panel. Photo courtesy of Alex Fitch

 

  • Catching up with lots of friends and helping out on the Borderline Press table.
  • Meeting with folks from Lancaster University who are doing a research project looking at comics as a means of research communication.
  • The Audrey Niffenegger talk – which started with the most surreal moment of the weekend – being introduced to Eddie Campbell & Audrey before the talk by Sarah McIntyre, so that Eddie could identify comic panels on my comic strip skirt!
  • Being interviewed by Alex Fitch for a forthcoming podcast on our involvement with Obverse Books – Jay editing and writing for their Faction Paradox line, me writing for Iris Wildthyme and us both writing for the Senor 105 pulp novella line.
  • Becky Cloonan talk.
  • Felt Mistress workshop (Selina) and making a felt creature (not quite finished yet):

Beardy felt creature which I made in @feltmistress workshop at #licaf Hope to finish making it later in the week.

  • Nick Abadzis & Rian Hughes talks (Jay).
  • Buying far too many comics and graphic novels….
  • Including new Strangehaven by Gary Spencer Millidge in Meanwhile…
  • Just some of the swag…

LICAF swag 1

LICAF swag 2

LICAF swag 9

 

Upcoming events: The Lakes, Thought Bubble & Signing

Jay and I will be heading up to The Lakes International Comics Art Festival next weekend (Friday 17th – Sunday 19th Oct), with a boot full of Borderline Press books to drop off at the Comics Clocktower.

verityfair

Including the new Verity Fair collection by Terry Wiley, which we’re very excited to see as Verity first saw publication in the pages of The Girly Comic.

 To End All Wars

 On Sat 18th at 10.30am I’ll be appearing on the To End all Wars – The Art of Editing panel, as one of the ‘ brow-beaten’ contributors. This will be followed by a mass signing featuring the attending TEAW contributors. Come along and say Hi!

Also looking forward to attending lots of the other events at The Lakes.

We’ll be heading up to Thought Bubble in November.

Looking forward to seeing the glory of three halls of stalls and catching up with lots of friends.

Very excited to have been asked to do a local book signing for ‘To End All Wars’ at the University of Leicester bookshop on Tues Dec 2nd. More details when confirmed.

“To End All Wars” Nottingham Book Launch

One Wednesday 30th July To End All Wars got its first official launch courtesy of the Five Leaves Bookshop and the Nottingham Writers’ studio.

Before the launch the contributors in attendance went on a fun little photo shoot with photographer John Birdsall.

TEAW Notts group1

The sensible group shot: Ian Douglas, Pippa Hennessy, Jenny Linn-Cole, John ‘Brick’ Stuart Clark, Kate Houghton, Selina Lock. Photo © John Birdsall Photography

 

TEAW Notts group2

The 70s music album shot: Kate Houghton, Jenny Linn-Cole, Pippa Hennessy, Selina Lock, Ian Douglas, John ‘Brick’ Stuart Clark. Photo © John Birdsall Photography

 

Then we all headed into the spacious basement of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio where people were starting to congregate for refreshments and to browse the Five Leaves bookstall. I got my first glimpse of the physical copies of To End All Wars, which look great. High quality, chunky hardback with black-edged paper. Soaring Penguin have done us proud.

Once the 72 attendees were seated we launched into the official talk part of the evening.

Ross from Five Leaves started off the proceedings with a quick introduction and the unusual request to stay put if the fire alarm went off! (There were problems with it and someone would inform us toot sweet if there really was a fire…).

Then John gave a little background to the project. How it was devised by Jonathan Clode, who asked John to contribute and then talked him into co-editing. They put in a tremendous amount of work into editing and producing the book, including guiding the work of 53 creators from many countries.

Pippa Hennessy talking about her story 'Truth Be Told', which looks at censorship in WW1. She decided to make her central character a reporter who travels to the front without permission, as many reporters did, and risked being shot as a deserter or spy.

Pippa Hennessy talking about her story ‘Truth Be Told’, which looks at censorship in WW1. She decided to make her central character a reporter who travels to the front without permission, as many reporters did, and risked being shot as a deserter or spy.

 

I talked about my strip 'Go Home And Sit Still', which is based on the work of the Scottish Women's Hospitals. Here I'm talking about founder of the SWH Dr Elsie Inglis.

I talked about my strip ‘Go Home And Sit Still’, which is based on the work of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. Here I’m talking about founder of the SWH Dr Elsie Inglis.

selina2

Here I’m talking about trying to decide which moments from the experiences of the SWH Russian Unit I should include in the story. In the background you can see some of the fantastic artwork from the strip by Arthur Goodman. I apparently can’t present without waving my hands around!

Ian Douglas talked about the U-Boat Captains that inspired his story 'Dead In The Water' about Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen.

Ian Douglas talked about the U-Boat Captains that inspired his story ‘Dead In The Water’ about Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen.

brick

John finished off by talking about the strips he wrote/illustrated and the artwork provided by Jenny Linn-Cole and Kate Houghton (who were too shy to get up on stage).

Sales of the book were brisk and some of the attendees asked us to scribble on their copies. Our talks and the book seemed to go down very well and I enjoyed chatting to various people at the launch. My skirt also got lots of compliments and an introduction of it’s own from Brick!

Thanks to John, Ross, Pippa and Pippa’s son (for tech support) for organising the launch, and to all those that attended, for a lovely evening.

You can treat yourself to a copy of To End All Wars via Soaring Penguin Press, your local book/comic shop or Amazon. Especially as £2 from every copy sold goes to Médecins Sans Frontières.

You can also buy a copy directly from Soaring Penguin Press this Saturday 2nd August at the Birmingham International Comics Expo (ICE).

 

Jay and I will be popping into ICE for a few hours. We will also be at the London To End All Wars launch at Gosh! on the 20th August and at The Lakes International Comics Festival on 17th-19th October.

I will be joining Jonathan Clode and Brick on the To End All Wars – Art of Editing panel at The Lakes.

I’m very excited and proud to be part of To End All Wars, which would not have been possible without Arthur Goodman, who stepped into the artist breach at the last-minute. Thank you Arthur.