Helen McCarthy

Writer

You may think you know writer, editor, artist and poet Helen McCarthy – but this is Helen as you’ve never seen her before. After five and a half years working on Britain’s most exciting engineering project, digging giant tunnels deep under her beloved hometown of London, she’s ready for new creative adventures.

Helen first encountered Japanese popular culture in Europe in 1981. There was no book on anime in English, so she set out to write one. She's had thirteen non-fiction books published in seven languages – English, French, Italian, Brazilian and standard Portuguese, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. These include a biography of Osamu Tezuka acclaimed in Japan, two accessible how-to-draw manuals, a manga- and anime-inspired cross stitch book, co-authorship of The Anime Encyclopedia, and the shortest and most beautifully illustrated history of manga in print.

Helen comes from a line of creative and radical women. She is an independent scholar and proud founding member of the Fandom And Neomedia Studies organisation (FANS) and was honoured to be the keynote speaker at their first conference. Her lectures and workshops about anime, manga, haiku, costuming, needlework and creative business have taken her around the world.

In 2017 she spoke at a symposium on cosplay in Japan and found some new material for her evolving history of cosplay, verified by one of the earliest Japanese practicioners. She has a chapter in a new academic book on Princess Mononoke, which led to her exploration of Miyazaki’s work in the light of Goddess mythology. And she’s been exploring the earliest history of animation in Japan.

Come and say hello, listen to one of her presentations and prepare to be hit with a fire hose of passion for anime, manga, creativity and scholarship.