I belong to the professional organisation the Romantic Novelists' Association, which I joined over thirty years ago when I still thought I could write romance. Despite finding out that I couldn't, and it was much harder than I thought, I've stayed a member, mainly because I made so many friends in the beginning, and I've kept them. I received an awful lot of encouragement all that time ago, and although I didn't become a published novelist through their admirable New Writers Scheme, I support it and recommend it and the Association to all aspiring writers.
At their conference this year it was decided to form a separate LGBTQIA Chapter for those who either identify as LGBTQIA or write books about LGBTQIA characters. While I applaud the RNA for this initiative, I'm sad that we need it. I've had two male gay main characters in my series from the start, and they even got married - well civilled - in 2006. A couple of years later I introduced two female gay characters, one of them a vicar, who also became regulars. The series is 19 books long, plus a novella, three shorts and two magazine shorts, and in all that time, I've only had one complaint - a handwritten letter from a lovely lady in a nursing home in Scotland, which I've kept.
This is faintly surprising, as I write what is called in America "cosy" crime, which, over there, certainly has a fairly conservative readership. I doubt very much if I have many readers in the so-called Bible-Belt.
This particular community (and I suggest, if you don't recognise the acronym, you look it up on Google, Ecosia or your other favourite search engine) is one I have been familiar with all my life. And yes, I do mean "ALL my life". I, of course, am incredibly old and incredibly straight, but I grew up with a gay honorary brother who was part of my life until we unnaccountably lost touch in the 1980s. He was an usher at my wedding, among the other five almost aggresively straight friends of the groom. I worked in an environment notable for its, shall we say, inclusivity. Several, actually. It has never, ever occurred to me to think of, or treat the community any differently from anyone else, in the same way that because I grew up in the south London community of black people they, to me were just people. My parents were obviously extremely forward thinking, because they kept all the bitterness, prejudice and hatred from my small ears, and loved my honorary brother as much as I did.
In fact, I'm slightly annoyed with myself that I felt it necessary to write this post. I don't want ANYONE singled out, female, male, LGBTQIA, black, white, sky-blue-pink - what's the difference for heaven's sake? Years ago, when she was a young teenager, my younger daughter suggested that a good theme tune for Children in Need on the BBC would be the Blue Mink song "A Great Big Melting Pot". I think it would be a great theme song for all of us.
http://www.lesleycookman.co.uk/
6 comments:
I feel the same. I commented a while ago (and got gerbally abused for it) that I didn't care if someone was gay, straight, whatever. If you're nice to me I'm nice to you whatever your personal preferences BUT I don't see the need to announce it, this is going to sound wrong but here goes.... be open of course, no one should have to hide who they are but also you don't have to say things like the first gay couple to present a tv show, or the first trans actor to blah blah. Aren't they just a couple? Just an actor? I don't introduce myself as "I'm Samantha, 40something, heterosexual" it's just "hiya, I'm sam" anything else is stiff you find out through knowing me or I tell you when it's time. I just feel we should all be kind and not have to label ourselves to fit into a category. If you're an idiot you're an idiot whether you're gay, straight, black or as you say sky blue pink with a yellow border. I wish I was more eloquent but I'm sure you understand what I'm attempting xx
Good post, Lesley - glad you wrote it. Of course we shouldn't need it, but there are still a fair % of folk who either don't understand or - for whatever reason - won't accept anyone who doesn't fit their blinkered view of society. I also grew up with gay people around, and to my parents' credit, I knew they were different from most of the village but it didn't seem to matter. Michael and John lived up the road and ran a plant nursery; they were charming and entertaining regulars for tennis and dinner parties. Hilda and Lisette didn't live together but were an acknowledged couple. Hilda was a successful painter, a true and lovable eccentric, and I was often in her cottage scoffing biscuits and looking at paintings. This was rural West Sussex in the 1960s, not exactly a bohemian milieu. But it was normality to me and the rest of the village - I don't recall any negative word, look or hint. Working in the London theatre world, later, was no surprise. By sad contrast Romania, 50 years later, is still infuriatingly homophobic.
Absolutely spot on, Lesley. I'm with you all the way. And I shall soon have my copy of The Glovemaker's Son.xxx
Thanks, girls. Glad it found favour - even though I wish I hadn't had to write it.
I wonder if my unquestioning acceptance comes partly from working backstage in the theatre all my adult life? We all know theatre folk are the most wonderful characters x
I do so agree with everything you say Lesley. I'm not sure where my liberal views come from, I don't think that I knew what homosexuality was until I was into my teens. At an all girls' school in the 1960s, fear of "lezzies" was endemic, and one of my earliest memories of discussing it with my parents is telling my mother that a friend had mentioned a man she knew who was gay. Mother warned me that I should be very careful because you "never knew with people like that"; maybe it was the obvious flaw in her logic that convinced me that such thinking must be wrong!
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