International Women's Week

It's been quite a week already.

Yesterday, Harriet Reuter Hapgood and I took our magical travelling fanzine roadshow to St Marylebone School in London, where we taught a whole day's worth of zine workshops as part of their International Women's Day week. The students were inspiring, clever, creative and an utter delight. They put together an incredible zine packed full of their feminist heroes: from Beyonce to Virginia Woolf to Ada Lovelace to Billie Holliday to Emma Watson and back again. Absolute joy.

Then, today saw the official cover reveal for FLOORED, the collaborative novel I have been working on with the YA crack team of Sara Barnard, Holly Bourne, Tanya Byrne, Non Pratt, Melinda Salisbury and Lisa Williamson. It's been a long time in the making, an incredible experience, and it comes out on 12th July.

And (ta-da!) here is the cover. I love it!

What do you think? Isn't it cool?!

Hopefully it gives you a little insight into what it's all about... well, seven lives colliding.

And most importantly... can you guess which shoes are mine?

As if that's not enough excitement to be going with - in a couple of days, I'm off to South Korea. This life is bonkers sometimes. I'm into it.

Time Again.

I keep writing things and deleting them.  Ooh, how deep and metaphorical?!

Anyway. Here are Some Current Things.

I went to see Bananarama and it was unexpectedly one of the best gigs I have ever been to.

I also went to see Aldous Harding and she was quite special.

My friend Neil gave me a T-shirt that says MORE ISSUES THAN VOGUE on it and I love it deeply.

At the weekend my mum came to stay, and we went to the Crab Claw on Brighton seafront and ate clam chowder chips - recommend, would 100% eat again every day for the rest of my life if I could, etc etc etc.

My random festival friend Jez is making a documentary about the album 'George Best' by the Wedding Present and you can find out all about it here.

I've been clearing out lots of stuff and have made many trips lately to Brighton tip - again, highly recommend. They also sell compost.

I became obsessed with the artist Babak Ganjei via Instagram (modern!) and I have been buying lots of stuff from his website. I literally could not love him more.

I am forever torn between thinking it's A Bit Common to put one's Christmas tree up too early, and - if I'm going to spend £30 on a tree - wanting to get my money's worth. So...I put mine up yesterday. Katherine and I walked down London Road intending to get small trees and carry them home. Of course we ended up getting thoroughly carried away and having to take our huge fatty trees home in a cab. Mine has three sets of fairy lights on it and thus looks uncannily like Winona's 'Stranger Things' series 1 breakdown.  Festive!

Reminder that you can buy copies of the beautiful, lovingly homemade lo-fi fanzine I AM NOT ASHAMED - along with 'euphemism cocktail' postcards and a whole bag of incredible one-off swag - from our online shop. We now deliver worldwide! Would make a pretty cool Christmas present, let me tell you.

Bye for now!

ECW X

The good stuff that I am seeking.

I seem to have spent the past week or so typing and deleting posts. You can guess what they're about. I may or may not post. I'm not sure there is any point.

And so, instead, to the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. Stuff I like; stuff I'm excited about; stuff that brings me joy.

My New Kitchen
I've been redecorating and it is an absolute DREAM. Mexican star tiles, Pepto Bismol candy pink walls, floorboards, many shelves for tiny wineglasses and cookery books... Kitchen discos ahoy (the kitchen glitter ball, of course, remains).

Stella Vine
I am a long-term and avid fan. So, it was a stroke of luck that - semi-drunk on a train the other night - I saw her post on Instagram saying a new limited-edition print was available to buy. Total whim, bought immediately - so much so that I got the very first one. I am in love with it.

Riverdale
Total binge-watch like I haven't done in ages. I watched the lot in one weekend and am now struggling with the idea of having only one ep per week. I need more Veronica in my life.

Glossier
The magic is real. The package arrived like a proper glorious treat, and the lipstick is the perfect naughty shade to make you look like you've been drinking raspberry cocktails and snogging a boy you fancy on a rooftop all night.

I AM NOT ASHAMED
Issue 2 of my old-school 90s-style fanzine, lovingly made with the beaut Harriet Reuter Hapgood, is now available to buy from our online shop! Featuring essays on Riverdale, Emma Forrest, Courtney Love; the in/out list, behind the issue, euphemism cocktails and more!

The Brighton Fanzine Tea Party!

I am extremely excited to announce that - following our wildly brilliant mini-workshop at YALC - Harriet Reuter Hapgood and I are hosting our very own BRIGHTON FANZINE TEA PARTY.

If you'd like to come, you can buy a ticket here!

Here's the deets:

I AM NOT ASHAMED zine (by YA authors Harriet Reuter Hapgood and Eleanor Wood) presents THE BRIGHTON FANZINE TEA PARTY. Come and spend a cosy afternoon with us, making zines and celebrating DIY culture – with cake and music and glitter. Teens welcome!

• Make your own zine
• Chill in the zine library
• Buy personalised zines and books
• Browse the jumble sale
• Drink tea and eat cake

What you get:

• Everything you need to go home with a master copy of your own fanzine
• Zine-making tutorial, advice and all craft materials (much glitter)
• Chat to authors about your book/zine/writing
• Tea and coffee and homemade cake
• Hang out with friendly creative people in a lovely cosy place
• Exclusive I AM NOT ASHAMED party bag

YALC

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 AM NOT ASHAMED

It finally exists!

To explain, my wonderful friend Harriet Reuter Hapgood* and I have been talking for AGES about how we are going to make a proper old-school photocopied 90s-style fanzine.  Just talking about it has been the best fun ever - a bit like being a teenager and discussing at length with your friends about how you're going to start a band but never actually playing a note (was that just me and my friends, maybe everyone else used that time to actually learn to play guitar properly?).

Anyway, we spent days drinking tea and eating snacks, talking about how great our fanzine was going to be.  Obviously, this was a very worthwhile exercise.  We would write bits, ambitiously plan bits, draw bits... then put them in a drawer and kind of forget about them.

This weekend - during a Brighton heatwave - we decided: ENOUGH.  We spent a whole day sitting in Harriet's garden in the sunshine, with her cat and a bag of cookies and a stack of craft supplies and a suitable playlist, and we GOT IT DONE.  We made a fanzine!

Our fanzine is called I AM NOT ASHAMED.  Its (very broad, quite vague) theme is ENTHUSIASM.  Be an unapologetic enthusiast.  Enthusiasm is good.

I AM NOT ASHAMED will probably be available at a publishing event near you soon.

In the meantime, here is a little zine inspiration board.

*If you have not done so already, I cannot recommend enough that you read Harriet's beautiful book, The Square Root of Summer - it is truly wonderful and I am still pretty blown away that this amazing and gorgeous genius is my friend, TBH.