Here, there and everywhere in May

May 29, 2015Selina Lock

May turned into a very busy month for us with lots of events with some kind of creative connection…

First off was a visit to The Lakes with friends from The Speculators writing group. No writing was done, but we did lots of sight-seeing of writing-related places.

Writers in the rain – at Wordsworth’s favourite writing spot.

Applied Comics Network Event – information, educational & factual comics.

Next up was a trip down to London for the inaugural Applied Comics Network Event, which I had been invited to speak at about the sessions I do at work about using comics to communicate research. I’ve blogged this in detail over on my work blog.

We both did readings at the latest Fox Bites event, which is a Leicester event for writers to read 5 minutes extracts of their work in a relaxed atmosphere in a local cafe. Organised by the lovely Adele (aka Aunty Fox) of Fox Spirit Books.

Jay entertains the audience with a sci-fi tale.

Jay read his short story Spare Change, which originally appeared in Murky Depths. While I read Once in a Blue Moon, a piece of flash fiction I wrote for the event.

The others writers who read were:

Daniel Ribot (author of Vampsov 1938) read his short story A Gentleman’s Agreement.
Marianne Whiting read an extract from her Viking novel Sheildmaiden.
Carol Leeming read an extract from her choreopoem – The Loneliness of the the Long Distance Diva.
Selina talks ancient hearts.

Mayapee Chowdhury read a short story from her collection Embarrassing Siblings, Playground Taunts and other Growing Pains.
Leah ‘Ileandra’ Osbourne read an extract from one of her novels.

I went on a rather different creative jaunt during for the second Bank Holiday weekend, as I went on a sewing retreat. It was good fun and I learnt lots of new crafting techniques…

Fruits of my sewing labours.

May is being rounded-off with Jay busy working on a short story and a Speculators critiquing session this weekend.

Oh, and April brought the news that To End All Wars has been nominated for TWO Eisner Awards! Very exciting to have written for an Eisner nominated book!

LICAF Highlights

October 26, 2014Selina Lock

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

Our highlights were:

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

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)
- You can listen to a recording of the panel by Alex Fitch over at Panel Borders.

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):

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…

Upcoming events: The Lakes, Thought Bubble & Signing

October 10, 2014Selina Lock

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.

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.

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

August 1, 2014Selina Lock

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

“To End All Wars” Release & Launch

July 18, 2014Selina Lock

I’m very excited that this WWI graphic anthology is on its way from the printers to Soaring Penguin Press and will be arriving through letter boxes and in shops soon.

That’s partly because it looks like an interesting collection covering lots of lesser known aspects of WWI and £2 from the sale of each book will go to help the charity Médecins Sans Frontières. But mainly it’s because I wrote a fifteen page strip for it, called ‘Go Home and Sit Still‘, which has been illustrated by Arthur Goodman.