History at Bath Festival

Some details about events at this year’s Bath Festival have been released. There are a couple of interesting history talks.

On Monday May 21st David Olosuga will be talking about his book, Black and British: A Forgotten History. I’ve just watched episode 3 of his A House Through Time series on the BBC and continue to be impressed by his skill has a public historian. There ought to be a Fringe event on that date, but I am not certain yet whether that will happen, and if it does whether I will be involved in any way.

On Saturday May 26th Emily Wilson will be talking about her new translation of The Odyssey. It is the first ever translation of the Homerian epic by a woman, and it has been garnering a lot of praise for its fresh and innovative approach. I saw a post yesterday on Twitter where Wilson was talking about her work and noted, quite reasonably, that she decided not to read any other translations as guides. She worked directly from the original Greek. Then, to her surprise, she started seeing reviews mentioning how her presentation of the female characters was much more positive than in any of the translations by men. Gee, I wonder how that could have happened? This is a book I really want to read, and hopefully I will get to see Wilson talk about it.

Diversity Works

One of the most obvious arguments for diversity is that if the top people in any given field are almost all straight white men then we must be missing out on talent from other segments of the population. Those who support the status quo will, of course, argue that straight white men are just vastly more talented than anyone else, and thus naturally end up on top in a perfectly functioning free market. The rest of of laugh at their hubris.

But can we prove them wrong? If we do go out and look for more diverse talent, do we get better results? Well, this year, thanks to being on the Tiptree Jury, I have been doing a lot more reading than usual. Probably more than I have done since I stopped doing Emerald City. Back then I would see a lot of talented writers coming through, but most of them would be straight white men. This time around I have read five very impressive debut books by women of color, plus two impressive novellas by a non-binary person of color. I can’t say much more than that because they are all being considered by the Jury (and the fact that they are great books does not necessarily make them great books about gender), but I think all of these books are worth your attention in one way or another.

  • The Tiger’s Daughter – K. Arsenault Rivera
  • Her Body and Other Parties – Carmen Maria Machado
  • An Unkindness of Ghosts – Rivers Solomon
  • An Excess Male – Maggie Shen King
  • The City of Brass – S A Chakraborty
  • The Red Threads of Fortune & The Black Tides of Heaven – J Y Yang

Launching the Horror

This evening I was in Bristol to attend the launch of The Hotwells Horror, the anthology that has been put together by local writers in honor of David J. Rodger. I’m delighted to report that it was very well attended. Pete Sutton, who edited the book, tells me that he sold 43 copies all told, which is good going for a launch.

All of the proceeds from the book are being donated to Mind, the mental health charity. You are unlikely to find it in shops, but it is available from Amazon (Kindle only at the moment but hopefully paper to follow).

Jo Hall has reviewed the book here. She was very kind about my story, so I thought I should say a little more about it.

It is set in New York in the 1920s during Prohibition. All of the named characters in the story are real with the possible exception of Nyarlathotep.

One of those characters is Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

There is some wild sex, but it happens off camera.

There are Nightgaunts, and they do what Nightgaunts do.


Art by Michael Whelan

Ujima Today – Review of 2017

My first Ujima show of the year was today, which was also the first day we were back live on air after the holidays. Indeed, I was the first live show. I marked this by being half asleep as I had been kept awake most of last night by the storms. I do wish that the Jotun would manage to hold their New Year parties on the right night.

Anyway, as I didn’t expect that anyone would want to be a guest today, and there were no back office staff on duty, I decided to make the show a look back at 2017 and re-run some old interviews.

First up was the Sarah Pinborough interview from BristolCon 2016, which was totally 2017 news because last year was the year that Sarah changed from being a moderately successful writer of dark fantasy to a global superstar. Behind Her Eyes has sold over 100,000 copies each in paperback and ebook, and has been listed as one of the 100 top selling books of all kinds in the UK last year. Well done Sarah, I’m absolutely delighted for you. Can I come and stay with you when you buy your Caribbean island? 😉

Also in the first hour I re-ran my interview with D.B. Redfern of M-Shed about Doris the Pilosaurus, because there are still parents wondering what to do with the kids between now and school starting.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

The second hour began with a look back on the women’s cricket season with triumphs both for England and for Western Storm. That included interviews with Lisa Pagett and Stafanie Taylor.

Next up I re-ran my interview with anti-FGM campaigner and WEP parliamentary candidate, Nimco Ali.

And finally there was my interview with Nalo Hopkinson at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki.

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

The music for today’s show was inspired partly by the New Year’s Eve shows on the BBC, and partly by the trip that Kevin and I made to New Orleans back in the days when I was allowed into the USA. The connection is the very fine Trombone Shorty & New Orleans Avenue who are this year’s discovery from my watching the Jools Holland Hootenanny.

  • The Beat – Mirror in the Bathroom
  • Trombone Shorty – Here Come the Girls
  • Cedric Watson – Zydeco Paradise
  • Preservation Hall Jazz Band – When the Saints Come Marching In
  • Jamil Sharif – On the Sunny Side of the Street
  • Chic – Rebels Are We
  • Liane la Havas – Midnight
  • Jamiroquai – Blow your mind

My next show will be on February 7th and will doubtless have an LGBT History focus.

The Hotwells Horror

Well, today seems to be a day for book announcements.

The Hotwells Horror is an anthology put together by my friend Pete Sutton in honor of local writer, David J Rodger who sadly took his own life in 2015. The book is named after one of David’s own stories and features contributions from a number of authors who knew David, including me.

There is a launch party planned for Saturday Jan. 13th. The venue hasn’t been confirmed yet. I have to be in Bath that afternoon, but as the event is scheduled to run until 19:00 I hope to make it to Bristol before the end.

All proceeds from sale of the book will be devoted to Mind, the mental health charity. This delights me as they have been very supportive of trans people over the past year.

In case anyone is interested, my story is set in New York in the 1920s and is told from the point of view of a Mrs. Sonia Greene. There may be hideous creatures from beyond the stars too.

And if you want to know a little bit more about David work, he did a reading at BristolCon Fringe back in 2014.

The Green Man is Coming

Well, technically his heir.

Juliet McKenna mentioned on her blog today that she has a brand new novel scheduled for this year. It will be called The Green Man’s Heir, and Juliet describes it as, “a modern fantasy, drawing on the folklore of the British Isles, and prompted by looking at urban fantasy from a few different angles.” I am delighted that Wizard’s Tower will be publishing it.

Obviously McKenna fans out there will be asking, “when will it be available?” Well I have done the ebook (subject to proofing by Juliet and a few little things that need adding). The paper version will take a bit longer because there’s a whole lot more involved in producing a paper book. Once Juliet and I have a timeline in place we’ll let you know.

Up On the Aqueduct

It is that time of year when the Aqueduct Press blog blossoms with posts from Aquedistas talking about things that they have enjoyed reading, seeing and hearing over the past year. Today it is my turn. Obviously I can’t talk much about fiction because of the Tiptree judging, but I still managed to go on rather a lot. You can read my post here.

Yesterday on Ujima – Punching Nazis, Ending Violence, Mental Health

Yesterday’s radio show began with an interview with Jonathan L. Howard whose latest Carter & Lovecraft book, After the End of the World, sees our heroes transported into a world in which the Nazis won WWII. We discussed how miraculously on point such a book appears these days, and the fabulous Crisis in Earth-X crossover event which sees Supergirl, Flash, Green Arrow and friends doing their own Nazi-punching. Of course we also discussed HPL’s racism and Jonathan’s other projects, including a zombie computer game which might destroy parts of Bristol.

Next up I was joined in the studio by Charlotte Gage of Bristol Zero Tolerance. This is a great project run by Bristol Women’s Voice that aims to make the entire city free of violence against women and girls. Of course this is a bit of an uphill struggle, but at least progress is being made.

Unfortunately, thanks to the continuing squeeze on local council funding, the project (including Charlotte’s job) is currently under threat. There’s a crowdfunding campaign going on, which you can find here, but what Charlotte really needs is for some big company to step up and sponsor the project.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

Charlotte and I continued our discussion in the second hour. We talked about how hard it is these days for any charity to get the day-to-day funding it needs to keep operating. Funding bodies are always happy to sponsor one-off projects, but these typically exclude what is called “core funding”, the stuff that keeps your organization running, and often excludes any funding for staff salaries. Up until now charities have often been able to get core funding from local councils who need their expert skills, but this is all being cut. There’s a major crisis brewing here.

We also had a brief chat about trans-inclusive feminism and the difficulty of getting any sort of dialog going. There is so much going on in feminism right now with attacks on reproductive rights, the #MeToo campaign and so on. It is a huge shame that so much time and energy is being wasted on attempts to keep trans women out of feminism.

Finally on the show I talked to Levi, a young man from Bath who has been working on a project about men’s mental health. Suicide is apparently the number one killer of young men in the UK, and the theory is that much of this happens because men are socialized not to talk about their feelings, and so have no one to turn to when things get bad. I also think that one of the main cause of violence against women is that men are socialized to believe that violence is the only properly masculine way to solve any disagreement. So this is really valuable work that Levi is doing. What’s more it has resulted in a handbook being distributed to children’s mental health services all over the country. Here’s hoping the make good use of it.

Here’s the film he and his friends made:

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

The play list for the show was as follows:

  • Bat for Lashes – Two Planets
  • Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower
  • Tracy Chapman – Behind the Wall
  • Linda Ronstadt – You’re No Good
  • Renaissance – The Winter Tree
  • Isaac Hayes – Winter Snow
  • Labi Siffre – Sparrow in the Storm
  • Stevie Wonder – Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing

The Labi Siffre song dates from 2006 but is even more on point now. It contains this verse:

The message written on our walls
For the strong to climb : the weak must fall.
This is heresy I guess, but could the strong
perhaps learn to live with less.

Ben, my engineer, joked that I’d be mobbed on social media for playing such heretical views. It has all been quiet thus far, so maybe the world isn’t as far gone as we think.

My next show will be on January 3rd. As I doubt that I will get any guests then, it will probably just be me playing music and highlights from 2017. If anyone wants to do a pre-record interview let me know.

Tade Thompson Interview


As promised last week, I have dug out the interview with Tade Thompson that I did for Ujima and made the whole thing available on Salon Futura. We had a whole pile of issues with the Skype recording on this one so the sound quality is not good, but there is more here than I was able to broadcast on the show.

Tade’s novel, Rosewater has just become the first ever winner of the Best Novel prize in the Nommo Awards from the African Speculative Fiction Society. It seems like there should be a lot of renewed interest in the book, and in Tade’s other work, and that therefore I should share this podcast with you.

In the interview Tade talks about some of the ideas behind Rosewater, about his now released novella, The Murders of Molly Southbourne, and about writing a ghost story.

The 2017 Nommo Awards – Africa’s Finest

The Nommos are awards given out by the African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS). I’m delighted to see Africa, and the African diaspora, coming together like this. Many of the winners are unknown to me, as it should be. However, the top two awards went to Nigerians who live in the West. The novella prize went to Nnedi Okorafor for Binti. That will be no surprise to many people. And the novel prize went to Tade Thompson for Rosewater.

I’m not familiar with the other novel finalists, but I have read Rosewater and it is a fabulous book. What’s more, hot on the heels of of the award announcement came the news that Orbit has bought a trilogy from Tade, of which Rosewater is the first. I’m absolutely delighted.

Somewhere I have an interview with Tade about Rosewater that I broadcast part of on Ujima. I’ll dig it out and stick it on Salon Futura over the weekend.

Tade, mate, when are you coming to read at BristolCon Fringe?

M. John Harrison in Bath

Last night I took myself into Bath where M. John Harrison was reading from his latest collection, the wonderfully titled You Should Come With Me Now. The book is a mixture of short stories and flash fiction, and shows that Mike has lost none of his sentence-crafting skill, nor his biting wit.

The centerpiece of the reading was the magnificent “Psychoarchaeology”, inspired by the discovery of the (alleged) burial of Richard III under a car park. The story is a meditation on the heritage industry, and is both cutting and hilarious.

There’s always a rights issue. Where does the latest Tudor belong? Does he belong where he was found? Or whence he came? Who gets the brown sign? One wrong decision and York won’t talk to Leicester, the knives are out again after hundreds of years of peace. Contracts torn up, the industry at war with itself, we all know where that can lead: diminished footfall in the visitor centres. No one wants to see that.

Elsewhere there are some lovely flash pieces, including one in which the ruins of human civilization are discovered by aliens who can’t understand us because their means of data storage is completely unlike ours, though it is rather like jackdaws.

Mike, of course, loves deconstructing popular genre tropes. There are piss-takes of space opera in book, and of fantasy as well. One of the stories will appear in a much modified form in the Christmas Special edition of New Scientist. Mike describes it as, “a five volume fantasy trilogy in a thousand words.” If only he could be allowed to edit the new Amazon Middle Earth series.

I, though, am a novel reader at heart. Thus I am delighted to report that Mike is working on a new novel. He says it has fish people in it.

Fish. People.

I know what that brings to mind for me. These fish people, however, do not live on Devil’s Reef off the coast of rural Massachusetts. They live in Britain. Obviously they want to take over. Beyond that we know little. Perhaps they have taken over already. What else could explain Michael Gove?

Naturally the audience asked for recommendations. If Mike says that Hassan Blasim writes some of the best weird fiction around, then I am definitely going to give him a try.

Equally naturally, he can’t read everything. Mike, if you can’t remember the two books that I suggested to you they are: Amatka by Karin Tidbeck; and Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado.

Cat Out Of Bag

Yesterday Juliet McKenna did a blog post talking about how Ibsen might have intended Hedda Gabler to be black. I haven’t had a chance to follow up on that, though it does sound fascinating. However, at the bottom of the post she mentions a few other things she has been up to, including this:

We’re heading into the final stages of preparing The Green Man’s Heir for publication. This is a modern fantasy novel that will be coming soon from Wizard’s Tower Press.

So, er, yes. This is something that Juliet and I have been talking about for some time. I’ve been leaving her to get on with it at her own pace. I have no timeline for it as yet. When she’s ready, I will progress it through the publication process as fast as I can. As and when I am able to give dates I will do so. I’m very much looking forward to it.

Today on Ujima – Black History, Egyptians, Menopause & Underworld Goddesses

October is a ridiculously busy month in Bristol, being both Black History Month and the time when all of the literary festivals happen. As I had devoted all of my October show to books, I decided to do something for Black History Month at the start of November. I’d only be a few hours late, after all.

So I began the show talking to my good friend, Dr. Olivette Otele of Bath Spa University, who is probably the best known black historian working in the UK. We had a great chat about a whole range of issues to do with black history, including The John Blanke Project.

That was followed up with more black history, albeit with a fantasy twist, as I welcomed local author, Justin Newland, to talk about his novel, The Genes of Isis. Justin and I managed to wander onto all sorts of topics, including the Theosophists.

Normally at this point I would direct you to the Listen Again service, but for some reason the file for the first hour of the show is only 7 minutes long. I will check with the station tomorrow, but I have an awful feeling there has been a software glitch.

The second hour began with Dr. Isabel de Salis of Bristol University talking about the Great Menopause Event. Yes, this was more taboo-busting. I have a ticket for it, and will report back in due course.

Finally on the show I welcomed Deborah Ward who is running a course on Storytelling the Underworld. Deborah and I discovered a common passion for ancient goddesses, in particular Inanna. We may have geeked out somewhat.

Thankfully hour 2 of the show recorded correctly.

The playlist for the show was as follows:

  • Eddy Grant – African Kings
  • Cedric Watson & Bijou Créole – Le Sud de la Louisiane
  • The Bangles – Walk like an Egyptian
  • Peter Gabriel – Here comes the Flood
  • Lianne la Havas – Midnight
  • Little Feat – Old Folks Boogie
  • The Herd – From the Underworld
  • The Pretenders – Hymn to Her

Because November has five Wednesdays in it, I will be doing an extra show on the 15th. In the meantime, if you are local, check out Miranda’s 2:00pm Friday show when she will be interviewing the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.

Italy Part 3 – The G-Book Project

I’ll write more generally about the conference later, but right now I want to talk about a specific project that the MeTRa Center here is spearheading because I think that it is very important.

The G-Book Project is a joint initiative by academics and librarians in Italy, France, Spain, Ireland, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is funded by the Creative Europe Culture Programme. The project has three main objectives:

– To support the circulation of “gender-positive children’s literature” at the EU level;

– To stimulate and encourage local librarians to stock such books; and

– To raise awareness in local communities about the importance and benefits of such books.

What do they mean by “gender-positive”? Primarily they mean books which avoid harmful gender stereotypes of the “girls can only do these things, boys can only do those things” type, but instead are empowering for all children. That will include positive representation of LGBT+ people and relationships.

One of the outcomes of the project will be an online database of recommended books, split into two age groups of 3-5 and 6-10 years. Other outputs will hopefully include reviews, support material for teachers, parents, etc., and interactive aspects such as games and an interactive story.

Naturally part of the work will be to find suitable books to include. That may be more challenging in some of the target languages than others, but hopefully that will also spur translations. I will be pestering some of you about this over the next few weeks.

And yes, I know, Brexit stupidity means that there is no official UK involvement, but thanks to our Irish pals books in English are eligible.

What A Difference A Year Makes

Today I made my one appearance at this year’s Bristol Festival of Literature. It went very well. We were sold out (though it looked like around a third of the paid attendees didn’t turn up), and we had a great discussion. Thanks are due to the panel: Becky Walsh, Lucienne Boyce, Jean Burnett and Virginia Bergin. Thanks also to Helen Abbot of the Festival of Literature, Adela Straughan of Arnos Vale Cemetery, Laura Muñoz, the photographer, and Alistair Sims of Books on the Hill.

We did the usual thing of talking about female characters in books. I may have talked quite a bit about Amazons, including Diana of Themyscira. You know the drill. Viriginia, Lucienne and Jean all did their usual stuff too. Jean, by the way, is writing a novel featuring Artemisia Gentileschi, which I am very much looking forward to reading.

The main reason I am writing this post, however, is the nature of the audience questions. Last year the questions very much riffed off what we said in the panel. This year the audience was full of Angry Feminists who wanted to vent their dissatisfaction with the way of the world. I wish I had brought along some WEP membership forms.

That should give us something to talk about on Radio Bristol on Monday.

Today on Ujima – Art, Literature, Feminist SF and Vampires

Today’s show was full on culture, starting off with the fabulous Amy Powell from Bristol Art for All, an amazing organization that looks to provide cheap or free art courses that anyone can be involved in (even a total klutz like me).

Next up we had Amy Morse from the Bristol Festival of Literature previewing all of the fabulous events they have lined up for this year. The Festival is bookended by Bristol Horror Con (on Friday 13th, naturally) and by BristolCon (on the 28th). Of particular interest will be Stories of Strong Women – Unconventional Heroines on Friday October 20th. This features not only me, but also Lucienne Boyce, Virginia Bergin, Jean Burnett and Becky Walsh.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

Talking of Virginia, she was my guest for the third segment of the show. Most of the discussion focused on her latest novel, Who Runs the World, which is a YA take on the classic “world without men” trope.

And finally I welcomed Anna and Orla from the Food and Theatre Company who specialize in immersive dining events. In October they will be staging Loco Lost Boys in the tunnels beneath Temple Meads station, where the audience can enjoy a fine meal and hopefully avoid becoming a tasty snack for the local vampires.

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

It being Black History Month, I decided to have all of the music from amazing black women who are no longer with us. We did the whole gamut from Josephine Baker to Whitney Houston. Here’s the playlist:

  • Aretha Franklin – Respect
  • Josephine Baker – Blue Skies
  • Billie Holiday – These Foolish Things
  • Big Mamma Thornton – Let Your Tears Fall Baby
  • Bessie Smith – A Good Man is Hard to Find
  • Ella Fitzgerald – Everyone’s Wrong But Me
  • Memphis Minnie – Doctor Doctor Blues
  • Whitney Houston – Love Will Save the Day

On the subject of Ujima, we are running a fundraiser for disaster relief in Dominica tomorrow night at the Watershed. It is 10:00pm – 1:00am, so not the sort of time I can be in Bristol, but if you are around please consider dropping by.

Farah on Heinlein

For some time now Farah Mendlesohn has been working on a book about the work of Robert A. Heinlein. We have chatted about it occasionally, and I have been itching to read it. However, Heinlein produced a lot of work, and the resulting book was so long that Farah hasn’t been able to find an academic publisher willing to take it. Consequently she has decided to go through the crowdfunding publisher, Unbound. Farah needs to raise enough money to get Unbound to publish the book. Any excess raised is being shared between The Foundation for America’s Blood Centres and Con or Bust. You can support the project here.

Translation News from Italy

I have a press release from Apex announcing that they will be doing an English language edition of Francesco Verso’s novel, Nexhuman. The book has won a heap of awards in Italian, and was published in English a while back by an Australian small press. Much as I love my Aussie pals, having the book picked up by Apex is likely to get the book far more attention.

Anyone who spends any time at European conventions will know Francesco. He’s infectiously enthusiastic, and has done some great work bringing Chinese SF to Italy. I really hope this does well for him. He kindly gave me a copy of the book in Dortmund, but I have been drowning in Tiptree reading since them. However, Rachel Cordasco has a rave review over at Strange Horizons.

The translator of the book (whom Apex appear to have forgotten to mention) is Sally McCorry.

Last Week on Ujima – Crime, Cricket, Umbrellas & Protest

With profuse apologies for the day, here are the Listen Again links for last week’s show.

We started off with my friend Lucienne Boyce talking about her latest historical novel, Butcher’s Block. This is a new Dan Foster mystery novel, Dan being a Bow Street Runner and amateur pugilist. We got onto the subject of bodysnatchers, and thence onto the horrors of 18th century medicine. Inevitably, when Lucienne and I get together, we start talking about suffragettes as well. Not in the 18th century, of course, but next year is the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, which gave some British women the vote.

Next up was my report on the Kia Super League Finals Day, including interviews with Raf Nicholson of The Cricketer, and Stafanie Taylor, hero of the hour and captain of the West Indies women’s team.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

The second hour began with a pre-recorded, trans-Atlantic interview with Nancy 3 Hoffman, owner and curator of the world’s only umbrella cover museum. Nancy is packing the museum into suitcases and bringing on it’s holidays to Bristol for a couple of weeks.

Finally I welcomed Amirah and Cat from the Bristol People’s Assembly into the studio. They told me all about the big anti-austerity demonstration that was to take place in Bristol at the weekend. I see from the news reports that it drew some pretty big crowds. It is also the first time I can recall the mayor of a city calling a demonstration against his own policies. Marvin says he has no choice but to make cuts because of reductions in the money he gets from central government, and he wanted people in Westminster to know how angry the people of Bristol are about it all.

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

The playlist for the show was:

  • Thin Lizzy – Fight or Fall
  • Sade – Is it a Crime
  • Eurythmics – Sisters are Doing It for Themselves
  • Queen – We Are the Champions
  • DJ Bravo – Champion
  • Billy Holiday – Stormy Weather
  • Weather Girls – It’s Raining Men
  • UB40 – One in Ten
  • Bob Marley – Get Up, Stand Up