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...

The author's displacement activity I want to share with you a very personal yet truly illuminating experience. Earlier this year, around Easter time in fact, I received an email from my son, whose own son, Axl, is surpassing his grandfather with ease. It read: "I thought you might be interested in reading Axl’s first ‘book’. It’s a simple tale that touches on a variety of themes, innocence, violence, hunger, parental devotion and, without giving away the ‘ending’, murder. Of course as with many of his works there is a subtext.  It skilfully deals with sensitive issues of religion and, for me, reading between the lines, its conclusion surmises that there is no afterlife and, controversially at this time of year, absolutely no possibility of resurrection.  The author leaves one in no doubt of his view on this final point. It’s a real page turner." My son had attached the story, formatted as a four page book. Here it is in its entirety: The 3 Chick...