Thank you so much again to everyone who continues to support the book! I’m so delighted. I had also set myself the challenge of reading the book in its entirety throughout May on my InstaTV, but realised quite quickly this isn’t something I have the creative capacity for at this time. A close family member’s health declined rapidly yesterday and I don’t feel I have the focus for so many things just now.I want to concentrate on spreading the word…
Hello Friends! To be honest I’m all worded out right now. These past few months working with a copy-editor and proofreader have been wonderful and exhausting. Then these last few weeks were all about getting the book ready for e-readers, as well as sorting out the shop. Much to do when you’re doing it all by yourself. This is a bit of an anti-launch really – early Saturday morning on a bank holiday weekend, but I wanted a slow, quiet…
When we were at Worm’s Head, South Wales, recently we witnessed a huge sand dredger hauling its cumbersome body forwards and backwards through the water, dragging up sand for all the new buildings. This level of extraction causes endless untold stresses on the local ecosystem, and yet we just see this as a natural element of human progress. Why is this? By sending my book out into the world as copyleft/ under the Creative Commons I wanted to put myself…
Sending new words out into the world can feel like jumping off a cliff. You don’t know how it’s going to land, or if people will connect. There’s that lurch in the stomach as your feet recognise thin air, the last-second terror that maybe you should just forget all about it and go hide in bed. And yet we do it don’t we? We scramble up, stride forward; step off. Over and over: crafting the narrative, reshaping the vision, reconfiguring…
One of my favourite characters to write in The Madness of Sara Mansfield is Sara’s life-partner, Nneka Adesina. I am in love with Nneka’s brilliance – she has worked her way to the pinnacle of success as a biotech scientist in the sovereign state of Mont Blanc – the world is at her feet, and she knows it. And yet, beneath the surface of her immensely successful and meticulously shaped Amortal life, difficult questions begin to surface about the true…
I’ve avoided using the word ‘dystopia’ when talking about the new book because I don’t believe it’s a dystopian novel. It is darkly realist at times and I don’t shy away from shining a bright light of truth on characters and events so that the shadows are revealed.But in addition to this, there’s many beautiful moments of connection, with the land, with other people, and with technology. You just have to be prepared to look. It’s also the first book…
Eeep! Tiny bit more book spam. ONE WEEK TO GO! The Madness of Sara Mansfield is out on 1st May 2021. I chose this date because it speaks of the wonderfully fecund, creativity of nature. It’s the day the May Queen & King meet to give birth to all of summer. This MayDay of anarchy, magic and tree worship is also special in my heart as it’s the day Andy and I met.My online shop will be open super early…
This poem was gifted to me by the land at San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, northern Spain, over a magical hunters full moon weekend back in October 2019. We parked on the cliff tops then walked and dreamed. A truly magical place in time. This is also the opening poem to the new novel The Madness of Sara Mansfield as I felt directed by the land to stitch as much of her into the book as posible. The Madness of Sara…
My work has always been political. How can an artist create and not speak to the wider context of community or land? One of the (many) reasons we moved into the van was in protest at Britain’s Brexit vote. We still very much feel European, and in times like these I believe we should be opening our borders to help those in need, not locking ourselves away to fight it out on this tiny island. I wanted The MthR Trilogy…
The most elaborate character development I undertook for the new novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield, was with Alex/Crow. They began life as an hour-long sound/spoken word performance piece, CRØWOMAN. I only performed this twice before realising that this character is Trans and that they need to live in the novel, not on stage. As I’ve written before, the titular character has my initials because all of the characters in the novel are potential reflections of my Self: I am…