So, this year, I will once again be at the Young Adult Literary Convention (YALC), part of the London Film and Comic Con! I am very excited about this. Last year I had a great time, did lots of booky things and saw lots of lovely friends, but also sneaked off to see Dolph Lundgren and a Game of Thrones panel. Dream.
This year, I am extra excited, and with very good reason... My wonderful friend Harriet Reuter Hapgood and I are hosting a MAKE YOUR OWN YALC ZINE workshop!
Harriet is one of my favourite people in the world to hang out with, and when we do, a lot of our time and chat revolves around zines. Early in our friendship, we established that we were both former makers of our own 90s lo-fi fanzines. We talked about how cool it would be to resurrect the scrappy, black-and-white photocopied labours of love from our youth. We drank some wine, ate a lot of snacks, worked on our novels and sometimes even cut up old copies of Vanity Fair for inspiration.
Then, one sunny Saturday, we spent the day in Harriet's garden with her cat Stanley and we finally put together our new fanzine I AM NOT ASHAMED! It is a lo-fi wonder, homespun and very much put together in a day, which is how a good proper fanzine should be.
Copies will be available for the first time ever at YALC (each individually decorated and numbered!) and we will also be hosting our workshop on how to make one yourself. There will be inspo, activities, ideas, snacks, music and LOTS OF GLITTER.
I can't wait. Hope to see you there... for revolution girl style now!
I'm in bed this morning simultaneously writing, watching RuPaul's Drag Race and drinking coffee. Not even 9am and I've written over 1,000 words before I have to get up and go to Zumba class - not bad.
Drag Race is now into series 9 and obviously I am following it avidly (even though the absence of my bae Santino Rice still looms large in my heart). In fact, it occurred to me this morning that I have written much of my recent work with RuPaul playing gently in the background.
It only just struck me - is this where the theme of makeover and identity in BECOMING BETTY came from?!
Thanks, Ru (I absolutely adore you). I would also like to mention that my all-time faves are Pandora Boxx, Sharon Needles, Alaska Thunderfuck 5000, Adore Delano, Jinkx Monsoon, Bianca Del Rio, Kim Chi, Ivy Winters and Jiggly Caliente.
May we all have Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent. Don't f**k it up.
I can't believe that BECOMING BETTY has been out for over a week! Launching a new book is SO nerve-wracking, so I am incredibly grateful that people have been kind about it. Seriously.
Thank goodness, people really seem to 'get' the book (sometimes I feel like such a little weirdo, out of step with the world, so this is genuinely a wonderful surprise) and to love Lizzie as much as I do.
Here is a little round-up of some nice blogs and stuff about Betty in the last week.
In other news, I did a very fun Sunday YA chat on BECOMING BETTY (thank you to everyone for all the ace questions and book recs). Last night I went to the launch night of Acoustic Coffee Club (it was great; if you're in Brighton, you should totally go to the next one). I just finished reading WHO RUNS THE WORLD? by Virginia Bergin and am full of feels about the future global matriarchy (obvs). Any free time is currently taken up with trying to write my next book and obsessing over season 9 of RuPaul's Drag Race. Although, this weekend I also intend to paint a wall. Exciting times, dear reader. Exciting times.
IMHO, all the greatest bands are based on
great friendships. The band is the ultimate gang – or should be, if it’s done
right. The best bands look like a gang of mates having a laugh, not like some
slick corporation.
I know all the classic pairings are obviously, like, Lennon/McCartney etc, but the best friendship gangs in the history of
music are always girl gangs. It’s why as a teenager I loved Kenickie and
Shampoo, and even the early Spice Girls back when they looked like they dyed
their own hair and bought their stage outfits from Camden Market, and Geri (my
fave) always looked a bit like she’d just fallen over at all times.
My new book BECOMING BETTY features a lot of
bands (which makes sense, given that the action centres around a Battle of the
Bands contest). My favourite of the lot are the all-girl gang, Dirty Harriet.
They have been getting a lot of love from readers, which particularly delights
me as they are pretty much my dream girl gang.
I thought 'Dirty Harriet' sounded like such a
classic riot grrl band name, like the DIY punk bands I loved as a teenager and
still do – like Heavens to Betsy, Bratmobile, 7 Year Bitch or Lunachicks. I
googled the name to make sure it hadn’t already been done, and was actually
shocked (and pretty delighted, for my purposes) that it hadn’t been used
before.
I discovered the original riot grrl bands via
reading interviews with Kurt Cobain in NME, in which he sang their praises
(many of my early musical discoveries came via my love for Kurt Cobain and his
love for generously bigging-up his favourite obscure bands). I discovered a
whole world of DIY culture, bands and fanzines, and it was genuinely
life-changing. The riot grrl DIY ethos made me feel like I could have a go,
create my own culture and get involved – the same message I would love to give
readers of BECOMING BETTY.
Dirty Harriet are made up of Harry, Jess and
Lola. They are friends first and bandmates second. In fact, Harry and Lola are
cousins – an important fact as my cousin is my BFF and it adds to the
tight-knit gang mentality (see also: Shampoo made up of cousins Jacqui and
Carrie; Throwing Muses revolving around stepsisters Kristin and Tanya). Also, when you're a teenage girl who doesn't have that many friends, having a cousin the same age is really useful (just saying).
Dirty Harriet take their band seriously;
music is the most important thing in the world to them and they practise
diligently. As they say themselves:
‘Basically, we all have no life. But that’s OK because we didn’t
exactly have glittering social lives to begin with. We’re all music geeks.’‘…But that’s OK, because it’s always the
music geeks who win in the end. Every cool rock star in the canon was once a
music geek. That’s the law.’
However, they also want to have fun and
remember that friendship is more important than anything else. They have their
own manifesto to prove it, which covers everything from their influences to gig
etiquette to anti-fashion ideas.
Most important, Dirty Harriet are about doing
things their own way: playing what they want, wearing what they want and not
caring about what anybody else thinks. Just like all the best girl gangs in
history.
So, my new book BECOMING BETTY is officially out tomorrow!
Launching a book is a really anxious process (for me, anyway). When I was younger, I used to keep all of my writing in a box under my bed, refusing to let anybody read it - not even my best friend, who was always asking. She still jokes that in a perfect world I'd probably still rather keep all of my writing - along with my feelings - in a box under the bed.
Writing a second book (and this is my second 'proper' book) is HARD. Everyone says it's hard. I wasn't prepared for quite how hard it would be, particularly as a lot of Other Stuff was happening in my life at the time. It involved a lot of tears and sleepless nights and missing my best friend's birthday party.
However, it also involved a lot of joy. Amid all the Other Stuff, it was an escape. I wrote a lot of the book sitting in cafes in France, in the sunshine with a cup of coffee or a glass of pastis. I wrote some of it on cross-channel ferries. I wrote a few big chunks of it at a borrowed desk at weekends, in an empty tower block with a beautiful view of Brighton, taking breaks for cups of tea and dancing around with my then-boyfriend to 'Take Me Home' by Cher, on a Paradise Garage bootleg compilation mix.
I hope some of that joy comes across. BECOMING BETTY is a book about music and friendship and identity (and flapjacks and haircuts and milkshakes and band T-shirts). I've had a funny relationship with Betty, but now I can look at her with a lot of love.
Tonight I am having a party to celebrate. I have a ridiculous outfit and new shoes. I have made a lot of cakes. I'm really happy to be celebrating this book coming out into the world.
It's called BECOMING BETTY and it will be available in All The Shops on 20th April.
You might like it if you are a fan of any of the following:
1. Girls in bands
2. Bands
3. Band T-shirts
4. Music in general
5. Flapjacks
6. Makeover stories (one of my favourite things in the world from Clueless onwards - I was always the Tai)
7. My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend
8. Brighton
9. Friendship dramas
10. Feminism
BEHOLD THE COOLEST COVER EVER (I am officially In Love With It)
