Imogen Rhia Herrad...
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From the sensuous sea to flight from the world, The Woman who loved an Octopus is an inspired collection of twelve themed short stories, based on the lives and legends of thirteen Celtic women saints from the first millennium. Retelling their stories in an intimate, contemporary, sometimes startling fashion, Imogen Rhia Herrad has created a new vision of these women, who were perhaps far from 'saintly' by current definition. Tydfil is martyred but refuses to die, so she lives on as a ghost for a thousand years and then comes back to life. Madryn flees her war-torn home country with only her baby and the harrowing memories of the torture chamber for company. Collen is the strongest woman on earth and every night in the Circus of the Lord she wrestles to prove it, but is she stronger than the niggling voice of her stepfather? Arganhell sits by the river every day, tied hand and foot because she injures herself if left free, and nobody but Saint Dyvrig cares enough to ask why. Herrad explores intently and imaginatively the crossover between the physical, sexual, spiritual and mystical in the ancient and modern worlds she visits. The stories tell of refugees, circus acts, rape, love, death and miracles. Her saints inhabit the natural world of streams, islands and birds. This is not a book of historical tracts or faithful retellings: hugely inventive, Herrad's stories flood old tales with fresh, or rediscovered meaning. What we encounter in Herrad's work is a spectacular commingling of mystical and contemporary worlds, a hunger for the absence and silence within and a determination to celebrate the omnipresence of these women who haunt, cohere and inspire us. Menna Elfyn The Woman who loved an Octopus, and other Saints' Tales was launched at the Hay Festival in May 2007 and made it on to the Top Ten List of books published in Wales in 2007 of the Western Mail's book critic. Which, for a collection of short stories from a first-time author is no mean feat. She shares the list with such luminaries as Meic Stephens and Caryl Lewis. On top of her appearance at the Festival, Imogen promoted the book by holding readings in several of the sites associated with the Saints' legends featured in it -- Holywell for Winifred, Merthyr Tydfil for Tydfil, St David's for Non. She travelled by modern means - trains and buses - and where possible walked between venues. She spent four days walking from Bangor to Pwllheli on the old pilgrim route that ultimately leads to Bardsey Island at the end of the Llyn peninsula. Imogen described the readings and the pilgrimage as an exciting, inspiring and unforgettable experience. Read more about it in Imogen's Blog.
Other work: Imogen has had a number of short stories published in anthologies of new writing by women from Wales, among them Hortus Conclusus in Honno's anthology "Coming up Roses", which contains short stories all about gardens, and gardening, plants and green things and The Accident, in "Safe World Gone". Imogen's children's story The Wind's Bride won a prize in the 2003 London Writers' Competition, while "The Accident" made it on to the longlist of last year's Raymond Carver Short Story Awards in the US; it was also shortlisted for a prize in the Quality Women's Fiction 10th Anniversary Competition in 2004. At the moment, she is working on a mystery novel set in London and Wales, and a book-length account of her travels in Patagonia. You can read Imogen's short story "The Colours of her Music", online in the InPosse Review, an online literary journal. The current issue is entirely dedicated to authors who write in English as a second or acquired language. Featured are writers who were born (among other places) in Nigeria, India, Japan, Malaysia and Bahrain, and whose native languages are Yoruba, Swedish, Telegu, Russian, Ibibio, German, Arabic and Cantonese. "The Life and Death of Saint Melan" was published in the winter 2006/2007 issue of Room of One's Own, a Canadian literary journal for women writers. This was Imogen's first appearance in print on the American continent. In German, Imogen is currently working on a 25-minute radio programme about the cutural history of hermaphrodite or intersexed people, from the ancient Greeks right up to the present - as much as possible in 25 minutes. The programme will go out on Sunday 13 January on Bayern 2 German regional public radio. ------------------------------------------- Previous work This article about Argentinean rock star Celeste Carballo was commissioned by Diva, a UK based magazine for lesbian and bi women. Imogen's programme about the British Aristocracy ran in December on SWR2, a German radio station based in Stuttgart. Six per cent of all privately owned land in Scotland, and ten per cent in England, is still owned by aristocratic land owners. The UK is one of the two last countries on earth still to have hereditary peers sitting by right in its parliament! (The other country is Lesotho.) The programme explores opinions in contemporary Britain, in "Cool Britannia", about the upper classes - whether they are regarded with loathing, indifference, or - despite everything - a snaking liking. Imogen has also talked to members of the peerage and gentry themselves, and found them to be surprisingly adaptable to modern times. "Heimliche Machthaber" was broadcast on 5 December. In January last year, German national radio Deutschlandradio broadcast a 40 minute programme by Imogen on "Y Wladfa" or Welsh Patagonia. And in March, SWR2 broadcast In Gottes Namen? ("In the name of God?"), a 30 minute programme about the state of the abortion debate in Ireland. Aside from Malta, Ireland is the only country in Europe that bans all abortions. The only legal reason for an abortion in Ireland is danger for the life of the pregnant woman. In 2004, Imogen went on extensive travels in South America, amongst other things to research for a radio programme on the history, culture and present situation of the Mapuche, an indigenous people who have lived for thousands of years in the pampas and mountains of what is today Argentina and Chile. Despite the somewhat less than helpful attitude of the Argentine state, the Mapuche have begun to organise in order to preserve their culture, language and hereditary skills such as their intricate weaving and the art of working silver.
Imogen's story The Wind's Bride won Third Prize in the Children's Fiction section of the 2003 London Writers' Competition. "...excellent... one of the few stories to integrate its well-judged
imagery into its empowering narrative... The [winning] stories...left
us moved, impressed, enchanted, and highly optimistic about the future
of children's literature."
"Several stories in this collection take considerable risks...
breaking through the naturalistic frame into surreal fantasy. ...Bronwerdd
... is decidedly bizarre. 'I made a spinach woman to be my friend and
my companion and my only love', the narrator tells us. The conclusion
is extraordinary."
� 2003- 2009 Imogen Rhia Herrad
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