The Gothic Imagination

I have an amazing best friend who decided to whisk me off to The British Library today to see the exhibition  Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination.

 Dracula, you seductive, beckoning rouge, you.
Also, really need to find the belt that goes with this coat.

Oh, and for the shop, she was very keen on visiting the gift shop. There were moments where I wondered if she was more interested in this than the actual exhibition items. Myself, I could not stop smiling like a child at Disneyland.

I can't say I was terrified, but I did feel the wonder.

Genuine, Victorian, vampire, slaying, kit. 

While I definitely have known for a long time that I like gothic literature and film I didn't realise quite how much until today. It was a bit like a tour of my dream book collection, and I owned or had read (I'm including audiobooks) a great deal of the books on show. Others, I was aware of from my degree, I had written essays on these books...and the illustrations...the play posters, the clip of Neil Gaiman which I pointed out and was told by my friend, immediately;

'Will you stop talking about Neil Gaiman.'

'But, but I love Neil Gaiman.'

'You do not love Neil Gaiman, you have never met Neil Gaiman.'

'I love his books.'

Which to me, might as well be the same thing.

I might have done a bit of a dance when I saw these and A Series of Unfortunate Events in the same display cabinet, which is a bit strange, as I don't do this when I see them together on my bookshelves. 

I was the only person taking photographs, I checked very carefully for signs which might forbid this, but there were no signs. I'm just a huge book geek.

Okay, so more than just a book geek, there were film posters, too. I spent a lot of my childhood watching black and white monster movies. I have a deep appreciation for Hammer Horror, and women in white nightdresses running screaming into the night, for all my beliefs in feminism. When first getting to know with my best friend I explained how as a child I wanted to be Claudette from the film An Interview with the Vampire, or Wednesday Adams (who I dressed as a few times for Halloween). One of the reasons we are such good friends is that she did not find this odd.

My cousins and I used to come up with plays based on horror and scifi movies. Often, they'd involve werewolves. My cousin Bryony was big on werewolves, and had an imaginary friend who was one, and who lived in her wardrobe, and under her bed (he eat the unfriendly monsters). Like me, she is dyslexic, and we'd force our creative vision for a werewolf musical onto our non-dyslexic siblings.

The Book of Werewolves

I recall making an old tissue box into a werewolf muzzel for Bryony to wear when she transformed, or when my grandmother's dog was not up to the challenge of a dance number. Heather, the youngest, who I am sure didn't understand what was going on, used to dress up in my grandmother's old white nightdress, cover her face in her old lipstick (because she was too young to be able to just put in on her lips), and then Bryony and I would say she had to put ketchup on her hands and rub them on my grandparent's summer house, which she was hesitant to do, even though it was for art.

Eventually, I saved up for a video camera, and we started playing games were we ran a film company, called, 'Me, Bryony, Heather, and You,' the you being my brother Alex, and the me being, well, me.

We made our own posters, wrote scripts (which we never followed), designed costumes (that we couldn't make), and had a wonderful time running about in the local woods, screaming and giggling.

Bryony said she wanted to be a horror movie director when she grew up, I wanted to write books were terrible, supernatural things, happened.

I'm the one at the back, with the stick.

Sadly, the only surviving relics of our exploits are from our radio wing (we decided to try to record a fake radio show so convincing we could put it on and our parents would think it was real. - It didn't work, although it does include Heather discribing a make up you rub on both your face and arms, after screaming she was old enough to make up a commercial), and the unfinished future cult classic, Killer Pound Monster; which my dvd cover tells me is 'never coming to a cinema near you,' and that it is the winner of  9 'acedemie' awards.

All the film posters brought back the most wonderful memories of these times together, as well as with my mother.

So many incredible things are happening in this poster.

My mother's bedtime stories were often re-tellings of films based on Stephen King novels.

My favorite bed time reads to listen to were the origional Brother's Grimm and Hans Christan Anderson tales, which other students in my Victorian literature module at university found quite strange, especially when I said, 'when I was young the original Little Mermaid was my favorite, where she feels knives in her feet when she walks and commits suicide at the end, but it's sort of a happy ending because she doesn't murder anyone, and God grants her a soul.'

Let's not get into The Book of Gypsy Folk Tales, where there are devils living in trees, and werewolf princesses (arguably, the best sort of princess).

I love everything about this poster, especially that my guide to the exhibit opens out into it.

Perhaps I sound quite ghoulish, but this background in gothic stories, horror, scifi, fantasy...they have made me who I am, and I rather like who I am. They are part of why I love books so much, stories, generally.

To this day, the greatest peice of writing criticism/praise I have ever had is from an ex-creative writing tutor who said;

'You don't read Stephen King do you? Because you write a lot like him.'

She was relived when I said I had not. I had been forbidden to read his books, once I learnt to read and I was reading everything I could find. My mother only read books by Stephen King and regency romances. I was banned from reading his books because of the swearing, I knew most of the plots.

I didn't tell her that.

If you are after some dark and delightful reads for Halloween my recommended audiobooks for October are out via The Codpast, in both audio and written form.

Terror and Wonder; The Gothic Imagination will run until 20th Jan 2015, at The British Library. 

The Codpast Reviews

In addition to the dyslexia event I have been working on (and that I have been losing sleep over - what if not enough people come, or more people than I thought? What if I let everyone down? I must take more caffeine and manically publicize it EVERYWHERE, I must list all the places where I am doing this, oh I really do need to sleep, it's happening and I can't help it), I've been writing some reviews for a dyslexia podcast, called The Codpast.

The Codpast has a blog, too, and it's really inspiring. When I heard about it I had to ask if I could get involved. It seemed super creative and talented Sean Douglas, who is The Codpast's chief dyslexic, had a similar idea. We began hatching a plan to come up with something I could do to add to the Codpast, while also contributing to my goal of doing things for dyslexics involving literacy.

We came up with these reviews. They are a bit different to what I'd normally do as they are specifically for audiobooks, but still with a dyslexic focus. Oh, and I have recorded myself saying them.

This, was not as easy as I originally planned.

I was going to just write a blog, but I thought with modern technology, (specifically the free audio recording and editing program Audacity), I could arrange it so the reviews were recorded. I thought this would be great, as they were for people who liked taking information in via listening instead of reading words off a page.

I'd used Audacity to record audio to add audio to the Dysbooks website (which desperately needs updating, oh where does all my time go, or right, on things like this blog), this worked fine. I'd also listened to my boyfriend record loads of things using it. I thought it'd be quick and easy.

And so the battle between myself and my boyfriend's laptop began. I couldn't use mine because I don't have the right ports for the headset I was using. His laptop is old, but it is compatible, however, the age of the laptop might have been the key issue. I couldn't get the program to open, then to record properly, initially at all, and then I couldn't get it to stop. There was a point where the laptop just blue screened, and I lost everything I had been working on.

Yet, I believed in my goal. I finally got a full recording, saved it, and got it sent off to Sean. He did some magical things with it and sent me back an edited version, complete with music, and other much needed embellishments. However, the audio quality of the mic I'd used wasn't great, to put it mildly. This became really apparent when edited together with cleaner and sharper audio.

Human, what are you doing? 

Sean asked me about how I had recorded the reviews, and made a suggestion; That I record the audio using my phone while under a duvet. That was what I did, much to the bemusement of my cat, who didn't seem to understand why I was saying the same thing in as close to the same way as possible over and over into my phone, while apparently hiding under the bedclothes.

It was hard to listen to the audio on my phone so I sent copies to my laptop. Which was when I discovered that while they were much clearer and crisper then the other recordings there was electronic interference in all of them from some unknown device.

This time I have had a go at editing together two different audio files using Audacity on my laptop, and sent them off to Sean, I am hoping I have finally, finally got something that will be suitable for The Codpast.

Phew...this reviewing thing is hard work.

If you haven't already, follow The Codpast on twitter and like it on facebook, you wont be disappointed. 

Dyslexics in the Bookshop

Okay, so I was trying to hold off telling everyone about this until I was able to get a blog up, but I just couldn't help myself. If you follow dysbooks on facebook or twitter, chances are you'll already be aware of what I have planned.

Essentially, it's a party in a bookshop, tied into Dyslexia Awareness Week. - This is what it sounds like, a week were people involved with dyslexia try to spread more accurate information and awareness about what dyslexia actually is, and how it affects real people. It runs from the 3rd November to the 9th November.

It's pretty cool, and there are lots of great events planned for this year. I'm going to make a list of events to share with everyone about all the great things everyone has scheduled, so do let me know if you have an event of your own you'd like me to include.

For now, though, a bit about mine, and how I ended up deciding to put something together.

This November a book I have helped to edit for specialist publisher RASP is coming out. It's an anthology of writing by dyslexic authors. One of my short stories will be in it. This, is super exciting. It will be launched on Saturday 8th November at The International Festival of Dyslexic Culture. However, I can't make it, which is a huge shame as I'd love to be there and to have the chance to congratulate the other authors, and everyone else involved in the book's creation.

I've also wanted to meet dyslexic author Rod Duncan for years. I've only ever communicated with him via the internet, but he's a very nice chap and I consider him a friend. He even helped me out with issues I had when studying at University, where he very kindly looked over a piece of work my tutor had termed 'ungradable,' and gave some invaluable feedback (it turned out it could, in fact, be graded and I ended up doing quite well). I think this is a remarkable thing for a professional writer to offer to do, although please don't now go flooding Rod with requests for help with your work. He's busy writing the next book in a series I am reading, and I'd rather he wasn't too distracted from writing it; Otherwise, I might have to wait longer to get a copy.

His latest book, The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter came out not that long ago, and not only is it a great read, I think it has a fabulous cover, which perfectly reflects the book itself (this is one of the books featured in dysbooks soon-to-be-uploaded video reviews).

He's actually in my part of the country for the weekend part of  Dyslexia Awareness Week, and I said if he was ever down my way I'd see if I could do an event for him in the little bookshop I work at.

It all just seemed to fit together perfectly.

I couldn't find anything linked to Dyslexia Awareness Week scheduled for Sunday 9th November, and Sundays tend to be great days to pitch events to the bookshop I work at, as Sundays tend to be a bit quieter, so staff have more time to focus on this sort of thing without it causing disruption to the day to day operations of the store.

I began getting some ideas together for other fun things to tie into the event, and had loads of offers of support and helpful comments as I mentioned my idea to people. One person I spoke to about it told me they had a dyslexic niece, which I had never known before, and they said they thought a celebration like the one I had planned, in a bookshop, with dyslexic writers, sounded incredibly powerful. They said there was something about dyslexics being together in a bookshop, publicly talking about success related to literacy, that really challenged stigma and misinformation, and that could provide hope and inspiration to others.

I thought about my childhood self, and my teenage self, and the adult me, what attending an event like this would have meant at these different points in my life.

Yeah, I thought, yeah, that's what I want this event to do. I want this to be a fun, and really inclusive event, a general celebration of dyslexics who write, for fun or professionally, where kids with dyslexia and their parents can come along, and stand side to side with dyslexic adults, and non-dyslexics, too. One of the things I wrote in my 'Editor's Note' for the anthology was about how dyslexic people didn't have many platforms to use to tell their stories, and I hope this event will be another platform. It's not about preaching, not at all, it's about sharing something of value with others, perhaps those who need it most.

I hope to see you there, and to share my story with you. To celebrate breaking down barriers to mutual understanding, and to provide something different for people to enjoy, and think about.

You can find out more about the Dyslexics in the Bookshop event and register you attendance here.

Dysbooks Filming

I have been wanting to film some book reviews for a long time. I have stacks of books I have read  waiting for this treatment, but I got busy with editing The Book, which is launched this November at The Festival of Dyslexic Culture. - Which sounds awesome, and a bit posh. I suppose it's the culture part, it brings images to mind of people sipping tea, all these non-conformist dyslexics, maybe one with a punk-pink Mohawk?

I don't know, that thought just amuses me. I like tea out of fancy cups, so why not?

I doubt there will be any tea drinking at the festival, but I like the idea of some sort of dyslexia and afternoon tea combination. I think it would be a wonderful way to spend time and to get to know fellow dyslexics, and if no one showed up, well, more cucumber sandwiches and scones for me.

I'm honestly tempted to pitch that to the London Meet Up Group  for dyslexics (is it two groups now, three?) that I hang about on the fringes of, I haven't been in so long, for a while I couldn't afford the travel into London, and then I was so busy...not just with the book. Now I'm settled again and some how all the pieces that were up in the air seem to have fallen down in the right places.

Life is strange like that. It can randomly do things to you to mess you up, and then as if it's flipped a coin, it can as easily come out alright. But I'm woffling, I'm meant to be telling you about the filming, which took place earlier in the week.

We decided the set would be my conservatory (by which I mean myself and my lovely friend Laura), There's a white wall in there that seemed a sensible backdrop, and I'd written up the reviews and used a sand timer to check the length. I was working all weekend, so I was tired, and had no time to properly learn what I had written, so I wasn't sure how well I was going to do.

Laura has some very fancy filming equipment, and I was also worried I or my cat would end up breaking something delicate, or valuable, most likely both. We shut the cat out and I gathered together the books I was going to be using. I have so many books, and because I have to organise them at work I do my own randomised thing at home, so finding them all was not as easy as it should have been. Luckily, I'd vaguely themed them by subject or genre.

I carfully set up a little pile of titles behind where I was going to sit so they would be in the shot, including two by dyslexic writer Blake Charlton (who is awesomely inspiring, and not just because he's a bestselling author). I didn't think I was going to have time to do a review of his books, but I liked the idea of them being there. I wanted to get a teapot in the shot, too, but Laura laughed, and said it looked like it was coming out of my head, so that got shifted out of the way rather quickly.

I was temped to dress up for the first review, which is of The Bullet-Catchers Daughter, by dyslexic writer Rod Duncan. I'd found a look already, but it seemed a lot of work considering most of the outfit wouldn't be seen in the shot, and I had to wear a little clip on microphone, like a newsreader, and I wasn't sure how that would work with the corset.

Looking into the camera was really intimidating, and then there was a directional microphone sitting on top of that, which looked a bit like a gun, and a free standing light which made me blink. I felt like I was about to make a total fool of myself in front of Laura. I swiftly re-read my review; out-loud as I remember things I hear better than things I just read. I have an odd way of getting lines or speeches to stick if I say them to myself, or hear someone else say them. This has never made sense to me as my short term memory is incredibly bad, and I often forget what people say right after they've said it.

This worked, and I said the whole thing back to myself while Laura was out of the room for a moment. When she returned, up went the little filming clipboard in front of the camera, when it went down I started talking; and messed up almost right away. I apologised, we started over, I messed up again without getting any further. I was starting to wonder how much of Laura's time I was going to waste. Then she suggested I count to five before I went into the review, and I got almost all the way to the end without making a mistake or loosing the words. She said if I messed up again to keep going as she could cut certain mistakes out in editing. Moments later we were done, and I was able to watch myself back.

The huge pauses I'd imagined weren't that huge, though I sounded very posh and British to my own ears. I wasn't sure I liked my teeth, and my hair was too long, but I thought the review was at least semi-coherent.

We moved on to the next one, which is aimed at parents of dyslexic kids, and going to cover several books on dyslexia which I think are especially helpful. Knowing I was judging myself too harshly helped, and I was able to launch into the review with only a few odd stutters, or moments when I wondered about the gibberish coming out of my mouth. I had to start a section over, but it came out pretty well, we watched that back and that was it, done.

I really hope people like the reviews, and find them helpful, but even if nothing else comes of it, I really enjoyed seeing Laura and working on something creative with her again, like we used to back when we were in school.

It was worth it just for that.