The Wind Blew Through LIKE A CHORUS OF GHOSTS
Shelley Marlow
Sunday, August 29, 2021
2:00pm
signs and symbols presents The Wind Blew Through LIKE A CHORUS OF GHOSTS, a performance reading by Shelley Marlow as part of artists & allies IV on Sunday, August 29 at 2pm via Instagram Live @signssymbols.
Marlow will read from their new magic realism manuscript The Wind Blew Through LIKE A CHORUS OF GHOSTS, which follows gender-non-conforming Swann and their wife Pilar's 2013 adventures from their home in Brooklyn to vacation in the UK. Right after their flights are booked, Swann senses something terrible, suddenly has second thoughts, and consults a channeler. The channeler warns, ‘You have anxiety because of your past life as a witch in the UK who was murdered as a teen in 1619. As your trip advances, more about this witch will be revealed.’ In a warm-hearted witch's tale, they travel to Ceres, Fife; to Halloween in Edinburgh; to northeast England where old friends from art school threaten to turn them into cats; then south to Glastonbury, to make a vortex in Avebury, take a bath in Bath, and London; all along the way learning more and accepting Swann’s identity as a witch. The Wind Blew Through LIKE A CHORUS OF GHOSTS converges past and present into an alchemy of interconnection through nature, witchcraft and queer resilience across centuries and dimensions.
shelley marlow is the author of Two Augusts In a Row In a Row, a novel, Publication Studio, Portland (2015); and the art editions, Publication Studio, Hudson (2017) and Publication Studio, London, in collaboration with London Centre for Book Arts (2017). Multigenerational communities performed scenes of Two Augusts for book launches at the Bureau of General Services Queer Division, NYC; LCBA, London; and The Tender Center, Rotterdam. Marlow received an Acker Award 2017, NYC, for excellence in avant-garde writing. Marlow's writing and artwork appear in: The St. Petersburg Review; Resist Much/Obey Little Anthology; Altered Bodies catalogue; Brooklyn Rail; LTTR (Lesbians To The Rescue); Evergreen Review; Hyperallergic; The KGB Bar Lit Mag; Lambda Literary; alLuPiNiT, an EnvironMental Magazine; Saint-Lucy; New Observations Magazine; and Zingmagazine. UnKnot Turandot, Marlow's short collaborative opera, was performed at La Mama Theater, NY. Marlow performed an interactive project, International Witch Stories, with Oreste in the Italian Pavilion for the 48th Venice Biennial.