Wot I did Yesterday. Out.com and Alex Beecroft

[erastes]

Yesterday was very exciting and a particular curse has been broken.  I met another writer!  In the flesh!  OUT.com contacted Alex Beecroft a while back and asked if she would do an interview – not only THAT but they flew someone to the UK to do it!  I was also asked to attend, because of the vicinity – I live about 2 hours drive away – and because of the Running Press connection and so that’s what I did yesterday!  The interview will be out in August I think, in the magazine, which is huge – so I’ll keep you posted about that.

It was an interesting experience. I don’t have the academical smarts to be able to say anything more deep than “fire bad tree pretty” – so “why do you write gay historical fiction?” was pretty much “coz I like writin’ sor.” whereas I’m sure that anyone else in the world could shoosh it up into something more meaningful. Alex did, anyway, so that was a bonus!

The curse bit refers to every single person that I’ve met in the flesh from the internet has dropped me like a hot brick immediately afterwards.  Granted, they HAVE mostly been dates, (and mostly men) and Alex wasn’t a date, (or a man) but still, not all.  But! She emailed me today, so I can consider the curse broken all the same. Yay!

She’s lovely, if anyone was asking. But then I expect you guessed that, already. :D Doubleplus bonus was that I got to drive through Wicken Fen,

somewhere that has always fascinated me since childhood after reading about it in “King of the Wind” by Marguerite Henry. The book tells the story of The Godolphin Arabian (one of the 3 horses from which every single English Thoroughbred can trace their bloodline). Henry rather romanticised the story of Sham’s origins, as nothing is really known where he came from other than he was imported from France, but was clearly from Turkey or Morocco. Henry uses the assumption that others have made that he was a gift to the French court, but it’s unlikely he was rescued from a life of pulling a cart. Or that he was set free to run on Wicken Fen for two years after covering a mare he wasn’t supposed to! but still, Wicken Fen has always fascinated me and I drove through it yesterday. :D It was very much like the Broads, actually.

Comments

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the interview. I can't imagine two better people to represent Brit writers.

Also, I loved that book! I remember it really well apart from the useful bits [title and author] so thanks for mentioning it.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Aw - thank you!

and the illustrations were GORGEOUS too.