Diversity - The Shock Of The Old

Last weekend we had a brand new literary festival here in Brighton (UK): 'The Coast Is Queer' was an LGBTQ+ event organised by New Writing South, a local non-profit organisation that supports writers both published and emerging. From 12th - 15th September a wonderful array of Queer writers, performers and academics offered talks, panel discussions, performances and workshops, some paying and some free, at a modest but welcoming venue. Those who attended gave glowing reviews. Unfortunately, due to a combination of ill health and other commitments I attended just one event, an interactive panel discussion on 'Publishing and Platforms for LGBTQ Literature', which turned out to be a bit – well, read on.

The young presenter, who hailed from 'Gay's The Word' bookshop in London, introduced the equally young and enthusiastic panel and invited them to say a bit about themselves and their various publishing initiatives. So far, so good. She then invited them to share their experiences of queer identity, their coming-out stories, the first times they'd encountered queer characters in a book, film or magazine, their own writing, writing they admired, and writers they represented. This they did at some length, always using very correct language as regards race and gender – two of the panellists were of Asian descent which naturally formed a large part of their identities, and the third, who had the disadvantage of being both white and male, was at pains to point out that his partner was a 'person of colour'. The audience continued to nod and smile, although by now half were getting fidgety and wondering when we were going to get to the main subject, when one panellist mentioned that his outfit had published a writer who was 'actually quite old - about thirty-five I think.'

Woah. Big mistake. Audience members recoiled visibly and fellow Goodreads author Maggie Redding, arguably the senior person present at eighty years of age, raised her hand.
“Oh, we'll be taking questions from the audience at the end,” said the presenter kindly.
“This is not a question, it's a comment. You. Wait. Till. You. Are Old.”
“Oh. Well, that's something we can perhaps discuss at the end, when we'll be taking questions and comments ...”
“Well, don't take too long will you, in case I don't make it!”

“What we're all waiting to hear,” chimed in another audience member, “is how to go about getting something published in today's very confusing climate ...”
“Oh. Well, I don't think you'll necessarily be getting an answer to that at this event ...”

?????????????

There followed another half-hour of the panellists talking about themselves and their Twitter accounts (with one giving a breathless synopsis of her current work-in-progress), until finally we were told that we had ten minutes or so for questions. Hands shot up, and at last the audience were able to air their concerns. Did the panel have any comment on the fact that in spite of the giant leaps forward made by the LGBTQ community in other areas, it was actually easier to get published thirty years ago (by outfits such as The Gay Men's Press or Onlywomen Press)? (They did not. Just bewildered, sympathetic faces). What had happened to all those books published back in the day, now presumably out of print? Would it be possible to form a kind of 'Queer Virago' that would bring old 'Queer Classics' back into circulation? (No idea). Jane Traies asked a question about editing: a lot of stuff published today could clearly do with some, what was the current policy on employing an editor? This question actually received an answer from one panellist, though by the time he'd finished waffling on about poets critiquing one another, but in an encouraging way, I was none the wiser as to whether his outfit did or did not provide an editing service. Other audience comments followed thick and fast, all of them interesting and relevant, and it felt as though we were, at last, getting to the nub of Publishing and Platforms for LGBTQ Literature when it was announced that it was time to wind up the event.

“Well,” said Charlie Raven as six of us 'old' authors drank coffee together afterwards, “If one thing's emerged from that useless talk, it's that we're going to have to do it all ourselves!”
And so we planned the inaugural meeting of 'Wyrd Sister, Ink' with a view to establishing an online magazine to promote one another's work. Watch this space...

PS: The event required us to fill in one of those diversity monitoring forms – you know, the ones where you tick or circle your ethnicity, gender, faith etc. There were loads of options – 'old' was not one of them, but there was a list of age ranges - and I had great fun blithely circling words until I discovered that I'd identified myself as a white, working class bisexual woman of a certain age who was also a 'person of faith' with mental health issues. This made me sound like someone more likely to be protesting with placards outside a queer literary event than taking part in one!

PPS: For the record, I'm a Pagan with OCD. I never forget to celebrate a festival.