Laydeez Review Sessions
The Laydeez Review Sessions are 50-minute one-to-one sessions to critically review your work with a leading practitioner. Each of the 6 shortlisted artists for the Laydeez Award received a free review session. These ran on the first day of the festival in 2019, which was not a public day. The remainder were available for everyone to book, all genders, allocated on a first-come-first-served basis, bookable in advance. There is no limit to the number of sessions one person can book. This year we expanded this strand of our activity to make the expertise of 11 reviewers available – an increase from 6 reviewers in 2018. The cost in 2019 was £50 (early bird). This was subsidised by Arts Council England funding and enabled us to offer 6 sessions at no charge to those on low income.
The sessions can be used for critical feedback, professional advice and practical help, and the criteria does not demand work should be finished to participate..
This strand will run again at our 2020 festival.The invited reviewers were selected for the range of expertise they can offer. They are all experienced practitioners and teachers, familiar with the comics form.
| RACHAEL BALL’S book, ‘The Inflatable Woman’ ( Bloomsbury), was a Guardian Best graphic novel 2015. Her second GN ‘Wolf’ was Arts Council funded (published Selfmadehero 2018), and has been described by Pipedream comics as a ‘timeless classic.’ She taught Art in schools for 16 years and now teaches workshops on creating graphic novels at the House of Illustration. She also teaches at The Art Academy and is a co co-ordinator of the London branch of Laydeez do comics. She has been interviewed on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour & had an exhibition of Wolf at the Cartoon Museum. She is currently working on her 3rd GN, ‘The Patsy Papers’ and a children’s book. She started cartooning for Deadline comics in 1990. Website: rachaelball.tumblr.comInsta/ twitter: @rachaelcartoons | |
HANNAH BERRY is an award-winning graphic novelist, cartoonist and comics creator, author of LIVESTOCK, ADAMTINE and BRITTEN & BRÜLIGHTLY, all published by Jonathan Cape. She is a regular contributor to various comics projects all around the world, and in 2018 was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and selected as UK Comics Laureate 2019-21. Hannah Berry is the author of three graphic novels that have all needed selling, and she has burnt very few bridges in doing so. | |
| EMMA BURLEIGH won the 2018 Laydeez do Comics Prize for her graphic novel, a watercolour memoir exploring her relationship with her birth mother who relinquished her for adoption. She is passionate about the vibrant, glowing and mercurial qualities of watercolour, and she’ll bring her paints to offer watercolour support, demos and troubleshooting during your session if you’d like. She’s interested in giving visual form to sub-verbal, psychological states and her work has appeared in publications including The Strumpet, Resurgence & Ecologist, and Contemporary British Painting. She self publishes zines, teaches Comics, Watercolour and Mindful Art Journaling courses and co co-ordinates the Bristol branch of ‘Laydeez do Comics’. Website: www.emmaburleigh.com Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/EmmaBurleighArtworkFacebook: emmaburleighartist Twitter: @emmaburleigh Instagram: emmaburleighartist | |
WALLIS EATES started doing autobiographical comics a few years ago and was shortlisted for the Myriad Editions First Graphic Novel award in 2014. Since then she has self-published her work to critical acclaim, and widened her remit to working in collaboration with others to share their stories. This has included survivors of brain injury, boxers and prisoners. She is currently working on ‘Like an Orange’ which is due out with Unbound books next year, and is crowdfunding ‘Wings’ about prison through Kickstarter. Wallis is also a London coordinator for Laydeez Do Comics. www.walliseates.wixsite.com/walliseates | |
| KARRIE FRANSMAN is a comic creator. Her comics have been published in The Guardian, The Times, Time Out, The Telegraph, the BBC, The New Statesman and by The Arts Council. She published two graphic novels with Penguin Random House; ‘The House That Groaned’, and the award winning ‘Death of the Artist’. She developed an award winning comic, ‘Over, Under, Sideways, Down’ about an Iranian teenage refugee, for The British Red Cross, created an installation for the British Council and Southbank Centre and was commissioned to make a ‘Selves Portrait’ for an exhibition with Manchester Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. She has spoken and run workshops worldwide for organisations including The Guardian Masterclasses, TEDx, Central Saint Martins, Oxford University, The Hay Festival, The Big Draw, House of Illustration and The British Library, and presented her work worldwide from Russia to Bangladesh, Lebanon and Mexico. www.karriefransman.com Twitter. https://twitter.com/karriefransman Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/Karrie-Fransman-111870335572273/ Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/karriefransman/ | |
| EMILLY HAWORTH-BOOTH is an author and illustrator whose picturebook ‘The King Who Banned the Dark’ was a Guardian Children’s Book of the Month and a Sunday Times Book to Watch Out For. Emily won the Observer/Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize in 2013 for her story ‘Colonic’, and her long-form graphic memoir about climate change, chronic fatigue syndrome and romantic comedies was shortlisted for the LDC Prize in 2017. She has taught graphic novel courses at the Royal Drawing School for nine years and was recently described by a student as ‘the story osteopath’. http://emilyhaworthbooth.com twitter @emilyhb insta @emilyhaworthbooth | |
| KRIPA JOSHI is the creator of Miss Moti, a plump brown character who blurs the line between fantasy and reality. Originally from Nepal, she studied Illustration at the School of Visual Arts, New York, with a Fulbright scholarship. In 2016 she started the Miss Moti-vation series, a weekly illustration of Miss Moti with a motivational quote. Miss Moti has been featured in BBC Women’s Hour, BBC Asian Network, the Guardian and other international publications. Her work has also been exhibited at the Lightbox, Transport Museum and at the House of Illustration as part of the Comics Creatrix exhibition. Kripa has co-edited the Strumpet, a transatlantic women’s comic anthology, and also conducted art and comic workshops for children. website: www.missmoti.com FB: @missmoti Twitter: @missmoti Instagram: @missmoti_vation | |
| SIMONE LIA is an award winning comic artist/illustrator/writer. She has written and illustrated several children’s books and graphic novels, including Fluffy (Jonathan Cape) and They Didn’t Teach THIS at Worm School (Walker Books). She’s written comic strips for adults and children for numerous publications including The Independent on Sunday, The DFC, The Phoenix and she has a weekly strip The Simone Lia Cartoon in The Observer. Her comic paintings and drawings have been exhibited across Europe and galleries include The Tate Britain. www.simonelia.com twitter: simoneliadraws | |
SOFIA NIAZI is an artist and editor of OOMK Zine. She completed an MA in illustration at Kingston University. As part of OOMK, she currently runs a community risograph print studio in Newham, Rabbits Road Press, with studio mates Rose Nordin and Heiba Lamara. She employs various digital and hand drawn techniques in her work and explores themes relating to technology, politics and animals. Sofia has produced work for Kew Gardens, Barbican, Museum of London and The Guardian, amongst others. https://sofianiazi.co.uk | |
| JANETTE PARRIS is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose creative practice investigates the contemporary urban experience, using narrative, humour and popular formats, including soap opera, stand-up comedy, musical theatre, cartoons, comics and animation. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Tate Britain & Modern, I.C.A, The New Art Gallery Walsall, Kunsthaus Zürich, Hayward Gallery Touring, Art on the Underground, and was one of six lead contemporary artists selected for Museums at Night 2014. Her comic Arch was included in the British Library exhibition “Comics Unmasked” and is interviewed by artist Bob & Roberta Smith in Joy of Text, a recent broadcast from the BBC Radio 4 documentary series The Art of Now. www.archcomic.com www.instagram.com/janetteparris https://youtu.be/qsdAAWCWmBY Brief Encounters – Janette Parris animation https://youtu.be/afNsN2OXy_4 BBC Arts Museums at Night 2014 – Janette Parris Cardiff Story Museum www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bkqv3x BBC Radio 4 The Art of Now – Joy of Text | |
| UNA Artist and writer. Author of Becoming Unbecoming (2015) On Sanity (2016) and Cree (2018). Currently working on a 200 page graphic novel for Virago Press and various commissions. Supported by Arts Council England, I have an Etsy shop, do public talks and creative writing/drawing workshops and often appear at literature and comics festivals. I’ve been on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour twice and will be on BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking festival in April. I work full time as an artist but I have lectured in fine art, visual communication and illustration in three British art schools. @unacomics on Insta, FB and twitter. https://unacomics.com |
