Queer the Shelves is back again this year in Nottingham, even bigger and better. I am really excited to be seeing all my friends in this brilliant community of authors and readers of LGBTQ+ writing. It is also a chance to say hello to Jodie Klaire, who was (unwittingly) one of the prime architects in my original decision to start writing in the first place. Attending another conference in 2019, I found myself in her writing workshop on ‘Narrative Distance’. I had no intention at that point of putting pen to paper, I was just a curious child. However, by the end of the very enjoyable session I was starting to wonder if I could write something. Did I have a story inside of myself good enough to tell?
In the months that followed I pursued that dream, getting proper tuition from Global Wordsmiths on how to plot, develop and structure a book. How to create characters, give them a voice and make a reader want to turn the page to find out what happened next. The result was ‘The Helion Band‘. I took my love for all things science fiction and put women loving women at the heart of the plot. I also got to write a good old fashioned space battle! As soon as I had published, I had plans to write another book. Then cancer happened, and life got put on hold for most of 2023. In those long months, the friends I had made through my writing circled the wagons around me, offering comfort and encouragement.
By the autumn, now in remission, I wrote the story in this book. The writing neurons in my brain fired up again, and words poured out. I am now writing my next book again. I am going to Queer the Shelves again and catching up with my ‘tribe’. Life feels good. I hope you enjoy my story and all the others in here. And, if you feel you have a story inside of you, be brave and put pen to paper. Follow your dream.
AJ Mason’s story, The White Bike, is in Sapphic Eclectic, Volume 5.
Butterworth Books 