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| Adele loves nothing more than being curled up with a good book...or snake |
Adele Harrison (aka Hagalrat) is the brains behind Un:Bound an online blogging journal for lovers of genre fiction – horror, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, young adult etc. What originally started out as an individual blogging site has since grown in both followers and staff, becoming the ultimate technological hub for those who find the shelves at Waterstones dull and predictable. What we particularly love about Adele is she is a reader with no aspiration to become a novelist. This is an absolute rarity, like finding a New York waitress who doesn’t want to become an actress and just likes the sound of sugar cubes being plopped into coffee. We wasted no time in getting to know her and welcoming her to the Lion.
What is Hagelrat? I’m guessing some weird fantasy type literary figure?
Hagelslag is the name of a Dutch toast topping. I was living with a Dutch girl for a couple of years and she got me hooked. I was looking for a name I could use through my various online accounts that was easy to remember and that I was pretty sure nobody else would have. Naturally I had to lose the 'slag' from the end and added rat as I kept them at the time.
It’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll change my online name to spamgoose. So Hagelrat is the URL address but the actual website itself is called Un:bound. Why?
We needed something that said ‘books’ and felt fairly relaxed. Chris, who’s one of our reviewers, felt it summed us all up pretty nicely. It sounds quite fun as well. We cover quite a lot of things so we didn’t want a name that restricted us just to reviewing or to me personally.
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Un:Bound sounds a bit sexy to me. Not trying to be a perv, like...
I don’t know (laughs). I hadn’t really thought about it but we do have quite a sexy logo as well.
It does have a bit of S&M about it. So what kind of books do you review?
Mainly genre fiction so sci-fi, fantasy, horror, thrillers, little bit of romance as we’ve got some of the girls from the Ravenous Romance epublisher doing a fortnightly column where they open up various debates.
Such as?
Advice for people with learning difficulties on how to get published, what makes a good pen name – the debate did get a bit raunchy. There’s a lot of weird names out there.
See. Sex again. You’ve got quite a lot of members on the site. How do people get involved?
Chris (Geek Monkey) is just someone I used to talk to online a lot from America. Same with Kristin who pops up every now and then and is a Norwegian student I talk to online. It’s quite a global mix really, though not deliberately. Oh but we do have Stray who’s based in Cambridgeshire, so British. More recently we’ve got the Ravenous guys, which was through Dana Fredsti who writes romance for Ravenous. I guess we became friends because I really, really liked her first book (Murder for Hire-The Peruvian Pigeon) and had the pleasure of interviewing her. It just built from there. Most recently we’ve added Vince who I met at the World Horror Convention. I just liked his writing style and said come and do something with us. He’s trying to get published and does a writing column alternative Wednesday’s with Ravenous..
So it’s a good platform for people who want to break into writing, cut their teeth as it were?
There are a lot of bloggers who are aspiring writers and a lot of writers who use blogging when they’re not actively writing their books as something extra to be doing. At Un:bound I guess we welcome all sorts, as long as they love books. They must love books (laughs).
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How important is blogging for people who are serious about writing?
I think an online presence is essential. I don’t think blogging in itself is, although it can be a good way of letting people know who you are and about your writing style. I always google authors and when I can’t find anything, it puts me off slightly. That’s the real value of having an online presence. But you do need to balance your workload. A lot of writers say if I spend all my time blogging, when am I going to write? It’s a fair point.
Who would you say is your target audience?
Just genre fans. People who are passionate about books.
So that’s where the sexy logo comes from, a passion for literature...
We didn’t set out with anyone in mind. It started out as fun. From there it grew and we got more people involved. Obviously the bloggers know and read each other but other than that, I don’t really know who they all are. Having said that, I do obsessively check my site meter and see where people are coming from. There’s people from really odd places in the world coming to have a look. But I don’t really know anything more about them.
What kind of features do you run on the website?
The ‘writers reading’, which is new this year. That allows us to be nosey and have a look at photographs they’ve sent in of their bookshelves. I love this feature because the first thing you do when you go around someone else’s house is look at their bookshelves.
We get the authors to select a couple of books from their collection and talk about why they’re particularly significant to them. We also do audio and written interviews and cover related events. Last year we did Fantasy Con, this year World Horror and I’m doing the podcast recordings for the Alt Fiction festival in Derby. So I’ll be interviewing all day in the mac suite whilst Vince covers the panels.
I spoke to Mark Charan Newton and Alex Davis on our latest podcast. They’re lovely guys. Mark was at our Canning Circus Festival last year with Damien Walter and James Johnston. I think it was the best panel discussion I’ve been to. You must be delighted to get the Alt Fiction work...
(She gives a lovely, warm smile. Nearly smug, but not quite) I’m doing a joint interview with Steve Jones and Ramsey Campbell which will be awesome. I’m really hoping the two of them are big talkers so I don’t have to say much. At the same time, we’ll be doing blogging and twittering and all the new media kind of stuff and Alistair Stewart from Hello Hubmarine will be involved, so again, a great mix of people from local organisations.
Do you write books yourself?
No. I just love to read. I hated creative writing. I’m just happy immersed in other peoples’ literature. I love readings about it and I love talking about it.
Wow! That’s a rarity. You’re gold dust.
There’s a lot of people who love books but don’t have a platform to talk about them. If you like genre fiction and you’re not buying from the bestseller list or from the three-for-the-price-of-two table or don’t have friends who like your kind of thing there’s limited opportunity to enthuse about the books you love and the ones that have let you down. The internet has been fantastic for allowing that.
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| Clive Barker's infamous creation Pinhead with the novelty Rubik's cube he bought from Woolies before it closed down... |
Favourite author?
Oh….I always push Clive Barker, particularly the fantasy stuff like Imagica and The Great And Secret Show.
Big weighty tombs then….
I’m enjoying young adult fiction as well which seems a pretty new genre, although it’s being debated at the moment whether it can be called a genre. It’s interesting that quite a lot of books that were once being classified as fantasy are now finding themselves into the young adult section off the back of things like Harry Potter and Twilight.
Do you like Twilight?
I hate it. There are a lot of books out in a similar vein that I really enjoy though and anything that gets people reading is a win.
But there does seem to be a vampire revival at the moment. Any thoughts?
Teenagers these days don’t have to work their way through the fantasy shelves anymore. It’s served up for them. Twilight is just new romance with a slight twist to it.
What about the mash-up trend such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?
I think it’s an interesting trend although possibly going a little too far now with so many of them coming out.
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| Now you know what a Mangacat looks like... |
I think they’re ripping off Radio Four. There was a series where you’d juxtapose fictional characters together like Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe. It was hilarious.
Mangacat is an animation student and she reviewed it and said it was completely hilarious but I haven’t got time at the moment. My to-read section is three stacks high.
What are your hopes for Un:bound?
Just people to enjoy it. The interaction. Keep doing what we’re doing and get better. We’ve also added a youth blog Young & Un:Bound with kids between six and sixteen reviewing books for their age group. I’d like to see that grow.
Un:Bound website
James Walker's website
Adele will be the podcast princess at Alt Fiction which starts on the the 12th June.
