From illness to major medical operations, child-bearing to pain and chronic illness to disability, feminist indie press anthology Disturbing the Body sets out to explore the many ways women feel powerless and at odds with their own bodies. In a dozen stories reflecting memoir, experience and body horror, this is an anthology full of heart that is not for the faint-hearted. Each piece is deeply personal, seeking the subversion of traditional memoir in search of the myriad truths about the physical self. Raw, powerful and often dreamlike in nature, these remarkable stories are unflinching as they reflect complex experiences of women’s bodies.

Three feminist bookshops have joined forces with Boudicca Press to celebrate the publication of ​Disturbing The Body.

Disturbing The Body ​will launch across three nights, with​ Lighthouse, Five Leaves ​and Housmans​ bookshops each hosting a different pairing of writers.

The ambitious three-part launch reflects the creativity and character of radical bookshops and the scope of this phenomenal anthology. Taking readers on a bookish journey the length of the country, it exemplifies the ways indies have rallied together for each other and for independent presses during the pandemic.

The three-part launch picks out common threads from the book to give you the following:

23rd March with Lighthouse (Edinburgh): Chikọdili Emelumadu and Verity Holloway focus on using genre (horror) to explore women’s bodily experiences. Tickets available here.

24th with Five Leaves: Louise Kenward & Laura Elliott, on storytelling that explores health, medicine and disability. Tickets available here.

25th Housmans (London): Irenosen Okojie and Abi Hynes draw on their stories, which are quite uncanny with an element of the fantastical, to explore feminism and body politics. Tickets available here.

About Boudicca Press
Boudicca Press is an independent publisher who celebrates the strength, courage and literary talents of women. They publish weird, literary and relationship fiction by women in the UK.

About our speakers

Louise Kenward is a writer, artist and psychologist. Louise left the NHS in 2013 and now runs and collaborates on freelance projects, often combining arts and health. She has an MA in Fine Art (2011) from London Metropolitan University and an MSc in Criminological Psychology (1997) from Birmingham University. She is currently writing her first book A Trail of Breadcrumbs. www.louisekenward.com @LouiseKenward

Laura Elliott is a twenty-something disabled writer and journalist. Her short fiction has been published by Strix Magazine, STORGY, and others, and she has an essay in Monstrous Regiment’s So Hormonal anthology. You can find her screaming into the void on Twitter at @TinyWriterLaura.

Free, register via Eventbrite.

Our event will be live streamed on Zoom and the recording will be uploaded to our YouTube channel afterwards.