I've been invited to be guest lecturer at the Creative Writing Department of Staffordshire University. It's a great honour. It's also open to interested members of the public – the date is Thursday 30th January 2-4pm. For details see the Gig List page.

I shall be focussing on editing and rewriting, especially fiction.

Here be Tygres – fanzines and my life underground

I’ve been thinking about the impact fanzines have made on my life – and the result is this blog! Enjoy…

For someone who really was a Teenager in Devon (the poem isn’t an exaggeration http://www.rosiegarland.com/news-and-events/item/53-i-want-to-be-a-teenager-in-devon.html ), it’s hard to overstate the impact on a fifteen-year old geek girl of a let-off-the-leash long weekend in London.

Mid 1970s. Mum sets a friend and me up in a vicarage beyond the twilight zone of the North Circular. Every morning we take two long bus journeys into central London. My mate smokes cigarettes and swills cider like any normal teenager. I haunt Dark They Were And Golden Eyed, Atlantis Bookshop and the innumerable second-hand bookshops around Soho. It’s a four-day sojourn in a tatty oasis for the starved mind and spirit. As well as the books and comics I expect, I also discover fanzines.

They flick an entirely different switch in my imagination.
I’ve been making magazines since I was a kid, but now see I’m not the only nerd in the world to spend evenings with glue and a stapler. Even more groundbreaking, the zines cover interests I’ve learnt to conceal in order to limit my bullied isolation: horror movies, vampires, sci-fi, punk, weird illustration, weirder literature. The Gothic, in short. For the first time in my life, I see myself reflected. I encounter an underground community of the imagination. I know I’ll never meet any of these fellow-weirdoes, but I am not alone.

I return to the mix of beauty and soul-death of rural Devon (miles north of the artsy bit around Totnes), grit my teeth, make it to 18 and escape. In my new home, Leeds, one of the first things I do is check out the 2nd-hand / radical bookshops (a tip ‘o the pen to Austicks & The Corner Bookshop). As well as reviews in mainstream music papers such as Sounds, Melody Maker & NME, I now feature in fanzines that interview my band The March Violets (eg Rendezvous, Attack on B-Zag, The Angels are Coming, Whippings & Apologies – best zine name ever IMHO). We even produce our own Violets zine. High production values, or handwritten, it doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the vibrant build-your-own record label / indie scene of the early 80s.

Another hiatus follows when I quit the UK to work in Sudan from 1984-1986. In 1987, semi-fanzine independents Shocking Pink & Spare Rib inspire my move to Manchester where I find a thriving LGBT scene. However, it soon becomes apparent that being a dyke AND a Goth is a step too far. I have no problem making the connections between goth, punk and post-punk, fetish, feminism, queer, vampires and weird literature but I’m damned if I can find a queer pal who’ll go to The Banshee with me. As for my penchant for leather trousers, the less said about that the better. I can come out, but not about everything. However, late 80s feminism is a different blog.

It seems I can still feel isolated in a massive city, and I learn what it’s like to be marginalised within a marginalised community. I need help, and once again find it in the fanzines of the late 80s / early 90s. One particular pleasure is Dominic Regan’s graphic Dom Zombi story in AARGH (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia ) which drew everything together so succinctly. Others include: For the Blood is the Life, Bats and Red Velvet, The Velvet Vampyre, Udolpho and early issues of Skin Two (produced on Tim Woodward’s kitchen table). Listings of penpals, society meetups and clubs provide me with a flesh & blood community, not simply one of the imagination. All of it pre-internet, off the map, under the radar. I even meet a bisexual Goth.

Jump cut to the present day.
I’m excited and encouraged by the rebirth / renaissance of Xeroxed, glue-and-collage, passed from hand-to-hand zines. There’s a fresh new family of folk learning the liberating impact of turning off search engines so your keystrokes can’t be tracked in order to tailor more bloody advertising into your feed. To quote Keith Lowell Jensen: “What Orwell failed to predict is that we'd buy the cameras ourselves, and that our biggest fear would be that nobody was watching” https://twitter.com/keithlowell/status/347741181997879297

Only last year I met a woman in Athens, Georgia, who knew my work because she’d come across Pink Bomb, a CD fanzine produced in Manchester by the radiant Ste McCabe . Our words don’t need wifi to span the globe. And if you can’t hold something in your hands, it doesn’t really exist.

Fanzines are still there when the battery runs out on your phone. When some yellow-haired dictator decides you can’t Google ‘that’ article any more. Fanzines can’t be deleted at the swipe of a button. So - Buy that ancient typewriter. Get stapling.

© Rosie Garland 2017‏

I'm guest feature on the blog of inspirational designer Jed Phoenix!
You can read the full text below, or click on the link.

Click link to visit Jed Phoenix blog page

Monday, 14 March 2016
Jed Phoenix
Rosie Garland is a creative talent and wearer of a JPoL tie. She's a singer, poet, performer and writer who has experience of the rock n roll lifestyle and been on Radio 4's Women's Hour. She has won awards and secured book deals. But it hasn't been all plain sailing. There have been many bumps along the way.This blog post, will go into more detail about:
· Rosie Garland, singer, writer and performer
· Rosie Garland in the face of adversity
· What's next for Rosie Garland

Rosie Garland, singer, writer and performer
It is hard to deny that Rosie Garland embodies elements of the dark side in her creative endeavours. To quote from her Facebook profile "I've always written about outsiders; whoever they might be. I'm interested in character who won't (or can't) squeeze into the one-size-fits-all template they have been provided, and the friction that occurs when they try. I know that comes from always being an outsider myself. I celebrate it, proud in the face of the overwhelming sludge of "normality"". During a talk at the British Library on the subject of "Goth: The scene that wouldn't die", Rosie states that being "outside" suggests that there's a mainstream "inside" that people want to be in. Rosie, perhaps drawing from her associations with queer culture, asserts that she's just different. She doesn't even care whether people think she's goth or not. She cares more about whether her audience like her lyrics, poetry or novels. Despite current fashion trends that wish to emulate the glamour and style of the scene, goths are often sneered at. Rosie quotes from Tank Girl - The Oddessy, Issue 3, during a talk at the British Library "The fact that I've paid absolutely no attention to what goths wear is an even bigger insult to them and their turdy culture" - Jamie Hewlett.
Rosie Garland was born to a teenage runaway, so perhaps being an outsider is in her very DNA. She went to Leeds University in the early 1980s and came out both as a post graduate and as a singer in post-punk/gothic rock band The March Violets, with whom she's toured the US, UK and Europe. Her alter-ego Rosie Lugosi, the Vampire Queen, appeared on a multitude of stages as "A truly unique performer and one that straddles the literature, SM and queercore scenes with ease" - Designer Magazine. As a cabaret performer, Rosie Lugosi was able to bring her poems to life and be Queer for Britain. In the late 1980s, Rosie was inspired by the Roszika Parker book "The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine", which interwove the history of embroidery and the history of women. With an enthusiastic group of Manchester-based women, Rosie formed a group called Spinsters. Together they wrote a show called Tailormaids, looking at the history of unmarried women and how that tied in to the textile industry. Rosie and her fellow Spinsters pooled a range of talents: film-makers, theatre technicians, visual artists, singers, performers, researchers, musicians, fundraisers and writers. The sum was, as Rosie states, definitely greater than the parts, securing Arts Council funding to tour the show around art galleries and performance venues.
In 2013 Rosie Garland signed a book deal with Harper Collins and The Palace of Curiosities was published. A series of readings and book signings up and down the country were followed by the release of her second novel Vixen in 2014. But, like many subversive creative talents, Rosie Garland's success has been hard won.

Rosie Garland in the face of adversity

Rosie left The March Violets in the mid 1980s as the band, riding on a wave of good reviews and indie chart success, introduced more pop-sounding members. Rosie ploughed her energy into teaching for a couple of years at a sixth form college in Sudan - a far cry from the ever-increasing commercialisation of the band.
Between touring with Spinsters/Subversive Stitch Exhibition in the 1990s, establishing Club Lash in Manchester and continuing to perform as Rosie Lugosi, Ms Garland worked on her writing craft. She had an agent, submitted short stories and poetry to competitions, and offered up her take on the life and adventures of the outsider in the hope that they'd be published and promoted to as wide an audience as possible. For over a decade, Rosie Garland's agent told her that her style, her subject matter, her background wasn't flavour of the month; that there weren't any publishers willing to take a punt on her. Yet she continued to write and perform, just as Van Gogh continued to paint before folk other than his brother took a punt on him by buying his paintings. To be creative even though you face rejection after rejection takes passion, discipline and commitment . And those are traits that Rosie Garland seems to have in spades.
In 2007, Rosie Garland teamed up with Simon Denbigh and Tom Ashton again for a one-off gig in Leeds with The March Violets. The reception to the gig was fabulous and the band were invited to play at a number of venues and festivals around the UK and Europe. Plans, however, were interrupted by the news Rosie received at the beginning of 2009. She had throat cancer. For some, being a singer with throat cancer would have tipped them over the edge. But Rosie channelled her emotions into her solace - poetry. The effects that this consuming disease had on Rosie's femininity and connection to others is expressed in Dignity:
"Tolerating strangers who whisper 'You're so brave', And resisting the urge to deck them. Going bald. Watching your tits shrivel to the size of peanuts, And your arse go as flat as a burst paper bag. Remaining polite When the close friend disappears off the face of the earth When you tell him your diagnosis.....
...Standing up And saying 'I've got cancer' Without need, Without self pity. Standing up And saying 'I'm clear'"
Rosie had to learn how to sing again. And she did just that, taking to the stage at the O2 Academy in London for The March Violets Reunion gig in November 2010.

What's next for Rosie Garland

Rosie continues to perform with The March Violets. Following a Pledge Music campaign, they spent a month touring the East Coast of America at the end of 2015. The Pledge Music campaign was a roaring success, with the project fully backed within two weeks. 10% of the money raised after the goal was met went to Macmillan Cancer Support. Their Mortality album is due out this year.
Rosie's reading and speaking gigs see her travelling the UK. Earlier this month, she was guest lecturer at the University of Surrey as part of the "Cultures in Contact" seminar series. Coming up, she's on the panel of a discussion about "A Portfolio Career: When One Genre Isn't Enough" at the Surrey New Writers Festival on May 14th 2016. Rosie will also be a special guest at the Chorlton Arts Festival in Machester on May 24th. Just around the corner, however, Rosie will be returning to Bar Wotever at London's iconic Royal Vauxhall Tavern on Tuesday 15th March to help celebrate everything Goth, Bi and Fabulous!
Rosie Garland truly is a creative force to be reckoned with. She is warm-hearted and humble, talented and deep. If you haven't already read The Palace of Curiosities, Vixen, Everything Must Go, Things I Did While I Was Dead or any of Rosie Garland's other books, then do. Her writing captivates you and takes you on a journey into a visual and a visceral world. She also makes amazingly tasty plum jam...

Darkness and Light: Exploring the Gothic

Thursday, 16 July to Sunday, 20 December 2015

I was honoured to receive and invitation from Liza Leonard to curate a case at this exhibition! I took as my theme Women and the Gothic. I could have chosen a hundred books, easily, but was limited to five.. The choice was very difficult, needless to say. It's been a great experience to work with the staff of The John Rylands Library. I am particularly grateful for the help and support I have received from Xavier Aldana Reyes and Linnie Blake of The University of Manchester.

The exhibition is running till the 20th December and is free to enter.

'Housed in the neo-Gothic grandeur of The John Rylands Library, Darkness and Light reveals how Gothic architecture and anatomy inspired and influenced a literary genre, and how the lasting legacy of Gothic can be found in art, films and subculture today.
From the fantastical to the macabre, this intriguing exhibition unearths Gothic treasures from the Library's Special Collections to investigate subjects as varied as the role of women in the Gothic movement, advances in medical science and classic literature.

Amongst the fascinating items on display is Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), the first Gothic novel. With a Gothic medieval castle, doomed love and restless spectres of the past, it sets the scene for the genre and sits alongside a whole host of Gothic bestsellers including The Monk, Udolpho and Jekyll and Hyde.'
Click to go to the John Rylands Library page

The March Violets 'Made Glorious' Tour 2013.

ALL dates - 10 gigs - are now confirmed. That should be it now...

Please come along and have fun.

Click on this link to buy tickets for any date!

Two new blog interviews / reviews about the launch of The Palace of Curiosities – and how long it's taken to get here.

‘What has always amazed me is that you have so many different aspects to your work. You write in your name Rosie Garland; you write and perform as your alter-ego Rosie Lugosi; you are the lead singer of The March Violets; you are a Goth icon; a legend in the world of burlesque; star of Woman’s Hour and women’s magazines; are there any other facets we don’t know about?’

Read the full interview here - click this link

• 'An assured and magical novel. Her poetic output provides the writing's lyricism and her involvement in cabaret and Goth gives her an eye for the strange.'

Read the full interview here - click this link

Black Cat Radio: Interview with Rosie Garland ONLINE

Wednesday 18th November 2020, 20.00 GMT

Hosted by the ‘Blogging Goth’ Tim Synyster and academic Dr Claire Nally, Black Cat Radio is an hour-long broadcast of music, news and discussion on goth – as well as sibling genres like punk, metal, industrial and other alternative styles.

It’s hosted by the kind people at Star & Shadow Cinema, a DIY community collective project in the bijou enclave of Heaton, Newcastle. Every second Wednesday at 8PM GMT we transmit the show online. Each show is available to listen again so it also sidles into the ‘podcast’ category.

As well as going live, we have another first when we return on Wednesday 18th November. Dr Nally sat down for a (Zoom) chat with the exceptionally multi-talented Rosie Garland – author, performer, compere, the very first writer in residence of the gothic splendour that is the John Rylands Library, and of course singer with famed post-punk band The March Violets, amongst her very many skills.
She and Dr Nally talked about her new poetry collection What Girls Do In The Dark - Tune in on the 18th November for the next episode of Black Cat Radio to hear what they discussed!
What Girls Do In The Dark is out now via Nine Arches Press and can be purchased directly from them or ordered through your local booksellers if you wish to avoid a certain multinational online vendor on this occasion!

Ensure you’re listening every second Wednesday
https://starandshadow.org.uk/programme/event/black-cat-radio-fortnightly-goth-music-show,5160/
and join us in the chatroom to let us know just where on the gothosphere you’re tuning in from!
https://theblogginggoth.com/2020/11/11/black-cat-radio-interview-with-rosie-garland/

Cabaret Macabre

The Fulford Arms,
121 Fulford Road,
YO10 4EX York
North Yorkshire

7pm till late

Join your host, Rosie Lugosi!
The Fulford Arms will be transformed to host our Cabaret Macabre show - come and join us to be entertained!

We are delighted to have Rosie Lugosi join us as our host for the evening. Rosie Lugosi, the Vampire Queen, mistress of ceremonies, performs twisted cabaret and has been tantalising audiences worldwide with her unique blend of camp humour, mayhem and song for many years.
Come and experience the 'Cabaret Macabre' at the Fulford Arms. Rosie will be joined by A Mere Kat, A Short Dark Stranger, Alice Nicholls, Marie Devilreux and Victor & The Bully.

Part of the Black Rose Ball weekend.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/black-rose-ball-weekend-2019-cabaret-macabre-tickets-59523096183

The Bellwether Syndicate

Wave-Gotik Treffen

Time - 19.10h
Venue - Täubchenthal
Markranstädter Straße 1
Leipzig, Germany

I'm honoured to guest with The Bellwether Syndicate at WGT! With a special rendition of Snake Dance (The March Violets).

Fronted by veteran artist William Faith (of Faith and the Muse) and Sarah Rose (aka DJ Scary Lady Sarah), The Bellwether Syndicate are, as illustrated by their debut, coloring outside of prescribed genre lines, choosing here to push the boundaries of style and substance into something relevant and vital.

The Bellwether Syndicate are William Faith: Vox • Guitars
Sarah Rose Faith: Vox • Guitars
Paul Sin: Bass
Philly Peroxide: Keyboards • Percussion
Stevyn Grey: Drums

https://www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/ro/go4it.php?id=197&loc=en

Gothic Styles Street / Fashion Show

Sunday, 29 October 2017 at 6:00 pm
Location: Exchange Square,
Manchester City Centre,
M3 1BD

Join us for an extravagant exploration of what it means to have goth style!
Real-life goths, punks, steampunks and other assorted ‘weirdo mosher freaks’ will strut, stomp and parade their individual dress sense for the public of Manchester. Interspersed with the street style will be fashion looks from students and alumni of Manchester Met’s Manchester Fashion Institute, showing the pervasive influence of goth sensibilities in contemporary haute couture. Sound tracked by goth music, introduced by two queens of goth-dom - Rosie Lugosi The Vampire Queen and Manchester’s monochrome drag par excellence Liquorice Black – this will be a catwalk to remember and a brilliant way to round off your Halloween weekend in the city.

Featuring:
Comperes Rosie Lugosi and Liquorice Black
Border Morris from Stone the Crows
ArA DJS
Kiku Corsets
Fantastical make up competition winners from House of Fraser
In association with the Sophie Lancaster Foundation.
Part of Halloween in the City produced by Manchester BID.
FREE – Tickets available on Eventbrite
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gothic-styles-streetfashion-show-tickets-36606979461