I thought it would be useful to give you all a bit more detail about the authors who have put together our amazing, eclectic anniversary events.
Our second saturday, and we have two events.
First at 11am we have Tales of Transformation: Bisclavret presented by Elizabeth Hopkinson.
Elizabeth Hopkinson
We’ve published Elizabeth in our 2018 women only Liars’ League anthology We/She and our 2019 Solstice Shorts anthology Time and Tide, and our 8th anniversary anthology No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book.
Outside Arachne publications, Elizabeth has written loads of stories which have been published in anthologies and magazines. More recently she has published three books of revisionist mythology, Asexual Fairy Tales, More Asexual Fairy Tales, and Asexual Myths & Tales.
Later in the day at 3pm, we are introducing the call out for Joy//Us, an anthology of LGBTQ poetry, which will be presented by Arachne editor Cherry Potts and Poet, Jeremy Dixon who will be the co-editor; and poet Rick Dove. We publish lots of LGBTQ writers but it feels like time to actually showcase that, and give a bit of focus to the work we are creating with our LGBTQ authors and poets.
Cherry Potts
Cherry Potts (me!) is the founder/owner of Arachne Press, which she started in a fit of anger after a fall out with her then publisher (a case of I could do it better myself... which I could, but my goodness, I didn’t realise it would be such hard work). She has published an epic lesbian fantasy novel The Dowry Blade and 2 short story collections Tales Told Before Cockcrow and Mosaic of Air, and has numerous stories in anthologies and magazines.
Jeremy Dixon
Jeremy Dixon has been published by us consistently, from a single poem in our very first poetry anthology The Other Side of Sleep, and in Solstice Shorts anthology Dusk, and our bilingual anthology A470, via three poems in Liberty Tales, to a poetry pamphlet In Retail, to Jeremy’s first full collection, A Voice Coming From Then which we publishedin August 2021 and WON the poetry category for Wales Book of the Year English Language Poetry. Jeremy is a great supporter of Arachne, providing workshops and hand made books for our crowdfunds.
Rick Dove
Rick Dove is joining us to give an additional example of our existing cohort of LGBTQ writers. We published a poem by Rick in Where We Find Ourselves, a long three part family history, which so delighted me I went in search of a biography of Ricks Great Aunt, the first black woman to sing on the BBC!
Rick is a mixed-race, London based poet whose work draws narratives, and styles, from wide influences, always takes a keen interest in both societal and personal change, and how these cardinal forces interact as we grow. A regular performer on the London poetry scene since 2015, Rick has been published in numerous poetry zines and the national press. His first pamphlet, Haigha’s Noosphere Canticles, was published in 2017 by William Cornelius Harris Publishing, and his debut full collection Tales From the Other Box, was published by Burning Eye in 2020. In July 2021, Rick became the UK Poetry Slam Champion for 2021.
