Maitland artist and writer Helen Hopcroft will launch her novella The Nights at Newcastle Writers Festival.
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The book is an erotic re-telling of famous story The 1001 Nights from Scheherazade's point of view.
The novella was written by Hopcroft as part of her Creative Writing PhD at the University of Newcastle and is now being launched as an illustrated book.
It will be launched on Friday, April 5 at 5pm at LEDA Gallery in Hunter Street, Newcastle by Dr Deborah Van Keekeren, and will feature speeches and a Zoom performance by London-based actor Kelly Burke at 6pm.
Written in the form of a private journal, The Nights includes stories that Scheherazade tells the Sultan, her dreams, fantasies, and stories she finds in books or which are told to her. It has been published by Spineless Wonders with a foreword by acclaimed writer Carmel Bird.
Hopcroft says that the book began in 2009 as a series of diary entries.
"Many years ago, I had a new-born baby and had recently separated from my husband. I started writing at night, after I'd put the baby to bed, as a way of managing the stress. Eventually, however, I got sick of venting - I found I was writing the same thing night after night," she said.
"At the time I'd just read Nikki Gemmell's erotic blockbuster, The Bride Stripped Bare, and also something called Gender and the Journal, an academic book that argued that women's diaries formed a kind of 'wild zone' of underground literature.
"Those two ideas came together for me, and I began writing erotica at night."
Hopcroft said the process of writing anonymously without an audience in mind was strangely liberating.
"Eventually I began to identify with the famous story of Scheherazade, a woman telling stories at night to stay alive," she said.
"And so The Nights was born, first as an artist's book made with the help of some artist friends for an exhibition at the Lock-Up in Newcastle, and then at the centre of a Creative Writing PhD, and now as a beautiful little book."
The Nights will be launched on Friday at Newcastle Writers Festival with a pop-up exhibition of illustrations and artworks inspired by the book, and a Zoom performance by London-based actor Kelly Burke, who recorded the audio-book version.
The Nights is published by Spineless Wonders and has a foreword by Carmel Bird. The cover inspiration is by Hopcroft and the book illustrations are by a talented team of emerging local artists and designers.
All are welcome to attend the free event. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/449306460754479 for more information.
