Authors Electric

The manuscript, a second volume of my ongoing memoir series, was done and sent to my beta readers. I felt so proud, constructing essays using some of the tools I learned in Julie Otsuka’s Buddha in the Attic and a few essays I studied in the journal A   Public Space . “I like what you’ve written,” one beta reader wrote in an email. “My question is,” she continued. “Who are you writing for?” Her question floored me. I had countless bylines, varieties of writing experience, two completed screenplays and one completed novel and more than a passing understanding of how the English language works. Not once did a beta reader ask me who I was writing for. The second volume seemed no different. I was writing for my readers. Like me, I thought the tired cliches used to describe transsexual experiences like mine bored them. Like me, I thought they wanted a complex narrative about being born female then transitioning to male, and well before the internet, too. Like me...

By Jon Sullivan via Wikimedia Commons This continues the story I began in  last month’s blog . It also benefits from having its reality enhanced by the meteorological authentication of its setting thanks to the recent onslaught of 'the beast from the east'. Leticia’s body was still awash with the desire Roger’s parting kiss had kindled in her. Her time at Wal-Mart had dulled her appreciation of metaphor to such an extent that she was ignorant of the fact that the conflation of ‘kindled’ and ‘awash’ implied a soggy fireplace. For her, the passion was an awakening, a confirmation that her time spent watching those TV movies written by Jane Austen had been the beginning of her education as a Belle Dame sans Merci. She got up, poured herself another glass of the rich red wine and once more stood before the cheval mirror, turning her body to admire the way the satin folded jealously down the curve of her back. She lifted the hem of her dress, admired the leg...

 Last month, my colleague, Griselda Heppel, wrote about how annoying it is when people make wild unsubstantiated guesses about Shakespeare's life, based on very little evidence. For instance, he left his wife his 'second best bed,' so, obviously, he didn't think much of her. And she was eight years older than him so, obviously it was an unwanted marriage of convenience. And he went away to be a playwright in London, so quite plainly, he hated the sight of her. Any of these statements may be true. But it's just as likely that they aren't. They are much made out of very little. The idea that Bill didn't get on with Anne because he was young and carefree and she was such a grumpy old hag is based solely on a line in Twelfth Night: 'Let still the woman take an elder than herself.' This is seized on as a hot-line to Shakespeare's heart. Aha! This is him regretting his unwise marriage and letting slip what he really thought. Never mind that S...