Harry Josephine Giles — Them!
WithHarry Josephine Giles
In conversation withAndrés N Ordorica
On:6th June 2024, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Attendance options:
We're truly delighted that Harry Josephine Giles will return to the bookshop to launch her new poetry collection, Them!. Featuring a live community choral performance of pieces from the book, this is set to be a special publication day celebration. Giles will be in conversation with fellow poet and writer Andrés N. Ordorica.
We loved celebrating the publication of Giles' 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning verse-novel Deep Wheel Orcadia back in October 2021, when she visited the shop for an event with Alison Rumfitt, and we're really looking forward to Giles being back in the bookshop to talk about her innovative new collection.
This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home.
In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of Them! – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on the website against a single copy of Them!.
About Them!:
Them! by Harry Josephine Giles is a challenging and subversive collection of poems about trans life as it is lived today, through the lenses of work, technology and ecology. Witty, candid, furious, and always compelling, Them! negotiates the fraught and fruitful space between the worlds of ‘online’ and the ‘outside’, and how they fuse and diverge in the imagination.
Giles’ visual poetics create an unusually dynamic reading experience as she finds new ways ‘to sing, shout and strike in the cracks of what’s possible’. At a time when trans rights are to the fore in public discourse, Them! is a zestful poetic intervention from one of this generation’s most necessary poets.
Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants:
Harry Josephine Giles Author
Harry Josephine Giles is a writer and performer from Orkney. She holds an MA in Theatre Directing from East 15 Acting School and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Stirling. Her verse novel Deep Wheel Orcadia was published by Picador in October 2021 and received the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Book of the Year. Her poetry collections – Tonguit (Freight Books, 2015) and The Games (Out-Spoken Press, 2018) – were shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award (twice), the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the Saltire Poetry Book of the Year.
Andrés N Ordorica Chair
Andrés N. Ordorica is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. Drawing on his family’s immigrant history and his own third culture upbringing, his writing maps the journey of diaspora and unpacks what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither here, nor there). He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know. His writing has been shortlisted for the Morley Prize for Unpublished Writers of Colour, the Mo Siewcharran Prize and the Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. How We Named the Stars is his first novel. He serves as a trustee and board member for Artlink Edinburgh. He is passionate about advocating for increased opportunities for marginalised communities to engage with the creative arts.
The venue
The Portobello Bookshop
46 Portobello High Street
Edinburgh
EH15 1DA
Telephone: 0131 629 6756
Website: www.theportobellobookshop.com
Wheelchair Access
We have a ramp at the front of the shop which has a ratio of 1:10 and loading capacity of 300kg, and so should be able to be used by most wheelchair users or those with mobility vehicles. The front doors are fully automated. Our shop interior is designed to allow access throughout for wheelchair users and prams, though please note there is only 700mm wide clearance to access the staff toilet.
Sound
We use a PA system to enhance the audio at our live events. We also have a hearing loop system installed, if you’d like to use our loop system during an event please let us know and we’ll make sure we have it set up and connected to the live audio feed during the event. If you wish to attend an event and require BSL interpretation, please give us a few weeks notice and we’ll do our best to arrange an interpreter.