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Book Review: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
the-graveyard-book-neil-gaiman-cover In The Graveyard Book, Nobody Owens (also known as Bod) is saved from murder by Ghosts. As a toddler, Bod, crawls out of his cot and walks up the hill to The Graveyard in the dead of night. Meanwhile his family are being murdered in their sleep by a man named Jack.

Jack tracks Bod up to The Graveyard. The ghosts save Bod’s life after Mrs Owens makes a promise to the Spector that is Bod’s mother. The ghosts agree to raise Bod and grant him the Freedom of The Graveyard.

Bod is to be raised by ghost surrogate parents Mr & Mrs Owens, with Silas who belongs to neither the world of the living or the world of the dead acting as Bod’s Guardian.

This is the start of a truly remarkable adventure story. Bod is taken through a gravestone that leads to a desert and city of the ghouls, he develops a friendship with a dead Witch and a living girl, he is taught how to fade, he goes to an ordinary school and uses

fear and dreamwalking to deal with bullies, he learns the ways of The Sleer and finally learns the truth of why his living family was murdered, why the man Jack is still after him and has to fight off The Jack’s order.

The Graveyard Book is the most wonderfully imaginative story that I’ve read in a long time. As the plot unravels the reader is captivated throughout and ponders on the mystery of why the man Jack murdered Bod’s family and why he continues to search for Bod to finish the job of wiping out his family.

The characters are superbly surrounded in mystery with hidden talents that make each character brilliant.

The Graveyard Book has made it on to my top shelf – where I keep my favourite books and there is no doubt in my mind that it is a book I will read again and again. It was a book that I honestly didn’t want to ever end.

At the end of the book, in an acknowledgments section Gaiman writes that this book was inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, that Gaiman read as a child, and also inspired by his own children at a certain age. This inspiration shines through as I found myself thinking that The Graveyard Book reminded me of the story of The Jungle Book, way before getting to the end acknowledgements section.

I would highly recommend that anyone and everyone reads The Graveyard Book, which is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Saturday 16 July 2016

Creative Writing: Middle

By Creativity, ThinkingNo Comments
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Inkwell & Quill. (Image Copyright: Sye Watts/Antony Simpson.)

 This is the second part in a blog post series, where I’ll be sharing some of what I’ve learned about creative writing over the last few years. The first blog post in the series was Creative Writing: Beginning.

1. Remember Your Aim
You should be writing something that entertains and is enjoyable to you and others. That’s all your creative work needs to do. It doesn’t need to be a work of literacy genius.

2. Your Writers Voice
Your writers voice is part of the art of creative writing. It will be influenced by Perspective, which I have wrote about here. It may change dramatically in different works.

Some writers try to emulate the voice of writers that they admire. This can be an interesting exercise and way to explore how those writers show their distinctive voice. To get the most out of this exercise, rather than passively read, you need to analyse how they crafted their voice.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert whom has written of many books, developed her writers voice by writing each of her books to friend or family member. Her writers voice in Big Magic, a book about living creatively, is warm, caring, passionate, engaging and captivating throughout.

Your unique writers voice will generally develop over time, with regular writing practice. The key point here is: practice.

Simple Writing – Writer’s Voice: What it is and how to develop yours is a good article to read, where the author writes about phrasing, tone, attitude and gives some tips on how to develop your writers voice. But nothing really beats writing lots.

3. Keep Going
Don’t let fear hold you back from starting, continuing or finishing a piece of creative writing. Even if, as your writing, you think it’s the worst thing ever written, keep going.

As author Anne Rice says in this video, ‘Just kick out the pages:’

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So keep writing, everyday if possible. Don’t be hard on yourself if you can’t manage everyday. Just write when you can. Whatever time you are managing to write, it’s better than not writing at all. Remember that if you keep going, eventually you’re going to finish. You’ll be bringing a new story into the world, which is wonderful.

4. Dialogue
Some rules generally apply:

  • Less is more.
  • Most people don’t talk to themselves. So don’t have characters do it.
  • It should be a conversation, not a monologue or full of large longwinded statements.
  • Don’t have a character explain to another character what happened in the last scene you wrote. It feels repetitive and tedious to the reader. One character can summarise to another character if absolutely necessary. But if the other character needs to know the details, then maybe he/she should have been in the last scene as a witness to events.
  • Only on rare occasions should you cut the end of dialogue, like this: –. If you do it all the time, the dialogue isn’t moving the story along and the reader will get frustrated that no character ever finishes a sentence. Plus regularly cutting the end of sentences will lose its value and significance.
  • Dialogue tags such as he said and she replied are useful to identify who is talking and how they are saying what they are saying. But the overall tone of the conversation should be clear from the words in the dialogue.

To improve your dialogue listen to the conversations of strangers in every public place that you visit. The dialogue you write should sound like that. It should have hooks. During the editing process, which I will write about in the next blog post in the series, it is useful to read it aloud to yourself or someone else.

5. Tense
Generally past or present tense is used. Future tense is rarely used. Once you’ve decided which tense to use, be consistent and use it throughout your creative work. Here’s an article that explains tense simply: Creative Writing – Tense.

6. Description
General fiction set in the real world needs less description than creative works set in other worlds. If your creative work is set in the past, future or another world consider: societal structures, culture, religion/belief systems, etc. Only tell the reader what they need to know.

Avoid writing cliché opportunities to describe a character or settings. One such example of a cliché opportunity is the main character standing in front of a mirror observing and describing themselves to the reader. It’s been done so many times, that it has become a cliché.

A good tip, when it comes to description is to make references. So for example, rather than writing: Jean drove off in her red car. Write: Jean drove off in her red Nissan Micra. Be aware that over time these descriptive references might date your creative work. Some descriptive references are so embedded into society that they could never date your creative work.

In my short story A Few Amazing Moments I deliberately used descriptive references to set the time in recent history that the various scenes were set in.

Perspective alters how you describe things. You can read more about perspective here. Pacing alters the amount of description a scene has. You can read more about pacing here. But the rule is: in slower scenes more description is allowed. In action or fast-paced scenes there should be less description. To much description or to little can significantly impact on your overall pacing.

7. Back-up Your Creative Work – Regularly
We’ve all heard nightmare stories about writers whom have lots their entire work because of a computer crash or computer dying on them. They either didn’t hit the save button or didn’t back-up their computer or both. I’ve lost large chunks of scenes in the past because I didn’t hit the save button often enought. I’ve also lost entire creative projects because a computer decided to die on me. So here’s the advice:

  • Hit the save button at the end of every paragraph.
  • Back-Up your work regularly. Some people use the cloud. I personally use Time Machine and then do a manual copy/paste back-up on an external hard drive once a week.

8. Done Is Better Than Good
This advice comes from Author Elizabeth Gilbert. In her book Big Magic, which have reviewed here, she writes about the danger of perfectionism.

If you aim for your creative work to be perfect you will drive yourself insane. No matter how much time, energy, effort and work you put into a creative work it will never be perfect. So rather than striving for perfection, aim for completing your creative work to the best of your current ability.

So many creative people, leave work in their desk draws, unfinished, because they don’t feel it’s good enough. Because they are aiming for perfection. Just take a second to imagine the number of superb stories that never see the light of day, let alone get read, because the writer is aiming for perfection.

9. First Draft
Congratulations on completion of the first draft of your creative work. But for a good writer, it’s not even half finished yet. The manuscript now needs to be edited, which may include some re-writing.

In my next blog post of the series, I’ll be writing about editing (including an editing checklist), feedback and publishing options.

Write soon,

Antony



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Sunday 21 February 2016

Book Review: Big Magic Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

By Books & Authors, Inspiration, ReviewsNo Comments
big-magic-elizabeth-gilbert I first discovered the amazing Writer Elizabeth Gilbert when she did a TED talk on creativity (see this TED talk at the end of this post).

Gilbert became a huge success back in 2006, when her memoir Eat, Pray, Love became an international bestseller. It was later made into a film. Prior to this Gilbert had always felt that it was her responsibility to take care of her creativity, so wrote while holding down other jobs. This big success meant she could afford to write full-time. I intend to read and review Eat, Pray, Love at some point in the future.

Gilbert was inspired by creativity, the creative process and the concept of creative living. She began to explore how other cultures throughout history had viewed creativity and the artists that create. This lead her to study the ancient Romans and Greeks. Which in turn led to her quirky and unconventional views about creative living, which she explores in Big Magic – Creative Living Beyond Fear.

Big Magic is split into six parts: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust & Divinity. Each section deserves to be written about individually, which is what I have done below:

Courage
Gilbert starts by defining what creative living means to her. She describes it as having the courage to follow your aspirations, longings and talents. Gilbert writes about desires, that you are driven to do from somewhere deep within. Things or activities that have great meaning to you. Gilbert’s examples include: writing, dancing, painting and basically anything with any sort of activity that has an element of creativity within it.

Gilbert writes about fear. She recognises that fear can and does stop some people from living creatively. But as she explains, fear is boring – as fear’s inner voice repeats the same things. Whereas living creatively is never boring. Gilbert advises the reader that fear is not to be conquered, but acknowledged and thanked for its concern. Then the reader should do the thing that scares them anyway.

Gilbert’s key message in this section is that the reader should follow their curiosity without being inhibited by their fear.

Enchantment
Gilbert believes that ideas are disembodied energy that wants to manifest. But in order to do that they need to work with willing, creative humans. Humans that will commit their time and energy to bringing the idea into reality.

A good lesson learned from Gilbert in this section is that you have to make space for the idea. Both physically and figuratively. Which is why in my workspace, my desk has been cleared, ideas have been listed on the wall (in the order that they will be completed) and that time is regularly set aside to work on the idea at the front of the queue.

Gilbert writes that if the reader commits to an idea, that they should try to keep their end of the bargain. Otherwise the neglected idea will eventually get fed up of excuses, waiting and will continue on its travels looking for another human collaborative partner.

Gilbert gives an example from her own life, writing about an idea for a book that got away from her and found its way to Ann Pattchett (another author who has an especially special place in my heart for writing The Magician’s Assistant, but I digress). Gilbert tells the story of a conversation she had with Pattchett:

I tried to summarize my ex-novel as concisely as possible. I said, “It was about this middle-aged spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years. He gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person go missing, and my character gets sent down there to solve things, at which point her quiet life is turned into chaos. Also, it’s a love story.”
Ann stared at me from across the table for a long minute.
Before I continue, I must give you to understand that – decidedly unlike myself – Ann Patchett is a true lady. She has exquisite manners. There is nothing vulgar or coarse about her, which made it even more shocking when she finally spoke:
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Why? I asked. “what’s your novel about?”
She replied, “It’s about a spinster from Minnesota who’s been quietly in love with her married boss for many years. He gets involved in a harebrained business scheme down in the Amazon jungle. A bunch of money and a person go missing, and my character is sent down there to solve things. At which point her quiet life is completely turned into chaos. Also, it’s a love story.”

(From: Big Magic Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert, p. 53-54, 2015. Copyright © Elizabeth Gilbert 2015.)




Permission
Gilbert explains that she never felt the need to be given permission to begin writing; but that some people do feel the need for permission to create. So she advises the reader to give themselves permission to start living creatively. She advises the reader to label themselves, i.e. I am a Writer. Gilbert advises the reader to be authentic and live creatively, first and foremost for themselves.

Gilbert advises the reader to avoid getting into debt. According to Gilbert debt leads to trappings that will greatly influence the ability to live creatively. Being debt free is likely something that most readers will need to work on.

Persistence
Gilbert encourages readers to keep going and don’t be disheartened if the first thing created gets no recognition. Take your time. Learn your craft. She reminds readers that people go to great lengths to create, often maintaining a day job, having busy lives, but always making the time for creativity.

Gilbert motivates her readers to protect the space and time to create from intrusions, distractions and most of all procrastination. Procrastination can be fear’s way of avoiding starting, continuing or finishing a creative project. So watch out – because fear can be sneaky in its tactics.

Gilbert advises of the perfectionism pitfall for creatives. She writes that done is better than good. Yes, by all means work hard to make sure the work is good, but good enough will do. Aiming for perfection is where most people set themselves up to fail, because perfection is an unrealistic goal that either drives a person insane or causes them to give up on an idea.

Trust
Gilbert writes that a creative should go where the idea takes them, even if it’s emotionally uncomfortable. Gilbert states that you should trust in the idea and continue with Stubborn Gladness.

For Gilbert, living creatively is all about following where curiosity takes her. She encourages the reader to follow their own curiosity.

Divinity
Gilbert concludes by writing that creativity is scared and that the reader should start creative living immediately.




Throughout Big Magic Gilbert’s writers voice is warm and engaging. Gilbert tells many wonderful, meaningful and great little stories as examples of her ideas on creativity in action. She tells these stories exceptionally well.

Stories are not the most scientific form of evidence. But does there need to be empirical evidence for creativity and the creative process? After all, even those at the heart of creative processes struggle understand or explain how their creative process works.

What matters in Big Magic, is that Gilbert writes her truth. Every word is written for herself – so that she can further her study of creativity.

The audience for this book is anyone that wants to live a creative and fulfilled life. Gilbert is undoubtably clever, wise and inspiring in Big Magic. The reader will find that some, most or all of Gilbert’s work will resonate with themselves.

So go and buy Big Magic to lap up some creative living inspiration. Big Magic is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony

TED Talk – Your Elusive Creative Genius by Elizabeth Gilbert

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Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.
(From: TED, Last Accessed: Thursday 3rd December 2015.)

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Sunday 20 December 2015

Book Review: OMG Queer edited by Radclyffe & Katerine Lynch

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Reviews2 Comments
The kind people at Publishers Group UK sent me a copy of OMG Queer to read, then review and I’m so glad they did as once I started reading I found it difficult to put down.

OMG Queer is an anthology of short fiction stories written by queer (gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, questioning and intersex) young people. Stories are the oldest form of communication to share hopes, fears, dreams, fantasies and these stories share all of these and so much more.

I’d like to tell you a little about each story as the cover of the book doesn’t do justice to the stories contained within.

Jelson by Brenna Harvey
Jelson made me rethink the whole gender identity issue. Jelson is intersex character who fluctuates between being a boy and a girl. It’s cleverly written switching between he and she as Jelson changes gender. It is revealed that he doesn’t want to be a boy or girl but exist in that space in-between, a space that up until this story I didn’t even realise existed. This story reminded me that often we don’t know what other people think about themselves or what they think of ourselves. A fantastic start to the book.

The Tea Bowl by Justine F. Lane
A beautifully written story about unrequited love. A lesbian English Tutor teaching in Japan falls in love with a soon-to-graduate student.

The Piano Player by Thomas Graziano
The story starts with Will at his grandma’s funeral. In the corner he notices an attractive piano player who plays his grandma’s favourite song. He thinks nothing more of it until a few weeks later on college campus he hears someone playing the piano. Will is a romantic gay man whose never been kissed. Will realises the guy playing the piano on campus is the same guy who played at his grandma’s funeral: Wesley.

I smiled reading that Will had made a pact with his straight female friend to marry each other if neither of them had met Mr. Right by the age of forty; as it’s something I think most gay men have done – I certainly have. I smiled again when Will checks social networking sites to try and work out Wesley’s gay or not. Something I’ll admit to doing.

Will gets his kiss and Wesley appreciates his love of his piano playing. This story is written in pieces that are brilliantly intertwined together. The story pulled out my romantic side that we all have. After reading this story I felt inexplicably happy; when I thought about why I discovered that this story had filled my heart with hope of meeting Mr. Right one day.

Crystal Crisis by A.J. Slater
Ryan is the only out lesbian girl in a homophobic school. Nobody talks to her apart from popular Crystal who shares one class with her. They bonded over Crystal having a regular ‘crisis,’ she never has a pen to do her homework with and always asking Ryan if she can borrow one. This story flips between the past – their last day at school; and the present – Ryan coming back to the small town to visit with her girlfriend.

In the past Ryan describes borrowing Crystal a pen and talking to her before some of the other students start name-calling Ryan. Crystal stands up for Ryan, and it quickly escalates into the other students viciously attacking Ryan and Crystal. By the end of the assault Ryan has stopped breathing and Crystal has to do CPR in order to save her life. Afterwards in front of the Head Teacher Ryan remains silent out of fear, something she’s never been able to forgive herself for. The Head Teacher decides that Ryan and Crystal have enough credits to graduate early, seemingly wanting to sweep the whole issue under the metaphorical carpet. They both declare their love for one another and leave school on that day. Ryan going off to study filmmaking and Crystal going off traveling in Europe.

In the present Ryan bumps into Crystal in the pharmacy when she see’s a woman rummaging in her bag for a pen. Ryan offers her a pen and they speak. Crystal is now a School Counsellor so that no one will ever have to experience what they did and she’s followed Ryan’s successful career as a filmmaker. Ryan apologies for her silence after the attack and Crystal explains that she was never angry and understood why she was silent. Then they are met by their respective female partners and the four of them walk off together. As they walk off Ryan and Crystal are talking about redeveloping their friendship but encompassing their new partners as well. Ryan finally forgives herself for her silence following the homophobic attack, after holding on to guilt for so many years.

A Tale of Modern Magic by Olivia Dziwak
This is a reflective story about a Polish lesbian who volunteers for her schools Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) in Canada. One night while volunteering at a World AID’s Day Event she meets Jane a pretty girl who also volunteers for the GSA and they decide to date. What makes the story truly remarkable is the description of what the Polish girl feels about the other and how she feels about the prospect of dating her. I found this story to be incredibly emotionally touching.

Indulge Me by Ashley Bartlett
An overly confident, borderline arrogant twenty year old Bartender is the main character in this story that is essentially about the chase. The Bartender see’s an older woman and the chase commences, the older woman playing hard to get. Eventually as expected the bartender gets her prey and they have a night of passion.

After this night the Bartender doesn’t see the older women for a while and the reader begins to question which of them was really the prey? When they finally do catch up the Bartender reflects realising that all she wanted to do was flirt with an attractive woman, she wasn’t ready for more. The outwardly confident Bartender transforms into someone whose more real, a woman who has insecurities just like everyone else.

Ignite the Sky by Julie R. Sanchez
Grace is on her knees picking up some chewing gum in her local shop when she meets Callie. Grace feels a presence above her slowly looking up taking in gorgeous Callie in front of her. Callie introduces herself and a friendship develops between them. Callie wants to feel alive and Grace comes to understand the importance of this through her adventures with Callie. Written in a diary style by Grace, it is discovered that Callie is bisexual. Callie likes girls and boys but it is about the person, they both talk about how they feel and the story ends with them admitting they both love one another.

A Round Trip by Warren Smith III
This is my favourite story in OMG Queer. Writer Ethan is on train the train to the city for work when he see’s a sign that reads Follow Your Passion. Ethan thinks to himself if only it was that easy. Then Zack sits opposite him and they quickly get talking, they even share one of those comfortable silences that usually only people who know each other well share.

Ethan doesn’t need to take the train the next day as he’s off work, but he can’t stop thinking about Zack so makes an excuse to himself for his need to take the train to the city again. This reminded me of the excitement of meeting someone new unexpectedly, which hasn’t happened to me in a long time. Zack gets on the train and sits opposite him. Zack invites Ethan to the city, as if he’s a visitor that’s never been. Ethan accepts and plays along pretending to fascinated by everything Zack’s points out.

They have a genuinely fantastic time together, exploring the city, shopping, then on to a Night Club with Ethan realising that Zak is his passion. The brilliance of this story is in the expression of how Ethan feels which is portrayed through the writing. Warren Smith III, should be really proud of this impressive piece of literature he’s created. After the story I was inexplicably happy. I was fizzling with excitement for Ethan, yet at the same time had a longing for a similar experience.

Butch Fatale by Kirsty Logan
Butch Fatale is a story essentially about friendship. The underlying message in the story appears to be that friendship and a relationship are both important. Keep both your friends and your lover close to you always.

Pool of Sorrow by Sam Sommer
It’s the Summer of ’62 and twelve year old A.J. is alone – all of his friend have gone away for the summer. Teddy is fourteen years old and one of the “big kids.” Usually A.J. and Teddy wouldn’t interact, but with everyone away they begin to and a friendship develops.

One day as routine A.J. goes to look for Teddy but he can’t find him until he hears someone sobbing and crying in Teddy’s shed. It’s Teddy and he explains that his dad used to help him set up the pool every summer before he died. Teddy asks A.J not to tell anyone that he was upset and asks A.J. to help him set up the pool, which they do together. Then Teddy suggest playing “the game.” Teddy throws a pirate key into the pool right in front of A.J, dives under to get it and rises so that they are touching torso’s.

“The game” progresses to Teddy’s bedroom were they have their first sexual exploratory experience together. The story is well written with the right level of sexual intimacy for the ages of the main characters. I related to the story as I had a similar sexual exploratory experience as a teen; and I can imagine many other people would relate to the story for the same reason.

My Lips by Joseph Aviv
My Lips is a descriptive story about growing up, starting at two years old up to the age of nineteen. It uses the main characters lips, events and the relationship with family members to describe what it’s like growing up gay. The main character as a child moves his lips often, but when he starts to realise he’s gay he becomes silent. He uses silence as his protection. He’s very family orientated and when he comes out as gay to his family, they accept him. Slowly his lips start to move again as his finds his voice once again.

Fighting for Lies by Aimee Lukes
Billie and Alaina are good friends. Billie likes Alaina and one evening they kiss. Alaina shares her internalised homophobia expressing that what they have done is “wrong” and that it’s symptom of a “sickness.” Alaina has also heard whispers that homosexuality is normal. This story switches perspectives between the two main characters, ending with Billie explaining to Alaina that she has tried to make everyone else happy and that all it has done is make her miserable. This story was the only one in OMG Queer that felt as if it had been cut short.

There Was a Knocking on the Door by Andrew Arslan
There Was a Knocking on the Door is set in New York and is a coming out story. A son tells his Muslim father he’s gay to his fathers reaction “I can’t believe this.” His father had always preached about treating everyone fairly and he can’t believe his fathers reaction to him sharing his sexuality. He goes to his room burring his face in his pillow, regretting coming out.

Then he hears his mother shouting at his father in the bathroom. He goes to see what’s going on only to discover that his father was about to take an overdose of medication when his mother walked in on him. His mother instructs him to go back to his room, which he does. Then the story ends with a knocking on his bedroom door from his father. The traumatic story appeared to end on a low, with the reader hoping the main character and his father can reconnect on common ground.

My Aahana by Ariana Montoya
Jo attends a all-girl boarding school and isn’t happy that she’s going to have to share her room with a new student. Jo also worries that her secret, the fact she likes women maybe exposed. But then the new student Aahana arrives. Jo is instantly captivated by this beautiful Indian girl and a friendship starts to develop between them.

One day Aahana receives a call from her father. He tells Aahana that she must go home to India and marry the son of her grandma’s friend or her father won’t receive the inheritance that he needs. Jo is crushed. Despite Aahana not returning Jo’s feelings in the way she would like, she doesn’t want to loose this amazing woman. As Jo says goodbye to Aahana at the airport she thinks about telling her how she feels, but decides against it as it would change nothing. Jo and Aahana make eye contact and Jo senses that Aahana always knew how she felt about her.

First Time by Archer Darke
First time is about lesbian couple Grace and Hayden’s first time having sex. It is a very graphic, which I found too much for me as a gay man.

Hella Nervous by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Tracy is a sporty, confident and butch girl who is attracted to Oksana a shy, quiet and reserved girl. Tracy can’t stop ogling Oksana and eventually invites her back to hers after school. Tracy is thrilled when Oksana accepts and once at home makes her intentions clear. They begin to hook-up with Tracy a confident lover and Oksana being slightly awkward. As the hook-up relationship develops they learn more about each other.

One day after hooking-up Oksana asks what Tracy wants. Oksana asks if Tracy wants more than “fooling around.” Tracy had never considered what she wants but realises that she really likes Oksana and wants to be her girlfriend. They agree to date and the story ends wonderfully with Oksana coming out at school as Tracy girlfriend. There are a few shocked class-mates but you get the idea that with Tracy around Oksana will be OK.

Chili Powder by Anna Meadows
A bisexual girl moves to a new town and a new school. This foreign girl struggles to adapt to this new school and make friends. So she sits alone in the shade of a tree to eat her dinner. Everyday she has an orange that she sprinkles Chili Powder on to add to the taste of the otherwise bland fruit.

One day while sitting under the tree a boy with no Adams apple, small hands and feet sits down beside her. This use of language implies that this boy is trans although it never states it. Initially she’s shocked but they begin to speak and one day she kisses him hoping he’ll want more in the future.

Graduation by Brighton Bennett
It’s the last night before Graduation at University for Rachel, Emmerson and their year group. As Freshers they’d got into a relationship together, but it didn’t work out. They reflect on their relationship and feelings for one another at a party, before deciding to go back to Emmerson’s for one last night of loving intimacy before going on to lead separate lives. This story is the perfect end to OMG Queer as is about marking the end of something but looking forward to what will come next.


Considering OMG Queer as a whole, the use of first person in the majority of the stories made them feel very personal and at times intimate. All but one of the stories felt the perfect length and covered a wide range of themes that queer people will relate with. I did notice that the majority of the contributors wrote lesbian stories. This caused me to ask myself Where are the gay youth writers? Perhaps when my writing develops some more along with my writers voice, I might try to write some fictional short stories with a gay theme.

I enjoyed reading OMG Queer so much that it has earned a place on my bookshelf of favourite books; the books on this self have effected me emotionally, influenced who I am and are books that I’ll read again and again. OMG Queer is simply a must read for any queer person.

I could only find the e-book of OMG Queer on Amazon which was disappointing as I prefer real books. So if you want the e-book click any link on this review, or if you prefer a paperback copy you can order it on Waterstones.

Review 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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Thursday 25 October 2012
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