Heidi James

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Heidi James (Born Chatham, Kent 1973) is an English writer and publisher.

Biography

She has been quoted as saying 'Language, words have a weight, a physical presence on my tongue, I can feel them like stones in my mouth. I always wrote. I remember playing with sentences when I was 3, living with my grandparents.'

Her work is Auto-intertextual and experimental; recurrent themes are exile, female states of consciousness, identity and the tension between truth and lies. She often uses sexuality to explore themes of power and persona. Another theme that frequently arises in her work is the struggle with mental illness and it has been conjectured that this is auto-fictive however there is no actual evidence to support this. She states that her work is 'Subjective-realism' a reality experienced by the characters in the work, not necessarily real or unreal. She cites the genre Slipstream as highly influential. Her short stories, essays and reviews have appeared in various magazines including Dazed and Confused, Next Level, Flux, Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, Dreams that Money can Buy, Full Moon Empty Sports Bag, Pulp.net and .

Her novella "The Mesmerist's Daughter" was published by Apis Books. Her novel "Carbon" will be out summer 2008, published by Wrecking Ball Press. A collection of her short stories "The Knifethrower's Girls" will be published by BLATT Books in February 2009. Her work is also in the anthologies "Writing at the Edge" (Siren Song Books) and "3:AM London, New York, Paris".

She started Social Disease - an independent publishing company in 2004. Publishing work by Lee Rourke, Tony O'Neill, HP Tinker and Ben Myers. Her aim is to publish work that excites, illuminates and transforms without bowing to mercantile pressures. Social Disease received an Arts Council grant in 2007.

As a dancer and performer she worked with Marisa Carnesky, as well as various film and stage appearances, for example as the main character's best friend in Razor Blade Smile.