meet the editors: rae joyce

Rae Joyce is an AUT award winning graphic poet, was mentored by Dylan Horrocks and features in New Zealand Comics and Graphic Novels (Hicksville Press).

  

click on image to read full comic

Her graphic work has been published in international poetry and academic journals, and she was invited to be the first graphic artist published in the University of Stockholm journal Two Thirds North.

In 2013, she was Artist in Residence at Counterexample Poetics.

Since 2009, she has authored a popular comics, art and literature blog and from 2011 – 2012, she drew and published a page a day of the epic graphic web comic/poem Escape Behaviours. She has just been selected to participate in the NZ Book Council Graphic Novelist Residency Exchange in Auckland and Taiwan.

click on image to read full comic

AKA Rachel J Fenton, she is currently a finalist in the Dundee International Book Prize, judged by Neil Gaiman and Ellie Catton voting Booker judge Stuart Kelly.

 

She won Plymouth University’s 7th annual Short Fiction Competition and was shortlisted for The Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize, the Fish International Poetry Prize, Fish One Page Prize, the 6th annual Short Fiction Competition, the Binnacle Ultra Short Competition, and other listings include the The Kathleen Grattan Award, Bristol Prize and the Sean O’ Faolain International Short Story Competition. Her work is published in JAAM, Brief, Otoliths, Blackmail Press, The Stinging Fly Magazine, Short Fiction #7, and many others, and has been anthologised.

  

click on image to read full comic 

She is features editor for Flash Frontier, was a guest reader at the National Flash Fiction Day celebrations, Page to Stage, and the 2013 Plymouth International Book Festival. 

meet the editors: sarah laing

Sarah Laing is an award-winning fiction writer, graphic designer and cartoonist. Random House has published a book of her short stories and two novels, her latest one, The Fall of Light, encapsulating a graphic novella.

 

She also has a publisher of her comics, Pikitia Press, who have released 5 issues of Let Me Be Frank.

She has designed and illustrated many book covers and books for publishers including Random House, Edinburgh University Press, Seraph Press and VUP, and has been a winner and finalist in the BPANZ book design awards, as well as the Best Design Awards. She won the 2006 Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition. Most recently she designed and illustrated Te Papa Press’ The Curioseum, an anthology that included twenty-two New Zealand authors including Margaret Mahy, Bill Manhire and Joy Cowley. She has recently been involved in designing literary journals for The Michael King Writers’ Centre and the Auckland Council’s migrant women and migrant youth creative writing programmes. She has held three literary residencies: the Buddle Findlay Sargeson residency and The Michael King Writers’ Centre and University of Auckland residency. She has presented at literary festivals both locally and internationally, in Beijing, Shanghai and most recently the 2014 Australia New Zealand This Way Up festival in London.


She has maintained a popular comics blog since 2010, inspiring other women to draw comics, and gaining a significant social media profile. She is involved in both the literary and comics community in a grassroots level, talking to community groups and to libraries, taking workshops, appearing on panels, and selling her comics at zine festivals, Armageddon and craft fairs. 

meet the editors: indira neville

 

Indira Neville has been making comics for twenty years, both on her own and in collaboration with others. She is a passionate self-publisher and relishes both the control of content and randomness of distribution this approach provides. Indira has produced over fifty comic titles, and is probably best known for her classic nineties riot girl mini-comic ‘Nice Gravy’, which ran for five years and fifteen issues. 

 (http://werewolf.co.nz/2009/11/cartoon-alley-indira-neville/)

She has appeared in numerous New Zealand and Australian exhibitions and anthologies, including Oats, Dad and Tracey, My Soiled Sample, Pictozine, Tiny Peeks, Blood and Thunder, My Life as a Mega-rich Bombshell, and Loser Gurrl. Her work has also appeared in the mainstream magazines Fink, Pavement, Loose, and Werewolf, and she is a regular contributer to the published Melbourne comics periodical Dailies. 

 

 (http://werewolf.co.nz/2009/11/cartoon-alley-indira-neville/)

 

Indira is currently editing an anthology of ‘weird’ mini-comics for Pikitia Press.  In addition Indira is a mother, and a musician. She has played in bands for years, currently fronting pop noise trio The Biscuits. She is also a committed educator and has worked as a school teacher, principal, professional development provider, and policy analyst. In 2005 she was recognized as a world Microsoft innovative teacher of the year for her work regarding e-learning and gifted underachievers. Indira currently works as a Principal advisor at the National Library of New Zealand. 

 (http://werewolf.co.nz/2009/11/cartoon-alley-indira-neville/)

three words: an introduction

Three words is the working title for a smart anthology of New Zealand women's comics being put together by Rae Joyce, Sarah Laing and Indira Neville.

The book will incorporate both existing and new work. We want to make visible the depth and breadth of New Zealand women’s comics; showing off some of the beautiful, amazing and often-unseen women’s comics of the past, as well as providing an opportunity for collaboration and the creation of new book-specific pieces via the Three words concept. Interested? Three words wants you.

Submitting works

Send us up to three pages of comics. These can be existing or new works, black and white or colour, one long story, several short strips, or single-panel cartoons. Send them to us as jpgs, tiffs or pdfs. They need to be 300dpi at A4 size (210mm x 297mm)

Please send us this by Oct 31.

Send submissions to: threewords AT outlook DOT co DOT nz

Tell us if and where your submission has appeared previously, in print or online. While we are keen to showcase as many comics as possible, space is limited and therefore your submission will be subject to an editorial process. Please don’t let this stop you!

Three words

If your submission is successful you will be invited to provide us with three words (any words!) to be shared with another contributor who will use them however they like to create a new comic. You in turn will receive three words to do the same. This concept gives us an opportunity to collaborate and to make exciting new comics for the book.

Also as a contributor…

...you will need to submit a short biography, self portrait, and picture of the number ‘3’ (for the cover).

In recognition of your contribution you will receive a free copy of the book, and an invitation to the bangin’ launch party. You will also retain copyright of any work appearing in the book.

Deadlines and actions

1. Please submit up to three pages of comics to this email address by Oct 31.

2. If your submission is successful, we will notify you by Nov 10, then ask for ‘three words’.

3. Please send us three words by Nov 30. You will receive three words by Dec 1.

4. Please submit your ‘three words’ comic, bio, self-portrait and number three by Jan 20.

Funding and organisation

We intend to apply for Creative NZ funding for this book. If unsuccessful, we will crowd-fund it, so it will happen either way!

A Facebook group has been set up to explore ideas and coordinate the production of the book. If you're keen to submit, we'll invite you to join and any help will be gratefully received.
And finally, please feel free to forward this invite to any other women who did or do make comics!