Giles, Harry Josephine

Harry Josephine Giles (c) Rich Dyson

Harry Josephine Giles is a writer and performer from Orkney, Scotland, living in Leith. Their verse novel „Deep Wheel Orcadia“ was published by Picador in October 2021 and won the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction book of the year. The poetry collections „The Games“ (Out-Spoken Press 2018) and „Tonguit“ (Freight Books 2015) were between them shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Saltire Prize and the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Giles has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Stirling, Scotland.

Festival Content

POETRY TALK: Harry Josephine Giles

Addressing My Transsexuality To The Bird

Atelierraum | 7/5 € Tickets

Harry Josephine Giles (born 1986 in Orkney) is a poet, performer, and slam champion. In her widely acclaimed work, she transcends genre demarcations and blends them. In doing such, she deconstructs ancient myths or, following in the footsteps of Ursula K. Le Guin, she updates the narrative conventions of science fiction with a gender-fluid cast, most recently in the verse novel Deep Wheel Orcadia (Picador Poetry 2021), which she wrote in Orkney dialect. It’s a sensual experience that is only accessible through sound at first: “The chime o the tannoy is whit taks her back, / fer hid isno chenged, nae more as the wirds / summoan her tae the airlock: her wirds / at sheu isno heard fer eyght geud year.”

Giles, Harry Josephine

WRITING IDENTITIES

when gender blurs in a poem my world sets a tooth in the gear

Kuppelhalle | 9/7 € Tickets

Writing Identities centers around four poets from different countries who have made a break with traditional gender roles and have found innovative language to do so. With tremendous powers of imagination, they create new modes to express marginalized perspectives and experiences while questioning familiar patterns, ascriptions, modes of representation and presentation, perception, and interpretive authority.

CAConrad • February, Logan • Giles, Harry Josephine • Jeschke, Lisa