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I’m in love with a monster: 3 books about monsters I loved in 2022

Samhain is coming closer, nights are getting longer, things are lurking in the shadows. And a time of embracing darkness seems the perfect moment to share a trio of books about monsters that I read and loved this year.

It’s been a year since I got onstage

For several years pre-pandemic, August and the months leading up to it meant only one thing: Edinburgh Fringe.

Latrinalia

There are many reasons rock pubs, queer clubs and dive bars will forever have my heart, but I’ve always loved the sexy, sad, political or downright surreal scrawls on their toilet walls.

Poster from queer clubnight Crossbreed in London reading 'we believe in queer utopias'

Queer utopias and mutual care

In the little box room study where I do my writing hangs a banner from Black Lodge Press. QUEER UTOPIAS ARE NOT FANTASIES, it says. QUEER UTOPIAS ARE NECESSITIES. And at a time when things feels far closer to dystopia than utopia, that’s something that’s been playing on my mind. I’ve been thinking a lot about the necessity of mutual care, and how we look after each other when times are tough.

Lack of daylight

The nights are long. The days are dark. Times are weird, and traumatic, and the news has become a post-apocalyptic sci-fi parody of itself. Which seems like perfect timing to share our latest short film…

Loved list: 2021 💖

Here we go again. End of another year, and — as in 2020 — I’ve been back through my newsletters from the past twelve months and collaged together the things I read, watched or listened to that stuck with me the most. It’s far from definitive, it’s not themed beyond being vaguely chronological, but it nevertheless forms a messy picture of where my head and heart were and went during 2021.

Sexual experimentation while watching Scream

It’s some time in the late nineties, and a friend has brought round a video: the first film in the Scream trilogy. The film is already infamous for its blood-soaked scenes of gory, violent murders, but its eighteen rating and reputation only makes it all the more enticing.

JCB onstage at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018

Making things, loving them and letting them go

Lately, I’ve been incubating some big changes. After eleven years as founder and director of For Books’ Sake, I’m stepping down to focus on other things.

Neon Smiths lyrics by Ben Valenzuela via Unsplash

Chaos and adrenaline: on being two years sober

Lately I’ve needed to take things slow, and that’s something I haven’t always been good at. Chaos, on the other hand…

On darkness and light: winter to summer solstice

Let’s rewind to six months ago. Deepest, darkest December. It’s bitterly cold and black outside. My alarm goes off, signalling 6am, and I creep out of the bedroom so I don’t wake my partner, then put on the clothes I’ve collected in the bathroom the night before.

Jane Claire Bradley