The horror and allure of female (anti)heroines

11 October, 17.00-18.00

Sophie White’s books range from all-out folkloric horror to the more quotidian horror of social media and how we portray ourselves online. In her 2022 novel Where I End, the protagonist is an isolated anti-hero who’s too weird for normal life (according to her own family and community), and whose story unfolds in visceral body-horror-heavy scenes on a remote island. In her latest novel Such a Good Couple she explores that particular horror of vacationing with friends when it all goes wrong.

Carrie Russpatrick wrote her PhD on “The Return of the Vulva Monster: Screen Cultures of the Gender Monstrous”, and has researched the power of media and narratives to uncover situated dynamics of gender and the other. In conversation Sophie and Carrie will discuss what attracts and repels us from heroines, whether they are isolated on an island or on a holiday from hell.

Books by all the authors and panelists will be for sale throughout the festival.

Sophie White is a novelist, essayist and podcaster from Dublin. She is the author of seven books and has previously been the Writer in Residence in DCU and also the Museum of Literature Ireland. Her first four books, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown (Gill 2016), Filter This (Hachette, 2019), Unfiltered (Hachette, 2020) and The Snag List (Hachette, 2022) have been all bestsellers and award nominees. Her fifth book, the bestselling memoir Corpsing (Tramp Press, 2021), was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction. Her sixth book, Where I End (Tramp Press, 2022) was described as “brilliantly visceral” by the Guardian and “exquisite and disturbing, brutish and beautifully crafted” by The Irish Times. It won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel 2022. Her seventh book and fifth novel, My Hot Friend (Hachette, 2023), won an Irish Book Award for Best Popular Fiction.

Carrie Russpatrick is a doctoral researcher at the University of Oslo’s Department of Media and Communication. She currently studies the theoretical crossings of aesthetics, the body, and queer/feminist monster theory through the trope of the “vulva monster” in screen media. She is also a collaborative member of the Monster Network, which fosters international collaborations among those with interest in monsters and the monstrous. In her spare time, she is a lover of zines, plants, and all things cult classic.

This event was made possible through the generous support of Culture Ireland and the Embassy Of Ireland in Oslo.