What I’m Reading Ralph McCubbin Howell

Right now, I’m reading Bill Hammond: Across the Evening Sky, which my sister gave me for Christmas. It’s a collection of his work since 2007, and a sequel to an earlier book, Jingle Jangle Morning, which is now out of print and as rare as hen’s teeth, but I really want to track down.

I don’t usually read an art book like this cover-tocover, but the essays and interviews here are varied and great.

I’ve long been a fan of Bill Hammond’s paintings (his bird-people stare out from a print over our fireplace) – they’re all at once haunting and delicate and raucous as hell, and make me want to dust off my drum kit. Some Hammond-esque bird-people have crept into The Griegol, which we’re rehearsing at the moment, and I can imagine them staring down from the bush in our new show, Lysander’s Aunty.

One of my favourite books last year was Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, which is gloriously weird, and brilliantly constructed. It’s a book about solitude, written when the author was largely housebound by a long illness, so felt unexpectedly resonant through the lockdowns of last year.

I also discovered Emily Carroll’s graphic story collection Through The Woods, which is right up my alley – dark and funny, beautifully illustrated, and drawing on story conventions whilst twisting them in unexpected ways.

Many of the horror stories were first published online and are really designed for that medium (where single panels can scroll down and down into the nightmare), but it’s a great collection, and I’ve come back and spotted details I missed that have given me the heebie-jeebies.

Playwright Ralph McCubbin Howell’s show Lysander’s Aunty plays March 10 to 13 at Wellington Opera House in the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, and March 17 to April 3 at ASB Waterfront Theatre in the Auckland Arts Festival. atc.co.nz

The Griegol plays at Clarence Theatre in the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival on February 26. www.hgaf.co.nz