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Ep. 16. Harry Nicholas, A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar
110 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, we read a section from Harry Nicholas' memoir A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar : A Journal of Self (and Sexual) Discovery (2023) - it's on p.103 of the UK paperback. You can buy Harry's book from bookshop.org or your local indy store.
Harry Nicholas is a writer, campaigner and gay trans man living in London. He has written for The Guardian, GQ and Dazed. A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar is his first book.
Episode references:
- Travis Alabanza, None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary; Jack Parlett, Fire Island: A Queer History; Lou Sullivan, Youngman: Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan; Matthew Todd, Straight Jacket: Overcoming Society's Legacy of Gay Shame.
- Nicola Dinan, Bellies; Andrew McMillan, Physical; Joelle Taylor, The Night Alphabet; Shon Faye, Love in Exile; Hugo Greenhalgh, The Diaries of Mr Lucas.
Follow the show on Instagram. Find Harry on Instagram. Please leave feedback here.
Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd.
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Transcript
Introduction to Books Up Close with Chris Lloyd
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Books Up Close, the podcast. I'm Chris Lloyd. This is the close reading show for writers, readers and language nerds. In today's
Episode Delay Explained
00:00:11
Speaker
episode, I talked to Harry Nicholas about a section from his memoir, Trans Man Walks Into Gay Bar.
00:00:18
Speaker
I did actually record this episode quite a long time ago, but I've been fighting with the audio a little bit. So if it sounds odd in places, please do forgive me. Thank you, Harry,
Harry Nicholas on Close Reading and Art
00:00:28
Speaker
for joining us. Really nice to see you.
00:00:29
Speaker
And you. Thank you for having me. So this is the question I ask everyone at the beginning is what are your thoughts on close reading as an activity, as a practice? And how are you feeling about us closely reading you today?
00:00:44
Speaker
Reading is fundamental, obviously. No, I haven't done close reading, quite honestly, since like school, university, that kind of thing, because I don't really need to. I just find that, I mean, those analysis skills that kind of were very useful when I was studying and they kind of come into my everyday life quite naturally when I'm looking at art or reading stuff, but I don't like sit down and annotate necessarily. like i I kind of understand the meaning it's conveyed, but I definitely didn't have those skills before I learned how to do them. But I don't really drool over words in that kind of academic sense, unless
00:01:23
Speaker
unless, and lesson there is one caveat, it's whether it's poetry, where I do think you kind of have to do that. Something like Andrew McMillan or Joel Taylor, where their pen is a bullet and can be, I kind of have to do it then because I'm forced into that environment. But
Nervousness and Writing Process Concerns
00:01:38
Speaker
yeah, often I just kind of enjoy stuff now and don't read too deeply into it unless I become obsessed with it, which it also can be can be true.
00:01:47
Speaker
In terms of my own work, it makes me a little bit nervous. I think everyone will say that. I think when they're sat at home writing, it's not really something that they anticipate will happen.
00:01:57
Speaker
And I think if they did think that or if I thought that, it would just stop me writing entirely. Like it would be so disruptive to the process because you know that you're going analysed. So you just won't do at all. So that's my kind of thing is that I didn't write with that in mind. So I'm a little
Close Reading Across Genres
00:02:13
Speaker
bit nervous, ah but I think it's a good activity to do and and good skills to learn.
00:02:18
Speaker
Great. And I think it's been interesting approaching close reading, the different kind of forms or genres, I guess, as you're saying, right? Like talking about poetry with someone versus a novel versus memoir. I think it brings out different kinds of kind of insight into the language. So yeah, I think we might talk today about repetition as a linguistic device.
00:02:37
Speaker
um
Memoir Passage and Identity Exploration
00:02:38
Speaker
Each episode has kind of surfaced something that I think the text is doing. So I talked a lot about exclamation marks with Alibi Sajic, for example. um So we kind of almost almost so zoom in on one particular thing. So we'll see how that goes.
00:02:52
Speaker
You're going to read a little x extract for us in a second. from It's a bit later on in the book. Is there anything you want to tell us about that to set the reading up or about the book in general in case people haven't read it? Yeah. So and my book is A Trans Memoirs to a Gay Bar. It's not linear. It doesn't kind of follow other trans memoirs that I've read before where it goes from kind of like birth until the end of a transition. It's not that kind of and ah kind of style.
00:03:16
Speaker
ah So this is a piece that's kind of maybe a third of the way through and reflects on my experience going into gay bars now as a gay man and being read as a cisgender gay man and my experience going into the same gay bars or similar gay bars as a lesbian and my kind of experience almost being treated as a completely different person.
00:03:37
Speaker
Before this piece in the book, I write a little bit about
Present Tense and Reader Engagement
00:03:40
Speaker
getting the X43 bus from this parochial kind of town ah in East Lancashire and kind of skirting around the gay village on foot.
00:03:50
Speaker
And then after this reflection, I discuss kind of like my first hook up from a gay bar. So it kind of is sandwiched in between those two things. Amazing. Well, if you could read it for us, that'd be really helpful. Thank you.
00:04:02
Speaker
cool going into a gay bar now as a single gay man is completely different to what i had experienced at manchester pride when i presented as female it was almost as if they were entirely separate spaces now in my early 20s and living away from my parents i'm actually looking to pull for one but more than that i've noticed that men look at me differently
Voice Changes in Writing
00:04:22
Speaker
well actually not just differently men actually look at me I'm not completely brushed aside, sometimes literally and ignored.
00:04:30
Speaker
In Manchester Pride, before my physical transition, men would largely disregard me. I guess they just assumed I was lesbian. Now I feel like they've begun to take notice. They don't push past me and push me out of the way to get to the bar.
00:04:43
Speaker
They make conversation while queuing to wash our hands in the toilets. One guy offered me poppers on the dance floor. Now men let me pass and offer to buy me drinks. Now as a man, i was visible to other gay men.
00:04:55
Speaker
I know it's the misogyny and wonder if they ever notice how much lesbians are getting pushed around and made to feel as though gay spaces were only for men. I wonder if they'd actually taken the time to consider what it might be like for anyone else who isn't cis or male.
00:05:08
Speaker
I felt guilty when I realized that I felt affirmed by gay men, recognized me as one of them.
00:05:15
Speaker
I liked the feeling of being seen, but I promised myself that I would not be the same. And I used my experience of being pushed, of ignored, of being othered to allow space for others. Thank you.
00:05:27
Speaker
It's always nice to hear, I think, in the author's voice. Yeah, and it's not something, when I write, i don't read out loud, so it's quite rare for me to kind of hear it, which is totally different experience to kind of reading it, I think.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah. No, that's we're going to talk a little about your writing process later, so it's kind of interesting to hear, because I think you read this, you read this much faster than I kind of read it in my head. I think there's a real sense of
Balancing Explanations for Diverse Audiences
00:05:52
Speaker
hesitation in this passage for me, and like,
00:05:54
Speaker
rethinking things I think is like big theme I mean I guess for the whole book right like how am I re-seeing myself and how are people seeing me anew and all of those kinds of you know kind of ideas and there were so many passages I could have chose but I thought this one was interesting formally or stylistically I guess in that we're kind of in the present suddenly and that kind of makes sense with your like this is a non-chronological book in that way You say going into a gay bar now as a single gay man is completely different to what i had experienced.
00:06:25
Speaker
And then you say now being in my early twenties and living away from my parents, like the now is not the now at the time of writing, right? It's the time of like the experience. And I'm just thinking about how that kind of immediacy like puts us in that scene with you almost or in that space with you. And I'm wondering how you were writing that at the time.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because, yeah, the person that will read it, hopefully, yeah, their now is different to the now that I kind of intended. For me, I kind of wanted to bridge these two different sections and show the contrast between them.
00:06:59
Speaker
So it was important for me to have a kind of stop gap in the middle where I kind of reflected on where I was at that time and what my head was like going into the ah RVT, which is like kind of the next section, but the gay bar.
00:07:13
Speaker
So it was a kind of stopping off point. It was a gap um to just kind of check in with myself, check in with the reader as well, um and kind of give space for a few thoughts before moving on to a completely different context. And because the book is nonlinear, that is a kind of pattern that happens throughout, I think, and to be able to do that.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, because... Obviously, the the now of the writing, right? Like when we get to the end of the book, like you're in a relationship, you're not single, you're living in in London and you've got these. It's interesting as ah as a way of like looking back, but placing us grammatically in that moment so that when you're talking about like they don't push past me and they don't push me out of the way.
00:07:54
Speaker
you're kind of experiencing that as a reader, I think, or maybe readers who've been to gay bars and have felt some of those physical responses. I think that's an interesting move rather than being like, at that time, I did eggs and keeping it kind far apart, right?
00:08:07
Speaker
Well, I think it's boring as well. i I don't do that very well. I know there are some writers that that do, but I don't do. In the past, it was this. i I like to write in the current. So even when I'm talking about past experiences of going to the bus for the first time and kind of inching my way around the gap, it's still kind of present tense. And then I kind of have to move it on.
00:08:29
Speaker
So it's a stylistic choice for me to be able to, everything is kind of present, but I'm dotting around between different timelines. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The other thing that you immediately notice about this passage and about the book as a whole is the kind of voice that you use, like a very, sometimes it's informal, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's very chatty, sometimes it's not, like you kind of move in and out of this kind of, I'm really talking to you, like you directly.
00:08:57
Speaker
this specific reader and then other times you kind of pull back sometimes to give us history or to give us you know context or something like that and I think here you get the kind of you know like the now and then well actually not just differently that little parenthetical like actually really feels like voice and again this may not have been intentional but how much were you thinking about voice and memoir I guess right like what this form is Yeah, I'll be honest, not not very much. i maybe Maybe that shows.
00:09:26
Speaker
But i I wrote the book over the period of about a year and a half. So to kind of have one style throughout that whole period is really challenging.
00:09:39
Speaker
And I was in completely different head spaces when I was writing different parts of it. I didn't write it in a linear way either. I didn't write from the beginning to the end. I chopped and changed depending on what I was inspired by at the time and kind of what I wanted to write about.
00:09:53
Speaker
Actually, the first piece that I ever wrote and for the book was the bus bit going on to the X-Five. that was the first piece of anything that i wrote.
00:10:03
Speaker
And so I had to kind of work with what I had and then map things out. I think it's just the way that my brain works because because I now realize I had ADHD. I didn't realize that at the time.
00:10:15
Speaker
i kind of just had to write things as they came to me. i The idea of sitting and being able to write from a to b was just not something i was able to do and i think that's why it took me so long to write because i was kind of forcing myself into this position of i must i must write x today and my brain didn't want to do that so that change of voice i think just came really naturally and i don't think it's particular strength
Title Choice and Thematic Focus
00:10:38
Speaker
or it's a weakness of the book i think sometimes i i'm speaking directly sometimes i'm speaking to myself and kind of other people are kind of
00:10:46
Speaker
you know subject to that and then other times I'm telling a story so it's a I kind of I think it mimics everyday kind of life and conversation in that way is that sometimes it will be confronting sometimes it's just a voice in my head other times I'm sharing so
Repetition and Narrative Impact
00:11:02
Speaker
um I think that's why maybe it feels so personal is because it it doesn't it doesn't refrain in that way by sticking to certain parameters Yeah, I'm like a big memoir person. Well, I'm a memoir person of people that aren't famous, right? I don't like famous people's memoirs, or but I couldn't care less. But like, I love memoirs of just people. That is like one of my favourite genres. And I'm really interested in the way, yeah, that like voice gets worked out in that, like how open, vulnerable or literary do you want to be, right? How
00:11:33
Speaker
how conscious is this or how like artificial or stylized is this? So I was kind I'm really interested in the ways in which you change throughout the book and and how that's useful as a way of pulling us in. And then sometimes being like, wait, now I need to give you a history lesson. Right.
00:11:46
Speaker
And that really kind of allows us into your story, but also reminds us that like, we're not you, like we're not in that place and that we have to recognize that. And sometimes you have to give context and sometimes you have to because someone's involved in in terms of my memoir, you're jumping in at a particular point in your life. You're not starting from the beginning.
00:12:06
Speaker
So you need to add context and yeah, just
Identity, Privilege, and Responsibility
00:12:09
Speaker
explain kind of where you are. When I first gave the manuscript to my editor, that was one thing he fed back. he was like, we need to kind of feed this in earlier and, and kind of just provide a little bit more context I think for people that aren't trans as well and that's where I'm really interested in the idea of kind of truth in books and truth in a memoir is difficult because you have to provide so much for people to understand so yeah it's it's an interesting topic for sure
00:12:39
Speaker
And you even get that, you know, like this is as a single gay man, which is different from I presented as female. And then later on, like really explaining the difference of you being in that space in ah in a kind of in a different way.
00:12:52
Speaker
And I wonder how much I didn't know i had so many questions about this. um usually I'm just like talking about the passage. But are you are you thinking about non trans readers more than trans readers?
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, I am. And it's not something I'm particularly proud of, actually, because i I initially wrote the book because I couldn't see any books like this for me, you know, about the intersection of sexuality and gender, just generally, or transness.
00:13:19
Speaker
And yet one real... not I'm not going to say failure, but one thing that I'm disappointed in is how much I don't think it it speaks to trans people. I think a lot of trans people will resonate with it and they have told me that they've enjoyed it, but I am writing for a cisgender audience because I know that this is a book for gay men as much as it is for trans men. And so I do find myself kind of not explaining things. It's not got a glossary at the end of the book of terms, but I wouldn't
Writing Process and Storytelling
00:13:52
Speaker
necessarily say in an everyday conversation when I presented as female. I just, I need to give, say in those terms. So the context is kind of given.
00:14:01
Speaker
So it's, that was a difficult thing. And also, I have not really read very many books that are for a trans audience. And so I don't know if I kind of know how to do that.
00:14:16
Speaker
I think I can think of Travis Salabanzas work. I mean, all of it, basically, but specifically none of the above does speak to trans people very directly. But I was conscious of of that, of making it accessible for people and kind of not going, it's this exclusive thing. I did want to share it with others. And I thought that actually gay men needed to hear some of this stuff as much as others. So yeah, it's I found that a challenge to be able to kind of balance between not over explaining and making things quite medical or boring, but also carrying people along with me and not kind of assuming knowledge
00:14:55
Speaker
We have a book club in our LGBTQ plus network at my work and all of the books we've read so far, like we have this conversation about like, who is this book for? Like sometimes it's like, is this even for queer people? I don't know. Like, not that I think your book is that, but that's where the kind of question was kind of lingering about how you manage voice.
00:15:15
Speaker
and address right like how much do i have to explain how much do i hold back how much do i assume you know or can of assume you're going to look up right you know even with like before my physical transition men would like you know you you write in a way that like the tone switches i guess but then you do line like i guess they assumed i was a lesbian right like this really kind of informal offhand line that feels way more truthful perhaps or way more specific than the kind of detached one. I'm interested in those kind of shifts of of address and voice.
00:15:46
Speaker
i think when I was writing, i I felt a lot of anger towards Game Out. I mean, I'm kind of speaking
Literary Influences and Recommendations
00:15:53
Speaker
about homogenous group, which isn't fair, but in the context of this, I felt a lot of anger. I felt a lot of love.
00:15:58
Speaker
I felt a lot of frustration that there was goodwill, but no kind of real knowledge beyond that. And so sometimes I do speak directly to them and then I kind of pull it back and go,
00:16:09
Speaker
Well, I kind of, in your mind, I i kind of offer some sympathy or I offer some kind of a hand. And that balance for me was really important. And I think possibly where I become a bit softer in my language is when I'm becoming a bit softer towards kind of understanding their position.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, but I'm battling all of those things in my head. And I think ultimately I probably was writing for a cisgender gay audience because those were the people that I kind of felt like I always had to justify myself to or i explain myself to.
00:16:37
Speaker
So those kind of moments are for them and then the kind of joyous moments are for other trans guys. like That kind of feels like where the balance is. like Okay, well, this is now a side question about, I was i don i wasn't going to ask you about the title, but now I want to, like, was this always the title? Was this clear from the beginning?
00:16:55
Speaker
No, no. So there was a lot of debate about the title because obviously the title is like a play and a joke. And I was worried about it being like, you know, it's not it's not a joke. There's some really serious things.
00:17:10
Speaker
The honest truth is that it gets all the nice keywords in, in terms of it being very clear what it's about. And there is ah an element to this about it's a book, it's a commercial product, it's an art form, but it is a commercial product and people have people do judge a book by its cover, I definitely do, and people seem to have resonated with the title.
00:17:31
Speaker
i i think initially pitched it as something like gay boy or something like that, but it would, the editor that i was working with at the time kind of felt like that would fall through the cracks and actually I kind of, agree that it would it wouldn't separate it out from anything else other other gay male memoirs and then I also wanted to call it would you love me if I had a dick which is a play on the on the Johnny would you love me if I had a bigger bigger dick kind of but I thought it was maybe a bit too close to that which which is shame but I thought it a great title. So yeah, there
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:18:02
Speaker
was there was a few different ones. But ultimately, this is the one that I felt like readers would pick up and that it would explain kind of very quickly what what was all going on.
00:18:13
Speaker
And I think that's maybe why I chose this scene in particular, that wasn't conscious, but actually like it is the moment when A trans man walks into a gay bar and like what that suddenly does for you and for the space also, right?
00:18:24
Speaker
This is a paragraph about the relationship between individual identity, personal identity and space. And that's where I think... For me, the thing that stood out more was about these repetitions these linguistic repetitions, right? Which i was note I hadn't noticed the first time I read, but when I stopped, which to me now talking to you kind of feels like a like I have to repeat this. I have to actually go back over and over and say these things because you're not listening or you're not understanding or whatever.
00:18:52
Speaker
And you get quite a few of these, right? You've got like now, now, now, there's about four nows, right? In this in this little paragraph of like, like I'm really grounding us here in this moment why aren't you paying attention they don't push past me and push like the double push then they make conversations so the double they then now men let me pass now I was and then the misogynist and wonder if they ever notice and then I wonder if they ever really it's like you're kind of turning around in your head on the page or most rightly like try to make sense of this thing
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah, and that was definitely intentional because that confusion that I felt and like continue to feel is is real. And the whole point of the book, I guess, is I'm the same person.
00:19:37
Speaker
And yet it's the way people perceive me that has changed. And like trying to make sense of that, go, but I don't understand. Like I have gone into the space exactly the same person with the same thoughts, experiences, feelings.
00:19:50
Speaker
And yet the world is completely different. How is that possible? And so it does take a lot of turning it around in my head and on the page. And actually, i i think I did write this section actually on a tube or something. I think it was in a hurry to kind of try and understand. And I think that probably does show.
00:20:07
Speaker
But it is is kind of getting that sense of confusion, alienation. I do have to repeat it because I kind of have to keep telling myself over and over to kind of try and understand.
00:20:19
Speaker
So there are some elements of the book that like that where I step out of kind of a narrative section and where i'm telling a story and then kind of bring it back and go,
00:20:30
Speaker
What the hell is this? So yeah, they're they're definitely stylistic choices. I don't know if I love them very much, but I can appreciate that kind of place in this context and trying to make sense of it.
00:20:43
Speaker
And also the repetition is important because I feel like some people, I need to be told over and over and over again sometimes to kind of affirm myself, but also other people. i The whole point of this book is that I've not felt like seen or listened to. So repeating things sometimes is is important.
00:21:00
Speaker
Even if tiring, I guess. Very tiring, yeah. But ah yeah I'm interested in kind of all of these episodes I've been doing so far as is kind of digging into those linguistic, grammatical, formal choices that are sometimes quite intentional, but sometimes like they are a product of the thing I'm trying to say, right? That but form and content are not separable.
00:21:20
Speaker
I say to this to my students every week, like every single class, like form and content are not these separate things, like they are entwined and they have to be because that's how we make sense of the world, right?
00:21:31
Speaker
And that seems to be like what's clear here. And then by the end of the passage, you've then moved away from almost describing the gay men and their, you know, as a gay man, right? Like the problematic-ness of them to then turning that gaze inwards a little bit.
00:21:46
Speaker
Gaze, G-A-Z-E. Like when you then start saying like, I felt guilty when I realized this other thing. I liked the feeling. I promised myself and I use my experience. right You've really gone from like this outside space, like inwards, this kind of turn that I kind of appreciate.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I think because if it was a book that was purely criticizing other people, I don't think it would be real and I don't think it would be helpful. I did have to turn it inwards um and look at those things. And but at the end of that paragraph, I say, I promised myself that I would not be the same.
00:22:19
Speaker
i don't say that I achieved that. You know, I, I myself, I'm guilty of all of these things and that's kind of a confronting thing to say, but in terms of that, I can only really speak for myself. So it It goes from at the start of that kind of section, that paragraph to the past.
00:22:36
Speaker
And now it then goes into the future and what i hope, whether I succeed in those things is is a different question. But it does ultimately have to go inward and kind of explain in quite quite clear terms where kind of my thoughts were.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah. um and And how I was being perceived at the same time. Right. And i that there's a bit that it's like stuck with me in this book where you describe walking down the street when you presented as a woman versus like like now and how people like would move out the way or not.
00:23:07
Speaker
and And how you found that so like troubling. Right. This moment of like power is also a moment of like, oh, no, that means other people are powerless. Right. And what what do you do with that? How do you embrace the gender euphoria of being seen, but also the power that comes with that?
00:23:23
Speaker
I've thought about that scene a lot. Yeah. And I kind of ask people at that time as well. I mean, I know the piece you're referring to because I remember when it happened and it kind of confronted me was that when you, if you walk down the street and you just walk in a straight line, who will move? And it's always women. And if you move, it's kind of, yeah, it is, it's an interesting kind of thing to, to look at and play on And it is that this whole book is about conflict and inner conflict, conflict about how you're being perceived and other people perceive you, but conflict about how you feel about things. And for me,
00:23:54
Speaker
it was a realization of, oh, this is the way the world views me now. i have a responsibility, but am i that That power is something that i enjoy, obviously, you know, so how can I reckon with that? How can I make a promise that I won't be the same, but then also kind of actually enact that and go out of my way? And am I just...
00:24:19
Speaker
human So it's ah it's a difficult, it's a difficult thing to kind of practice in every in everyday life. But it's kind of those so stop checks is that I don't think some cis men would have even thought about it, never mind then like gone on to enact different things.
00:24:34
Speaker
But walked down the street, you know, on the way to work or wherever. And i I noticed it quite acutely and I observe it quite acutely. So it's something that kind of has never left me, the idea of how the privilege has shifted. And I enjoy privileges in many different ways and kind of going, should ah should i be and Sometimes, sometimes I do enjoy them and I feel guilty about it.
00:24:57
Speaker
Other times I don't think about it at all. So it's that kind of how I, um, how I kind of reckon with it in, in different, I'm never read as a white cisgender man now and kind of how I feel. I don't feel very comfortable with that.
00:25:08
Speaker
Like I, now I go out of my way to kind of, say that I'm trans, which is a massive privilege to be able to do in the first place, but because I don't feel like I want to be put into that box because I feel big honestly for guilty about it. But it's an interesting kind of interesting thing to look at in terms of just people's body movements and how how politics plays out in that way.
00:25:29
Speaker
Yeah. And then you how you put that into language, right. And what that does with the book. I want us to move maybe then to think about your writing, given you brought up about like your walk to work and you said earlier you were writing some bits on the tube.
00:25:41
Speaker
My general question is, where do you write? How do you write? Are you writing by hand, computer? Do you have like a ah a ritual, a practice? Are there candles and snacks? Like what's going on?
00:25:53
Speaker
I do not. i When I first started writing, I thought that to be a proper writer, you had to have a nice desk with a lamp on it and some biscuits on the side and a nice, like, you know, cups of coffee, and then you'd sit down and then you would write for two hours.
00:26:08
Speaker
And that would be your writing slot for the day and job done. ah No, it does not work like that for me. I wish I wish it could. And honestly, I don't know if it works for many people like that. I would set aside kind of entire weekends and go, this is the weekend where I'm going to write.
00:26:23
Speaker
No writing would get done at all. I think you have to write when inspiration strikes. You know, I'll have, I'll be in a shower and like a thought will come and I'll just have to like courageously go to my phone and just like write something down.
00:26:36
Speaker
Or it'll, you know, i sometimes I was writing at three o'clock in the morning because that's when I felt like inclined to get the words down. Sometimes it would be on the carriage because like, I don't know, the rhythm really sort of helped drive things.
00:26:49
Speaker
That is quite stereotypical. But i it does work. But ultimately it's whenever I can and however I can, there isn't a set routine. There isn't a set, it must be on a laptop or it must be by hand or it must, I find that stuff actually more prohibitive than it is useful.
00:27:06
Speaker
ah You write however, and that's, that's been the best kind of bit. I don't put, I must write X many words because ended up writing many words and just bleating it all the next day.
00:27:17
Speaker
if I get a paragraph, great. If I get a couple of thousand words, great. It just has to be the mood. i'm I also found that when I was writing, if I didn't enjoy writing it, it wasn't a very enjoyable read.
00:27:31
Speaker
So I always kind of have to come back to things when when I felt like I wanted to write them, which meant writing the most exciting bits first and then filling in the gaps later.
00:27:41
Speaker
Did you always write? Were you writing as a kid or is there something that culminates in? Yeah, I mean, not not ah i wrote a poem when i was 18 which went viral and that was the first time i kind of had written and looked inward and hadn't really intended it to be it is it was my sort of coming out and i hadn't really intended it to be i just kind of put the work out there and it then became my coming out by accident before then i was kind of just writing reading and writing you know and and not it not being shared i don't think i'm the strongest writer but i feel like i've got stories to tell so
00:28:19
Speaker
It's the story first for me and kind of form later. And I know those things can't be separated, but I feel like if you've got the form down and you're a skilled writer but got nothing to say, equally, you know, it's a balance, isn't it? So for me now, it's like about telling the stories but honing the craft.
00:28:38
Speaker
And I'd kind of, my preference is that that way. I studied film and TV at uni, so I was always kind of writing scripts. so It's a very different form and stories and characters and stuff. So i was kind of used to the kind of analytics or analysis of it and i kind of coming up with things.
00:28:57
Speaker
So I'm excited about fiction as well, as well as nonfiction. Read lot of poetry and I think that's kind of the best education really. Do you read like essays or books on like writing as a practice or on craft? Is there anything that you would recommend?
00:29:13
Speaker
No, i never I never have. And maybe that shows. i don't know. But I find it, I would procrastinate. but i I feel like I would buy a book to learn how to write so that I didn't have to write.
00:29:29
Speaker
ah But I'd feel like I was making my way there. It was the same when I was revising for my exams. I'd like look at how to revise and not actually revise. and So I just found the best education is always reading and absorbing as much of that as possible. And then it will just come out in the way that you write because it's what you know and what you've absorbed and what you like.
00:29:50
Speaker
which is kind of why I put at the back of the book, like recommended books, because they weren't just books that were thematically similar. They were books that had informed this one in one way or another, either that being like content or being style.
00:30:04
Speaker
So there's quite a big, ah there's there's a there's reason why i put poetry in there as well, because because that's something that I'm inspired by. So even though thematically it doesn't really align, but yeah, I've never read a how to guide.
00:30:18
Speaker
I don't know, maybe it's advisable. You know, I'm just interested the kinds of things that we're reading and what's going in and what's useful and what's not. We can talk about books you want to recommend in a little minute, but because you have got this long list of texts that you're kind of in dialogue with, are there any that you want to pull out now and talk about? are there any you would recommend to people or not on this list that maybe have come to you later? Like, oh, wait, that book is clearly quite present here.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, I really enjoyed Fire Island, actually, which is kind of, you'll probably read it, it's kind of a memoir of sorts, but it's an exploration of space.
00:30:57
Speaker
And i read that after this one. I intentionally kind of didn't read loads while I was writing because I would get so drawn into their style.
00:31:08
Speaker
and that I would, I'd find it difficult to kind of write my own thing. So I left it, regrettably, until after I'd finished. But I found that interesting because it it did look inward about kind of what his hopes for the space were and what the realities were, which is a theme and in my book as well.
00:31:25
Speaker
But also histories and yeah this idea of queer spaces. So yeah, i that was one thing that I think this book possibly in dialogue with, even though it's quite American, obviously.
00:31:37
Speaker
young man, Lou Sullivan, which I speak quite a lot about in the book because it's the first kind of, well, the first that I know of, gay trans guy book, even though it's and diaries, I found a lot of myself in it.
00:31:50
Speaker
And to have a work that you can see yourself so clearly and so honestly in that wasn't meant to be published, really, before I was even born was like just huge for me. So I it's kind of a love letter to yeah to young man in that sense.
00:32:06
Speaker
And then also Straightjacket by Matthew Todd, which I remember reading very, very early on in my transition when I sort first realised I was gay. And I liked the kind of criticism of the gay community in that way. So I wanted to pull that out a bit.
00:32:20
Speaker
and kind of exploration of key topics even though it's nothing like that in really this is memoir that's kind of quite neatly non-fiction um analysis but it does have matthew's kind of experience working at attitude and his experience with drugs and alcohol woven throughout so yeah those kind of two those all those things together Amazing.
00:32:41
Speaker
I will link everything. And we obviously link to your book too. So my final question is like, what would you recommend now? Maybe things you're reading now, things you're excited about for 2025, or maybe classic.
00:32:53
Speaker
what What is your big book recommendation? I have tried to beg, bow and steal, love and exile by Sean Fay. I feel like I'm not alone in that one. I'm very excited for that coming out very soon.
00:33:03
Speaker
um Anything Nicola Denon writes is just exception exceptional. I'm a big fan also of Andrew McMillan. and his writing have been for for many many years also a kind of ah regrettably I'm quite late to Joelle Taylor but I found a real kind of I don't want to say i identify in some ways but in some ways I kind of do she's from Lancashire from a very similar place to me working class roots she I like the way that she kind of
00:33:35
Speaker
Her writing is just exceptional. People have to go and check her out if they don't know already. She's climbed and climbed and climbed, I feel. And how people have missed her, how have I've missed her, i've i've I've no idea. But I i'm really love reading her ah fiction as much as her poetry.
00:33:50
Speaker
But I'm reading um the diaries of Mr Lucas at the moment, which I had been following Mr Lucas's diaries kind of on on Facebook. had been like a Facebook group for ages. And it's just the diaries of um of a civil servant in the 1800s.
00:34:05
Speaker
And it's horrible. It's a horrible gay life for him. You kind of get a and picture of real desperation and and I wouldn't even say joy, actually. It's quite bleak.
00:34:16
Speaker
But... It's really interesting. he kind of speaks about pubs that are still here and walking over Blackfriars Bridge. And it just kind of feels really present for me because of where I'm living at the moment. And also the kind of political times that we're living in and kind of brushes with the police and cruising and that kind of stuff.
00:34:32
Speaker
But he is just a average person living in London. And I find that quite exciting to read about in its own way. So I'm really enjoying reading that at the moment. It's by Hugo Greenhouse. Amazing.
00:34:43
Speaker
Thank you so much. Well, thank you for joining us today, Harry. It was a pleasure to talk about your book. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it Thank you for listening to this episode.
00:34:54
Speaker
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00:35:08
Speaker
It's really helpful to us. you can get show transcripts and more information by subscribing to the Substack. This show is made possible by an Impact Accelerator Award from the University of Hertfordshire and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.