Weeks 8-12
Just as I think I’ve gone off on a tangent with this column, meandering down some recent recollection or other, I realise that it’s all right and I can pluck the experience straight out of real life and plant it on the page. On a long walk at the weekend, a friend and I followed a river, found a quarry, a tunnel, a gorge and a wind turbine – without even trying.
The turbine was like a great white angel, it roared as it turned and was really quite frightening, especially when the shadow, the dark version of itself, swooped over us. I know that wind turbines represent a sustainable future, but the sheer scale of it made the cogs of my imagination turn; would it fly off into the sky? or morph into a beast to get me? We whiffled through a tulgy wood to get there, and rested by a tumtum (well, oak) tree to have some conversation whilst waiting out the rain. I imagined people lived in the wood, beneath the turbine, or inside it and that Norah Fleex, the protagonist in my novel, would stay there on her travels.
It’s been raining for about two or three weeks now. But we still get slashes of sunshine that cut through the grey and make for the most crazy, weird skies I think I’ve ever seen. There is a lot of wind too, it blows loudly in and out of different trees like a symphony, like there’s someone conducting the weather. When the sun comes out, which despite the rain happens several times a day, there is a moment of bright clear blue and we get this amazing filtered light that is the most beautiful thing. It goes all gloomy-bright – and we all look like we’re in a film.
Of course, we very much needed the rain, our reservoir was very shallow and that’s where all our water comes from. A sauna shed sits on the edge of the reservoir and through its windows you can watch the lowest branches of the trees dip its leaves in and out of the moonlit water. I break the norm by refusing to be naked inside, so have ‘repressed saunas’ in my bikini. The sauna is much-loved by all, used several times a day sometimes, and the oil drum it is made of is showing it. The flue that’s soldered on, and the drum itself are worn right through in parts, its small patchy holes show the fire leaping inside.
The reservoir is great to take you off the boil. The water is so cold that your body thinks its dying, all the blood rushes to your organs, leaving your limbs helpless and flailing and your lungs gasping - none of which is much good for swimming. But then when you get out you’re a big ball of adrenaline, icy skinned and hot inside – not to mention gloriously lightheaded. And the sleep you get afterwards! Well it’s wonderful, and the morning sees you glowing and refreshed and about as relaxed as a person can be.
I have a scene in my novel-in-progress where Norah Fleex dives into a lake, led by Benjamin Ambigraph she goes deeper and deeper and passes through a submarine tunnel and ultimately emerges on an underground shore. My first draft is pretty weak on physicals, but now I know what it feels like, so I think I can translate it better. I guess it leaves me wondering whether I will ever have an experience again that I don’t use to inform my writing.
Now that I’ve settled down, I’ve been able to branch out. I have been to other places. At Cae Mabon http://www.caemabon.co.uk , a small retreat in an oak forest up north, I stayed in a round log cabin with bluebells on the roof. As Eric Maddern, the storyteller who created Cae Mabon says, “it’s like sleeping with the arms of the wood around you.” The walls are built with smooth, strong, interlocking logs. I built fences by day and sang-along to Eric’s guitaring round a fire by night. And weirdly, I felt quite comfortable. I expected it to be too ‘far-out’ for me, but all my cynicism snuck out of me on the walk down through fields of bluebells. It’s a beautiful place, very peaceful and calm and little wonder that groups go there to bond and learn.
Another weekend, a friend and I went to Oxford on whim. Quite the opposite experience. We caught a lift, or as she said, a prearranged hitch, with a man who had just completed a Solar installation course at CAT. He said they could take us as far as Banbury. “Banbury Cross?” I said, and the guy drove us via the statue of the fine lady upon a white horse. As he dropped us at the train station I caught sight of myself in the sliding doors – oh my gosh! When I had left CAT, I looked completely normal. Now, I looked like a hippy-chick-traveller. I felt totally incongruous amongst all the shiny hard floors and the glass slide-doors and the people with slapped-arse faces and no talking and no laughing and drab grey. And money! People were using it! (I haven’t used it in absolutely ages, don’t need to here, because I pay subs instead, then we order food as a community). I used some ‘money’ to buy tickets to Oxford from a ‘machine’ and then off we went. It was accidental research again, for my heroine Norah Fleex, who makes a similar journey, back to the city… a scene played out fresh for me, in reality. On that platform, I felt self-conscious and like I was breathing in smog, and the ground was too hard and the earth too far away, and she will feel exactly the same! Interestingly, I didn’t think of that at the time and it’s only through writing this, that I’ve connected these feelings to Norah.
In Oxford, I unexpectedly performed in a Samba band[1] on a stage in a university college. But not before I’d painted octopi on a community garden mural, whilst half listening to a workshop on permaculture. To remember Samba rhythms, you say funny sentences in your head,
I’ve-got-custard-in-my-underpants
When-I-go-out-I-take-my-hat.-If-I’ve-forgotten-it-I-get-wet
It’s not about grammar, it’s about the beat man! And (get this) in the toilets after the gig, one of my fellow samba-ists, heard some Oxford kids say “That Samba band, they were amazing!” ah yeah! Ever since Oxford, I’ve been hearing rhythms in everything.
Perhaps loveliest thing this month was a visit from my London photographer friend. She inspired and revitalised me, reminded me how important and special it is to be with people who you’ve known for ages, and how much I love this place I live in. By day we laid-down in fields for funny pictures, ate cake, worried and wondered, and laughed till our sides ached. I found a bike for her to borrow and we zoomed around the pitch-black night-time countryside with matching straw hats, neon jackets and torches on our heads. We trampolined at a tipi party and bounced the night away while the others raved. I don’t think Norah Fleex would do any of this, but perhaps some things are just for me.
Until next month,
Happy Hannah x
P.S. In case you were wondering. We had to send the cockerel back. And that was even harder than the catching. It took the whole of site community and several friends to trap him. We rigged up a cargo net, propped it with sticks and tried to lure him with grain; we tried to feed him grain soaked in vodka[2], to make him easier to catch. We tried to lasso him, to catch his foot in a loop and then hoik him up. We tried to ambush him it at dusk, when he’d gone blind, but he just flapped about in the rhododendrons. We caught him in the end, with the foot-in-a-noose technique. So he’s back at the other side of site now, where he’s one of many cockerels and unlikely to even get a look in (wink wink, nudge nudge). I wanted to keep him here, but then, I wasn’t the one he was waking up every morning.
[1] Oxford’s "Breach of the Peace" samba band, is part of the Rhythms of Resistance network of anti-capitalist Samba Drum Bands. Right on!
[2] When I say ‘we’, I don’t mean me, I was not a party to this particular tactic!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Another Take on Women in Art
Excerpt of Guerilla Girls Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz presenting on activism / race / geopolitics for The Feminist Future: Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts Symposium at the Museum of Modern Art, January 27 2007)
If you're not familiar with the Guerrilla Girls' work, you can see some of their early posters on display online and at the Tate and / or watch a webcast of their July 2006 Tate performance on the Tate website.
How do we as female writers feel about the publishing industry? Do we get a better deal than visual artists? Or is there still a long way to go?
If you're not familiar with the Guerrilla Girls' work, you can see some of their early posters on display online and at the Tate and / or watch a webcast of their July 2006 Tate performance on the Tate website.
How do we as female writers feel about the publishing industry? Do we get a better deal than visual artists? Or is there still a long way to go?
Sunday, June 10, 2007
A Day in the Life
... of Meg Cabot.
Typical of a full-time writing life? Those of us with 9-5 jobs need to know.
Typical of a full-time writing life? Those of us with 9-5 jobs need to know.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
AnyBody Zine
AnyBody is looking for contributions to its new zine - see their website for more details.
AnyBody is "a website giving women a voice to challenge the limited physical representation of females in contemporary society" (homepage, accessed 5 June 2007)
AnyBody is "a website giving women a voice to challenge the limited physical representation of females in contemporary society" (homepage, accessed 5 June 2007)
Monday, June 04, 2007
Women in Art
"500 years of female portraits in Western Art"
This is mesmerising and disturbing in equal measure ...
This is mesmerising and disturbing in equal measure ...
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
From city to country, a writer's diary by Hannah Davey, Weeks 4-8
I sometimes battle with my conscience: should I be putting my skills to better use?
I’m a fairly experienced copy-writer and I’m putting the vast majority of my efforts into fiction. When I first got here, and listened to a lecture on Contraction and Convergence1. My first thought (after my scrambled brain had reconfigured itself) was: what the hell am I doing wasting my time on this novel? I ought to be copy-writing to raise awareness of climate change and cutting carbon emissions, or creating a big eco-fable at the very least: ‘Lily’s Army’, was the title that sprang to mind, because my (half-viking) baby niece Lily, will be about 30 by the time it all starts kicking off (should we fail to reduce our carbon emissions in time). In my head, ‘Lily’s Army’ fights off climate refugees from the now heavily fortified island of Britain. They’d have come up from the Southern Hemisphere, seeking dry land and fuel, having been driven out of their now submarine homelands. Lily would have to be ruthless. Sounds like Mad Max, or Waterworld doesn’t it? Well, turns out, that’s about the size of it.
So, after some dramatic days of what is the point? I remembered that my novel does actually have a pretty strong message; and some of it is about the environment. And although there is a hefty dose of speculative fiction buoying it up, it is metaphorical. It’s also one woman’s journey of self-discovery with a spike of horror. And, the ‘plot’ (say I, if you can call its current jumbled strings of story such a thing), is inspired by my own journey; what lead me to this eco-centre.
I have learned and absorbed so much about sustainability and renewable energy and eco-building and other green things here: reduce, reuse, recycle. But it’s sort of like the more I learn, the less I feel like I know. I do find it difficult to imagine as well, how I could maintain this level of eco-responsibility in the city. I mean it’s all well and good being holier than thou in the middle of an eco-centre where your organic food is bought communally from a local co-op2 and everyone is greener than a Welsh valley and even the local town has no real consumerism to speak of (remember, when I say this, that I came from London).
With my writing, I have progressed in a way and also slowed, I am doing it everyday still. Norah Fleex now has a pencilled in end-of-the-road-destination, in terms of her plotted fictional life. Pretty monumental really. The ‘end’ came to me one night, lying in my hay-loft bed having a quick pretend-to-be-Heidi before I fell asleep. And I had to reach to switch on the light, and then scribble it down in my notebook. And then in the morning I sketched it out, then I fleshed it out the next day, etcetera, etcetera. But now, I am stuck with the arduous task of filling in the holes en-route, and that’s not so exciting as making the story! I am a bit stuck to be honest and the birds tweeting and the sun up on the bank that leads to the reservoir, well they are calling me.
This last month, what with the gorgeous weather, Stove has fallen out of the limelight. Just as I got the hang of it too! But the writing is still, simmering away on the back boiler – so what’s got in the way of me and my words? Basically, it’s Spring time.
Spring time has meant new things to see and learn, and free no effort heat, off of the big ball of fire in the sky. My house has become a place to sleep and I have taken to the great outdoors. Spring’s brought lambs and chicks and birds that I never saw before. With the aid of a new book and some binoculars, I have identified nuthatches, treecreepers, chaffinches, robins (these last two I already knew) and a very pretty yellowhammer.
The swallows have come home to roost in the last few days, they are charming; they chatter and squeak like nothing else and swoop erratically like mentalists. The trees and shrubs have positively exploded in every shade of green and it’s sunny all the time – it has rained for only a couple of days in the last six-ish weeks, nice but not so nice if you look at the bigger picture. In amongst the new birth and green shoots and blossom, I saw the darker side too: a dead lamb in a field that made me cry and contemplate life; and a tiny half-sized chick which, could only fall over in the face of food, while its siblings pecked away happily. It ‘disappeared’ on its second day - I suspect fowl play (sorry).
And I’ve gotten all crafty, with a new hobby: willow weaving. Now I was quietly confident about being able to weave willow, which I think stems from having grown up on a farm in Sussex and spending much time making treehouses with planks and bailer twine. I have a farmer dad and a mother who is art personified, I think this is what caused my corn-dolly-gene. I realise I am blowing my own trumpet especially considering how wonky my basket is, but I am oh so proud of it. And it’s made me fall in love with this place all over again. I mean you can’t just weave a wicker basket, or a dream catcher in your garden in the middle of Shoreditch, because you would be lucky to even have a garden for starters, and where would the willow grow?
I have also done some dodgy calligraphy; looked into some environmental activism; attended a debate3; had a ‘repressed’ sauna (freakishly wearing a bikini instead of being naked like everyone else); built a fence; a bench; swam in a reservoir; a lake; done gardening; found a cave; a tunnel; and a whole heap of other extra-curricular activities. And, I am getting up later too, because I have gone and made friends and been all sociable until after 10pm. That of course, has a knock on effect on my get-up time. So Norah Fleex has been tapping her toe impatiently at the end of her road, not knowing how she got there. I don’t want to miss these real-life opportunities, for the sake of my fictional characters (I actually have pangs of guilt for writing this!); but to reiterate, I am still writing each day, just not for so long. But as Confucius said, "It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop."
Remember last month I briefly mentioned our transgender-hen? Well, she was clucking very loudly, acting like a total cock, because that is apparently what they do. When there is no cockerel in a chicken tribe, one of the hens will take on the role themselves.
So, Mrs Henman, has been clucking loudly, in the mornings and henpecking her contemporaries and generally being a bossy boots, telling them where to lay and stuff. She wasn’t fooling any of us with her cock-a-doodle-don’ts. What’s more, because there’s no real man, there’s no chance of chicks. So, we set about getting ourselves a nice, fancy looking cockerel for our little tribe. Over the other side of site there is another tribe of chickens with a plethora of cockerels, and we caught ourselves one and brought him over. Ha! I say this like it was an easy task!!4
Now, a very handsome cockerel heads up a little harem here, he’s ruling a roost of five pretty hot chicks. We don’t know if they’ve done the deed yet. Although, I did see him leap upon an unsuspecting brunette lady hen and peck her on the back of the head whilst flapping (I think this is chicken sex) AND, I saw him coming out of the compost loo with a different hen, a sort of speckled grey lady. They are making some alarming noises. At first the hens didn’t let him sleep in their tree - did you know that chickens go blind at dusk? But now, a week or so later, he’s up there with them every night and strutting about all day like he owns the place. So fingers crossed we’ll have some chicks soon.
Turns out there is a slightly macabre twist though: our chickens are a tad inbred and the ones down this end have extra toes. So, we may have some double-headed mutant inbred chicks or something weird like that. There’s science fiction everywhere here, but it’s ok because apparently they taste the same – all good story fodder eh!
Love
Homestead Hannah x
1 Contraction and Convergence is the global framework for the negotiation and management of climate change. It supports the idea of global equity - carbon credits. i.e. everyone in the world has an equal quota of carbon they are allowed to emit and when, for example, you buy fuel, you pay with cash money as usual and also with your carbon card/chit/voucher. If you use green/renewable energy instead, which is carbon neutral you could sell your credits on the market, or to your carbon guzzling neighbour. Obviously this is only it in a nutshell!
2 Suma, if anyone’s interested – a worker’s co-op www.suma.co.uk
3 The debate was between www.cheatneutral.com - a parody which hilariously highlights the idiocy of carbon offsetting - here you can offset your infidelity by paying to sponsor a person to remain celebate or faithful thereby not contributing to the overall heartache in the world. The opposition was www.climatecare.org" , a leading carbon offset company. So you can do what you like and offset your guilt. As George Monbiot points out;
I’m a fairly experienced copy-writer and I’m putting the vast majority of my efforts into fiction. When I first got here, and listened to a lecture on Contraction and Convergence1. My first thought (after my scrambled brain had reconfigured itself) was: what the hell am I doing wasting my time on this novel? I ought to be copy-writing to raise awareness of climate change and cutting carbon emissions, or creating a big eco-fable at the very least: ‘Lily’s Army’, was the title that sprang to mind, because my (half-viking) baby niece Lily, will be about 30 by the time it all starts kicking off (should we fail to reduce our carbon emissions in time). In my head, ‘Lily’s Army’ fights off climate refugees from the now heavily fortified island of Britain. They’d have come up from the Southern Hemisphere, seeking dry land and fuel, having been driven out of their now submarine homelands. Lily would have to be ruthless. Sounds like Mad Max, or Waterworld doesn’t it? Well, turns out, that’s about the size of it.
So, after some dramatic days of what is the point? I remembered that my novel does actually have a pretty strong message; and some of it is about the environment. And although there is a hefty dose of speculative fiction buoying it up, it is metaphorical. It’s also one woman’s journey of self-discovery with a spike of horror. And, the ‘plot’ (say I, if you can call its current jumbled strings of story such a thing), is inspired by my own journey; what lead me to this eco-centre.
I have learned and absorbed so much about sustainability and renewable energy and eco-building and other green things here: reduce, reuse, recycle. But it’s sort of like the more I learn, the less I feel like I know. I do find it difficult to imagine as well, how I could maintain this level of eco-responsibility in the city. I mean it’s all well and good being holier than thou in the middle of an eco-centre where your organic food is bought communally from a local co-op2 and everyone is greener than a Welsh valley and even the local town has no real consumerism to speak of (remember, when I say this, that I came from London).
With my writing, I have progressed in a way and also slowed, I am doing it everyday still. Norah Fleex now has a pencilled in end-of-the-road-destination, in terms of her plotted fictional life. Pretty monumental really. The ‘end’ came to me one night, lying in my hay-loft bed having a quick pretend-to-be-Heidi before I fell asleep. And I had to reach to switch on the light, and then scribble it down in my notebook. And then in the morning I sketched it out, then I fleshed it out the next day, etcetera, etcetera. But now, I am stuck with the arduous task of filling in the holes en-route, and that’s not so exciting as making the story! I am a bit stuck to be honest and the birds tweeting and the sun up on the bank that leads to the reservoir, well they are calling me.
This last month, what with the gorgeous weather, Stove has fallen out of the limelight. Just as I got the hang of it too! But the writing is still, simmering away on the back boiler – so what’s got in the way of me and my words? Basically, it’s Spring time.
Spring time has meant new things to see and learn, and free no effort heat, off of the big ball of fire in the sky. My house has become a place to sleep and I have taken to the great outdoors. Spring’s brought lambs and chicks and birds that I never saw before. With the aid of a new book and some binoculars, I have identified nuthatches, treecreepers, chaffinches, robins (these last two I already knew) and a very pretty yellowhammer.
The swallows have come home to roost in the last few days, they are charming; they chatter and squeak like nothing else and swoop erratically like mentalists. The trees and shrubs have positively exploded in every shade of green and it’s sunny all the time – it has rained for only a couple of days in the last six-ish weeks, nice but not so nice if you look at the bigger picture. In amongst the new birth and green shoots and blossom, I saw the darker side too: a dead lamb in a field that made me cry and contemplate life; and a tiny half-sized chick which, could only fall over in the face of food, while its siblings pecked away happily. It ‘disappeared’ on its second day - I suspect fowl play (sorry).
And I’ve gotten all crafty, with a new hobby: willow weaving. Now I was quietly confident about being able to weave willow, which I think stems from having grown up on a farm in Sussex and spending much time making treehouses with planks and bailer twine. I have a farmer dad and a mother who is art personified, I think this is what caused my corn-dolly-gene. I realise I am blowing my own trumpet especially considering how wonky my basket is, but I am oh so proud of it. And it’s made me fall in love with this place all over again. I mean you can’t just weave a wicker basket, or a dream catcher in your garden in the middle of Shoreditch, because you would be lucky to even have a garden for starters, and where would the willow grow?
I have also done some dodgy calligraphy; looked into some environmental activism; attended a debate3; had a ‘repressed’ sauna (freakishly wearing a bikini instead of being naked like everyone else); built a fence; a bench; swam in a reservoir; a lake; done gardening; found a cave; a tunnel; and a whole heap of other extra-curricular activities. And, I am getting up later too, because I have gone and made friends and been all sociable until after 10pm. That of course, has a knock on effect on my get-up time. So Norah Fleex has been tapping her toe impatiently at the end of her road, not knowing how she got there. I don’t want to miss these real-life opportunities, for the sake of my fictional characters (I actually have pangs of guilt for writing this!); but to reiterate, I am still writing each day, just not for so long. But as Confucius said, "It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop."
Remember last month I briefly mentioned our transgender-hen? Well, she was clucking very loudly, acting like a total cock, because that is apparently what they do. When there is no cockerel in a chicken tribe, one of the hens will take on the role themselves.
So, Mrs Henman, has been clucking loudly, in the mornings and henpecking her contemporaries and generally being a bossy boots, telling them where to lay and stuff. She wasn’t fooling any of us with her cock-a-doodle-don’ts. What’s more, because there’s no real man, there’s no chance of chicks. So, we set about getting ourselves a nice, fancy looking cockerel for our little tribe. Over the other side of site there is another tribe of chickens with a plethora of cockerels, and we caught ourselves one and brought him over. Ha! I say this like it was an easy task!!4
Now, a very handsome cockerel heads up a little harem here, he’s ruling a roost of five pretty hot chicks. We don’t know if they’ve done the deed yet. Although, I did see him leap upon an unsuspecting brunette lady hen and peck her on the back of the head whilst flapping (I think this is chicken sex) AND, I saw him coming out of the compost loo with a different hen, a sort of speckled grey lady. They are making some alarming noises. At first the hens didn’t let him sleep in their tree - did you know that chickens go blind at dusk? But now, a week or so later, he’s up there with them every night and strutting about all day like he owns the place. So fingers crossed we’ll have some chicks soon.
Turns out there is a slightly macabre twist though: our chickens are a tad inbred and the ones down this end have extra toes. So, we may have some double-headed mutant inbred chicks or something weird like that. There’s science fiction everywhere here, but it’s ok because apparently they taste the same – all good story fodder eh!
Love
Homestead Hannah x
1 Contraction and Convergence is the global framework for the negotiation and management of climate change. It supports the idea of global equity - carbon credits. i.e. everyone in the world has an equal quota of carbon they are allowed to emit and when, for example, you buy fuel, you pay with cash money as usual and also with your carbon card/chit/voucher. If you use green/renewable energy instead, which is carbon neutral you could sell your credits on the market, or to your carbon guzzling neighbour. Obviously this is only it in a nutshell!
2 Suma, if anyone’s interested – a worker’s co-op www.suma.co.uk
3 The debate was between www.cheatneutral.com - a parody which hilariously highlights the idiocy of carbon offsetting - here you can offset your infidelity by paying to sponsor a person to remain celebate or faithful thereby not contributing to the overall heartache in the world. The opposition was www.climatecare.org" , a leading carbon offset company. So you can do what you like and offset your guilt. As George Monbiot points out;
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Make a Difference: the Feminist Library
Considering I'm both a feminist and a librarian, I feel a little slow off the bat with this one, my only excuse being that February and March disappeared in a haze of conference-speaking and hard-nosed study of first-hand drug accounts ...
The Feminist Library, based on Westminster Bridge Road has been under threat of closure since 2003, and at a meeting in February the management committee called for volunteers in a final push to keep it going. (Press release, 25 February 2007, accessed 19 April 2007).
Marmaladya.com describes the collection thus:
The collection, started in 1975, includes a large archive from the Women’s Liberation Movement, with lots of second-wave material from the late 1960s to 1970s. With more than 5,000 non-fiction works, 2,500 fiction works from all over the world and 1,500 periodicals dating from 1900, the collection is particularly strong in the arts (the poetry collection contains lesser-known and self-published female poets as well as better known works), politics, women's history, and mental and physical health – the Feminist Library recently acquired the collection of the Women's Health Library, as well as already holding the Matriarchy Collection, and the Marie Stopes/Birth Control Collection.
You can visit on Saturdays 11am - 5pm or volunteer to help with the Saturday opening or "regular weeknight cataloguing sessions" (Feminist Library: new opening hours, new management team, Managing Information, 13 April 2007, accessed 19 April 2007).
Find out more from the Library's myspace site or by expressing interest and support to feministlibraryappeal@gmail.com
The Feminist Library, based on Westminster Bridge Road has been under threat of closure since 2003, and at a meeting in February the management committee called for volunteers in a final push to keep it going. (Press release, 25 February 2007, accessed 19 April 2007).
Marmaladya.com describes the collection thus:
The collection, started in 1975, includes a large archive from the Women’s Liberation Movement, with lots of second-wave material from the late 1960s to 1970s. With more than 5,000 non-fiction works, 2,500 fiction works from all over the world and 1,500 periodicals dating from 1900, the collection is particularly strong in the arts (the poetry collection contains lesser-known and self-published female poets as well as better known works), politics, women's history, and mental and physical health – the Feminist Library recently acquired the collection of the Women's Health Library, as well as already holding the Matriarchy Collection, and the Marie Stopes/Birth Control Collection.
You can visit on Saturdays 11am - 5pm or volunteer to help with the Saturday opening or "regular weeknight cataloguing sessions" (Feminist Library: new opening hours, new management team, Managing Information, 13 April 2007, accessed 19 April 2007).
Find out more from the Library's myspace site or by expressing interest and support to feministlibraryappeal@gmail.com
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Moving from the epitome of urbanity to an eco-centre in rural Wales - A Writer's Diary
When I first talked to Laura Wilkinson about writing a regular column on: Moving from the epitome of urbanity (central London), to an eco-centre in rural Wales; I said that my main concern about coming to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT)1 in Machynlleth, Powys, was that the idyllic countryside and utopian lifestyle could prevent me from writing. Laura pointed out that that was an interesting idea in itself, because essentially it's like I'm off to spend six months in the environment of a writer's retreat: something most would expect to bear the most fruitful of prose. But I find that a lot of my work has been angst driven: a blatant escapism from the urban trappings and excesses of a typical London lifestyle.
I have come to CAT as a Long Term Volunteer (LTV), working 9-5 in their Publications Department. In London, I worked as the Publications Office for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, editing their quarterly magazine; a job I may well return to at the end of this six months. I have been lucky to get one of the few sought after LTV places on site. So I'm living as part of the intentional community, which represents the origins of CAT (in the seventies, a few crazy pioneers2 came up to this abandoned slate quarry, did up the tumbledown miners cottages, and started what is now the largest eco-centre in Europe). I live in what's known as The Bath House, the smallest and most basic cottage. There are 12 other people that live on site, all ages, one of them just six. We eat together twice weekly and pay subs for our food which is delivered three times a week; all as local, vegetarian and organic as it can be. We garden and grow, recycle, compost, are about to build a new communal building out of straw bales and timber, and we use minimal electrical appliances (no toasters, electric kettles or coffee machines). We live as sustainable a lifestyle as possible, as an ongoing experiment and to my mind, as an example that it can be done.
MAN is it different to my shared flat in Bethnal Green! But I knew it would be, and that's why I chose to come. In terms of getting in touch with my resources, I shall never, ever just be able to twist up a radiator without appreciating it again. Also, we have our own water supply here, completely off the mains, and it tastes absolutely delicious; there're compost loos (which don't smell at all, although it is still coldish) with the rest rainwater flushable; a brisk walk to the shower, or a jump in the icy reservoir if you're braver than me; and of course, there's the ever-fluctuating power.
The Diary - Weeks 1-4
Roaring in its metal box is my little heat creature. I light its belly each morning and evening, and it belches black smoke at me; its hinges squeak as latch shut the phoenix-embossed iron door and often it grows so hot that I have to open the window and let some air out. When it rains it sounds different: not just rain falling on concrete, like London rain, the rain I knew; but rain falling on soft things, leaves, round twigs, the earth roof of my house, running off gutters and falling on piles of slate: wetter somehow, damp, refreshing sounds that treble against the bass of the fiery belly of my stove. And then there's always the tapping of these keys, my subconscious heavy hits where the 'r' and the 'd' have started to stick; making me feel like the handicapped writer in Stephen King's Misery. But always, at the heart of the sounds, is an enthusiastic purr, reminding me that before Stove came along, Laptop was my favourite mechanical thing.
These past few weeks, as a newby at the CAT, have seen my writing, as I expected, take something of a back seat. But not for the reasons I anticipated: it's because my little heat creature, Stove, takes alot of looking after. He is a gobbly little greedbag. He needs more attention than I ever had to give anything. I imagine that having a woodburning stove is not dissimilar to having a baby, and like a mother loves her baby: I love my stove. When he's too quiet I worry and check on him; is he still breathing? Sometimes, after a quiet spell of neglect, I look inside his hot belly and am dismayed to see his heart has died to a rich embery glow; but now (after four weeks of solid experience) with just a few dry splits of wood and a gentle well-positioned blow, his flames lick up to life again and I shut the door and he roars away happily.
Stove and I have a fairly good relationship now: it initially started off with some distrust from me (will he burn down my small, wooden, house-on-stilts down while I sleep above him in my thin Heidi-style mezzanine bed?) he repaid my mistrust by refusing to light, belching out copious amounts black smoke and then suddenly becoming ridiculously hot. The latter was my fault. I the inexperienced was stacking him up to sauna-heat-levels. Now, Stove lights up in minutes and is quite well behaved - unless of course I have a guest, and then he shows off and resolutely keeps his cool.
So Stove has dominated my life here. I get up as early, as I did in London, at about 6.30am, in order to write. But instead of the ongoing Adventures of Norah Fleex (my novel-in-progress), week one was taken up with the diary led: Adventures of Hannah Davey. It cathartically archives my initial grapple with many new faces, a very rural life, a non-hierarchical working environment, communal living and whole heap of culture shock. But from week two until now (week four) I have been able to write fiction again, but in a desultory fashion, which, to be fair, has seen me complete two shorts - so I can't beat myself up too much. But these small fictional victories are overshadowed by the nagging fact that Norah Fleex has been laying next to her lover Benjamin Ambigraph, in a treehouse, for close to a month now. She needs to move on.
It has struck me, since being here, quite why people used to have servants. I have read my fair share of historical fiction: countless Jean Plaidy 'and' Victoria Holt3 books; some Catherine Cookson; Philippa Gregory; the Brontës; Kathleen Winsor; Jean Rhys; Sarah Waters; Suzanna Clarke4; and of course, fairy tales unnumbered. I have never been able to get enough of bygone days when women stitched by candlelight; stoked fires; dipped curtseys, and men strode about in britches and rode wildly through the moors. When everybody had hardships and heartache and broke cultural taboos with their illegitimate children, witchcraft and whatnot. As a girl, I was often caught looking wistfully into the middle distance, imagining I was Cinderella or the Little Princess. What I am trying to illustrate is that my imagination is steeped in the romance of a bygone age: and through living on site at CAT I have inadvertently fulfilled each and every one of those historical heroine leanings. It's bloody brilliant!
As most Hags members will know, there are a lot of servant characters in historical fiction. After all, they made up a good proportion of the population and were often more interesting than the noble-born. I have had a glimmer of an insight into the life of, or at least the reason for hiring, a servant. Sometimes, I even have a smudge of soot on my cheek for goodness' sake. And I always have sooty knees and hands and all my clothes smell of wood smoke. In London, when all my clothes smelt of smoke, it meant I had hung around in some dingy bar for too long. Of course, I can only imagine what it was like to manage a household of fires; and bedpans; and fetching and carrying; and cleaning; all in a corset and mob cap. My little house is leaning towards the grubby side of clean, but it does look kind of like a hovel. Besides, I don't have any hot water. So really, this experience hugely facilitates me being Cinderella; Heidi; pic-a-Vicky-Holt-heroine; Little Two Eyes, etc. I like it. And I also think that's why I'm more into my whimsy short stories, as opposed to the marginally more developed and contemporary Norah Fleex and company.
Living here for six months, I know, is going to be, and is already, an experience not to be missed and if Norah has to lay next to Benjamin for another month while short stories trip out of my head instead, and Stove and I get to know each other even better - then so be it.
There are quite a lot of things I could talk about next month, and there's bound to be more things that haven't happened yet; or I can just tell it as it comes. To give you an idea of other miscellanea I could blather on about, here are some of the things I haven't mentioned:
Climate change: the biggie, this could include what CAT is doing with its Alternative Energy Strategy; sustainable living and other eco-stuff - but don't expect a very technical response, it's all about enthusiasm.
Our transgender hen phenomena: she thinks she's a cockerel, but her loud clucks don't sound nothing like a cock-a-doodle-do to me.
The sauna: which sits on the edge of the reservoir and they say is traditionally used naked! I am being proper prudish on this one.
The quarry: an amazing suntrap dell of wildlife, which has been officially closed since the mouth of the tunnel fell in on the unfortunate foreman back in the 1920s, a couple of hundred yards from my front door. There are steep paths in, or beautiful walks round the edge of it.
Or I could field questions! So please do feel free to ask me some.
Until next month!
Hannah in the hills
1. www.CAT.org.uk - have a look, it’s an amazing place, its mission: to inspire, inform and enable people to live a more responsible, sustainable lifestyle. From building your own wind turbine to identifying wild flowers, organic gardening and why you shouldn’t leave electrical appliances on standby, it’s ALL here. If anyone finds themselves on the west coast of Wales, Powys, do come and say hello!
2. There’s a book for sale called Crazy Pioneers that explains all www.cat.org.uk/publications
3. Jean and Vic being one and the same, along with Philippa Carr.
4. I just finished Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell – if anyone fancies an incredible detailed and therefore thoroughly believable account of the flamboyant return of English Magic in the 1800s and its aid of Wellington in the Napoleonic wars.
I have come to CAT as a Long Term Volunteer (LTV), working 9-5 in their Publications Department. In London, I worked as the Publications Office for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, editing their quarterly magazine; a job I may well return to at the end of this six months. I have been lucky to get one of the few sought after LTV places on site. So I'm living as part of the intentional community, which represents the origins of CAT (in the seventies, a few crazy pioneers2 came up to this abandoned slate quarry, did up the tumbledown miners cottages, and started what is now the largest eco-centre in Europe). I live in what's known as The Bath House, the smallest and most basic cottage. There are 12 other people that live on site, all ages, one of them just six. We eat together twice weekly and pay subs for our food which is delivered three times a week; all as local, vegetarian and organic as it can be. We garden and grow, recycle, compost, are about to build a new communal building out of straw bales and timber, and we use minimal electrical appliances (no toasters, electric kettles or coffee machines). We live as sustainable a lifestyle as possible, as an ongoing experiment and to my mind, as an example that it can be done.
MAN is it different to my shared flat in Bethnal Green! But I knew it would be, and that's why I chose to come. In terms of getting in touch with my resources, I shall never, ever just be able to twist up a radiator without appreciating it again. Also, we have our own water supply here, completely off the mains, and it tastes absolutely delicious; there're compost loos (which don't smell at all, although it is still coldish) with the rest rainwater flushable; a brisk walk to the shower, or a jump in the icy reservoir if you're braver than me; and of course, there's the ever-fluctuating power.
The Diary - Weeks 1-4
Roaring in its metal box is my little heat creature. I light its belly each morning and evening, and it belches black smoke at me; its hinges squeak as latch shut the phoenix-embossed iron door and often it grows so hot that I have to open the window and let some air out. When it rains it sounds different: not just rain falling on concrete, like London rain, the rain I knew; but rain falling on soft things, leaves, round twigs, the earth roof of my house, running off gutters and falling on piles of slate: wetter somehow, damp, refreshing sounds that treble against the bass of the fiery belly of my stove. And then there's always the tapping of these keys, my subconscious heavy hits where the 'r' and the 'd' have started to stick; making me feel like the handicapped writer in Stephen King's Misery. But always, at the heart of the sounds, is an enthusiastic purr, reminding me that before Stove came along, Laptop was my favourite mechanical thing.
These past few weeks, as a newby at the CAT, have seen my writing, as I expected, take something of a back seat. But not for the reasons I anticipated: it's because my little heat creature, Stove, takes alot of looking after. He is a gobbly little greedbag. He needs more attention than I ever had to give anything. I imagine that having a woodburning stove is not dissimilar to having a baby, and like a mother loves her baby: I love my stove. When he's too quiet I worry and check on him; is he still breathing? Sometimes, after a quiet spell of neglect, I look inside his hot belly and am dismayed to see his heart has died to a rich embery glow; but now (after four weeks of solid experience) with just a few dry splits of wood and a gentle well-positioned blow, his flames lick up to life again and I shut the door and he roars away happily.
Stove and I have a fairly good relationship now: it initially started off with some distrust from me (will he burn down my small, wooden, house-on-stilts down while I sleep above him in my thin Heidi-style mezzanine bed?) he repaid my mistrust by refusing to light, belching out copious amounts black smoke and then suddenly becoming ridiculously hot. The latter was my fault. I the inexperienced was stacking him up to sauna-heat-levels. Now, Stove lights up in minutes and is quite well behaved - unless of course I have a guest, and then he shows off and resolutely keeps his cool.
So Stove has dominated my life here. I get up as early, as I did in London, at about 6.30am, in order to write. But instead of the ongoing Adventures of Norah Fleex (my novel-in-progress), week one was taken up with the diary led: Adventures of Hannah Davey. It cathartically archives my initial grapple with many new faces, a very rural life, a non-hierarchical working environment, communal living and whole heap of culture shock. But from week two until now (week four) I have been able to write fiction again, but in a desultory fashion, which, to be fair, has seen me complete two shorts - so I can't beat myself up too much. But these small fictional victories are overshadowed by the nagging fact that Norah Fleex has been laying next to her lover Benjamin Ambigraph, in a treehouse, for close to a month now. She needs to move on.
It has struck me, since being here, quite why people used to have servants. I have read my fair share of historical fiction: countless Jean Plaidy 'and' Victoria Holt3 books; some Catherine Cookson; Philippa Gregory; the Brontës; Kathleen Winsor; Jean Rhys; Sarah Waters; Suzanna Clarke4; and of course, fairy tales unnumbered. I have never been able to get enough of bygone days when women stitched by candlelight; stoked fires; dipped curtseys, and men strode about in britches and rode wildly through the moors. When everybody had hardships and heartache and broke cultural taboos with their illegitimate children, witchcraft and whatnot. As a girl, I was often caught looking wistfully into the middle distance, imagining I was Cinderella or the Little Princess. What I am trying to illustrate is that my imagination is steeped in the romance of a bygone age: and through living on site at CAT I have inadvertently fulfilled each and every one of those historical heroine leanings. It's bloody brilliant!
As most Hags members will know, there are a lot of servant characters in historical fiction. After all, they made up a good proportion of the population and were often more interesting than the noble-born. I have had a glimmer of an insight into the life of, or at least the reason for hiring, a servant. Sometimes, I even have a smudge of soot on my cheek for goodness' sake. And I always have sooty knees and hands and all my clothes smell of wood smoke. In London, when all my clothes smelt of smoke, it meant I had hung around in some dingy bar for too long. Of course, I can only imagine what it was like to manage a household of fires; and bedpans; and fetching and carrying; and cleaning; all in a corset and mob cap. My little house is leaning towards the grubby side of clean, but it does look kind of like a hovel. Besides, I don't have any hot water. So really, this experience hugely facilitates me being Cinderella; Heidi; pic-a-Vicky-Holt-heroine; Little Two Eyes, etc. I like it. And I also think that's why I'm more into my whimsy short stories, as opposed to the marginally more developed and contemporary Norah Fleex and company.
Living here for six months, I know, is going to be, and is already, an experience not to be missed and if Norah has to lay next to Benjamin for another month while short stories trip out of my head instead, and Stove and I get to know each other even better - then so be it.
There are quite a lot of things I could talk about next month, and there's bound to be more things that haven't happened yet; or I can just tell it as it comes. To give you an idea of other miscellanea I could blather on about, here are some of the things I haven't mentioned:
Climate change: the biggie, this could include what CAT is doing with its Alternative Energy Strategy; sustainable living and other eco-stuff - but don't expect a very technical response, it's all about enthusiasm.
Our transgender hen phenomena: she thinks she's a cockerel, but her loud clucks don't sound nothing like a cock-a-doodle-do to me.
The sauna: which sits on the edge of the reservoir and they say is traditionally used naked! I am being proper prudish on this one.
The quarry: an amazing suntrap dell of wildlife, which has been officially closed since the mouth of the tunnel fell in on the unfortunate foreman back in the 1920s, a couple of hundred yards from my front door. There are steep paths in, or beautiful walks round the edge of it.
Or I could field questions! So please do feel free to ask me some.
Until next month!
Hannah in the hills
1. www.CAT.org.uk - have a look, it’s an amazing place, its mission: to inspire, inform and enable people to live a more responsible, sustainable lifestyle. From building your own wind turbine to identifying wild flowers, organic gardening and why you shouldn’t leave electrical appliances on standby, it’s ALL here. If anyone finds themselves on the west coast of Wales, Powys, do come and say hello!
2. There’s a book for sale called Crazy Pioneers that explains all www.cat.org.uk/publications
3. Jean and Vic being one and the same, along with Philippa Carr.
4. I just finished Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell – if anyone fancies an incredible detailed and therefore thoroughly believable account of the flamboyant return of English Magic in the 1800s and its aid of Wellington in the Napoleonic wars.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Prostitution Exhibition Extended
From the Women's Library newsletter:
"Due to demand from visitors, our current exhibition Prostitution: What’s going on? has been extended until 28 April 2007. It will be followed by What Women Want, a welcome return of our exhibition showcasing the fascinating range of material in the collections at The Women’s Library from 14 May – 24 August 2007."
More on the website.
"Due to demand from visitors, our current exhibition Prostitution: What’s going on? has been extended until 28 April 2007. It will be followed by What Women Want, a welcome return of our exhibition showcasing the fascinating range of material in the collections at The Women’s Library from 14 May – 24 August 2007."
More on the website.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Prostitution: What's Going On?
This is the title of a stunning exhibition at The Women's Library that runs till the end of the month. I'll admit to visiting it during a period in which I've been reading drug memoir after drug memoir in preparation for an academic paper I was giving, and, having spent the last few months reading about sex workers and other substance users, I was not expecting to be moved. I was wrong.
As usual, the Library has made the most of its small exhibition space. As well as the expected historically significant portraits, posters and publications on display, there are several interactive exhibits, including a puzzle in which you have to guide a silver ball past all the obstacles to getting out of sex work and a couple of telephone booths where you could listen to sound recordings through the handsets. An area has been set aside for specially-commissioned films expressing the feelings of sex workers, made in conjunction with women from the Poppy Project.
The exhibit that almost moved me to tears, though, was a simple list of female sex workers who had been killed in recent years. In between the exhibition board's being printed and the computer-based exhibit's being shown Ipswich had taken place, upping the number of casualties from 48 to 53. I'd been exposed to the depressing statistics about the murder of sex workers before - you're more likely to die in service as a prostitute in the UK than you are if you're a fire-fighter, but far less likely to hit the headlines. However, seeing a bald list of women in scrolling black text on a white screen in one corner of the exhibition space really took me by surprise ... especially with that increased figure.
The Library has highlighted several discussion points, with space for visitors to leave comments on cards pinned on boards in the exhibition hall. The question that was attracting most responses when I visited was why are there so many names for female sex workers and so few for the men who sell or buy sex from them? This was illustrated by three bright pink mannequins, one female covered in text and the other two male, with only three texts on them (exhibition photos here). The comment cards ranged from the outraged to the amused, and included lots from young people who believe they are restituting words like 'ho' and giving it a post-feminist non-offensive spin.
Young people's views are also on display in the form of creative writing from projects run by Barnardos in conjunction with the exhibition. All the young women and both the young men involved were identified as at risk of sexual exploitation, and their work ranged from decorated T-shirts through poems to diaries. In contrast to the films about trafficked women whose lives had been indelibly marked by their unwilling involvement in the sex trade, these diaries show 'typical' teen concerns ... though peppered with some disturbing incidents. Their hopes have not been crushed.
Of course, not all women involved in the sex industry are involved against their will, and the exhibition reflects this - even showing the award for Sex Worker of the Year with a quote from the 2005 winner, who says that the impact of the work on her life has been positive. It's all too easy to classify all sex workers as victims.
Where do you stand in the sex work debates? Are you worried about your neighbourhood or the trafficking of women across the world? What about the clients? And sexually transmitted diseases? Is life better for women in countries where it's legal? Or does it just lead to two 'classes' of prostitute - the professional with her comfortable rooms and social security number and the street worker having to turn tricks for whatever she can get? Is it time that the stigma was lost ... or transferred to the clients?
Recent Bestselling Memoirs by Sex Workers
Brown, Cupcake (2006) A piece of cake: a memoir. London: Bantam. ISBN 9780553818178.
Coombs, Rhea with Taylor, Diane (2007) My name is Angel. London: Virgin. ISBN 9781852273668.
Holden, Kate (2007) In my skin. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 1841989316.
The Exhibition Prostitution: What's Going On? has been nominated for the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize. This is the first time a library has been in the running. You can find out more and show your support via links from the homepage.
As usual, the Library has made the most of its small exhibition space. As well as the expected historically significant portraits, posters and publications on display, there are several interactive exhibits, including a puzzle in which you have to guide a silver ball past all the obstacles to getting out of sex work and a couple of telephone booths where you could listen to sound recordings through the handsets. An area has been set aside for specially-commissioned films expressing the feelings of sex workers, made in conjunction with women from the Poppy Project.
The exhibit that almost moved me to tears, though, was a simple list of female sex workers who had been killed in recent years. In between the exhibition board's being printed and the computer-based exhibit's being shown Ipswich had taken place, upping the number of casualties from 48 to 53. I'd been exposed to the depressing statistics about the murder of sex workers before - you're more likely to die in service as a prostitute in the UK than you are if you're a fire-fighter, but far less likely to hit the headlines. However, seeing a bald list of women in scrolling black text on a white screen in one corner of the exhibition space really took me by surprise ... especially with that increased figure.
The Library has highlighted several discussion points, with space for visitors to leave comments on cards pinned on boards in the exhibition hall. The question that was attracting most responses when I visited was why are there so many names for female sex workers and so few for the men who sell or buy sex from them? This was illustrated by three bright pink mannequins, one female covered in text and the other two male, with only three texts on them (exhibition photos here). The comment cards ranged from the outraged to the amused, and included lots from young people who believe they are restituting words like 'ho' and giving it a post-feminist non-offensive spin.
Young people's views are also on display in the form of creative writing from projects run by Barnardos in conjunction with the exhibition. All the young women and both the young men involved were identified as at risk of sexual exploitation, and their work ranged from decorated T-shirts through poems to diaries. In contrast to the films about trafficked women whose lives had been indelibly marked by their unwilling involvement in the sex trade, these diaries show 'typical' teen concerns ... though peppered with some disturbing incidents. Their hopes have not been crushed.
Of course, not all women involved in the sex industry are involved against their will, and the exhibition reflects this - even showing the award for Sex Worker of the Year with a quote from the 2005 winner, who says that the impact of the work on her life has been positive. It's all too easy to classify all sex workers as victims.
Where do you stand in the sex work debates? Are you worried about your neighbourhood or the trafficking of women across the world? What about the clients? And sexually transmitted diseases? Is life better for women in countries where it's legal? Or does it just lead to two 'classes' of prostitute - the professional with her comfortable rooms and social security number and the street worker having to turn tricks for whatever she can get? Is it time that the stigma was lost ... or transferred to the clients?
Recent Bestselling Memoirs by Sex Workers
Brown, Cupcake (2006) A piece of cake: a memoir. London: Bantam. ISBN 9780553818178.
Coombs, Rhea with Taylor, Diane (2007) My name is Angel. London: Virgin. ISBN 9781852273668.
Holden, Kate (2007) In my skin. Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 1841989316.
The Exhibition Prostitution: What's Going On? has been nominated for the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize. This is the first time a library has been in the running. You can find out more and show your support via links from the homepage.
Friday, July 07, 2006
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