Starting tomorrow: My Pride Month endeavours.

Third year in a row I've done this. A celebration of the beautiful rainbow of human experience many historians stubbornly insisted didn't exist for some odd reason and they also need therapy. For the month of June, AKA Pride Month, I decided in 2024 to highlight different people during the month's thirty days. I first focused on a mixture of novellists both old and new, then last year on other artistic groups including composers and painters. Now, for my third year, I....couldn't. I couldn't actually get anything together for either historical figures (so tragic) or mythological beings (plenty but oh boy the work). If I were completely on top of things, I would have been doing this. But I've been severely ill, and now I'm literally one day away from publishing this as I write it, so instead I'm going to do something else. Since there are four Sundays in the month this time, I'm going to be publishing a post each month. These posts will be talking about my experiences as I moved into writing queer characters in my own work.

My writing as it stands is stuffed with queer representation. The Cluster Cycle has main characters that are somewhere on the spectrum, my radio play The Angry House has a male lead, and I've written other shorter pieces that feature them. I'm also bisexual in real life, and while I'm prone towards pessimism when it comes to society, I truly feel that we can push back against the absolute BS that's happening in the world right now. We can stop this, if we just stubbornly refuse to be classed as lesser.

The first Sunday of the coming month will also see the release of the second in this year's Author Talks podcast episodes, which means there will be two posts on 7 June. I'm hoping I'll be back on my feet before the end of next week, and that I'll be able to give you some extra bits and pieces through my socials. I might even have an update on my third much-delayed Cluster Cycle book, The Murderer's Lament.

But for now, here's some interesting people I found while drafting my intended list of people to show on my socials for each day of Pride Month.

The Chevalière d'Éon, a member of the French court who lived as a man for the first part of her life, then switched in both dress and gender identity to a woman for the rest of it. A spy, soldier, and successful diplomat who sadly fell foul of the French Revolution, their legacy lives on.

Zhou Wenren (or Zhou Wen or Zhou Ren), the Director of Palace Attendants during the reign of Emperor Jing of China's Han Dynasty. While the information we have is a little spotty and comes from a single source where Zhou Wenren is listed among "Male Favourites" of the Han court, it's recorded that Emperor Jing favoured Zhou Wenren above all other officials around him. And unlike many other imperial lovers, Zhou Wenren managed to live to a cushy retirement under Emperor Wu.

Michael Dillon, a Merchant Navy doctor and later Buddhist monk. While he is more commonly known as the first recorded trans man to undergo phalloplasty, his life is interesting beyond that. From his time in the Merchant Navy during WW2, to his life as a monk under the name Lobzang Jivaka, to his writing on both his own life and his experiences or Tibetan Buddhism, Dillon is a fascinating individual to research.

Philolaus of Corinth, a Corinthian lawmaker who lived during the 700 BCE. Lover of the chariot racer Diocles, the two left Corinth and settled in Thebes, staying together for the rest of their lives. Philolaus is attributed with creating laws in Thebes which allowed two adult men to remain together as a couple beyond the time when pederastic tradition insisted they parted. He can be seen as a proto-gay rights lawmaker, though we must remember the times he lived in.

Historical accounts today and in olden times are chronically underwritten when it comes to women of any kind, let alone those on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Doesn't help that many initial English translators for non-English sources lived during a time of (if possible) even greater discrimination and phobia. But I hope you can look these few up and get some interesting information about them.

So, here's to Pride Month, starting tomorrow. And may we reclaim and enshrine for good the rights that are being slowly stripped back from us by idiotic, short-sighted, and/or prejudiced politicians and lawmakers.

Short story - Maybe Tomorrow

 Apathy is my attorney, and my prosecutor. My liberator and my jailer. As I approach a bus stop on the rainy street, a van decked in neon placards drives by. It’s showing part of a phrase which I read before I can tune it out. ‘Fifth consecutive term for...’. I know the name, don’t bother to think about it any more. Elections are a joke, votes are merely displays like damage numbers above an enemy that will respawn no matter what you do. And unlike in video games, life doesn’t give you a restart button, cheats, save states, or the ability to just put the game down if you’re too frustrated with it.

I stand at the bus stop, looking at the faces around me. My mother told me once that this place used to be diverse, full of people from across the world. Now Pantone 720 is literally everywhere. Even the beggars are card-carrying members of the great colonial host. So I am, on the surface. But my soul is not, though that counts for little. They digitise souls now in the great silicon farms that we must conserve energy for lest they lose a few nanoseconds of profit. The same music plays. They don’t import music any more. Or anything. They don’t export either.

I step aboard the bus, settle down, watch. Something shows in the bus screens, a new update from someone I don’t need to remember. It is a declaration that we are strong, we are beautiful, we lead the world. No-one has left our country for nearly a decade, and no-one visits us any more. But that doesn’t matter because I am told everything is good, everything is perfect. We founded this country, we reached the Moon, we discovered everything that the rest of the world insists it did first. Our leaders won fair and square even when people say they didn’t.

I say apathy is many things. Because it coddles me from what is around me, and stops me from doing anything else. There is much that I might say, but I do not. What is the point for me? Others do speak, and I believe they are findable amid the new AI actors and AI films and AI bibles and AI policies. They’re throwing another AI ball next week for the Silicon Giants. I’ll never be invited, but I watch. That dress is nice. That suit is nice. Why is that person at the back being clubbed? It doesn’t matter to me. That shirt is nice.

Somewhere a siren howls. Somewhere people are screaming. I don’t look at the bus’s bulletin board as it flashes red. Maybe the leader needed to talk about their latest social media post. They do that a lot these days, from their wheelchair with pipes covering all parts of their body. How old are they now? It doesn’t matter, they are healthy and always will be healthy. They aren’t riddled with heart trouble, dementia, or anything else. They are healthy, and we believe they are healthy.

My apartment is at the top of the building, where no-one can get to for cleaning. I accept it, it is my pay grade. I accept that this world will not change, that people will not change. People used to talk about change, but that shifted. Someone said something about rigging, another person said germs were good, another said life began before it began and must be respected. My mother died giving birth after someone made her pregnant against her will. We don’t mind. It is as we are told, and as we are instructed to believe.

My social media feeds are exploding as I ascend in the lift. A new trend, a new mega ultra super important thing is happening somewhere for someone. I must be part of it or I shall be missing out. Play this game, be outraged at this comment, follow this fashion trend, scream this song at the top of your voice. This is the new hotness, and I can’t smile. Why smile at something that has happened a million times before? And always with the same words, rearranged to fit.

I enter my apartment. It smells odd, but then it always smells like something. We are told the situation will improve, that we shall be fed more, that we shall extend into the infinite horizon.

The smell is coming from the further side of my apartment. I look at the hole there. It wasn’t there before, a hole I barely remember. It is a hole in my room, in my world, in my life. A hole through to the next apartment, which is blackened and melted into nothing. Somewhere again a siren is howling, somewhere else again people are screaming. Nothing for me to worry about. No-one on my social level has anything to worry about.

I lie down on the bed, and go to sleep, ignoring a new blast of sirens in the streets. Something very bright happening outside. Maybe I’ll find out what happened. Maybe tomorrow.

New Author Talks episode; the Time Travel discussion

 Another year, another attempt to do something vaguely entertaining. I previously noted that it was planned, but things ended up being...dragged out. This time for the first episode, it's an exploration through the medium of Author Talks focuses on time travel, and its use in one particular cult series. A series I kinda liked but also kinda didn't like but then liked again then really didn't like and then appreciated for what it tried to do and-- If you want more coherent thoughts and analysis, the episode's down below. Enjoy!

YouTube version

Spotify Version