Herland is in the tradition of the famous Women’s Salons of the Age of Enlightenment “in which women played a central role. Salons provided a place for women and men to congregate for intellectual discourse.” (see Gertrude Stein et al who “used culture to affect change”) This, the first outside Glasgow, was hosted by the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) at the Edinburgh International Book Festival which has a special Revolting Women theme this 2018 curated by Adele Patrick.
Set in the sparkling Speigeltent, a roundhouse of mirrors, plush burgundy velvet and, on this evening, red lights, Herland is an eclectic mix of poetry and music, wound around a celebration of women of the suffrage movement in this anniversay year of The Representation of the People’s Act 1918 when the first group of women were given the vote in the UK. In attendance are women and some welcome men, between the ages of 16 and 76 (a guesstimate), and the sparky Zoe Strachan and Louise Welsh who compere. They are both novelists dressed in red which they note are the colours of revolution, socialism, menstrual periods, and passion.
On the tables are home-made crowns each bearing the name of a Scottish suffragette who Adele Patrick in her Wee Review interview, said she hopes will become household names. In the air is some of the The Revolting Women Playlist – Compared To What Roberta Flack, Na Gode by Yemi Alade) which was compiled by Patrick from 100 female Book Fest authors and will be released via Twitter and Spotify. There is a quiz, designed to get us to talk to our fellow table sharers (success!), linking the writer’s names and the tracks they had chosen – with prizes!
The acts are quality: Heir of the Cursed is haunting, complex, making an absolutely beautiful sound with her voice and electric guitar, radical and reassuring through anthem and lullaby; Diljeet Bhachu and Hannah Lee‘s own compositions, on lilting flutes, are melodic, skilled and cognisant of their Chinese and Indian heritage; Nadine Aisha Jassat delivers her poems in a refreshingly un-poetic way, is eloquent and The Old Codgers recognises her Zimbabwean / Yorkshire inheritance in equally amusing and telling ways; Katie Ailes is a spoken word artist and her first poem is full of fairy godmother wishes for her daughter.
There is good spread of racial backgrounds and local women on the stage; rejoicing in the personal as well as the collective, naming children and parents alongside the much bigger political and sociological picture. It is a relaxing, entertaining, and thought-provoking affair.
Did you know there was a Scottish-Asian Creative Group?
See also the Take-Over Tent and other Revolting Women events.