A brief chat with author Griffin Hansbury about the challenge of garnering press for his novel, "Some Strange Music Draws Me In," after first publishing two popular books as "Jeremiah Moss."
I followed an email from Substack that recommended I read this Memoirland post. I read it and watched the video. I have now added myself to the "Some Strange Music" holds queue at the Berkeley Public Library. I am fascinated by the trans experience, the sense of certainty that the trans person seems to feel about how their body is (first) wrong and (second) it could be rightened. I've always felt a certain body dysphoria (an uncertain body dysphoria?), but the thought of switching my gender presentation doesn't particularly appeal to me. I have wondered if a more "butch" presentation should be a goal -- but dressing up in leather or as some masculine stereotype -- no, that doesn't seem right either. If "nonbinary" had been an available category when I was a kid, I probably would have gravitated toward it. As a male-bodied person who finds male bodies sexually attractive I have gone ahead and owned a "gay" identity. Every person is their own mix of attributes, talents, flaws, etc. "Man" and "woman" are far broader, weirder categories than they at first appear.
I have a new book, too. It's even a memoir ... ish. It's called "Autobiography of a Book." And the voice of the book is trying to figure itself out while at the same time explaining itself to the reader. The voice came to me and demanded my attention, and it wrote itself to me. It isn't my voice, but I share many of its concerns -- and style and flaws. "Book" plays with gender, as well as with consciousness and life itself. It's out from a small press, and the publication of "Autobiography of a Book" got stalled by the collapse of Small Press Distribution. Now that my publisher, AC Books, has a new distributor, Itasca, I am trying to figure out how to get it out into the world, into bookstores, libraries, etc. I am also dealing with the loss of my husband of 30 years. Kent died in May.
I write and publish under a pseudonym, and it has proved tremendously liberating. Not only because it keeps my writing life and persona separate from people with whom I don't want to share this intimate part of me (I write exclusively memoir and essays), but it also gave me permission, so to speak, to nurture and develop a part of my identity that might have been subordinated to my roles as mother/wife/homemaker/academic/educator. Because I started writing creatively at the age of 50, a pen name gave me a sense of a fresh start, a clean slate. Also, I chose my pen name carefully, using my mother's middle name and choosing a last name that echoed my given last name in sound and culture, and also because it borrows from a famous literary narrator.
I love that, and am a bit envious! I feel like I don't have the energy to build a platform for my pseudonym after all I've put into building a platform for my real name.
I can totally relate. After six books (fiction and nonfiction) under two pen names, I'm drafting the proposal for a book that will rely on my academic and professional cred. And real me is quite obscure. Oops!
I followed an email from Substack that recommended I read this Memoirland post. I read it and watched the video. I have now added myself to the "Some Strange Music" holds queue at the Berkeley Public Library. I am fascinated by the trans experience, the sense of certainty that the trans person seems to feel about how their body is (first) wrong and (second) it could be rightened. I've always felt a certain body dysphoria (an uncertain body dysphoria?), but the thought of switching my gender presentation doesn't particularly appeal to me. I have wondered if a more "butch" presentation should be a goal -- but dressing up in leather or as some masculine stereotype -- no, that doesn't seem right either. If "nonbinary" had been an available category when I was a kid, I probably would have gravitated toward it. As a male-bodied person who finds male bodies sexually attractive I have gone ahead and owned a "gay" identity. Every person is their own mix of attributes, talents, flaws, etc. "Man" and "woman" are far broader, weirder categories than they at first appear.
I have a new book, too. It's even a memoir ... ish. It's called "Autobiography of a Book." And the voice of the book is trying to figure itself out while at the same time explaining itself to the reader. The voice came to me and demanded my attention, and it wrote itself to me. It isn't my voice, but I share many of its concerns -- and style and flaws. "Book" plays with gender, as well as with consciousness and life itself. It's out from a small press, and the publication of "Autobiography of a Book" got stalled by the collapse of Small Press Distribution. Now that my publisher, AC Books, has a new distributor, Itasca, I am trying to figure out how to get it out into the world, into bookstores, libraries, etc. I am also dealing with the loss of my husband of 30 years. Kent died in May.
Link to catalog webpage for "Autobiography of a Book": https://itascabooks.com/products/autobiography-of-a-book-as-told-by-glenn-ingersoll
I write and publish under a pseudonym, and it has proved tremendously liberating. Not only because it keeps my writing life and persona separate from people with whom I don't want to share this intimate part of me (I write exclusively memoir and essays), but it also gave me permission, so to speak, to nurture and develop a part of my identity that might have been subordinated to my roles as mother/wife/homemaker/academic/educator. Because I started writing creatively at the age of 50, a pen name gave me a sense of a fresh start, a clean slate. Also, I chose my pen name carefully, using my mother's middle name and choosing a last name that echoed my given last name in sound and culture, and also because it borrows from a famous literary narrator.
I love that, and am a bit envious! I feel like I don't have the energy to build a platform for my pseudonym after all I've put into building a platform for my real name.
I can totally relate. After six books (fiction and nonfiction) under two pen names, I'm drafting the proposal for a book that will rely on my academic and professional cred. And real me is quite obscure. Oops!
A more common problem than I'd realized! Good luck, Stella.