Going West

I’m  excited about heading out to the Going West Books and Writers Festival this weekend. I am particularly excited about seeing Mirranda Burton talk with Dylan Horrocks. I read Mirranda’s  ‘Hidden’ last year and I loved it. It’s filled with beautiful observational pieces about her time as an art instructor to adults with intellectual disabilities. The stories are about her students, and the way they see the world, and how her world view has subsequently changed. She has rendered these in lino cuts (I think), which made me immediately want to haul out my mother’s printing press. Yes, that’s right, I have an etching press in my shed, but it’s covered in bicycles, broken bits of furniture and a rusting barbecue. If only I were rich, then I could convert the shed to my artist’s studio. But then where would all the bicycles go?

(you can find more of this here)

The other thing that makes it exciting is that she is a woman! Comics are a bit of a boys’ club, but there are lots of amazing female cartoonists out there. I dream of organising a festival where I invite Alison Bechdel, Gabrielle Bell, Vanessa Davis, Lynda Barry, Marjane Satrapi, Posy Simmonds, Jessica Abel, Kate Beaton, Gillian Tamaki, Sarah Glidden, Ariel Schrag, Julia Wertz, Lisa Hanawalt etc etc to New Zealand, but will it happen? We’re so far away. And there are so few people here who buy comics. Maybe it’s better to hope that one day I’ll get to publish a graphic novel and be invited overseas to hang out with them!

Who are your favourite female graphic novelists? Who have I missed?

I am also looking forward to seeing Tim Wilson and Jacqueline Fahey, and I hope to catch the wonderful Marianne Elliot on Sunday who wrote an amazing book about her time at the UN in Afghanistan.