Hello! Lovely to see you as always. As the nights draw in and temperature drops, not so many people swing by the old kiosk, so it’s good to see a familiar face. What are you having? The usual?
I don’t think I’ve got a theme for you this time, but I do have some stuff. I think it’s called ‘content’ now, but weirdly that feels more degrading than ‘stuff’, so maybe I’ll stick with it. So, what’s been happening? Well, to start, I took a few short breaks at the end of summer…
Trips.
Firstly, I cycled and camped in Norfolk for a few days in a heatwave. It’s a surreal landscape that I kind of found hard to get into, but I did have a lovely time, and even swam with seal while taking a break on coastal walk. You can’t say fairer than that really.
Next I went to Collioure, on the Mediterranean border of France and Spain. Staying in a small apartment on the seafront, which I shall obnoxiously report, was as delightful as it sounds.
Finally, I went to Snowdonia on an annual trip away with a couple of old school friends. It has become a bit of a tradition in recent years, and despite our differing lives, it’s a weekend I always look forward too. It’s always nice to be in the mountains and we had unseasonably good weather, but I don’t have any nice analogue photos of that trip, so you’ll just have to imagine.
The Hard Switch Launch.
It’s here! The book that I’ve been boring you all with for such a long time was finally released via a lovely launch at Gosh! Comics in London. Thank you so much to all of you who made it down, it’s always a nerve-wracking experience, but it helps immeasurably when you have a room full of such nice people in front of you. I’m sorry I didn’t get to chat more, time flew by and there were a lot of books to sign, but it really meant a lot. Thanks to Avery Hill for publishing, Gosh for hosting, and Mauricio Molizane for the photographs.
It’s been lovely to hear people saying such nice things about it too, and there’s even a few reviews coming in. Like this one from The Comic Crush, who very generously say;
‘This is truly working class sci-fi, with a humanist (if not entirely human), angle. This is how we live now, always hoping that tomorrow it will get better.’
I know I’ve been banging on about kickstarters and preorders for ages, but now it’s just out there in the world, in a very normal book way. So, you can go to your favourite bookstore and pick it up off the shelves, or get them to order it in, or just get it sent you directly from Avery Hill Publishing.
Oddities & Extras.
As the weather turns its head towards winter here in the UK, it’s important to try and find some romance in the bleakness. I was reminded of one of the pieces of TV I enjoyed the most this year, A Spy Among Friends, which is a fictionalised account of the defection of the British intelligence agent Kim Philby. It’s a very slow burn, and somewhat overlooked, but what I enjoyed most was the superb production design, and it almost makes me look forward to condensation, grey skies and turning my collar up against the wind.
My other coping with winter strategy is to focus on enjoying the things I do inside. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, but never really talk about it, unless someone mortifyingly refers to me as a ‘foodie’, which genuinely makes my toes curl. However, I very much enjoy finishing a day’s work and doing some tinkering in the kitchen. I’ve been trying to take my time a bit more, rather than turning it out as quickly as possible. I’m not a big recipe person, but I’ve been expanding my experiments recently and it’s yielded some fun results. I think I like that it’s a low stakes, small creative activity, that allows me to think differently.
Finally got myself along the A World In Common exhibition at Tate Modern the other day, which I’d been meaning to do for a while. It’s collection of contemporary African photography, which is definitively an area of interest for me, but as it’s a group show, I think you’d be hard pressed not find something you connect with. So many stories and angles, and I found it to be a myriad of jumping off points for various ideas. Also a good personal reminder that it’s always worth going to things, you always get something out of it, even if it’s not what you were expecting.
Podcast.
I was guest on Avery Hill’s podcast, Signals From The Hill recently, talking about my book, but in a fun, meta twist, I’m interviewed by my partner (and another Avery Hill author) Lizzy Stewart. I promise we’re not too unbearable about it, and it doesn’t become too domestic, but we did record it in our flat, so... All jokes aside, it was nice to informally talk about my process, now that it’s done, and you can listen to it HERE.
Right, that will probably do you, to be honest. The clocks have gone back and it’s getting a bit too dark and cold to be hanging around a kiosk in the evening time. I’ll let you get back to whatever you’ve got planned for the evening.
Until next time, make sure you take it easy, there’s a lot going on right now.
Owen D. Pomery.