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Book Review: Speaking Out – Queer Youth in Focus photography by Rachelle Lee Smith

By Books & Authors, Gay, ReviewsNo Comments
speaking-out-book-cover-rachelle-lee-smith Speaking Out is a collection of photographic portraits of LBGT young people (aged 14-24 years old). 65+ young people, mostly from the USA are photographed. On each portrait young people have shared their thoughts, feelings or an experience. The young people have been honest in sharing their joys and tribulations of being an LGBT youth in a heterosexual world.

In Speaking Out photographer Rachelle Lee Smith took the portraits, handed young people a sharpie pen and left them to write what they wanted. Among other topics, young people wrote about: stereotypes, identity, homophobia, self-love and romantic love. Young people identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered. It was great to see transgendered young people represented, however the vast majority of the young people identified as lesbian.

Years later, some young people reconsidered their portrait. They wrote about how their lives had changed and what they would write now. It was enjoyable to read these reflections from young people and the book would have benefited from having more of these. Several pages of the book felt wasted as they contained quotes that either praised the photographer or the book its self. Never was there any praise for the young people who were actually brave enough to share their stories.

Speaking Out is presented well, it’s a large book with 127 glossy pages in full colour. There is the odd page where a young person’s hand writing makes it difficult to read what they’ve written, but at no point is it unreadable.

Speaking Out is an enlightening book that shows how we are all the same, rather than how we are different. It should be available in every school, college, library and youth club.

Review soon,

Antony

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Sunday 4 January 2015

Flash Fiction First Draft: The Boy in the Wood

By CreativityNo Comments

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The Boy in The Wood – Flash Fiction First Draft

At College we were asked to choose a pair of footwear and a hat. Then we were asked to write them into a piece of flash fiction (no more than 200 words). Here is my flash fiction first draft, entitled The Boy in the Wood, hope you enjoy:

The Boy in the Wood

Music pumped into my ears from my headphones as I ran along the dirt track, taking my usual route on that early spring morning. My Nike trainers hit the ground as I looked ahead, following the outline of the wood on my left-hand side. I had nearly completed my three-mile target, when up ahead, I noticed a small, brightly coloured hat that had two large embroidered rabbits on it. As I got closer, I saw droplets of red scattered on the leafs and bark of a nearby tree. I stopped as I reached the hat. My heart beat faster. I picked up the hat and removed one of my headphones. To my left, I heard a movement. I stepped into the trees and saw the back of the child’s head. He could only have been seven or eight years old.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
He turned. He was smiling. His eyes were pools of black, matching the colour of his hair. Then I saw the doe, laid on the ground. My eyes widened, looking like those of the doe. In the boy’s hand, a stick covered in deep congealed red, its tip touching the doe.

Write soon,

Antony



I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


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Saturday 26 April 2014

All Writing And No Play

By Books & Authors, Journalism, Life2 Comments
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Christmas Mind Map

 It all started with an idea I had for a Christmas themed short story. One I intended to share with you, dear readers. I hoped to start the tradition, releasing a short story every Christmas. A present to you all. But then I saw a call for submissions and decided to use the story I’d started writing. I had to finish writing it, edit it, cut it down and finally un-Christmas it, but got it submitted.

Then I was invited to submit a short story for an anthropology, that I didn’t want to say no to. I also found two other anthropology competitions that I want to enter. This means a lot of my free time is being spent writing at the moment. I have deadlines till June. I hope to have a new short story to share with you later on in the year. When you make submissions, you can’t share the story anywhere, well not until Editors have decided that they don’t want it.

On top of these short stories, I’ve started the Advanced Creative Writing Course at Runshaw College and continue to write for The Gay UK, both adding additional pressure to my free time. You can read my published articles on professional portfolio.

Recently my blog has consisted of mostly book reviews. Don’t think that I’m slowly turning it into a reviewing site. My blog has always been a place to express myself and share events of my life through words and photos. This shall continue, I just have been expressing myself in short story form and haven’t done anything, apart from write, to share.

Despite my lack of personal posts my blog continues to grow. I’ve had 20,000 unique visitors in less than 17 months:


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I’m not sure that the WordPress plugin Jetpack is capturing all of the visitors though; as I also use another stats software that reports the numbers of visitors being higher.

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Sye & Me at Barry Humphries Show

 There has been some fun. Sye and I went to see Barry Humphries: The Eat, Pray and Laugh Farewell Tour.

I’m continuing one of my favourite pastimes, reading. I’m currently reading: Plague by Michael Grant, The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett, The Awakening by Yvonne Heidt, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks and am about to start Best Gay Romance 2014 Edited By Lambert & Cochrane.

My birthday is coming up and I intend on doing something to celebrate, I’m just not sure as to what yet.

Blog soon,

Antony



I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


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Saturday 22 March 2014
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