The latest issue of VALA, The Journal of the Blake Society is published today. With 25 articles and pieces of creative writing, as well as original art, highlights of the issue include an innovative response to Blake in the light of UK Defence Doctrine by Carl Gopalkrishnan and an account of Anthony Blunt's double life as spy and Blake scholar by David Worrall.
VALA includes articles that showcase art and artists influenced by Blake; it spotlights particular works by Blake, examines politics, arts, literature, religions, music and the environment and shares responses to art, life and teaching inspired by Blake. VALA is not afraid to ask the big questions and our hope is that each issue will generate many inspiring answers that will reach beyond ‘the pages’ as well as the overarching theme. VALA is a hybrid; it exists online as well as on paper.
Sibylle Erle, FRSA, FHEA, is an educator, writer, editor and academic working on Blake, death and monsters. She has written extensively on Blake’s art, his German reception and Anglo-German relations in British Romanticism. She is editor of VALA, the journal of The Blake Society.
Jason Whittaker is a writer and professor at the University of Lincoln specialising in William Blake. He has published and edited seven books on Blake and is the editor of the Blake blog, Zoamorphosis.com. He is responsible for development of content on Global Blake. He is also Treasurer of The Blake Society and managing editor for VALA.
John Riordan is an illustrator and comic artist. He created the comic strip ‘William Blake, Taxi Driver’ for Time Out magazine and is working on a graphic novel about William Blake with the working title of LOS, a project that he may well still be pursuing in Eternity. He is VALA's art director.
VALA is available free on the Blake Society website.