We’re pleased to announce that we will be at Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival on Tuesday 17 May with a panel event based on Where We Find Ourselves: Poems and Stories of Maps and Mapping from UK Writers of the Global Majority.
Join us at Clapham Library for readings and a Q & A discussion with:
From first meeting through call out and chosing the stories, to collaborative working. if you’ve ever wondered what getting your book published is like this is for you – though whether it’s typical is another matter.
Editors Kam Rehal, Rosamund Davies and Cherry Potts will be discussing putting together Story Cities, from initial idea, through first meeting, call out, story decisions, design issues and even printing!
If you’ve ever wondered what goes into making a book, this is for you. If you just like the sound of this particular book, we will in the course of our discussion illustrate with readings.
May 18th at 7pm Manor House Library
34 Old Road
SE13 5SY
as part of the Hither Green Festival
FREE
Meet Arachne Press authors Cherry Potts and Katy Darby for a chat about Science Fiction and Fantasy written by women, and their own writing.
The evening will include readings and an opportunity to buy books and ask questions (PLEASE ask questions!), and Katy and Cherry will talk about their favourite women SF/F writers and what got them started on writing speculative fiction. Cherry will also talk about her mother, Ghillian Potts’ young adult fantasy series The Naming of Brook Storyteller the final book of which, Wolftalker is published in early June. we have pre-publication copies, and will bring other books for you to buy. There may even be some giveaways.
As there’s nothing particular for Tom to read as we normally would do, we are launching with an exhibition at
The Heritage Gallery
Queen Anne Court,
University Greenwich,
Royal Naval College, Park Row
SE10 9LS
(It is a little tricky to find, but it’s the block opposite the CHAPEL going towards the river, on your left as you come from Cutty Sark, then, inside the arched bit shown here you turn left)
Nearest station Cutty Sark (DLR) or Greenwich (Southern); loads of buses.
The University Gallery Manager, Alumni Office, IT staff, LGBT Staff Network, and Students’ Union LGBT group have all been amazingly generous with time and space and organisation and have got involved in the project with enthusiasm. We are very grateful!
The exhibition will be open Monday 10th October 10-4, and Tuesday 11th (Coming Out Day) to Friday 14th 10-5. Everybody welcome, and we are encouraging school parties, so if that might apply to you get in touch!
The launch party and private view is invitation only – Contributors, Arachne Friends and Funders – you will be invited automatically; apologies to everyone else, but do please come to the exhibition, or the other events around the launch – which are…
Tuesday 11th (Coming out Day) and Thursday 13th: Outcome photographer, Tom, will be hosting pop-up studio days if you would like to be part of Outcome. If you are LGBT and would like to be photographed do get in touch to suggest a time. Each person will get 20 minutes – so please come ready to be photographed and ideally with a copy of a clear childhood photo of you) before the age of 15, and by yourself please. Book your slot by contacting Tom: @OutcomeLGBT – or tom_dingley@hotmail.co.uk
Wednesday 12th 1-2pm a free public Q&A panel about coming out featuring contributors to the project and the Students’ Union LGBT group (we haven’t finalised who yet). We think there will be tea and biscuits after. There are other events just for staff and students.
The book will be on sale throughout the week in the Gallery (whenever we are there, which will be most of the time) and at Greenwich Waterstones, next to Cutty Sark Station. You can of course also buy it from us via our web shop
We have a little cluster of poets in the South West, and we like to give everyone an opportunity to get out and read their work, so this year we asked the lovely people at Swindon Poetry Festival if we could come and read with them, and they said, of course! We’ve managed to persuade a couple of poets from further afield to join us, and we are going to have a lovely time, and hope you will come along and enjoy it too.
SUNDAY 4/10/15 3pm to 4:30pm
Central Library Regent Circus, Swindon SN1 1QG
Cherry Potts presents: The Other Side of Sleep
Following a short discussion between the poets, the editor, and the audience on what makes a narrative poem, some of the contributors to The Other Side of Sleep will read their work. Each tells a story – sometimes in a straightforward purposeful way, sometimes in a roundabout way, but somewhere there is a thread of narrative woven through. Narrative, but by no means traditional poems, by contemporary voices Kate Foley, Bernie Howley, Elinor Brooks, Jeremy Dixon and Jill Sharp. Kate will also be reading part of the title (narrative) poem from her VERY SOON to be published collection, The Don’t Touch Garden.
Thursday 14th to Monday 18th August, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention – LonCon 3 at ExCel London Docklands.
Arachne Press founder and author Cherry Potts is on two panels,
Liechester Square: Getting London Wrong
Thursday 14th August 19:00 – 20:00, Capital Suite 9 (ExCeL)
If there’s one thing you can guarantee about the reaction to any piece of SF set in London, it’s that British fans will delight in nit-picking the details: you can’t get there on the Piccadilly Line! So who are the worst offenders? Whose commodified Londons do we forgive for the sake of other virtues in their writing? Do we complain as much about cultural errors as geographic ones, and if not, why not? And given London’s status as a global city, is it even fair to claim ownership of its literary representation?
Alison Scott (Moderator), Leah-Nani Alconcel, Cherry Potts, Mike Shevdon, Russell Smith
We Can Rebuild You
Sunday 17th August 10:00 – 11:00, London Suite 2 (ExCeL)
SF medicine regularly comes up with “cures” for disabled bodies — from Geordi LaForge’s visor to the transfer of Jake Sully’s consciousness in Avatar — but the implications of such interventions are not always thought through as fully as we might hope. How does a rhetoric of medical breakthroughs and scientific progress shape these stories, and shape SF’s representation of lived physical difference? In what ways can SF narratives address dis/ability without either minimising or exaggerating such difference?
Cherry Potts (Moderator), Neil Clarke, Tore Høie, Helen McCarthy, Marieke Nijkamp
Saturday: It’s sunny in Faversham, and the peaceful rather lovely market town is doing it’s thing, having a market, (excellent russian street food) and round the corner in the Alexander Centre there are writers and publishers at TLW LEXiCON talking about writing and publishing and marketing and … making friends, reading their work (aloud! Including Arachne Authors Katy Darby and Bartle Sawbridge) selling books and generally having a good time.
Bartle Sawbridge reading at LEXiCON
Katy Darby reading at LEXiCON
Sunday: we’re still here, doing the writery stuff. So if you live in North Kent, or even South East London, it’s a lovely day, come down to Faversham, enjoy the pubs and cafes, walk along the creek and drop into the Alexander Centre to meet the lovely people. We’re talking about writing across genres at 10, and Cherry Potts is reading a story of YOUR choice (so long as she wrote it, and you are there to ask) at around 12 (the schedule has been a little fluid).