Great fuel

The New Zealand Book Council have included my recommendations for NZ's next Great Kiwi Classic on their Booknotes Unbound site.

And my list gets another favourable mention on Wellington City Libraries' News Blog.

I hope there's something in this little lot to fire up your interest in graphic fiction!

Taipei diary: one

Later than scheduled, here's Taipei Diary: day one of my participation in the NZ Book Council's Graphic Novelists Exchange Residency in association with the Publishers Association of New Zealand and the Taipei International Book Exhibition.

 

I was gifted this notebook by Wellington Cartoonist Grant Buist, to journal my Taipei exchange. I made my first entry at Auckland Airport, beginning what was to become my daily drawing ritual.

A short hop to Melbourne followed by a longer anti-travel-sickness-pill-blurred flight to Taipei in time to see the sunrise from the Howard Hotel. To see what I did next, read Taipei Diary: day two.

Open art

 

Me, standing proudly beside some of my art: clockwise, l to r, the first page of "Alchemy Hour", four pages of my residential work-in-progress "Natural Desire", a page from "Escape Behaviours" and one from "Orcus" (the full comic of "Orcus" can be read in the latest issue of Funtime Comics Anthology).

I just got back from Taiwan, where I participated in the second half of the NZ Book Council's Graphic Novelist Exchange Residency in association with the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) and the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE).

 

"Warkworth" from "Escape Behaviours", my epic graphic poem about marriage, migration and stuttering.

There's so much I want to tell you about - too much for one post - so I'll talk about the graphic novelists' exhibition today, then (because I still haven't finished posting about the first half of the residency, that happened back in October) I'll try to zoom through the whole residency and get up to speed with current events in the next few posts and post more about the book fair after that - I can't believe it's almost March already!

  

 

Muriwai Ihakara

New Zealand was the 2015 Guest of Honour at the Taipei International Book Exhibition, which opened with a blessing given by Muriwai Ihakara.

Ant Sang, Tim Gibson, 61 Chi, Ahn Zhe, Sean Chuang and I were lucky enough to have works selected for exhibition and luckier still to be given such a spacious exhibition arena, right by the busy manga section of the TIBE main hall.

 

Ant Sang, with his awesome art: pages from "Shaolin Burning" and work-in-progress from the residency. 

 

 It was the best feeling in the world to see my work blown up so huge and people taking their time to really look closely at it. 

 

61 Chi's art.

 

Information about the residential exchange and the artists' village, where we stayed for the residential part of our time in Taipei. 

 

More people looking at my work! 

Because I had submitted the most work-in-progress, I was very generously given eight stands to display it and was thrilled to see it all presented so beautifully - and so big!

 

Had I known my photo would be enlarged to this size, well...hindsight, eh? 

All the art looked amazing and it was especially touching to see it displayed with photographs taken during the residential exchange, both from Auckland and Taipei.

  

Tim Gibson's work and photographs from the residency. 

 

Tim Gibson, at the blessing.

 

Photographs from the residential exchange.

 

Sean Chuang's art. 

 

Ahn Zhe's art.

 

People who liked Rae's work also liked Ahn Zhe's work - 'cause it's poetry, innit?

My sincere gratitude to PANZ and the NZ Book Council for selecting me to participate in the Residential Exchange and the TIBE, and to their staff and Dala Publishing's staff in Taipei, who worked tirelessly to make the event a great success. Thank you.



Happy Chinese New Year!

Islanded one

 

Day one of the Graphic Novelist Exchange Residency began with Ant Sang, Tim Gibson and me being introduced to Chuang Yung-shin, 61Chi and Ahn Zhe by Catriona Ferguson, Director of the NZ Book Council, with the help of translation from Dala Publishing's Aho Huang, at Vaughan Park Retreat Centre (you can read my introduction to the residency here).

Left to right: Dala Publishing's Aho Huang (our translator), 61Chi, Ahn Zhe, me, Chuang Yung-shin, Tim Gibson and Ant Sang.

Once the welcoming was over, we had the first of what was to become a daily ritual: the meeting.

 

The meeting gave us all a chance to air our initial ideas and thoughts about what form our collaboration could yield. 

Since finding out I had been selected for the residency, I had put a lot of thought into form and took along some graphic novels and stories and sketches to illustrate my ideas.

 

 

Click on images for links. 

I chose The Octonauts and the Only Lonely Monster to show how pages could be printed in different directions, upside down, for eg, to engage readers to participate physically with book and how this technique could be employed to make a reader from one culture shift their perspective, literally, to see a work from another culture's point-of-view (start video at 5:05 for demonstration of how the book has to be turned to be read).

I talked about Mary and Bryan Talbot's graphic collaboration, Dotter of her Father's Eyes, which demonstrated beautifully not only the relationship of its subjects but also is endearingly revealing about its author's marriage. 

New Zealand cartoonist Grant Buist had told me about another collaboration that involved translation of sorts: The Red Re[a]d Diary, by Teddy Kristiansen with Steven T. Seagle, where one artist, unable to read the language of the original manuscript, had made up his own interpretation for what the story was by looking at the images and text and guessing. 

And I talked about the graphic conversation Dylan Horrocks had with Emily Perkins, that resulted in All Hail Ellie Destroyer of Worlds.

I wanted to visually represent the surface image we present to strangers and the inner that we only reveal once we become friends, and how this applies to our cultures. 

I demonstrated how cut-outs could be used to hide then reveal parts of a narrative.

 

This idea was popular as it fit well with the overall theme of the exchange: Island to Island. 

The meeting gave us lots to think about. We decided a walk was in order to let the thoughts settle in. 

Vaughan Park is siutated at the edge of Long Bay Regional Park and the weather was kind to us as we took in the beautiful views....

 

 

...recorded ourselves recording and...

 

...recorded graphic fiction in the sand....

 

...encountered a little history about an earlier cross cultural exchange...

 

...and found our own ways to bridge our cultures.

 

 

Islanded

 

Left to right: 61CHi, Ahn Zhe, me, Chaung Yung-shin, Tim Gibson, Ant Sang, Catriona Ferguson (Director of NZ Book Council), [taking the photograph, and translating] Dala Publishing's Aho Huang. 

October was such a successful month for me, I didn't get a chance to write much about the Graphic Novelist Exchange Residency I'm participating in as I had to scoot off to Scotland to attend the Dundee International Book Prize (though, if you click on the link, you can read brief reports from Ant, Tim and me about the first week of the residency, on Booknotes Unbound, as well as introductions to the work of 61Chi, Chuang Yung-shin and Ahn Zhe). But since I landed back in NZ, I've had time to think over the past month and realise how lucky I am. I have really landed on my feet.

Thanks to the New Zealand Book Council and the Publisher's Association of New Zealand in association with the Taipei Book Fair Foundation, I got selected to spend a week at Vaughan Park with Ant Sang, Tim Gibson, and Taiwanese graphic artists 61Chi, Ahn Zhe and Chuang Yung-shin (Sean), to work on a collaborative graphic fiction publication.

Art work from the book-in-progress will be exhibited at the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) in February 2015, when the second part of the residency will take place in Taiwan.

      

When I found out I had been selected for the residency, I started a visual journal. But I thought it might be interesting to blog the experience, island to island, starting with day one of the residency.

Fun thing: part one

My sincere thanks to the New Zealand Book Council for awarding me an International Travel grant and funding my flights to and from the UK to attend the Dundee International Book Prize gala dinner and Dundee Literary Festival. Thanks, too, to Literary Dundee for funding my accommodation at the Apex City Quay Hotel & Spa. I am grateful for your generosity, my trip would not have been possible without your assistance. 

And what a trip!


The Courier headline on the morning of the Dundee International Book Prize gala dinner:

I promptly took my person to the Street of the alleged incident.

Perhaps the alleged flasher misread the To Let sign for ToiLet.

It was in this state of naivety and openness to learning that I experienced Dundee.

On one's first visit to Dundee, one must have a room with a view, and this was mine:

from the Apex City Quay Hotel and Spa. And look right, a lighthouse on a boat. It would be easier to see if its light were on. The sun hadn't quite got its act togeether by 9.30 am, jet lagged, obviously.

But by mid norning it was a glorious day in Dundee, and how better to see the city's sights than in the company of local writer and blogger Rachel Fox, affectionately known online by moi since 2009 as T'other Rachel.

 Fancy, travelling betwixt antipodes to discover the Discovery had done it first. 

The Discovery expedition to the Antarctic was led by Robert Falcon Scott, of course, whose name I filched for my nom de plume the year I was shortlisted for the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize.

The Discovery appeared to have brought back a few unregistered passengers:

I don't know how long the penguin's been staring at that compass, but I think someone ought to say it isn't working.

 

Are we nearly there yet?