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I had a marvellous time taking part in a panel event at the Edinburgh International Science Festival. There were so many interesting things going on, a great deal to see and hear. I was invited to talk on a panel discussing ‘Early Automata, Artificial Intelligence and Frankenstein’. After giving our individual talks, the panellists enjoyed…
It was an honour and an all-round wonderful experience to be asked to judge the Dead Romantic Interviews writing competition for Edge Hill University’s Romantic Lives Conference. There were a lot of terrific entries and it was difficult to choose a winner. You can read the winning entries here. To kick-start the competition, I wrote…
It was a privilege and great fun to be interviewed by French director Jean-Baptiste Péretié for his upcoming documentary about Frankenstein. Jean-Baptiste, whose other films include La Revanche des Geeks, La Galerie France, and Moi, Candidat, wanted the interview to have a gothic vibe. Luckily, my husband John’s photographic studio was near at hand, replete…
I had a lovely time at Waterstones in Lancaster last week reading from my work alongside the wonderful Zoe Lambert, author of The War Tour. Zoe read a riveting and thought-provoking story ’33 Bullets’, in which “a Kurdish academic flees persecution and while imprisoned in a UK detention centre still tries to write an article…
Gothic Tales & Twitter Stories The lovely Naomi Kruger and Yvonne Battle-Felton of the Northwest Literary Salon have invited me to give a reading at their next event, which will take place at 7pm on the 4th of September in Waterstones in Lancaster. Naomi and Yvonne will introduce readings from myself and novelist Paul McVeigh. Paul will be…
Many thanks to editor Finn Jackson for asking me to write a feature article for the latest issue of Cake Magazine. When she wrote to me to say that the subject for Cake 7 was the body (human, animal, monster), “how we celebrate it, dissect it, wonder and rage at it”, I was intrigued straight away, but it was…
I’m really looking forward to visiting Lancaster next week to talk about The Monster’s Wife and catch up with old friends. So if you happen to be in County Main next Wednesday at 4pm feeling at a loose end, it would be lovely to see you there! “Our former Creative Writing MA student, Dr Kate Horsley,…
I’ve recently had another chance to collaborate with artist Vineta Gailite. Vineta’s hand-made dolls, sculptures and shadow puppet theatre work, Imaginary Islands, are beautiful, eery and full of atmosphere. I love the way each of her pieces tells a story or draws on one. For our last project together, I commissioned Vineta to make some special puppets and…
I was so thrilled when my publisher at Barbican Press, Martin Goodman, called to tell me I’d been shortlisted for the Scottish First Book of the Year (Saltire) Award. I travelled to Hoy and wrote The Monster’s Wife out of my fascination with Shelley’s novel, with Orkney as place and because of my sense of the developing…
I had a lot of fun going in the little Tardis space-booth at Manchester’s Media City and doing this radio interview with Good Morning Scotland about The Monster’s Wife and the Scottish first book of the year award. My bit starts at 2:42 or so. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lssz2