Celebrating three books in one: Cherry Potts discusses The Naming of Brook Storyteller, in three volumes, Brat, Spellbinder and Wolftaker
Written by Ghillian Potts, covers by Gordy Wright.
A Young Adult fantasy trilogy which hinges on the importance of stories, truth and keeping your temper!
You can buy individual books at £1 off in our anniversary sale throughout August, just add ARACHNEVERSARY at checkout, or you can buy all three for £25 (nearly £5 off) go to our webshop!
Math Jones reads on behalf of Ghillian Potts at the Launch of Wolftalker at The Blackheath Bookshop.
Wolftalker is the final installment of The Naming of Brook Storyteller.
In this segment Brook (now known at Dragonfriend Wolftalker), and her storyteller apprentice, Cricket, have arrived at the city with Wolftalker’s ‘cousin’ Drinks-the-Wind, who is a wolf.
to buy all three books, visit our webshop!
Big thank you to Math for reading, and Michael and Tilly for hosting.
Wolftalker is officially available from bookshops today, one day after author Ghillian Potts 85th Birthday. (Happy Birthday Ghil!)
Ghillian
We will be launching the book with a reading by Math Jones
at The Blackheath Bookshop
34 Tranquil Vale, Blackheath, London SE3 0AX
6.30-8.30 15th June 2018
Free!
Everyone welcome.
Bring your younger kinfolk!
For those of you who have been following the highs and lows of Brook’s adventures, this is just as dramatic as the previous books, with the added responsibility of an apprentice storyteller to keep an eye on.
Brook is sent by the storytellers to right a wrong, and in the process takes on an apprentice, Cricket.
Far more important to her is her ‘cousin’ Drinks-the-wind, a Wilder wolf. Together the three of them discover a plot that puts all their friends, and even the Overlord, in danger.
As a bonus, the first book in The Naming of Brook Storyteller trilogy, Brat, is available from Amazon as a kindle for free for the next couple of days.
It’s been quite tricky to find affordable accessible venues for our launches recently which has led to some of them being delayed.
The good news is we have sorted out two of them, and are on the way to another.
In order of event date:
Not a launch but, Cathy Bryant is reading from her book Erratics TONIGHT 28th May at Stirred Poetry at 3MT Manchester
Not a launch but, Kate Foley is reading from her book, A Gift of Rivers
at Sunday Night Lives, The Flying Pig, 106 Hills Road, Cambridge on Sunday 10th June doors 7pm event kicks off 7.30.
GHILLIAN POTTS WOLFTALKER
will be launched with a reading from the book by Math Jones
at
The Blackheath Bookshop
34 Tranquil Vale,
Blackheath,
London
SE3 0AX
6.30-8.30 15th June 2018
Just turn up – but it would help to know that you are coming.
DUSK, the latest Solstice Shorts Festival anthology
We are doing a pre-launch event at the St John’s Festival at
St John’s Church 353 Bromley Road SE6 2RP (opposite Homebase)
with readings by Cherry Potts, Laila Sumpton, Michelle Penn and hopefully Katerina Watson
on 20th June 12 noon
And then, the book is formally launched on 21st June 7pm
at Stephen Lawrence Gallery
10 Stockwell Street SE10 9BD
Finally (for June anyway)
CATHY BRYANT ERRATICS
will be launched with a reading by Cathy
at
Blackwell’s Manchester Metropolitan University
Nr Arthur Lewis Building,
The University of Manchester,
Bridgeford Street,
Manchester M13 9PL
6.30-8.30 28th June 2018
There will be free ticketing via eventbrite shortly, but get the date in your diary.
Cherry Potts reads her very first published story (Fantasy, of course), Penelope is No Longer Waiting which is in Mosaic of Air.
Part of our Women & SF/F event for Hither Green Festival.
Having discussed what we grew up reading, here’s a bit from one of Cherry’s early influences, her mum, Ghillian Potts. This is a section from Spellbinder, the middle book of the trilogy The Naming of Brook Storyteller.
The final installment, Wolftalker, is out on 7th June!
Cherry first read these books in her teens, and did a critique of them in her twenties, which was largely ignored!
Apparently we both know if what we are writing is SciFi, but Fantasy is trickier to pin down.
Find out how you know that what your writing is fantasy… chasing ideas down rabbit holes with Cherry Potts & Katy Darby
More from our Women & SciFi/Fantasy evening for Hither Green Festival.
The audience put in their comments and recommendations. Call out for Naomi Novik and the Temeraire series
Cherry Potts & Katy Darby Arachne Press authors and editors, talk about growing up reading SF & Fantasy, particularly by women, at Manor House Library for Hither Green Festival
For the completists amongst you, here is the list Cherry forgot to bring with her of lots of Sf/Fantasy books she loves, feel free to comment to add your own high points. There are loads more these were the ones that sprang readily to mind!
Growing up with SF/F – YA books and first reads…
Diana Wynne Jones The Spell Coat series
Susan Cooper The Dark is Rising
Sylvia Engdahl Heritage of a star
Jan Mark: Useful Idiots/ Riding Tycho/ The Ennead
Andre Norton Forerunner Foray, Plague Ship, Moon of Three Rings, The Beastmaster, Mark of the Cat, Witchworld series, Octagon Magic, Steel Magic etc
Tanith Lee The Dragon Hoard, Kill the Dead, Companions on the Road, Drinking Sapphire Wine
Ursula le Guin Earthsea series, Lathe of Heaven, Rocannon’s World, Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed (actually pretty much anything by Ursula)
Helen Simpson Ingo series
Joy Chant Red Moon, Black Mountain
Pamela Sargeant Women of Wonder anthologies
Writers discovered in the 70s and 80’s
Margaret Atwood Handmaid’s Tale
Joanna Russ We Who are About to
Jaygee Carr Leviathan’s Deep, Navigator Syndrome
Joan D Vinge Snow Queen, Catspaw,
Jane Yolen Cards of Grief, Briar Rose, short stories,
Vonda McIntyre Fireflood and other stories, Dreamsnake
Elizabeth A Lynn The Woman who Loved the Moon
C J Cherryh Faded Sun, Brothers of Earth, Heavy Time, the Morgaine series
Marian Zimmer Bradley Sword & Sorceress anthologies
Anne McCaffery The ship who sang, Pern series, Decision at Doona
Megan Lindholm Wolf Brother, Harpy’s Flight
Suzy McKee Charnas Walk to the Ends of the World, Motherlines
Nicola Griffith Bending the Landscape (as editor), Hild, Ammonite, Slow RIver
R A MacAvoy Tea with the Black Dragon
Kate Wilhelm The Infinity Box, Where late the sweet birds sing,
Classics:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman Herland, The Yellow Wallpaper
James Tiptree, Jr Houston, Houston do you read? (short story) Her Smoke Went Up for Ever
Naomi Mitchison Memoirs of a Space Woman
Vera Chapman Three Damosels
Zenna Henderson The Anything Box
More recent:
Naomi Novik Temeraire series
Emily St John Mandel: Station Eleven
Aimee Bender The Colour Master (short stories)
Kate Atkinson Not the End of the World, Life After Life
Women writers of SF/Fantasy published by Arachne Press
Alex Smith Devilskein & Dearlove
Cherry Potts Mosaic of Air, The Dowry Blade
Ghillian Potts The Naming of Brook Storyteller series
Anthologies: (stories with SF/F flavour by women, there is SF/F by men, and stories with nothing to do with either SF or fantasy in most of them!)
Weird Lies (Alex Smith, Angela Trevithick, C T Kingston,Ellen O ‘Neill, Maria Kyle, Peng Shepherd, Rebecca J Payne) winner of Saboteur2014 best anthology award
Lovers’ Lies (Mi L Holliday, Michelle Shine)
We/She (J A Hopper, Joanne L M Williams, Jennifer Rickard, Elizabeth Hopkinson, Ilora Choudhury, Katy Darby)
Five by Five (Katy Darby, Helen Morris)
Solstice Shorts (Helen Morris, Imogen Robertson, Cindy George, Jayne Pickering)
Shortest Day, Longest Night (Polly Hall, Katy Darby,Pippa Gladhill, Karen Bovenmyer, Cherry Potts, Frances Gapper)
Dusk (Pippa Gladhill, Penny Pepper, Fiona Salter, Helen Slavin,Katy Lee)
Liberty Tales (Katy Darby, Cherry Potts, Sarah Evans)
Stations (Cherry Potts, Caroline Hardman)
Here is the traditional ‘the books have arrived!’ shot for Wolftalker, by Ghillian Potts.
Another gorgeous cover from Gordy Wright, and another great printing job from TJ International.
This is the third and final installment of The Naming of Brook Storyteller, and Brook (Brat-Spellbinder-Dragonfriend-Wolftalker) has taken on an apprentice, Cricket; but deadly plots are all around and it takes all her cleverness and resilience to get to the bottom of it all, with a lot of help from Cricket, and her ‘cousin’, the wolf, Drinks-the-Wind.
In the shops from 7th June (the day after Ghillian’s 85th Birthday).
Launch party still in negotiation but I will be able to reveal soon, I hope!
