Gillian Polack's Blog, page 37
March 26, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-03-27T11:42:00
In a few hours I'll be back to normal. Last night I was so tired I couldn't move, which is why I sat by the computer, not actually managing anything. I was about to make myself very sick, by working in the mornings, and afternoons and evenings and late evenings and then wondering why I was tired. This morning is a mostly-in-bed morning, therefore, because it's a very long time since I've had one of those.
I already feel a lot better than I did last night. It wasn't just teaching and interstate conferences, it was also all these wonderful books coming out, and my research (which continues gently in the background, for both novel and my scholarly self), and WHM, and.. everything.
It's a very busy year. Someone asked me the other day "Do you think you can do the long hours expected of academics?" It made me wonder why she thought I wasn't doing long hours now. Just because one isn't paid for the hours, doesn't make them shorter.
What I've done today (since 'mostly' means 'doing some important stuff') includes debriefing myself from my course. My evaluations were good for the just-finished course. Most of them were top marks in all categories. Except every time I look at those 4/5s and think "What haven't I don't that I could have done?" In some cases, what the students want is impossible given the nature of the course, but still... so my debriefing is done and my course is analysed and the evaluations can go to the uni for the same thing over again.
One thing I'm discovering that I'm not so happy about, is that adult education students want manuals specifically for their course. They want to read about everything we're looking at in class beforehand (except the ones who just want to turn up and enjoy it). This is not actually a good thing, given the nature of my courses. My approach pushes people to think for themselves and to do their own research, I send them towards many places and give them them tools to analyse. Having a big handout with a "Thou shalt think this" at the beginning will actually impede learning. It would also mean writing small books for each subject, since I teach subjects that don't exist in the world of written textbooks. I'm not paid for teaching prep for my evening classes, so this might mean giving them up. Except I'm not sure manuals are a good thing in this kind of course.
I need to think about this. How do I meet both my view of my students' needs and their view? I totally understand the wish to know stuff before entering class, so as to get the most out of it, but I've noticed a cultural tendency in Australia to lean on the thoughts of others, and I want to combat that. I thought it was just one class, but it's the only consistent criticism given of my teaching over the last two years. I think it might be a wish to return to the safety of undergraduate reading packages. If they want that, then the whole model doesn't work, for that amount of reading is no longer funded by their fees. I'll think about it, and I'll take it up with my boss, for it might be the reason languages are more consistent in enrolments than other subjects: languages come with textbooks and reading packages.
I already feel a lot better than I did last night. It wasn't just teaching and interstate conferences, it was also all these wonderful books coming out, and my research (which continues gently in the background, for both novel and my scholarly self), and WHM, and.. everything.
It's a very busy year. Someone asked me the other day "Do you think you can do the long hours expected of academics?" It made me wonder why she thought I wasn't doing long hours now. Just because one isn't paid for the hours, doesn't make them shorter.
What I've done today (since 'mostly' means 'doing some important stuff') includes debriefing myself from my course. My evaluations were good for the just-finished course. Most of them were top marks in all categories. Except every time I look at those 4/5s and think "What haven't I don't that I could have done?" In some cases, what the students want is impossible given the nature of the course, but still... so my debriefing is done and my course is analysed and the evaluations can go to the uni for the same thing over again.
One thing I'm discovering that I'm not so happy about, is that adult education students want manuals specifically for their course. They want to read about everything we're looking at in class beforehand (except the ones who just want to turn up and enjoy it). This is not actually a good thing, given the nature of my courses. My approach pushes people to think for themselves and to do their own research, I send them towards many places and give them them tools to analyse. Having a big handout with a "Thou shalt think this" at the beginning will actually impede learning. It would also mean writing small books for each subject, since I teach subjects that don't exist in the world of written textbooks. I'm not paid for teaching prep for my evening classes, so this might mean giving them up. Except I'm not sure manuals are a good thing in this kind of course.
I need to think about this. How do I meet both my view of my students' needs and their view? I totally understand the wish to know stuff before entering class, so as to get the most out of it, but I've noticed a cultural tendency in Australia to lean on the thoughts of others, and I want to combat that. I thought it was just one class, but it's the only consistent criticism given of my teaching over the last two years. I think it might be a wish to return to the safety of undergraduate reading packages. If they want that, then the whole model doesn't work, for that amount of reading is no longer funded by their fees. I'll think about it, and I'll take it up with my boss, for it might be the reason languages are more consistent in enrolments than other subjects: languages come with textbooks and reading packages.
gillpolack @ 2015-03-26T23:16:00
For two hours I've been about to blog, including doing the WHM blogpost. The trouble is, I had my last food hsitory class tonight and everything's caught up with a rush. I don't normally travel to conferences during teaching time, and this is why. I'm off to sleep. I'll catch up in the morning!
March 25, 2015
Helen Lowe - Women's History Month
In The Case Of Big Life Decisions, Always Follow your Heart…
When Gillian invited me to post as part of Women’s History Month, her brief included the advice that all her guests would be writers and she wanted us to celebrate staying the course, focusing on either a part of our own lives or another woman’s. She did not specifically ask us to talk about writing but I thought, on first reading the email – and still think now – that there can be few careers or life decisions that test one’s ability to stay the course as surely as writing. So I decided that the slice of personal her-story that I will talk about today is my decision to pursue a writing career – which brings me immediately to the opening quote:
“In the case of big life decisions, always follow your heart…”
My acquaintance with the quote comes from a series of paintings by a friend, Julia Hearnden, in which “our heroine” may be seen pursuing her errant heart. Humour aside, there is no shortage of life coach-style sites exhorting us to follow our hearts, while also assuring us that once we commit fully everything will magically fall into place and all obstacles, by implication, equally magically dissolve away. Yet although deciding to write fulltime was undoubtedly a case of following my (undoubtedly errant!) heart, my experience since making it has been that although I would have loved for everything – not just finding an agent and publishers, but writing the books themselves – to magically fall into place, my journey thus far (eleven years) has been far more one of staying the course against the odds.
In pausing to consider these odds, I shall leave aside the vital step of actually completing publishable work, because I had already passed that milestone when I decided to transition into a writing career. But I was still stepping out into what was uncharted territory for me – and the maps supplied by others who had gone before (supplemented by the prognostications of innumerable pundits) were hardly encouraging. In short, no business case in the world would support becoming a writer, given the chances of finding economically viable success are always uncertain – and equally slight whether in the traditional or self-publishing realms. And regardless of which of the publishing routes now available one decides to pursue, there has never been any guarantee at all of finding readers, let alone readers who are prepared to pay for your work.
The only way I have stayed the course thus far, was by embarking on the journey with the clear understanding that I write to fulfil an artistic imperative and not an economic one – and subsequently cutting the cloth of my life to accommodate that reality. Because life, as Hippocrates so rightly pointed out, is short but the art long and trying to squeeze it into the sidelines of a regular career path just wasn’t working for me. Yet the course must still be stayed, because quite aside from tough economic realities, a writing life is no bed of roses in other ways: rejection of one’s work is commonplace, criticism comes at least as frequently as praise, and the commercial realities of contracts and bottom lines – because publishing and bookselling are very much businesses still – are constantly at odds with the artistic imperative.
The only thing that has gotten me this far is that core understanding of why I am putting myself through this particular mill, which is for the love of story and actualizing the creative drive to both tell my own tales and get them out into the world. That is my business. Everything else – everything – is up to the world and I have no control over it whatsoever.
So in the case of big life decisions I would never argue against following one’s heart. But since the path of true love is often star-crossed and cannot be relied upon to run smoothly, I would also counsel retaining a cool head and investing in robust footwear, a compass (since both maps and GPS oft prove fickle in the writing realm), and a butterfly net (the better to catch the heart one is following.) It is only by heeding similar sage counsel myself that I have managed to stay the writing course – so far.
Helen Lowe, is a novelist, poet, interviewer and blogger whose work has been published, broadcast and anthologized internationally. Her first novel, Thornspell, was published to critical praise in 2008, and her second, The Heir of Night (The Wall Of Night Series, Book One) won the Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012. The sequel, The Gathering Of The Lost, was shortlisted for the Gemmell Legend Award in 2013. Helen posts regularly on her Helen Lowe on Anything, Really blog, once a month on the Supernatural Underground, and occasionally on SF Signal. She is also active on Twitter: @helenl0we. The Heir of Night is published in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, France and The Netherlands and available through both bookstores and online outlets; Thornspell is similarly available in the USA and New Zealand.
When Gillian invited me to post as part of Women’s History Month, her brief included the advice that all her guests would be writers and she wanted us to celebrate staying the course, focusing on either a part of our own lives or another woman’s. She did not specifically ask us to talk about writing but I thought, on first reading the email – and still think now – that there can be few careers or life decisions that test one’s ability to stay the course as surely as writing. So I decided that the slice of personal her-story that I will talk about today is my decision to pursue a writing career – which brings me immediately to the opening quote:
“In the case of big life decisions, always follow your heart…”
My acquaintance with the quote comes from a series of paintings by a friend, Julia Hearnden, in which “our heroine” may be seen pursuing her errant heart. Humour aside, there is no shortage of life coach-style sites exhorting us to follow our hearts, while also assuring us that once we commit fully everything will magically fall into place and all obstacles, by implication, equally magically dissolve away. Yet although deciding to write fulltime was undoubtedly a case of following my (undoubtedly errant!) heart, my experience since making it has been that although I would have loved for everything – not just finding an agent and publishers, but writing the books themselves – to magically fall into place, my journey thus far (eleven years) has been far more one of staying the course against the odds.
In pausing to consider these odds, I shall leave aside the vital step of actually completing publishable work, because I had already passed that milestone when I decided to transition into a writing career. But I was still stepping out into what was uncharted territory for me – and the maps supplied by others who had gone before (supplemented by the prognostications of innumerable pundits) were hardly encouraging. In short, no business case in the world would support becoming a writer, given the chances of finding economically viable success are always uncertain – and equally slight whether in the traditional or self-publishing realms. And regardless of which of the publishing routes now available one decides to pursue, there has never been any guarantee at all of finding readers, let alone readers who are prepared to pay for your work.
The only way I have stayed the course thus far, was by embarking on the journey with the clear understanding that I write to fulfil an artistic imperative and not an economic one – and subsequently cutting the cloth of my life to accommodate that reality. Because life, as Hippocrates so rightly pointed out, is short but the art long and trying to squeeze it into the sidelines of a regular career path just wasn’t working for me. Yet the course must still be stayed, because quite aside from tough economic realities, a writing life is no bed of roses in other ways: rejection of one’s work is commonplace, criticism comes at least as frequently as praise, and the commercial realities of contracts and bottom lines – because publishing and bookselling are very much businesses still – are constantly at odds with the artistic imperative.
The only thing that has gotten me this far is that core understanding of why I am putting myself through this particular mill, which is for the love of story and actualizing the creative drive to both tell my own tales and get them out into the world. That is my business. Everything else – everything – is up to the world and I have no control over it whatsoever.
So in the case of big life decisions I would never argue against following one’s heart. But since the path of true love is often star-crossed and cannot be relied upon to run smoothly, I would also counsel retaining a cool head and investing in robust footwear, a compass (since both maps and GPS oft prove fickle in the writing realm), and a butterfly net (the better to catch the heart one is following.) It is only by heeding similar sage counsel myself that I have managed to stay the writing course – so far.
Helen Lowe, is a novelist, poet, interviewer and blogger whose work has been published, broadcast and anthologized internationally. Her first novel, Thornspell, was published to critical praise in 2008, and her second, The Heir of Night (The Wall Of Night Series, Book One) won the Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012. The sequel, The Gathering Of The Lost, was shortlisted for the Gemmell Legend Award in 2013. Helen posts regularly on her Helen Lowe on Anything, Really blog, once a month on the Supernatural Underground, and occasionally on SF Signal. She is also active on Twitter: @helenl0we. The Heir of Night is published in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, France and The Netherlands and available through both bookstores and online outlets; Thornspell is similarly available in the USA and New Zealand.
March 24, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-03-25T17:54:00
This is the beginning of an extensive post that LJ lost me due to its down period coinciding with my using LJ. I also lost most of my replies to most friends' posts. I'm thinking of you, everyone, even if it appears I say nothing! Days worth of answers were obliterated, for I was answering everyone whose posts I had seen since Thursday. I don't have time to do it all again, alas, so the sole paragraph below is a hint at what might have been. WHM later will make up! Although it won't make up for the news that my author copies of Baggage have arrived, nor that the HNSA attendees are still saying nice things about Gillian-in-the-great-debate. Whatever else I can and cannot do, it appears I can translate scholarly theory into popular parlance during a debate, and make it entertaining. There is a reason for this skill (for it is a skill and not an ability) and it goes deep, deep into my past. And now for the lost remnants....
"I had a fabulous morning, because I spent my teaching time sitting down in a leather armchair outside a bookshop and I had books all around me (and I bought some, of course, for the will is weak) and I did all my messages and I spent my teabreak inside the shop, talking about my booklaunch next week, and my students all said "I want your new book now!" So that was good. If one is going to have a physically not-good week, this is the perfect way to spend a morning of it."
"I had a fabulous morning, because I spent my teaching time sitting down in a leather armchair outside a bookshop and I had books all around me (and I bought some, of course, for the will is weak) and I did all my messages and I spent my teabreak inside the shop, talking about my booklaunch next week, and my students all said "I want your new book now!" So that was good. If one is going to have a physically not-good week, this is the perfect way to spend a morning of it."
Narrelle Harris - Women's History Month
Not Quite Lost in London
I am a woman of many talents. To varying degrees of excellence (and in part depending on the attitude of the audience) I can write stories and I can cook; I can talk to anyone on almost any topic; I am a pretty good hugger.
There’s a glaring hole in my skill set, however. I am geographically challenged. I need to turn a map to face the way I’m walking if I’m to understand it. To this day I have to draw a little cross in the air to remember where the compass points are in relation to each other (like a secular, mirrored self-blessing).
My geographical blind spot extends to difficulties with public transport. I never know which exit is the exit I need on underground railways. I inevitably emerge at the wrong point and need to cross streets to get going the right way again. Once I’ve worked out what way round I need to hold the map to see where I’m meant to be going, that is. (And can I say right here how much I love and appreciate Google maps!)
Pre-smartphones, I’ve been misplaced in Rome when by myself – though not too lost. I didn’t end up in Naples or anything. In Victoria, I notoriously once got on the completely wrong train trying to get to Woodend on my own. Ended up heading towards Ballarat instead of Bendigo. I needed to Phone a Friend to work out how to backtrack. By the time I could get back to the city to change to the right train, I had to abandon the whole thing – went to bed, got over my rage-shame tears and successfully managed the trip the following morning. I probably should have worn one of those cardboard signs, like Paddington Bear, or those poor kids sent out of London during the Blitz, to make sure kind strangers could assist me on my journey.
So it was with some trepidation that I spent a week in London last year alone – without my sense of direction, which resides in my other half. He was taking his understanding of Directions and Compass Points and Transport and Exits with him to Europe for the duration. So it was me, the London Underground and that vast city, an unholy triumvirate, for seven whole days. I was going to need to cross myself with the compass points a lot, I figured.
Some of you may be rolling your eyes at this point. What’s so hard, you ask? And to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. Maybe I just tend to defer to people who look confident with their directions, and so never really developed that confidence myself. Maybe I don’t pay enough attention because my head is busy with plot-knots I’m untangling, and get myself confused. Maybe I have simply talked myself into being awkward and easily lost, even when I have a map, so that it keeps on happening.
However it happened that an otherwise pretty smart woman ended up so convinced that geography is something that happens to other people that she regularly gets lost, it’s my life. So you can imagine I had some misgivings about this proposed week travelling about London on my own, even if it ought not to be that difficult, really.
My geographically gifted other half went over maps and timetables with me in the days beforehand, made sure I had the right apps and how to use them and did the best he could to prepare me. Then he reminded me that they speak a form of English there and I could always ask directions. My friend Wendy, who lives in London, said I could call her any time if I got lost and needed help (which resulted in a set of hilarious text messages from Hampstead Heath when the battery was running low and I was trying to find a loo!).
I was set, I was ready for the challenge and off I went and…do you know what?
I managed. I survived. I succeeded.
I used the trains and even the buses and didn’t get lost. I found the locations I was visiting to research a book every day and my hotel again every night. I planned and it worked.
I did get lost once briefly, in Mayfair of all places, when the phone went flat and I lost my Google Maps, but I did find a lovely little library and they let me sit and read and recharge batteries both telephonic and mental until I was equipped once more to locate Green Park station and complete my day.
It may seem a small thing if you don’t suffer map anxiety and have a need to cross yourself with the compass points to remember that East is to the right of the North-South line, but it was a big thing to me. By the end of that week I was very proud of myself. I had worked out how to get around. I had departed from plans more than once because I felt confident enough that I could work it out and get home again.
I felt braver, and accomplished, and that I could do this again, in London or anywhere, if I remembered to take my time, to breathe through any anxiety, and to remember it’s all right to get a bit misplaced – there are all sorts of ways and means to backtrack, to push through, to find an alternative path.
And after all, that’s an attitude that I’ve used everywhere else in my life, from learning how to use computers Back in the Day to the meandering path of my writing career.
Maybe it’s something we can all remember for the parts of our lives that make us anxious. Prepare. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Know that there’s generally a way out of a fix. Feel the fear and give it a whirl anyway. Don’t let lack of confidence prevent you from trying, and, through trial and error, developing that confidence. You don’t have to become an expert – you just have to know that you can make your way in the world, one way or another.
And know that when you are heading for the wrong rural city, or wandering through a vast park on top of a hill in another country, there’s usually someone on the phone who’ll kindly use their own resources to help you find your way.
Narrelle M Harris writes crime, horror, fantasy, non-fiction and erotica (as NM Harris). Her collection, Showtime, is the fifth of Twelfth Planet Press's 12 Planets series. Her Melbourne-based vampire books The Opposite of Life and Walking Shadows, have been praised for their fresh approach to the genre. Narrelle's current project is Kitty and Cadaver – a novel about rock and roll and monsters, with music, art and craft components. Her most recent short story is A Paying Client, the second in the Talbott & Burns series of erotic queermance stories. Find out more at www.narrellemharris.com.
I am a woman of many talents. To varying degrees of excellence (and in part depending on the attitude of the audience) I can write stories and I can cook; I can talk to anyone on almost any topic; I am a pretty good hugger.
There’s a glaring hole in my skill set, however. I am geographically challenged. I need to turn a map to face the way I’m walking if I’m to understand it. To this day I have to draw a little cross in the air to remember where the compass points are in relation to each other (like a secular, mirrored self-blessing).
My geographical blind spot extends to difficulties with public transport. I never know which exit is the exit I need on underground railways. I inevitably emerge at the wrong point and need to cross streets to get going the right way again. Once I’ve worked out what way round I need to hold the map to see where I’m meant to be going, that is. (And can I say right here how much I love and appreciate Google maps!)
Pre-smartphones, I’ve been misplaced in Rome when by myself – though not too lost. I didn’t end up in Naples or anything. In Victoria, I notoriously once got on the completely wrong train trying to get to Woodend on my own. Ended up heading towards Ballarat instead of Bendigo. I needed to Phone a Friend to work out how to backtrack. By the time I could get back to the city to change to the right train, I had to abandon the whole thing – went to bed, got over my rage-shame tears and successfully managed the trip the following morning. I probably should have worn one of those cardboard signs, like Paddington Bear, or those poor kids sent out of London during the Blitz, to make sure kind strangers could assist me on my journey.
So it was with some trepidation that I spent a week in London last year alone – without my sense of direction, which resides in my other half. He was taking his understanding of Directions and Compass Points and Transport and Exits with him to Europe for the duration. So it was me, the London Underground and that vast city, an unholy triumvirate, for seven whole days. I was going to need to cross myself with the compass points a lot, I figured.
Some of you may be rolling your eyes at this point. What’s so hard, you ask? And to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. Maybe I just tend to defer to people who look confident with their directions, and so never really developed that confidence myself. Maybe I don’t pay enough attention because my head is busy with plot-knots I’m untangling, and get myself confused. Maybe I have simply talked myself into being awkward and easily lost, even when I have a map, so that it keeps on happening.
However it happened that an otherwise pretty smart woman ended up so convinced that geography is something that happens to other people that she regularly gets lost, it’s my life. So you can imagine I had some misgivings about this proposed week travelling about London on my own, even if it ought not to be that difficult, really.
My geographically gifted other half went over maps and timetables with me in the days beforehand, made sure I had the right apps and how to use them and did the best he could to prepare me. Then he reminded me that they speak a form of English there and I could always ask directions. My friend Wendy, who lives in London, said I could call her any time if I got lost and needed help (which resulted in a set of hilarious text messages from Hampstead Heath when the battery was running low and I was trying to find a loo!).
I was set, I was ready for the challenge and off I went and…do you know what?
I managed. I survived. I succeeded.
I used the trains and even the buses and didn’t get lost. I found the locations I was visiting to research a book every day and my hotel again every night. I planned and it worked.
I did get lost once briefly, in Mayfair of all places, when the phone went flat and I lost my Google Maps, but I did find a lovely little library and they let me sit and read and recharge batteries both telephonic and mental until I was equipped once more to locate Green Park station and complete my day.
It may seem a small thing if you don’t suffer map anxiety and have a need to cross yourself with the compass points to remember that East is to the right of the North-South line, but it was a big thing to me. By the end of that week I was very proud of myself. I had worked out how to get around. I had departed from plans more than once because I felt confident enough that I could work it out and get home again.
I felt braver, and accomplished, and that I could do this again, in London or anywhere, if I remembered to take my time, to breathe through any anxiety, and to remember it’s all right to get a bit misplaced – there are all sorts of ways and means to backtrack, to push through, to find an alternative path.
And after all, that’s an attitude that I’ve used everywhere else in my life, from learning how to use computers Back in the Day to the meandering path of my writing career.
Maybe it’s something we can all remember for the parts of our lives that make us anxious. Prepare. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Know that there’s generally a way out of a fix. Feel the fear and give it a whirl anyway. Don’t let lack of confidence prevent you from trying, and, through trial and error, developing that confidence. You don’t have to become an expert – you just have to know that you can make your way in the world, one way or another.
And know that when you are heading for the wrong rural city, or wandering through a vast park on top of a hill in another country, there’s usually someone on the phone who’ll kindly use their own resources to help you find your way.
Narrelle M Harris writes crime, horror, fantasy, non-fiction and erotica (as NM Harris). Her collection, Showtime, is the fifth of Twelfth Planet Press's 12 Planets series. Her Melbourne-based vampire books The Opposite of Life and Walking Shadows, have been praised for their fresh approach to the genre. Narrelle's current project is Kitty and Cadaver – a novel about rock and roll and monsters, with music, art and craft components. Her most recent short story is A Paying Client, the second in the Talbott & Burns series of erotic queermance stories. Find out more at www.narrellemharris.com.
Narelle Harris - Women's History Month
Not Quite Lost in London
I am a woman of many talents. To varying degrees of excellence (and in part depending on the attitude of the audience) I can write stories and I can cook; I can talk to anyone on almost any topic; I am a pretty good hugger.
There’s a glaring hole in my skill set, however. I am geographically challenged. I need to turn a map to face the way I’m walking if I’m to understand it. To this day I have to draw a little cross in the air to remember where the compass points are in relation to each other (like a secular, mirrored self-blessing).
My geographical blind spot extends to difficulties with public transport. I never know which exit is the exit I need on underground railways. I inevitably emerge at the wrong point and need to cross streets to get going the right way again. Once I’ve worked out what way round I need to hold the map to see where I’m meant to be going, that is. (And can I say right here how much I love and appreciate Google maps!)
Pre-smartphones, I’ve been misplaced in Rome when by myself – though not too lost. I didn’t end up in Naples or anything. In Victoria, I notoriously once got on the completely wrong train trying to get to Woodend on my own. Ended up heading towards Ballarat instead of Bendigo. I needed to Phone a Friend to work out how to backtrack. By the time I could get back to the city to change to the right train, I had to abandon the whole thing – went to bed, got over my rage-shame tears and successfully managed the trip the following morning. I probably should have worn one of those cardboard signs, like Paddington Bear, or those poor kids sent out of London during the Blitz, to make sure kind strangers could assist me on my journey.
So it was with some trepidation that I spent a week in London last year alone – without my sense of direction, which resides in my other half. He was taking his understanding of Directions and Compass Points and Transport and Exits with him to Europe for the duration. So it was me, the London Underground and that vast city, an unholy triumvirate, for seven whole days. I was going to need to cross myself with the compass points a lot, I figured.
Some of you may be rolling your eyes at this point. What’s so hard, you ask? And to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. Maybe I just tend to defer to people who look confident with their directions, and so never really developed that confidence myself. Maybe I don’t pay enough attention because my head is busy with plot-knots I’m untangling, and get myself confused. Maybe I have simply talked myself into being awkward and easily lost, even when I have a map, so that it keeps on happening.
However it happened that an otherwise pretty smart woman ended up so convinced that geography is something that happens to other people that she regularly gets lost, it’s my life. So you can imagine I had some misgivings about this proposed week travelling about London on my own, even if it ought not to be that difficult, really.
My geographically gifted other half went over maps and timetables with me in the days beforehand, made sure I had the right apps and how to use them and did the best he could to prepare me. Then he reminded me that they speak a form of English there and I could always ask directions. My friend Wendy, who lives in London, said I could call her any time if I got lost and needed help (which resulted in a set of hilarious text messages from Hampstead Heath when the battery was running low and I was trying to find a loo!).
I was set, I was ready for the challenge and off I went and…do you know what?
I managed. I survived. I succeeded.
I used the trains and even the buses and didn’t get lost. I found the locations I was visiting to research a book every day and my hotel again every night. I planned and it worked.
I did get lost once briefly, in Mayfair of all places, when the phone went flat and I lost my Google Maps, but I did find a lovely little library and they let me sit and read and recharge batteries both telephonic and mental until I was equipped once more to locate Green Park station and complete my day.
It may seem a small thing if you don’t suffer map anxiety and have a need to cross yourself with the compass points to remember that East is to the right of the North-South line, but it was a big thing to me. By the end of that week I was very proud of myself. I had worked out how to get around. I had departed from plans more than once because I felt confident enough that I could work it out and get home again.
I felt braver, and accomplished, and that I could do this again, in London or anywhere, if I remembered to take my time, to breathe through any anxiety, and to remember it’s all right to get a bit misplaced – there are all sorts of ways and means to backtrack, to push through, to find an alternative path.
And after all, that’s an attitude that I’ve used everywhere else in my life, from learning how to use computers Back in the Day to the meandering path of my writing career.
Maybe it’s something we can all remember for the parts of our lives that make us anxious. Prepare. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Know that there’s generally a way out of a fix. Feel the fear and give it a whirl anyway. Don’t let lack of confidence prevent you from trying, and, through trial and error, developing that confidence. You don’t have to become an expert – you just have to know that you can make your way in the world, one way or another.
And know that when you are heading for the wrong rural city, or wandering through a vast park on top of a hill in another country, there’s usually someone on the phone who’ll kindly use their own resources to help you find your way.
Narrelle M Harris writes crime, horror, fantasy, non-fiction and erotica (as NM Harris). Her collection, Showtime, is the fifth of Twelfth Planet Press's 12 Planets series. Her Melbourne-based vampire books The Opposite of Life and Walking Shadows, have been praised for their fresh approach to the genre. Narrelle's current project is Kitty and Cadaver – a novel about rock and roll and monsters, with music, art and craft components. Her most recent short story is A Paying Client, the second in the Talbott & Burns series of erotic queermance stories. Find out more at www.narrellemharris.com.
I am a woman of many talents. To varying degrees of excellence (and in part depending on the attitude of the audience) I can write stories and I can cook; I can talk to anyone on almost any topic; I am a pretty good hugger.
There’s a glaring hole in my skill set, however. I am geographically challenged. I need to turn a map to face the way I’m walking if I’m to understand it. To this day I have to draw a little cross in the air to remember where the compass points are in relation to each other (like a secular, mirrored self-blessing).
My geographical blind spot extends to difficulties with public transport. I never know which exit is the exit I need on underground railways. I inevitably emerge at the wrong point and need to cross streets to get going the right way again. Once I’ve worked out what way round I need to hold the map to see where I’m meant to be going, that is. (And can I say right here how much I love and appreciate Google maps!)
Pre-smartphones, I’ve been misplaced in Rome when by myself – though not too lost. I didn’t end up in Naples or anything. In Victoria, I notoriously once got on the completely wrong train trying to get to Woodend on my own. Ended up heading towards Ballarat instead of Bendigo. I needed to Phone a Friend to work out how to backtrack. By the time I could get back to the city to change to the right train, I had to abandon the whole thing – went to bed, got over my rage-shame tears and successfully managed the trip the following morning. I probably should have worn one of those cardboard signs, like Paddington Bear, or those poor kids sent out of London during the Blitz, to make sure kind strangers could assist me on my journey.
So it was with some trepidation that I spent a week in London last year alone – without my sense of direction, which resides in my other half. He was taking his understanding of Directions and Compass Points and Transport and Exits with him to Europe for the duration. So it was me, the London Underground and that vast city, an unholy triumvirate, for seven whole days. I was going to need to cross myself with the compass points a lot, I figured.
Some of you may be rolling your eyes at this point. What’s so hard, you ask? And to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. Maybe I just tend to defer to people who look confident with their directions, and so never really developed that confidence myself. Maybe I don’t pay enough attention because my head is busy with plot-knots I’m untangling, and get myself confused. Maybe I have simply talked myself into being awkward and easily lost, even when I have a map, so that it keeps on happening.
However it happened that an otherwise pretty smart woman ended up so convinced that geography is something that happens to other people that she regularly gets lost, it’s my life. So you can imagine I had some misgivings about this proposed week travelling about London on my own, even if it ought not to be that difficult, really.
My geographically gifted other half went over maps and timetables with me in the days beforehand, made sure I had the right apps and how to use them and did the best he could to prepare me. Then he reminded me that they speak a form of English there and I could always ask directions. My friend Wendy, who lives in London, said I could call her any time if I got lost and needed help (which resulted in a set of hilarious text messages from Hampstead Heath when the battery was running low and I was trying to find a loo!).
I was set, I was ready for the challenge and off I went and…do you know what?
I managed. I survived. I succeeded.
I used the trains and even the buses and didn’t get lost. I found the locations I was visiting to research a book every day and my hotel again every night. I planned and it worked.
I did get lost once briefly, in Mayfair of all places, when the phone went flat and I lost my Google Maps, but I did find a lovely little library and they let me sit and read and recharge batteries both telephonic and mental until I was equipped once more to locate Green Park station and complete my day.
It may seem a small thing if you don’t suffer map anxiety and have a need to cross yourself with the compass points to remember that East is to the right of the North-South line, but it was a big thing to me. By the end of that week I was very proud of myself. I had worked out how to get around. I had departed from plans more than once because I felt confident enough that I could work it out and get home again.
I felt braver, and accomplished, and that I could do this again, in London or anywhere, if I remembered to take my time, to breathe through any anxiety, and to remember it’s all right to get a bit misplaced – there are all sorts of ways and means to backtrack, to push through, to find an alternative path.
And after all, that’s an attitude that I’ve used everywhere else in my life, from learning how to use computers Back in the Day to the meandering path of my writing career.
Maybe it’s something we can all remember for the parts of our lives that make us anxious. Prepare. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Know that there’s generally a way out of a fix. Feel the fear and give it a whirl anyway. Don’t let lack of confidence prevent you from trying, and, through trial and error, developing that confidence. You don’t have to become an expert – you just have to know that you can make your way in the world, one way or another.
And know that when you are heading for the wrong rural city, or wandering through a vast park on top of a hill in another country, there’s usually someone on the phone who’ll kindly use their own resources to help you find your way.
Narrelle M Harris writes crime, horror, fantasy, non-fiction and erotica (as NM Harris). Her collection, Showtime, is the fifth of Twelfth Planet Press's 12 Planets series. Her Melbourne-based vampire books The Opposite of Life and Walking Shadows, have been praised for their fresh approach to the genre. Narrelle's current project is Kitty and Cadaver – a novel about rock and roll and monsters, with music, art and craft components. Her most recent short story is A Paying Client, the second in the Talbott & Burns series of erotic queermance stories. Find out more at www.narrellemharris.com.
Tor Roxburgh - Women's History Month
I was 23 and not given to telling people the truth about my life. My son was a few weeks old and he felt like a stranger. Motherhood was desperate, lonely and empty. My husband was a heroin addict. I’d spent years lying to my family and my diminishing circle of friends about my situation. I was still lying. I told everyone that everything was all right. All of the time. Always.
Things were terrible. Awful. Shocking.
In my teens, I dreamed about becoming Australia’s first female prime minister, a pioneering scientist, a tennis-playing wife (and that could have rung a warning bell somewhere if someone was listening), a writer and a sculptor. I would be someone great; someone charming; someone admirable.
But when I left school I got lost and then found myself in a dreamy saviour narrative. Someone would save me? No, I would save someone. Probably a man. Yes, a man. At some stage, after I met the object of my fantasies, I believed we’d save each other.
It went like this: charming wife, possibly a writer and very likely not a tennis player, saves genius musician husband from drug addiction caused by an unhappy and disrupted childhood.
But as anyone could tell you (and even my teenage self would have told you) it was never going to be like that. It was always going to be theft, dramas, police visits, dismayed families, lies, fear, loneliness, poverty, blame, and hollowed-out emptiness and shame.
My trouble was I couldn’t let go of the story. In the end it was ripped away.
When my son was born he took it. Somehow he got hold of Woman Saves Sensitive Genius and Lives Happily Ever After and pulled it out of my psyche. I know this because when the midwife passed my son to me I noticed my husband was a warty frog.
I wasn’t in the habit of telling the truth at 23 so I pretended I hadn’t seen the frog (but there was nothing wrong with my eyes when they were open).
I lived with a warty frog for bit less than a year. I even slept with him. I wandered around the house. I avoided answering the telephone, with all of its unwelcome intrusions. I visited the mothercraft nurse who talked about cheese and vegetables. I was so lonely I thought I would die. I might (quite possibly did) resent my son, that completely innocent stranger, for stealing my story.
Then one day, in the warmth of an afternoon, I fell asleep on the couch with my son on my chest: I breathed, he breathed. We rose and we fell. I was wearing a soft, stretchy red dress that I got second hand when I was still pregnant (and not because thrift was cool). When I awoke, I understood that my son Ariel and I had something in common. We were, both of us, aliens in this world: he was new; I was lost. We were kin.
Someone said I should get a job… Maybe it was me talking to me. Quite possibly it was me. I was one of the only people who was talking to me at the time.
I saw a job in the paper. There was a feminist collective that needed a woman with life experience to support women and children escaping domestic violence and incest.
I applied. Even though I was still 23 and still in the habit of lying, I told the truth about my life and my ardent desire to change it. I suggested to the Collective that I would be an excellent refuge worker and that (quite frankly) I could think of nothing more joyful than working for feminists.
They interviewed me. They said my marriage wouldn’t survive my employment. Still truthful, I told them I wouldn’t mind.
I got the job. I got divorced. And those sisters helped me find a gazillion new narratives to fall in love with.
Tor Roxburgh is the author of 15 books. She has written on family violence, pregnancy and youth homelessness and currently writes speculative fiction. Her latest title, The Light Heart of Stone, is an epic fantasy novel that explores contemporary themes. Her pregnancy book, The Book of Pregnancy Weeks, has recently been re-realised as an ebook.
The Light Heart of Stone (fantasy novel)
The Book of Pregnancy Weeks (non-fiction)
Things were terrible. Awful. Shocking.
In my teens, I dreamed about becoming Australia’s first female prime minister, a pioneering scientist, a tennis-playing wife (and that could have rung a warning bell somewhere if someone was listening), a writer and a sculptor. I would be someone great; someone charming; someone admirable.
But when I left school I got lost and then found myself in a dreamy saviour narrative. Someone would save me? No, I would save someone. Probably a man. Yes, a man. At some stage, after I met the object of my fantasies, I believed we’d save each other.
It went like this: charming wife, possibly a writer and very likely not a tennis player, saves genius musician husband from drug addiction caused by an unhappy and disrupted childhood.
But as anyone could tell you (and even my teenage self would have told you) it was never going to be like that. It was always going to be theft, dramas, police visits, dismayed families, lies, fear, loneliness, poverty, blame, and hollowed-out emptiness and shame.
My trouble was I couldn’t let go of the story. In the end it was ripped away.
When my son was born he took it. Somehow he got hold of Woman Saves Sensitive Genius and Lives Happily Ever After and pulled it out of my psyche. I know this because when the midwife passed my son to me I noticed my husband was a warty frog.
I wasn’t in the habit of telling the truth at 23 so I pretended I hadn’t seen the frog (but there was nothing wrong with my eyes when they were open).
I lived with a warty frog for bit less than a year. I even slept with him. I wandered around the house. I avoided answering the telephone, with all of its unwelcome intrusions. I visited the mothercraft nurse who talked about cheese and vegetables. I was so lonely I thought I would die. I might (quite possibly did) resent my son, that completely innocent stranger, for stealing my story.
Then one day, in the warmth of an afternoon, I fell asleep on the couch with my son on my chest: I breathed, he breathed. We rose and we fell. I was wearing a soft, stretchy red dress that I got second hand when I was still pregnant (and not because thrift was cool). When I awoke, I understood that my son Ariel and I had something in common. We were, both of us, aliens in this world: he was new; I was lost. We were kin.
Someone said I should get a job… Maybe it was me talking to me. Quite possibly it was me. I was one of the only people who was talking to me at the time.
I saw a job in the paper. There was a feminist collective that needed a woman with life experience to support women and children escaping domestic violence and incest.
I applied. Even though I was still 23 and still in the habit of lying, I told the truth about my life and my ardent desire to change it. I suggested to the Collective that I would be an excellent refuge worker and that (quite frankly) I could think of nothing more joyful than working for feminists.
They interviewed me. They said my marriage wouldn’t survive my employment. Still truthful, I told them I wouldn’t mind.
I got the job. I got divorced. And those sisters helped me find a gazillion new narratives to fall in love with.
Tor Roxburgh is the author of 15 books. She has written on family violence, pregnancy and youth homelessness and currently writes speculative fiction. Her latest title, The Light Heart of Stone, is an epic fantasy novel that explores contemporary themes. Her pregnancy book, The Book of Pregnancy Weeks, has recently been re-realised as an ebook.
The Light Heart of Stone (fantasy novel)
The Book of Pregnancy Weeks (non-fiction)
March 23, 2015
Why I've been silent...
I'm back from Sydney, where I had a lovely time with many, many writers of historical fiction. I got to test all my research and teach it to writers. Apparently it's a quite different learning experience being taught by a theorist/critic who publishes fiction than being taught by theorist/critics who don't: this may not be a better or worse thing - it certainly means the writers take different lessons away from the different teachers. Also, apparently I was most useful.
I've maintained for a long time that research into how narratives work can help novelists and my claim was really put to the test over the weekend. I worked with seven authors, quite closely. How I knew they were enjoying the sessions was when I forgot to look at my clock and somehow the session ending before lunch didn't quite end when it should. I had a fifteen minute lunch! It's a good sign when students don't want to stop learning.
Historical fiction is quite different from speculative fiction in some ways I didn't expect, and working with these writers illuminated this. It also possesses some interesting overlap. Finding what writers were actually putting into their first drafts and and having to limit my advice to six topics (for we didn't have that much time) was rather wonderful.
People keep asking me how it went and I keep saying "I enjoyed it." I hope all seven writers enjoyed it and got a bunch of useful stuff out of it. I know that I did.
I had several nice breakthroughs, too. I've sorted out how to do interfaces, for instance: I am much clearer on ways of delivering what writers need and how to connect them with theory. I can teach other writers how to plug into the precise scholarship they need for the precise novel they're writing for a whole range of genres and how to handle the shifts in language and concept. This is quite probably something everyone else can already do (and that I could already do, to be honest, just not as profoundly), but I was coming at it backwards, for I didn't intend to do that, what I intended to do was simply work with the writers to improve their work and to check on my own understanding of how writers handle new ideas and research and history and my jokes (for one should never sit back and take these things for granted). Also, I was thinking of my dream project and how to bring writers further into that discourse (which is a matter for another day).
I took lots of notes to nuance my own research, and I took lots of notes for other teaching, and I took lots of notes for... almost everything except this blog, in fact. Which means that I have nothing to tell you except that Felicity Pulman is both an awesome human being and a dream host, that the HNSA in Australasia is off to a fabulous start for it was a truly gorgeous conference, that I want Kate Forsyth to tell us all bedtime stories EVERY NIGHT (she told us one at the conference dinner), that Balmain Town Hall is a lovely building (and I taught in its nooks and crannies, so I know this for a fact) and that the State Library of NSW is a surprisingly good venue for a debate. Also, that the only person worried that the smoke and etc over the last month has blown me into an entirely round ball and that I look as if I'll roll away in all the conference photos is me. Everyone else was far more concerned with talking to me. Lovely people, every one. Although it was a bit disconcerting to discover that this person went to the next school along for mine, and that person was best friends with my aunt and... there were a dangerous number of coincidences, largely brought about by the significant Melbourne contingent. There were quite a few New Zealanders, too, and the historical fiction are much politer than my usual spec fic mob and did not take gross advantage of this to test jokes out on innocents. And (the big 'And') so many people want the Beast out, now. All those people who kicked to get the Beast happening have a reason to be smug.
Me, I have a reason to be asleep. It's late and it's been a long four days. A brilliant four days, but I'm more than a bit tired.
I'll catch you up on Women's History Month over the next few days. You're not going to lose posts. They were merely delayed while I gallivanted.
The next HNSA conference will be in Melbourne in two years time. Two years seems an awful long wait.
I've maintained for a long time that research into how narratives work can help novelists and my claim was really put to the test over the weekend. I worked with seven authors, quite closely. How I knew they were enjoying the sessions was when I forgot to look at my clock and somehow the session ending before lunch didn't quite end when it should. I had a fifteen minute lunch! It's a good sign when students don't want to stop learning.
Historical fiction is quite different from speculative fiction in some ways I didn't expect, and working with these writers illuminated this. It also possesses some interesting overlap. Finding what writers were actually putting into their first drafts and and having to limit my advice to six topics (for we didn't have that much time) was rather wonderful.
People keep asking me how it went and I keep saying "I enjoyed it." I hope all seven writers enjoyed it and got a bunch of useful stuff out of it. I know that I did.
I had several nice breakthroughs, too. I've sorted out how to do interfaces, for instance: I am much clearer on ways of delivering what writers need and how to connect them with theory. I can teach other writers how to plug into the precise scholarship they need for the precise novel they're writing for a whole range of genres and how to handle the shifts in language and concept. This is quite probably something everyone else can already do (and that I could already do, to be honest, just not as profoundly), but I was coming at it backwards, for I didn't intend to do that, what I intended to do was simply work with the writers to improve their work and to check on my own understanding of how writers handle new ideas and research and history and my jokes (for one should never sit back and take these things for granted). Also, I was thinking of my dream project and how to bring writers further into that discourse (which is a matter for another day).
I took lots of notes to nuance my own research, and I took lots of notes for other teaching, and I took lots of notes for... almost everything except this blog, in fact. Which means that I have nothing to tell you except that Felicity Pulman is both an awesome human being and a dream host, that the HNSA in Australasia is off to a fabulous start for it was a truly gorgeous conference, that I want Kate Forsyth to tell us all bedtime stories EVERY NIGHT (she told us one at the conference dinner), that Balmain Town Hall is a lovely building (and I taught in its nooks and crannies, so I know this for a fact) and that the State Library of NSW is a surprisingly good venue for a debate. Also, that the only person worried that the smoke and etc over the last month has blown me into an entirely round ball and that I look as if I'll roll away in all the conference photos is me. Everyone else was far more concerned with talking to me. Lovely people, every one. Although it was a bit disconcerting to discover that this person went to the next school along for mine, and that person was best friends with my aunt and... there were a dangerous number of coincidences, largely brought about by the significant Melbourne contingent. There were quite a few New Zealanders, too, and the historical fiction are much politer than my usual spec fic mob and did not take gross advantage of this to test jokes out on innocents. And (the big 'And') so many people want the Beast out, now. All those people who kicked to get the Beast happening have a reason to be smug.
Me, I have a reason to be asleep. It's late and it's been a long four days. A brilliant four days, but I'm more than a bit tired.
I'll catch you up on Women's History Month over the next few days. You're not going to lose posts. They were merely delayed while I gallivanted.
The next HNSA conference will be in Melbourne in two years time. Two years seems an awful long wait.
March 19, 2015
Queenie Chan - Women's History Month
This was written for ‘Women’s History Month 2015’. This year’s theme is to describe a moment in your life where a hurdle occurred, and explain how you overcame it. I decided to choose the topic of drawing as a manga-style comic book artist, and the gender-related labels that come along with it.
Working in a Male-Dominated Industry?
When I’m interviewed for my comic book work, a question that comes up often is ‘what’s it like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry?’
Typically, these sorts of questions come from well-meaning people. They tend to be into ‘geek culture,’ but are not quite informed enough to understand that comics is a large pond--deeper on some continents than on others. If you take all the different comick-ing styles in the world and put them under the same umbrella, you’ll find a mishmash of aesthetics, philosophies and audiences that tend to have nothing to do with each other. To an outsider, it can be confusing, because typically they understand comics = superheroes in tights and capes. This perception cannot be further from the truth.
Luckily, there’s a way for me to explain this in a sentence or two. All I have to say is: ‘I draw manga-style comics. So it’s not a male-dominated industry at all.’
The reaction is usually polite, mostly because while the interviewer is bound to have heard of manga, they don’t know anything about it except that it’s ‘comics from Japan.’ While that’s a technically sound description, it doesn’t describe the no man’s land of being a manga-style artist in the West, which is the thrust of this article.
Being a manga-style comic book artist comes with gendered labels and assumptions, both by people inside the industry and outside. And it’s a label that is tagged entirely by the style in which you draw, rather than by the content of your work.
Comics for Girls
When manga first became popular in America, it was mostly through the translation efforts of a company called TOKYOPOP. As the first publisher I ever worked with, their editorial department was clear on one thing: we market to girls, because they’re a neglected audience when it came to comics.
That was true at the time, and it was a clever business strategy. In fact, they succeeded almost too well at it. A few years and a global financial crisis later, TOKYOPOP’s publishing department is dead, but the impression they left on the American comic book market remains. Unfortunately, that impression on non-manga readers is that manga = girl’s comics, which is a misconception at best, and downright misleading at worst.
As an artist who draws in a manga-influenced style, this was a huge hurdle to overcome. Despite being a non-Japanese artist whose debut work was ‘The Dreaming,’ a Picnic at Hanging Rock-inspired horror story, I found it impossible to escape the girl’s comics box that people put me into the moment they laid eyes on my work. What the story was about seemed to be irrelevant. Some people’s eyes glaze over immediately when they see the style I draw in, even though they were initially interested in the story when I first described it to them.
How do you fight against something like this?
I wish we live in an age where we can have true gender-equal entertainment options. I wish we live in a culture that valued female-oriented entertainment as much as male-oriented entertainment. But we don’t. Unfortunately, there’s something about the girl comics tag that can give a male reader pause, and not just that, give parents (both fathers and mothers) pause when considering whether to buy something for their son (but not so for their daughter).
Anyway, the causes of this are too many to cover. However, I can talk about how I managed to break out of the girl’s comics tag, something that was done entirely by accident.
Mixing Prose and Comics
Sometime in 2010, I began experimenting with something new: mixing prose and comics together. This was partly-inspired by ‘Small Shen,’ a book by Kylie Chan that I adapted into what I now call ‘comics-prose.’ The book was enthusiastically received by the publisher and readers, which thrilled me. I felt comics-prose had a lot of depth and potential, and I started to work exclusively in the format.
When I started showing my work around to others, one of the first reactions I got was this:
‘I can read this, because it’s not manga.’
I looked my friend in the face, to see if he was joking, but he wasn’t. He was in his late-30s and a reader of comics, but he never read manga, claiming that the art style didn’t appeal to him. This was perfectly acceptable, until I found out the real reason why he didn’t read manga – whether knowingly or not, he seems to think that reading girl comics will give him girl germs. My comics-prose story was drawn in exactly the same style as my traditional manga-style comics, so if he was willing to read my new work (but not my more traditional work), then it couldn’t be the art style that was turning him off. It had to be the girl comics tag, even though he denied it.
Again, how do you fight against something like this?
In the end, I didn’t fight against it. I came up against the hurdle, and I responded by morphing into something different, though I was still able to retain the essence of what I did. It ended up opening a path that led to somewhere completely different, which was unexpected but not unwelcome.
I was meant to tell a story about how I overcame a hurdle, but sometimes hurdles are not meant to be jumped. Sometimes, they can be tunnelled under, or you can find a way to walk around it. Truly, an example of how life can be strange, wonderful, and never the way you expected it to turn out.
By Queenie Chan
- http://www.queeniechan.com/
- 28th February 2015
Working in a Male-Dominated Industry?
When I’m interviewed for my comic book work, a question that comes up often is ‘what’s it like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry?’
Typically, these sorts of questions come from well-meaning people. They tend to be into ‘geek culture,’ but are not quite informed enough to understand that comics is a large pond--deeper on some continents than on others. If you take all the different comick-ing styles in the world and put them under the same umbrella, you’ll find a mishmash of aesthetics, philosophies and audiences that tend to have nothing to do with each other. To an outsider, it can be confusing, because typically they understand comics = superheroes in tights and capes. This perception cannot be further from the truth.
Luckily, there’s a way for me to explain this in a sentence or two. All I have to say is: ‘I draw manga-style comics. So it’s not a male-dominated industry at all.’
The reaction is usually polite, mostly because while the interviewer is bound to have heard of manga, they don’t know anything about it except that it’s ‘comics from Japan.’ While that’s a technically sound description, it doesn’t describe the no man’s land of being a manga-style artist in the West, which is the thrust of this article.
Being a manga-style comic book artist comes with gendered labels and assumptions, both by people inside the industry and outside. And it’s a label that is tagged entirely by the style in which you draw, rather than by the content of your work.
Comics for Girls
When manga first became popular in America, it was mostly through the translation efforts of a company called TOKYOPOP. As the first publisher I ever worked with, their editorial department was clear on one thing: we market to girls, because they’re a neglected audience when it came to comics.
That was true at the time, and it was a clever business strategy. In fact, they succeeded almost too well at it. A few years and a global financial crisis later, TOKYOPOP’s publishing department is dead, but the impression they left on the American comic book market remains. Unfortunately, that impression on non-manga readers is that manga = girl’s comics, which is a misconception at best, and downright misleading at worst.
As an artist who draws in a manga-influenced style, this was a huge hurdle to overcome. Despite being a non-Japanese artist whose debut work was ‘The Dreaming,’ a Picnic at Hanging Rock-inspired horror story, I found it impossible to escape the girl’s comics box that people put me into the moment they laid eyes on my work. What the story was about seemed to be irrelevant. Some people’s eyes glaze over immediately when they see the style I draw in, even though they were initially interested in the story when I first described it to them.
How do you fight against something like this?
I wish we live in an age where we can have true gender-equal entertainment options. I wish we live in a culture that valued female-oriented entertainment as much as male-oriented entertainment. But we don’t. Unfortunately, there’s something about the girl comics tag that can give a male reader pause, and not just that, give parents (both fathers and mothers) pause when considering whether to buy something for their son (but not so for their daughter).
Anyway, the causes of this are too many to cover. However, I can talk about how I managed to break out of the girl’s comics tag, something that was done entirely by accident.
Mixing Prose and Comics
Sometime in 2010, I began experimenting with something new: mixing prose and comics together. This was partly-inspired by ‘Small Shen,’ a book by Kylie Chan that I adapted into what I now call ‘comics-prose.’ The book was enthusiastically received by the publisher and readers, which thrilled me. I felt comics-prose had a lot of depth and potential, and I started to work exclusively in the format.
When I started showing my work around to others, one of the first reactions I got was this:
‘I can read this, because it’s not manga.’
I looked my friend in the face, to see if he was joking, but he wasn’t. He was in his late-30s and a reader of comics, but he never read manga, claiming that the art style didn’t appeal to him. This was perfectly acceptable, until I found out the real reason why he didn’t read manga – whether knowingly or not, he seems to think that reading girl comics will give him girl germs. My comics-prose story was drawn in exactly the same style as my traditional manga-style comics, so if he was willing to read my new work (but not my more traditional work), then it couldn’t be the art style that was turning him off. It had to be the girl comics tag, even though he denied it.
Again, how do you fight against something like this?
In the end, I didn’t fight against it. I came up against the hurdle, and I responded by morphing into something different, though I was still able to retain the essence of what I did. It ended up opening a path that led to somewhere completely different, which was unexpected but not unwelcome.
I was meant to tell a story about how I overcame a hurdle, but sometimes hurdles are not meant to be jumped. Sometimes, they can be tunnelled under, or you can find a way to walk around it. Truly, an example of how life can be strange, wonderful, and never the way you expected it to turn out.
By Queenie Chan
- http://www.queeniechan.com/
- 28th February 2015
March 18, 2015
Felicity Pulman - Women's History Month
‘Hiraeth: a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was, the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past’ (and of your heart.)
I grew up in Rhodesia (as it was then) a long time ago. It was a way of life I took for granted (having African servants and a privileged lifestyle because of my skin colour) and it wasn’t until I went to live in London in my late teens that I realised how colonials from Africa were despised and reviled. It was a huge shock, one that widened the division between me and everything I’d known about my ‘home’ and my family, a process that began when I was sent to boarding school.
I met my husband while in England; we married, immigrated to Australia, and raised our family here. I have friends and family here now – but it wasn’t until we travelled through outback Australia some years ago, camping out under the stars and close to the earth, that I began to feel bonded with my new home. And yet, when I talk of visiting family in Zimbabwe, I still talk about ‘going home’, even though the country, of course, is now completely different from how it was when I was a child.
We’ve now been in Australia for over 40 years. During that time I worked for a while, after which I stayed home for many years raising my family and being a dutiful housewife – as most women did at that time. So, aged 40, I was well overdue for a major midlife crisis! As a first step I went back to school (TAFE) to do a mature-age HSC in English and History – and I credit my two excellent teachers there with saving my life. An interest in history was born, along with the knowledge that I actually had a brain and that I could use it! A degree in Communications followed, during which time I realised I was hopeless at technology – thus putting paid to my dreams of a glamorous career in TV, film or radio. Instead, I sat on the ferry going to and from UTS in the city, and I scribbled stories – something I’d done all my life, but now I was doing it for ‘homework’. And I was using pen and paper – no technology involved! Could writing stories become my new career? I resolved to give it a try, writing in secret and sending my (adult fiction) novels out – with a complete lack of success.
Long story short: I persevered, and finally had a teen romance published by Dolly Fiction. After that I wrote Ghost Boy – still my most popular novel, which is now in pre-production for a movie – and I also completed an MA in Children’s Literature. Why I moved from Australian history (Ghost Boy) to write about Arthurian legend instead is another story in itself, but that research trip to follow the Arthurian trail in England changed my life all over again. Further research trips followed while I was writing my medieval crime series, the Janna Mysteries, now rewritten and repackaged as the Janna Chronicles, and published by Momentum. These journeys, along with more Arthurian research for I, Morgana, which was published by Momentum last year, have added to my confusion so that I now feel like a time and space traveller, where my imaginary world is just as real, if not more so, than my real life. Perhaps it’s because I walked in the footsteps of my characters during those research trips in the UK; I ‘became’ those characters, and I bonded with those landscapes to such an extent that I now have to think really hard before I can answer even a simple question like: when does winter start?
It has taken me a long time to realise and understand that all my novels have a common theme. The characters, in their various ways and in their various landscapes, all search for identity, for family, for a sense of belonging somewhere. And while all the characters are completely different from me, in a sense they are all part of who I want to be: brave, courageous, resourceful and, above all, accepted, loved and, finally, ‘at home.’
© Felicity Pulman, 2015.
Felicity is an award-winning author of novels and short stories for children and adults, with many years experience talking about her work and running creative writing workshops. Novels for children/YA based on Australian history include Ghost Boy (Random House Aus) and A Ring Through Time (Harper Collins.) Her adult fiction I, Morgana and the Janna Chronicles are published by Momentum and are available in both digital and print – see http://momentumbooks.com.au. You’ll find contact details and more information about Felicity and her books on her website: www.felicitypulman.com.au.
I grew up in Rhodesia (as it was then) a long time ago. It was a way of life I took for granted (having African servants and a privileged lifestyle because of my skin colour) and it wasn’t until I went to live in London in my late teens that I realised how colonials from Africa were despised and reviled. It was a huge shock, one that widened the division between me and everything I’d known about my ‘home’ and my family, a process that began when I was sent to boarding school.
I met my husband while in England; we married, immigrated to Australia, and raised our family here. I have friends and family here now – but it wasn’t until we travelled through outback Australia some years ago, camping out under the stars and close to the earth, that I began to feel bonded with my new home. And yet, when I talk of visiting family in Zimbabwe, I still talk about ‘going home’, even though the country, of course, is now completely different from how it was when I was a child.
We’ve now been in Australia for over 40 years. During that time I worked for a while, after which I stayed home for many years raising my family and being a dutiful housewife – as most women did at that time. So, aged 40, I was well overdue for a major midlife crisis! As a first step I went back to school (TAFE) to do a mature-age HSC in English and History – and I credit my two excellent teachers there with saving my life. An interest in history was born, along with the knowledge that I actually had a brain and that I could use it! A degree in Communications followed, during which time I realised I was hopeless at technology – thus putting paid to my dreams of a glamorous career in TV, film or radio. Instead, I sat on the ferry going to and from UTS in the city, and I scribbled stories – something I’d done all my life, but now I was doing it for ‘homework’. And I was using pen and paper – no technology involved! Could writing stories become my new career? I resolved to give it a try, writing in secret and sending my (adult fiction) novels out – with a complete lack of success.
Long story short: I persevered, and finally had a teen romance published by Dolly Fiction. After that I wrote Ghost Boy – still my most popular novel, which is now in pre-production for a movie – and I also completed an MA in Children’s Literature. Why I moved from Australian history (Ghost Boy) to write about Arthurian legend instead is another story in itself, but that research trip to follow the Arthurian trail in England changed my life all over again. Further research trips followed while I was writing my medieval crime series, the Janna Mysteries, now rewritten and repackaged as the Janna Chronicles, and published by Momentum. These journeys, along with more Arthurian research for I, Morgana, which was published by Momentum last year, have added to my confusion so that I now feel like a time and space traveller, where my imaginary world is just as real, if not more so, than my real life. Perhaps it’s because I walked in the footsteps of my characters during those research trips in the UK; I ‘became’ those characters, and I bonded with those landscapes to such an extent that I now have to think really hard before I can answer even a simple question like: when does winter start?
It has taken me a long time to realise and understand that all my novels have a common theme. The characters, in their various ways and in their various landscapes, all search for identity, for family, for a sense of belonging somewhere. And while all the characters are completely different from me, in a sense they are all part of who I want to be: brave, courageous, resourceful and, above all, accepted, loved and, finally, ‘at home.’
© Felicity Pulman, 2015.
Felicity is an award-winning author of novels and short stories for children and adults, with many years experience talking about her work and running creative writing workshops. Novels for children/YA based on Australian history include Ghost Boy (Random House Aus) and A Ring Through Time (Harper Collins.) Her adult fiction I, Morgana and the Janna Chronicles are published by Momentum and are available in both digital and print – see http://momentumbooks.com.au. You’ll find contact details and more information about Felicity and her books on her website: www.felicitypulman.com.au.
