We’ve still got bedbugs…

I’m back in London just in time to do my best to avoid the Olympics, and in the meantime I’ve been able to take part in a few exciting events. Last week I had the opportunity to perform my poem, ‘A Bedbug in Manhattan,’ which I wrote and performed for The Mustard Club’s Resonance FM Radio programme ‘The Gilded Vectors of Disease,’ based on the golden critters adorning the outside of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The LSHTM is displaying a free 2012 Showcase Exhibition, highlighting some of the exciting work they’ve done over the past year. Rebecca Tremain, who arranged and hosted the radio series, invited me back for a live reading, and I was backed up by the dulcet tones of singer Patricia Hammond and musicians Emily O’Hara and Simon Marsh.

We then proceeded to play with insect costumes.

The other exciting bit of news is that the guided walks, Sick City, which I’ve lent my voice to, is now live! The brains and voice behind the project is Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow Richard Barnett, who also played host to the ‘Bedbug’ programme above, at Rebecca’s invitation. Richard writes and presents live guided walks on the medical history of London, and he’s gone digital, putting them online in the form of a smartphone app, which is free to download. So, if you are in London, take yourself on a guided tour. If you aren’t, though, these are a delight to listen to anyway, for fascinating insight into what lies beneath the streets of London, in layers of time, history, and physical earth. Click on ‘conceived in gin‘ to hear one of the more challenging pieces I read for one of the walks – on the history of gin!

 

Brain Science, Cholera, Gin (a few of my favourite things?)

I recently reviewed Popular Fiction and Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century by Anne Stiles for the British Society for Literature and Science. If you’re interested in the Gothic, vampires, murder-mysteries, Jekyll & Hyde, psychology, and nineteenth-century theories of the mind, I’d recommend it. In fact, it fits quite well with the exhibit I just saw at the Wellcome: Brains: The Mind as Matter.

Me, Richard, & Rebecca listening to 'Bedbugs' along with the Henry's crowd.
Photo courtesy of Rob Falconer.

Last night, the Wellcome ‘Henry’s Club’ held its first after-hours Member’s event, a launch of Rebecca Tremain’s ‘The Gilded Vectors of Disease‘ Episode 3: Bedbugs. It was great fun to be part of recording, and to write and perform a new poem, ‘A Bedbug in Manhattan,’ for the episode. About ten club members joined me, Rebecca, programme producer Rob Falconer, and Dr Richard Barnett (guest interviewer for Episode 3 & Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellow) for wine & snacks, and to listen to a preview of Bedbugs, which is on the air next Wednesday at 7:30 pm on Resonance FM. There were quite a few ‘ewws’ ‘ahhs’ and chuckles, and ‘A Bedbug in Manhattan’ garnered a round of applause!

The main theme of my week, however, has been Sick City. This project began as Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures, a gorgeous box-set of books and maps written by Richard Barnett, (mentioned above,) & published in 2008 by Strange Attractor Press, in association with the Wellcome Collection. It takes the reader on historical, self-guided walks around London, focusing on such stories as Dr John Snow’s solution to the Cholera epidemic in Soho, the lost Fleet River, and the rise and demise of gin in English culture. In his role as Engagement Fellow, Richard has begun to turn these ‘Sick City’ stories into digital media, starting with a series of cleverly-designed apps for smartphones which will allow listeners to go on his guided walks anytime they like.

Richard is working with former BBC radio producer Joanna Rahim to develop this series, and they began with the wonderfully-titled ‘Blood, Guts, Brains and Babies’, of which there is an enthusiastic review here. (6th paragraph down) and a wonderful interview here. ’Blood Guts, Brains and Babies’ is available here to download free.

'Henry's' Club members listening to 'Bedbugs' pre-airing (pre-listening?)
Photo courtesy of Rob Falconer.

Working with Richard on The Gilded Vectors episode prompted him to invite me to be an extra voice on the apps, and we’ve spent the past few days working with Joanna on three walks: John Snow & Cholera, the London Gin Craze, and the Lost River Fleet. My role is to read excerpts from literature and poetry which flesh out the stories and help bring in colourful, contemporary primary resources.

I’m being treated to the best possible introduction to radio & audio recording, working first with Rob, Rebecca, and Richard, and now with Richard and Joanna. Everyone is delightful and they have a vast amount of professional experience amongst them. (It’s surreal to be repeatedly told I have a wonderful voice, and that I’m in the right country to have an ‘exotic American accent’ – oh Rhode Island, who knew?!)

Most of all, this is fun, and a brilliant learning experience. The pace is snappy and vibrant, a breath of fresh air compared to the geologic worlds of fiction and poetry publishing. Results are quick; sometimes immediate. We’re doing projects that have trackable results & readerships (as its all digital – in fact, Rob said a number of readers came to the ‘Gilded Vectors’ programme from having read it on this blog, so thank you, readers!).

The Sick City apps will be available soon, for free, and you know I’ll tell you when they’re online…

Medicine, theatre, & bedbugs

It’s that time of year for many freelancers and academics (perhaps it’s doubly bad for those of us with one foot in each world,) to either submit grant / job / funding / project applications or to start expecting to hear back from earlier applications. These run in fairly predictable phases around the holidays, summertime, etc, and thus there are stretches of time where a writer simply feels as if she’s done everything she can on any given project, and it is entirely out of her hands, and she’s waiting. The positive side: despite not knowing what the outcome of said applications/proposals/grants etc will be, I know people are reading my work/book/proposal etc because they too are working to a deadline. Meanwhile, I’m busy with a handful of other writing projects and reviews, and I’m working on some engagement projects that are unfolding in delightful ways.

Gives me the creepy-crawly heebie-jeebies just to look at the little critters...tune in 02/03 to learn more about them!

Tomorrow I’ll return to Imperial College with Rachael Black for our main workshop with the Medical Humanities students. I’m really looking forward to this: we’ve got a great core group of students who will be our actors, and we’re mixing pieces from Venus Heart with their own medical interpretations & experiences. Paired with Rachael’s extraordinary prowess at moulding what to me is an entertaining & interesting dramatic ‘sketch’ from a very, very short amount of time, this workshop is going to be a lovely blend of theatre and poetry. I’m going to spend some time introducing the material and explaining how I came to write the poetry play – this is the medical history aspect, all to do with anatomical wax models. I can’t think of a more relevant group to work with than medical students.

The radio collaboration I mentioned previously, my first experience with radio, was recorded over an extraordinary day at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with Rebecca Tremain and Richard Barnett. The episode is going to be aired on 18 April by Resonance FM. Delightfully, the three of us are members of the Wellcome Club, ‘Henry’s,’ so Henry’s is holding a special club evening the week before with wine & snacks, inviting members to come listen to a (pre)broadcast of our ‘Bedbugs’ episode. The Bedbugs episode is only one part of Rebecca’s series, ‘The Gilded Vectors of Disease‘ which will all be available on Resonance FM. I can’t wait to hear the series: rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs, lice, fleas, ticks…oh my!