Hi everyone, I tried to film this video earlier
and my camera battery died, so it's later and now the light is going, we're battling the
autumn/winter filming light, so let's just call this cozy instead of orange, which I'm sure
looking at the camera is what it probably is. I took an unintentional break from youtube last
week, though I think that all of us between us had enough media to consume with the US
election going on which made last week feel like it was about five years long. But regardless
I'm sorry that I wasn't uploading content on here, and so today I wanted to sit
down and kind of just have a catch up, so we're just having a cozy time
today, so maybe the orange lighting is good, I don't know. So as I said last week I wasn't
expecting to not be around. I knew that I was going to be really busy last week and this week
in particular because I'm on book deadline at the moment, my deadline is the end of this week
and I have been very busy obviously for the past several months/this year with this book but it
always ramps up towards deadline time. I mean this is book number 10 for me, you would think
that that wouldn't be the case now but it's just it's how it seems to work, it's quite exciting
in a way, getting close to a deadline. I do like that. But I had still planned to film videos
but last week — and if you follow me on instagram you already know this — I hate saying that 'if
you follow me elsewhere online...' but it is true, if you follow me on Instagram you will already
know part of what I'm going to say. A couple of weeks ago warner brothers released their
new version of the witches by roald dahl and I've spoken about the witches on here before,
can you believe that it is 30 years since the first film came out? It was 1990, 30 years ago,
that made me feel quite old. I have a complicated relationship with the witches, I loved the book
as a child, I loved it but I really saw myself as the villain in that book. I didn't think I was
a bad person but I identified with the witches, they have no toes so they have square feet, they
are missing hair, they have claw-like hands, so that was always really... it was a strange
relationship that I had with that book and with the other media that I grew up with where
the disfigurement = villainy trope was used, it was everywhere, so it was a strange thing
to encounter again and again and the book also which I realize now, and I didn't know when I was
a young child reading it, is is very anti-semitic, as well, so it's a complicated book but this new
film with Anne Hathaway came out two weeks ago I think and I was getting lots of messages
about it online and I didn't know why at first because as I said I've already spoken
about the witches but then I saw a video the warner brothers and anna hathaway had shared on
instagram, it was a promo video where they were encouraging children to hunt for witches in real
life, to look for them because #WitchesAreReal and they listed the things that children should
be looking for and it was people who didn't have proper hands, they had missing
fingers, and so they wore gloves, they didn't have hair so they wore wigs, they were
missing toes and they have a heightened sense of smell, which I also happen to have you know people
with EEC have a heightened sense of smell. Anyway so then I realized why everyone was messaging
me, it was because they had changed the film and they had given the witches
ectrodactyly, which is what I have: missing fingers, and I thought oh, okay we've
taken it to another level this time. So I did post about this on instagram, sharing my
thoughts, resources about why it's not just an issue with this film and v wasn't calling for a
boycott of the film I just wanted to generate a conversation, I wanted parents to talk about this
with their kids really so that it didn't leak out into the playground as much, because it was going
to, and it wasn't just for children either I mean I do really feel for kids especially with limb
differences but for the adults out there, too, who are tired and exhausted, I stand with you,
so I had posted about it on instagram and it talked about the wider picture, which as you know
I've spoken about on here before and I'll link videos in the description box down below if you
happen to be new here. The post went viral. It's an odd feeling when that happens because
you want to reach people who don't already have awareness of this topic because that's kind
of the point but also when you go viral you reach so many people who don't care about who you are at
all or what you have to say and who have already made their mind up about who you are and what
they want to say to you. So last week I spent most of last week on the phone to journalists
who were calling me, asking me to explain the history of the disfigurement and villainy trope,
so that they could write an article about it and I hasten to say it wasn't just me who was
talking about this, lots of people with limb differences were raising awareness of this on
social media but it it went everywhere, in all of the papers and as I said I spent a long time
talking to journalists but also writing articles myself and going on the radio to speak about why
this is a conversation that we need to have and why it's important. I mean this is a conversation
that's been going on so long in the film industry, it is a recognized issue. Changing Faces who
are a great charity a couple of years ago set up the I am not your villain campaign,
highlighting how prevalent it was to have villains who are shown to the audience as bad because
of the way they look: every James Bond villain, most horror films, lots of disney villains,
comic book villains etc. So anyway that is what I spent a lot of my week doing last week.
I will link some articles that I wrote in the description box down below, I will link some radio
interviews that I did as well but the thing that I found particularly exhausting is that because it
was shared so widely... my instagram post was on Sky News. I wasn't there and I wasn't there to
give context to it or to give more information, they had just used my posts which they are allowed
to do because it's public, but it then meant that hundreds of people flooded to my page, I got so
many horrible messages. I deleted a lot of it, the stuff that was pure hate, you know the stuff
that was just all blocked capitals 'of course people hate people like you or think that you're
terrifying because you are terrifying' people saying 'I can't believe that you go into schools,
I see that you're an author, you should stay away from children because you will scare them!' like
the stuff that basically just proves my point. But because a lot of the world right now is as
we know so divided and people don't listen to each other, I did want to try and take the time
to speak to people who found me and who were, yes, being aggressive and shouting at me but who
weren't just spouting pure hate. People who maybe if they were given extra context might think about
it some more, so I spent a lot of energy doing that last week and some people might think that
that's ridiculous and I understand that too, at some points I thought I was being ridiculous, but
if we don't communicate, if we don't try and learn I don't know what will happen to us, quite
frankly, and this is one of the books actually I pulled it off the shelf before I started filming
this, I want to read this this month it's called You're Not Listening and by Kate Murphy, it came
out last year. This is a proof copy, it says 'at work we're taught to lead the conversation, on
social media we shape our personal narratives, at parties we talk over one another, so do
our politicians, we're not listening and no one is listening to us.' I think that is the most
soul-crushing frustrating thing and I'm not exempt from this I'm sure that I have gut reactions
to certain situations where I want to cling to my feelings instead of educating myself more
because it's easier, but in the situation that v'm specifically talking about last week where
I would present people with actual information to show that it's not just a movie and that
this is a recognized legitimate problem in the film and book industries.. for people to say
'I'm not going to read that, no, it's stupid' it's... I don't really know
what to do with that apart from keep trying, I guess? I had a lot of comments
from people, I'm talking about this because I find it interesting and I hope that you find it
interesting, too, you can skip ahead if you don't but you know some people were saying 'don't you
think people would like people with disabilities more if they didn't complain about this kind
of stuff? If you just sucked it up and got on with it, just exist and be a positive person,
people will like you more' and is that not what we all do all of the time? You know, I exist I
hope very positively online and I make so much content about books and videos about baking and
sharing my life with you guys in all its forms and that also means that I can take the time to talk
about those things as well, but I suppose that's the point, when they came across that post instead
of looking wider and seeing the bigger picture, to them I was fulfilling the things they
expect from someone with disfigurements, they thought that I was angry and bitter and
monstrous, and that's why we have this problem, unless we talk about it we won't move forward,
so I'll stop talking about that now, that's why I was not here last week last week, I was exhausted
and sad and tired but lots of positive things came out of that too, I had lots of good conversations
with people. Anyway I will answer some questions. I asked you to send in some questions things that
you wanted to know because I have been absent okay let's whiz through these because I feel like
I've already talked for quite a long time, oh this is spooky lighting, spooky lighting... someone
said 'you seem to do lots of fun work projects, what have you been up to recently?' I know that
I normally do work vlogs where I take you out and about behind the scenes at book festivals and all
of that stuff obviously I haven't been doing that in the past eight months so I have been doing some
fun work projects but they've just been at my desk and in the moment it's difficult to talk about
them, so I have been doing some fun things I've been editing a lot recently, editing a lot of
other people's work, I've been editing quite a few novels, I worked with a Korean film company a
few weeks ago which was very different for me and I enjoyed it a lot, they're coming over to
the uk to film a documentary about uk bookshops so I was their researcher talking to them about
which bookshops they should visit, who they should interview, what the UK book industry is like and
it both warmed my soul and also made me a little bit sad to be talking about all the bookish places
that I adore. I really enjoyed doing that. I've also been doing a lot of teaching online and I
have a new series of writing workshops which I'm doing at the moment, they're all sold out but
if you're interested I run workshops one-on-one via email all year round for poetry, short
stories creative nonfiction, I'll link them down below if you want to check them out, and
last week I worked with Cardiff university for a conference they were doing, slightly ironically,
on pro-social environments online, so friendly environments and how those can be fostered in an
age where there's so much division online. I mean I think I would have had a lot more to say had
that conference been after last week, I had a lot to say anyway but I would have had a lot more
add-on things. Someone asked me 'what do you think of bookshop.org?' so bookshop.org was set up in
the states I think earlier this year and it's had great success over there and they've just launched
here, so they are trying to build themselves up as the place for online book shopping whilst also
supporting bookshops, so 30% of every sale on that site goes to bookshops and bookshops can
set up their own storefronts on there which is quite cool. I think you know anything that
tries to do good like that is a great thing and for context Hive which was set up several years
ago only give between five and ten percent of a sale to a bookshop, whereas this is much higher,
and so if you want to shop online and you don't want to communicate with a bookseller every time
you're buying a book then it's definitely a great place to go. I will say if you're comfortable
with buying from a bookseller and messaging them whenever you want to buy a book, I buy a
lot of my books from Katie at storytellers inc, I literally just drop her a dm on twitter and say
'hi katie i'd like this book please' she tells me how much it is, and then i ping the money to her
via bank transfer, you can also do it by paypal, and then the book arrives in two to three days,
also if I want a recommendation from her she can also give that to me as well, bookshops —if
you buy directly from them— will get about 50 of a sale, so if you can purchase with them
directly that's the best way to support bookshops. If you don't want to communicate with someone or
message your bookshop every time you want to order a book or buy through their own individual
websites, then yes, bookshop.org would be the next best place to go after that. Someone
asked if I have any picture book recommendations for gift guides this year. I am going to talk
about those, sorry, I feel like this phone is quite bright... I am going to talk about gift
guide-y stuff soon and I probably will do that sooner rather than later just because I know
everyone's shopping earlier this year because we're all mostly doing it online, so I will
do that and I definitely have a stack of books that I would like to talk about that are picture
book related that I may have treated myself to as a 'finishing this book' reward, even though I
haven't finished the book yet but I think by the time I have finished the books will arrive,
so that's why I cheated and ordered them in advance.... that's my reasoning [laughs]
oh someone asked me 'what are my plans for christmas?' several people asked me that actually,
is anyone (no offense to anyone who asked me that question) but it feels like a strange question...
it feels like the emphasis on Christmas is so so strong this year. I get that people want
positive things to cling on to but I also know so many people don't associate Christmas
with happy things so it's a strange one and I don't know is the answer, well,
no, I suppose is the answer, I do not have plans. It depends on what the restrictions
are, if we can Mr M and I will go and have dinner with his mum in her garden, I think that's
probably the extent of it, I reckon. You know how your phone sometimes does a time hop, I don't
have that app but it sometimes does it within instagram and facebook, and tells you 'this
is what you were doing this time last year' it reminded me that I have not been home now in
over a year, so the last time that I saw my family was over a year ago and that's really
strange, so strange, I was due to go and see them in March but then of course that
didn't happen actually. I noticed that one other question was 'what was the last in-person work
event that you before coronavirus?' and it was before it was a huge thing in the UK and that was
world book day, which was right at the start of march and it feels like such a surreal event to
be in the last in-person thing that i did because it was with over 2000 children in one day and
I'll insert some pictures here, can you imagine right now being in a room with with that
many people? Like it just seems ridiculous that I got on a train and went across the country
and hung out with over 2000 people in one day, what is that? That feels like some kind
of alternate reality, it's ridiculous, and actually to end on (actually I've got one
more question to answer but) to end this section on a positive note, one of the things that did
make me laugh, one of the comments that made me laugh so much on the post about the witches was
someone who said something along the lines of 'why don't you channel your energy into bringing
positive things into the world and talk about empathy? I see that you write books. Books like
— and then he listed lots of children's books including franklin's flying bookshop — bring true
change to the world, why don't you do something like that? You're pathetic' and then someone
replied saying 'you do know that she wrote franklin's flying bookshop, right?' and he deleted
his comments so fast that I didn't even get the chance to take that sweet, sweet screenshot
[laughs] oh it was poetic. Anyway final question was what are my favorite board games, what has
been seeing us through lockdown? I have been meaning to do a favorite board games video, I
made one back in february I think which I'll link in the description box down below but we have
bought so many board games since then and, as this person said, they have been seeing us through, so
I am not sure when I will do an in-depth video or even if I will so let me just show you briefly the
games that we have been loving this is Hanamakoji, it's a card game that you can play in 5 to 15
minutes, it's a strategy based game where you have to try and work out what cards are left
in order to to play to your own advantage, it's really really beautiful as well. Battle line
has a similar concept, you are trying to line up... there are nine battle lines in front of you
and you and the person opposite you are trying to line up three cards in front of each of them. Runs
are the best ones that you can line up, so seven, eight, nine in the same color, if not that then
three of the same number in different colors, but if the person plays a higher run than you on
the same battle line or a higher number than you (so three nines instead of three eights) then
they win that battle line. Whoever wins the most battlelines wins the game. It's really
fun and it gets very competitive and silly. Kingdominos is light-hearted fun this is
about arranging a kingdom, you're trying to slot together tiles that match each other, so like
dominoes but instead of numbers it's landscapes and you get a certain number of points depending
on how many of each landscape joined up you have. I really love this and this one would be great for
kids. I say kids but I love it, everyone can love it. This is fine with two players, battleline and
hanimajoki are only two players, you can also play this with up to three or four players. Illimat is
the most stunning game that we own and I bought it because Carson Ellis illustrates it and I love her
work, she does the most beautiful drawings. This has a tarot card feel to it and it is another card
based game, we quite like card based games, I'll insert a picture of it here so you can see how
stunning it is, you have to place cards in certain seasons and collect different valued cards it. I
mean I can't explain all the rules here, I'm just holding them up as I go, I hope that's enough.Azul
is a pattern-based game, so you are trying to create a mosaic and stop the other person
completing their mosaic. This is for up to four players but I think it works best as a two-player
game. Patchwork is slightly like Azul where you're trying to create a patchwork, it's like Tetris.
This one I love, it is Castles of Burgundy. All of these we've been playing comfortably as two
player games. This one is completing a kingdom and it's more luck than skill because you can only buy
certain things depending on the role of the dice but you can also block other people from from
buying certain things if you know that that's what they need. I will say I kind of hate
really competitive games where you can be really horrible to each other, so none of these
are really horrible games at all, they are more friendly-combat. This one is the I think the 25th
anniversary edition oh that's what it looks like on the inside, there are so many pieces in that
one. And then finally if this stack is not going to fall over this is Quacks of Quenlinberg which
I have spoken about on here before this one is very witch-like, you're making potions and
again a lot of element of luck in here because you have your potions in your bag, your potion
ingredients, so you're trying to pick out as many ingredients as you can to make your way around
the board but if you pick out too many of the wrong ingredients then you will sabotage yourself.
So those are our favourite games at the moment, we love them, would recommend all of them, and
if you want to see a play-through of any of these games Rhado has a youtube channel which
I'll link in the description box down below, we always watch his videos as a playthrough
before playing board games because do you find that reading the instructions of
board games really only makes sense once you start playing? So it's good to see a game in action.
I think that's everything that I wanted to talk about, thank you for listening at the beginning
of this video, I didn't so much want to talk about the the witches and disfigurement trope itself in
this video just more the conversation surrounding it and why that can be very very draining and
I appreciate that I'm choosing to put myself in that space and have those conversations so
I am putting myself in a vulnerable space but I put myself in a vulnerable space (not to
sound dramatic) by just by being a person with disfigurement out in the world so I would
like to continue having these conversations in a constructive way wherever I feel I can, so
thank you for listening to that. I'll be back soon talking to you about all the books I read
in october because I haven't done that yet. Let me know how your week is going.
I'm sending you all lots of love. Bye!
