Exclusive Interivew: Anne Brooke’s Gay Fiction

There are very few mainstream publishers that will take a risk on what they call ‘gay fiction’ also any book with with a gay lead or main character is automatically slam dunked into the ‘gay’ genre section. As popular and successful gay author Paul Burston points out on BigFib “ I do think it’s very peculiar, the way gay fiction is somehow seen as genre fiction and therefore not mainstream – unless it’s safely historical or comes with just the amount of high cultural references to make it acceptable to the people who decide these things. Because if you look at other media – television, say, or to a lesser degree, film – gay characters and storylines are very much part of the mainstream. If you take something like ‘Queer As Folk’, that was leaps ahead of the publishing world in terms of contemporary gay storytelling. Even prime time soaps have gay characters and storylines, and they couldn’t be more mainstream. One of the reasons I wrote ‘The Gay Divorcee’ was to illustrate the fact that gay people are part of the mainstream. Or to quote Sister Sledge, ‘We are family’!

How difficult is it to get published?

Hugely hugely hugely hugely difficult. I’ve always struggled with this aspect of writing, and it’s the most disheartening thing on the planet. I actually once cried for a whole weekend at a very bad setback (literally – I didn’t stop) and my poor husband was beside himself trying to work out how to make things better. It normally takes me about 2 years from finishing a novel to find someone to publish it, and it’s awful having the word “failure” written across your skin during that time. It’s got slightly better recently as I have a couple of GLBT publishers in the US who are willing to look at what I write, so that’s been a real boon. I’m struggling to get any sort of a publisher for my fantasy series (with some GLBT content – the main character is gay) however, as I think it’s seen as too literary and there isn’t enough sex in it for the usual GLBT fantasy market. I do think it’s a shame that gay fiction is somehow automatically linked with erotic fiction – after all, straight fiction isn’t. The understanding of what’s on offer needs to be a little wider, I think.

Do you feel the big publishing houses turn their back on gay fiction? Is so – why?

Yes, absolutely. Only small publishing houses tend to publish gay fiction in any quantities. I think, for the big publishing houses, it’s seen as something for which there isn’t a big enough market. They also don’t like it when a gay fiction writer turns out to be a girl. Maloney’s Law was turned down by two agents purely on that basis alone (they were totally honest about it!), even though it was placed in two UK awards. That was hard.

Where is it easier to get published, America or UK?

No question – America for sure! The UK industry is far too narrow-minded and insular, sadly.

Is there hope for the future, indeed where do you think the GLBT publishing industry will be in 10 years time?

I’m hoping it will be a mainstream part of publishing, but I fear it won’t. I’m hoping that the small publishers who currently offer GLBT literature will grow in strength and be seen as a vital part of the publishing world, rather than a poor relative, as I think they currently are. More power to our elbows is what I say!

Ok, let’s go back to the start, what made you start writing at the very beginning Anne?

I started writing poetry when I met my husband in my early twenties – I’d written nothing before that point, so he’s definitely my muse. In the Year 2000, I had something of a breakdown (things were tough at work, and I was seriously unhappy about a lot of personal stuff) and discovered I couldn’t write poetry any more. I complained about this so much to my mother that she got fed up and told me just to stop worrying about it and write prose instead. So I did! After the first 10,000 words, which I scrapped, I got really into it and carried on from there. The poetry came back too, which was a relief.

It’s a great relief that it came back in time, but, where do you draw your inspiration?

Dreams – I’ve dreamt the start of two of my novels – Maloney’s Law and The Gifting (currently unpublished) – when I woke up I wrote it down and then had to carry on just to see what happened. I’m also inspired by situations on TV, or strange stories in the papers. My brain is always going “what if?” and making things up.

What’s been the greatest influence?

Other writers, like Maria McCann or Patricia Duncker have been a very strong influence. I don’t think I would ever have written my first proper novel, A Dangerous Man, without reading McCann’s As Meat Loves Salt. Even though she writes historical and I write contemporary. I loved the idea of a psychotic hero – it really clicked with me.

I’ve always found it hard to sit and actually do some writing, how do you start to write, whats the actual ‘Anne Brooke’ process?

I always write the first scene and then I feel I’ve got myself grounded in the book. Then I write an end scene, and start filling in the middle. 9 times out of 10 the end scene will change dramatically when I finally get there in reality, as I’ll have got to know the characters so much better by then. For instance, with Maloney’s Law, when I got to the end, I totally changed the ending, as I realised Paul Maloney would never in a thousand years do what I had him doing at first. So that was a surprise. I tend, on the whole, to write in a linear fashion although occasionally I’ll dot around if I’ve got inspiration for a scene that comes later. I wouldn’t want to forget it!

I’ve talked to many writers over the years, some of them have told me they start with a tittle, whilst others start, rather confusingly with the end. And others have it all planned out from the very opening line, what about you?

Titles normally come as I write the first few chapters of a book, though sometimes I do change them to something better when I’ve got to the end, as for Pink Champagne and Apple Juice. I must admit I never plan a book though I do have a vague idea of where it might go. I prefer just writing and seeing where the characters and the flow take me – that way it’s a surprise to me too! Funnily enough, writing is just about the only aspect of my life that isn’t planned to the nth degree – I’m a really OCD planner usually – so writing and not being in entire control can be both scary and fun.

Your books are really interesting, subjects and description, so do you find it easy to be creative?

I can think of a fair amount of ideas, but maybe one in ten actually come to anything, ie make it into a short story or a novel. The actual process of writing can be the easiest thing in the world (rare!) or the hardest (usually) – it’s a question of taking a deep breath, flinging yourself off the diving board and hoping there’s water beneath. It’s a heck of a lot of typing too – I think that’s what people sometimes forget.

Whats the hardest part of writing, is there a part that’s harder than others?

When something isn’t going well, I beat myself up about it way too much, when maybe I should just step back and give it some time – writers are the most obsessive of people, I’m sure. I also find the 30,000-40,000 word zone really tricky – it’s a mid-novel slump and I have to think of something to type that will wake me up and wake the reader up. I hate the thought that the book might be sagging.

“Every writer I know has trouble, writing” so said Joseph Heller, Mae West gave the adice “Keep a diary, and one day it will keep you” “If one other person is moved by what my pen creates, then I am a happy man” JS, so what’s the best and the worst thing about being a writer, Anne?

The best thing is creating a world of my own in the pages of a book and getting to know a character. I also love writing the sex scenes and the violence scenes – it’s odd how easily they get written, but then again we’re all human! The worst thing is the long trog to publication, if it happens at all – that’s utterly killing.

Naughty Anne, loving the sex scenes and violence! so what do you do to kick back, relax and chill?

Watch TV, go birdwatching, and I also attempt to meditate for about 20 minutes a day – I’m usually way too hyper and it does help. Long bubbly baths are great too!

Back to the writing, it’s pretty unusual isn’t it, a straight married woman writing gay fiction?

Actually, there are a lot of us about! There are a lot of straight married women publishing gay fiction in the US, and it’s also an interesting fact that so many of us are connected with the church too. Seriously though, I’m not really sure how odd it is. After all gay men, such as EM Forster, can happily write novels about straight women, and it didn’t do him any harm. I think everyone’s human – the important thing is to write about people in all their variety. I’m also convinced that the current age does have a real obsession with sex – I’m often asked how I can write gay fiction when I have no direct experience of being gay, but nobody has ever asked me about the other issues that occur in my books, such as murder, rape, torture, people trafficking, child abuse and incest. I don’t have any direct experience of those either (you’ll probably be pleased to hear in those cases), but I think we’re all human and can imagine what such experiences would be like.

How has the reaction been from family and friends when they read you stuff?

Only my mother reads my novels and she loves them! She raced through A Dangerous Man and then asked me why I didn’t put more sex in it – not bad for a 76 year old, as she was then! Other members of my family avoid my work – most of them are very religious and find it very hard coming to terms with what I do. I’m not close to my family, but that’s still hurtful – especially once when my cousin sent me an email telling me how bad I was as a person and I shouldn’t write such things. That was difficult. We don’t discuss it at all now really.

How do you think the GLBT community has changed over the last 10 years?

I think people are more open about the issues of sexuality which is great, and society as a whole (at least western society) is more accepting about people with different preferences. About time too! But there’s still a horrendously long way to go – it makes me so cross that gay people can’t get married in church – why not!!??? I keep asking myself. It’s ridiculous that it’s not permitted and the church makes way too much of a fuss about it. I’m also shocked by the recent anti-homosexuality stance in Uganda – that’s been a deeply saddening eye-opener. Prejudice is still here – far too much of it too.

You studied Medieval English & Latin at university didn’t you? Has that come in handy? If you could go back and chose something different, would you?

I loved it. I totally utterly loved it. Which was very strange as I’d never studied Medieval English before I went to uni and I can remember the first lecture very well. I was spellbound. Honestly, it was like coming home to a place I never knew I wanted to be before. I loved the literature, I loved the language – the sense of having to struggle to get to the heart of it and then suddenly something shifts and it begins to make sense. Like a jigsaw. I can remember my mother laughing her head off when I came home at the end of my first year as an undergraduate and told her I was going to focus on the Medieval English side of the course for the following two years – it was only then she told me that my great uncle had been a well-known scholar of Medieval English literature (I’d never known this before) and had written many books about it. So it must run in the blood!

And, actually, I know you jest(!), but both Medieval English and Latin have come in very handy – it’s shown me how you can use passion, subtlety, control and precision in writing and I don’t think I’d have had that masterclass with any other period or language. Writers like Chaucer, Langland, and of course Catullus and Horace have never been bettered. If I have even one thousandth of their style and skill, even for one minute, I’d be laughing.

Which of your books, stories are you most proud of and why?

I think I’m most proud of A Dangerous Man – it’s the one where I first had the courage to write what I wanted to and with the kind of dark, edgy character I wanted to write about. It’s the first one where I let the character really speak to me and tell the story in the way he wanted to tell it, and I learnt a hell of a lot from Michael Jones, my protagonist. Sometimes, he still has the odd word or two even now. Perhaps time for another counselling session then?…

And any final words?

Yes – thank you so much, Jason, for a fantastic set of questions. They’ve really made me think about what I do and why, and it’s been great answering them. Thank you very much!

Anne Brooke, in an exclusive GayAgenda.com interview by Jason Shaw

Anne Brooke’s fiction has been shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Novel Award, the Royal Literary Fund Awards, and the Asham Award for Women Writers. She has also twice been the winner of the DSJT Charitable Trust Open Poetry Competition. She loves reading dark and quirky crime novels and has a secret passion for bird watching and chocolate. Preferably at the same time. She once took a balloon flight in Egypt but spent most of the time screaming!