Category: non-binary

Guest Interview: SI CLARKE

This week, SI CLARKE pops in for a chat about her new release The Left Hand of Dog!

SI CLARKE

Morning, Si! Why are you doing this interview?

I have a new book that just came out a few weeks ago: The Left Hand of Dog. It’s the first in a new series called Starship Teapot.

What started you writing?

I’d dabbled in writing at various points in my life. I’d written the odd article. At one point, I was an avid blogger. And through most of my life, I had certain story ideas I always said I’d turn into a book … eventually.  I’d even tried writing a book a few times. But it never went anywhere.

Late in 2017, I was made redundant from my job. I felt myself beginning to slide into a depression. I’d get up in the morning, walk the dogs – and then lie down on the sofa. And I wouldn’t really move again until my partner got home at dinnertime.

I did that for a week. On the Monday of the next week, I lay down on the sofa – and then promptly stood back up again. ‘No, I’m not going to do this.’ Whether I was talking to myself or to my dogs or just to no one, I still don’t really know. 

But I walked over to my desk and sat down to start planning my first novel. And even though I have a full-time job now, I haven’t looked back since.

Where do you write?

I’ve been working from home on a full-time basis since the start of the pandemic and I’ve got a really cushy setup with my funky ergonomic kneeling chair and two large, curved monitors. It’s sad, but I spend each work day facing one screen – and then at dinnertime, I turn my chair a few degrees to the right and work on my writing.

But I’ve also been known to write in unconventional locations. I finished the first draft of my first novel on my phone, while weaving and dodging through the underground shopping centre in Canary Wharf. I started the first draft of a book I still haven’t written while weaving and dodging through the pedestrians in Deptford Market on a Saturday. Honestly, it’s a miracle I don’t walk into more stationary objects than I already do.

What do you like to read? 

I mainly read science fiction. But occasionally venture into fantasy, mysteries, historical fiction, and thrillers. Once I read a thriller novel set in London. The main character went to investigate the second murder in the story. He named where the house was in relation to the train station and what he saw looking out the window of the main bedroom, where the corpse was still lying. And I realised – he was standing in my house, in my bedroom. Maybe I should stay away from thriller novels.

But really what I love are books that dig deep into characters. And I love characters that aren’t stale, male, pale, cis-het, neurotypical.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I have two dogs, both rescues. Ozzy will be nine next month. I met him in 2015 when I spent my holiday volunteering at a bear sanctuary in Romania. The sanctuary is an amazing place. They rescue and rehabilitate bears from all across Central and Eastern Europe – mainly from captivity, but sometimes wild bear cubs that have been abandoned and wouldn’t survive on their own.

My experience at LiBEARty was incredible – but I quickly realised they had all the help they needed already. So I spoke to the organiser and asked if we could be of more use at the dog shelter run by the same team. 

We arrived at the shelter during a thunderstorm when 499 dogs were howling at the top of their lungs. And one dog stood on top of his house, smiling and begging for my attention. Three weeks later, he was lying on my sofa.

Lemmy came from the same rescue group three years later.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

In October 2020, I sat down to write something silly. Something that would make me feel better about life, the universe, and everything.

So many of the early reviews have said something along the lines of ‘this was exactly what I needed right now.’ It was so much fun to write. I loved every second of it and I hope readers do too.

The Left Hand of Dog features an aro-ace agender main character, Lem. Together with her dog, she’s kidnapped by incompetent bounty hunters from outer space. It features a talkative horse, an unswearing robot, an overly anxious giant parrot, and a cloud of sentient glitter gas. All on the run from the bunnyboos.

The Left Hand of Dog

Left Hand of Dog, SI CLARKE

Escaping intergalactic kidnappers has never been quite so ridiculous.

When Lem and her faithful dog, Spock, retreat from the city for a few days of hiking in Algonquin Park, the last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by aliens. No, scratch that. The last thing they expect is to be kidnapped by a bunch of strangely adorable intergalactic bounty hunters aboard a ship called the Teapot.

After Lem falls in with an unlikely group of allies – including a talking horse, a sarcastic robot, an overly anxious giant parrot, and a cloud of sentient glitter gas – the gang must devise a cunning plan to escape their captors and make it back home safely.

But things won’t be as easy as they first seem. Lost in deep space and running out of fuel, this chaotic crew are faced with the daunting task of navigating an alien planet, breaking into a space station, and discovering the real reason they’re all there…

Packed with preposterous scenarios, quirky characters, and oodles of humour, The Left Hand of Dog tackles complex subjects such as gender, the need to belong, and the importance of honest communication. Perfect for fans of Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater than Death – especially ones who enjoy endless references to Red Dwarf, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. This book will show you that the universe is a very strange place indeed. 

Buy Left Hand of Dog! If you opt to buy it direct from me, you’ll get 20% off with code LIMFIC2021.

Meet SI CLARKE

SI CLARKE is a Canadian misanthrope who lives in Deptford, sarf ees London. She shares her home with her partner and an assortment of waifs and strays. When not writing convoluted, inefficient stories, she spends her time telling financial services firms to behave more efficiently. When not doing either of those things, she can be found in the pub or shouting at people online – occasionally practising efficiency by doing both at once. 


As someone who’s neurodivergent, an immigrant, and the proud owner of an invisible disability, she strives to present a diverse array of characters in her stories.

Website : Goodreads : Readerly : Twitter

The Left Hand of Dog banner

The Flowers of Time: Jones and Gender

Let’s talk about gender with regard to Jones in The Flowers of Time today, just because, including a deleted scene.

The Flowers of Time, cover

It got to the point as I was writing where I felt there was altogether too much pondering and self-examination by Jones in the early part of the book. Although she’s doing a lot of self-examination, there’s another part of her that just wants to get on with things. And I began to feel as if I was making her an info-dump type of character and the book was becoming a bit more of an examination of how she felt about herself than a road-trip with botany and monsters who melt people.

So… generally speaking, Jones is pretty grumpy at having to make any sort of choice about gender. She never really had to think about it before she went to London. She was extremely reluctant to carry out the death-bed promise to her father to travel to England and try out being a lady of good family. Coming home to the mountains was a huge relief and she now has mixed feelings about her budding friendship with the Mertons if it means she has to behave in a particular way to meet their social expectations.

She’s a bit confused all round, really, and she resents having to put thought in to these messy, human relationships rather than concentrate on her work. She’s definitely a person who sees her mind as important rather than her body. I love her dearly and it hurt a lot to have to delete this scene about her deliberations–it had to go because it was slowing down the pace of the story. It was part of her growth as a person and it still definitely happened in my Jones-head-cannon!

Deleted Scene: Jones’ Preparations

So by the time the Mertons arrived, she was ready. They took a week to make their own preparations for the mountain trails, but Carruthers and Merton seemed to be competent and she left them to it, mostly spending her time with Miss Merton. Initially she felt that it might be a chore, but her initial impression of Edith as a correct English Miss had become modified as the days progressed and she showed her around the lakes and rivers of the city. Jones had always liked Srinagar. It was one of the places she and her father crossed through fairly regularly, both to send communications south to Bombay and several times to take a house there for a few months. Miss Merton’s excitement and pleasure in the scenery and her interest in talking to the residents and attempting to learn their language as she spoke with them meant the time went much more quickly than Jones had anticipated.

Likewise, the party seemed perfectly content with her natural choice to dress as she pleased. Carruthers’ young assistants simply accepted her as a male. She didn’t have much to do with them regardless, but it was pleasant not to be looked at with askance as she had feared when she had seen Miss Merton’s face on the road outside Srinagar. Edith had quickly schooled her expression, and her treatment of Jones had not changed. She had invited her to call her by her first name that evening and that seemed a mark of confidence in their budding friendship. Neither had Carruthers and Merton spoken to her with any caution or disapproval and their example had led to the rest of their party treating her as she wished, which was to essentially ignore her sex and rather pay attention to her thoughts and wishes.

It was very nice to feel that she might have made a friend in Miss Merton. They had been few and far between in her travels with her father, particularly with women, simply because they had been almost constantly in motion and when not in motion, absorbed in the work. She had never had the opportunity before simply to have a friendship that was not also complicated with the bonds of family- as with Dechen, Sonam, Amit and Kishor- or overshadowed by her discomfort at being forced in to female apparel as she had been on her long round trip to England.

Thinking about it now, she had a led a lonely sort of existence based entirely around her father’s obsession with the cause of her mother’s death. And it seemed that Jones might be taking up his mantle. Did she want that? She wasn’t sure. But she was sure that she needed to know what had been driving his obsession. He had been such a rational man. It seemed ridiculous that he had died believing in magic. That he had believed in it all this time and not said a word to her.

Her whole life has changed. Not only did she lose her father; but when he sent her to England ‘to find her roots’ he actually cut her off from her life in the mountains…her source of independence and strength.

She had to re-evaluate her sense of self and the way other people saw her whilst she was in England. And now she’s home, but because the Mertons are following her she may not be able to settle back in to her comfortable old way of doing things where she just toddles along thinking about history and people and plants. She’s gaining friends and a social network. But she may have to give up some of her independence of thought and self-definition as part of that social contract.

I do want to revisit this part of the universe at some point in the future because I do love the characters; but in the meantime there’s also a short story called A Small, Secret Smile that is almost stand-alone if you’re feeling brave, but probably makes more sense if you’ve already read the book.

The Flowers of Time is available in ebook, audio and paperback

"Jones was written perfectly. As a non-binary person I felt seen, and may have shed a tear once or twice" "I loved Flowers. It's sweet and sexy, but also fascinating and creepy!" Now in audible.

A determined lady botanist and a non-binary explorer make the long journey over the high Himalayan mountain passes from Kashmir to Little Tibet, collecting flowers and exploring ruins on the way. Will Jones discover the root of the mysterious deaths of her parents? Will she confide in Edie and allow her to help in the quest?

It’s a trip fraught with perils for both of them, not least those of the heart.

A stand-alone f/enby romance set in the Lost in Time universe, in the Himalayas in 1780. About 50,000 words.

Buy here

Writing and Allyship Around Non-Binary Gender

Writing and Allyship Around Non-Binary Gender

This was first published in Romance Matters, the magazine for members of the (UK) Romantic Novelist’s Association, Autumn 2020. It was intended as a very brief guide to introduce writers to the subject, but I think it also stands as a good introduction to people wanting to understand more about the gender spectrum, regardless of whether they’re writers or not.

@cogenthippo

#NonBinary #TransDayOfVisibility #RainbowMafia #PanSexual #LGBTQ #ComingOut #QueerBookTok #Writertok #authortok #over50 #over40

♬ Steven Universe – L.Dre

Non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer, agender and bigender are all descriptions of the fuzzy middle of the gender spectrum and people who sit there may choose any of those labels. 

The main thing to remember about all types of gender diversity (transgenderness) is that it is about how you feel inside, not about how you present to the outside world.  

I generally present as a short, round, grumpy middle-aged lady with purple hair, however I am feeling. This is probably because I only worked out what was going on for me in my mid-forties and I’m used to bottling it all up. Other people feel more comfortable presenting as masculine one day and feminine another. Some people present as androgynous all the time. It’s about where you need to be for mental comfort, not a fashion choice.

Good Allyship

There are no standard pronouns to use for non-binary people. As a good ally, what matters is using the pronoun people ask you to and not making them feel excluded by using gendered language. Some non-binary or gender neutral people like to be called he or she. Some prefer they. Some use zie or xe or per. A few people use ‘it’ and lots of people find ‘it’ offensive. Apart from that, the other way to make gender diverse people feel less uncomfortable is to try to use non-gendered language. ‘Children’ instead of boys and girls. ‘Parent’ rather than mother or father. ‘People’ or ‘folks’ rather than ‘ladies and gentlemen’. 

Writing

Obviously then, given all the fuzziness, there are no absolutes for fictional  characters. I’ve written three books now with non-binary protagonists. In first one (Shadows on the Border) I experimented with all the pronouns under the rainbow and in the end I changed pronoun depending on POV. Some characters saw my MC as male, some as female and some as neutral. The character sees themselves as ‘they’ and uses ‘they’ for everyone, because they come from a gender-neutral culture. My 1780s historical romance with a non-binary character (The Flowers of Time) was more difficult. Although my character is born female, she definitely feels herself to be gender-neutral. I decided in the end to work within the historical framework and stick to she and he pronouns. 

If you create your character and you aren’t sure you’ve got it right, think about finding a sensitivity reader to give you some feedback.

Finally…please ask if you are unsure what pronouns to use for someone. Very few people will mind a good-faith question!

Further Reading

Interview: Alison Lister

Let’s welcome Alison Lister to the blog today! Morning Alison! Can you tell us a bit about why you decided to come along?

I’ve just started off two new series’, with two different publishers. Stable Hand (The Braided Crop Ranch Series) came out in November from NineStar Press, and Various Persuasions (Persuasions Series) came out on March 23rd with Pride Publishing. Ponyboy, (The Braided Crop Ranch #2) is out April 12th. I’ve been a little busy.

What started you writing?

I have been writing since I was thirteen or fourteen. I received an honourable mention for a short play I wrote in high school for a playwriting contest and that made me think I might have some talent. I took a year-long, post-diploma program at the local college in Dramatic Scriptwriting which I thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn’t until I began to write erotic stories for publication that I realized there might be a market for my style and subject.

Where do you write?

I prefer to write in the living room of the small town-home I share with my husband and two kids. We don’t have the space for an office but the living room has half a wall of windows and a lovely view, and faces south-east. It’s pretty much a sun room in the morning and afternoon and I love it. I occasionally move up to the master bedroom or down to the finished basement, if someone wants to watch a loud TV show or a movie in the living room. I have a MacBook Air, so that helps me write wherever I can find some quiet. I prefer to write first thing in the morning. That’s when I am at my most productive. But I am able to write any time of day except at night.

What do you like to read?

I used to read a lot of classic literature – before I had kids and I had to time to get comfortable and wile away a few hours reading. Now I read mostly quick and hot romance novels, like the ones I write. My Kindle Fire is pretty full! I don’t like really dark or taboo stuff. I like to read and write low angst stories.

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

Middlemarch by George Eliot, Working Out the Kinks by Misha Horne, and Oliver and Jack in London Towne, by Christina E. Pilz (who writes as Jackie North, now). Middlemarch is dense and brilliant and really takes you to small-town England in the eighteen-hundreds. Oliver and Jack takes you to London in the same time period, and so many good things happen for Oliver and Jack who have been through so much by then. And Working Out the Kinks is such a hot, kinky story about two men who are meant to be together and bring out the best in each other, written in Ms. Horne’s signature style (that I love so much)!

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

I am pretty introverted, so I don’t belong to any groups in real life. I enjoy the groups I’m in on Facebook, where I can pop in and out as I please. I’ve met many great authors through these groups. We support and help each other.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I love to go for walks in nature, often on my own, but sometimes with my dog, Ollie. I like to watch movies. Lately, I’ve been watching my teens play through their favourite video games while I work on some knitting. Oh, knitting! I find it very meditative and relaxing. Interestingly, while watching my daughter play through Red Dead Redemption II, I was inspired to write my first queer historical erotic novel, 760 Miles, set in the Yukon in 1906. I’m editing the manuscript right now and hoping to submit it at the end of April for publication in 2022. It will be the first book in the Northern Horizons series.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

Various Persuasions is a very meaningful story to me, because my protagonist is non-binary and choses to use male pronouns and is called Sir by the cis-male submissive they reluctantly take on at the beginning of the story. There is so much of myself in this character and it is true to something deep inside me. I’ve chosen to identify as non-binary now, since that is how I have felt my entire life. I often feel very, very masculine and I used to pretend that wasn’t the case. But I’m tired of pretending and I want to be free to be who I am. This story came very naturally to me and I wrote it quite quickly, then went back and thickened it up a bit, which is generally the way I write these days. Then Ponyboy, The Braided Crop Ranch #2, comes out April 12th. (Stable Hand is book #1). This series follows different men who find themselves at a kinky pony play ranch in the Muskokas, and lets the reader experience pony play from a few different perspectives.

Various Persuasions

A non-binary Dom. An eager young sub. Service, orgasm control, bondage. An initial encounter leads to a synchronous exploration of identity and intimacy.

Nic Walker is not your typical Dom—physically female but identifying as male. And Vincent Blake is not your typical twenty-four-year-old straight guy—seductively submissive with a penchant for lacy underwear.

When Nic’s Dominatrix friend Daphne encourages them to get together, she can only hope they recognize the compatibility of their desires and personalities.

Nic has been holing up alone in their townhouse for too long, getting over a bad ‘relationship’, and it’s time for them to start living again. When Nic meets Vincent, neither expects the tentative relationship to take off like a runaway train. But each layer of the attractive and seemingly vulnerable young man Nic exposes ignites their own desires and leads both on a path to revealing the most interesting parts of themselves.

Who knew piano practice could be a form of sexual service? Or that a pair of overpriced panties could inspire such devotion?

Through bondage, service, objectification and the purchase of large quantities of lacy unmentionables, as well as a few specific sex toys and devices, Nic explores how far Vincent will go to please them and how much of themself they will risk to have him. 

Buy Various Persuasions now!

Find Alison online

Website : Facebook Group : Goodreads : Twitter

Interview: Luna Tibling

Please welcome Luna Tibling today to talk a bit about themselves and their new release!

Hi Luna, thank you so much for coming along today! Why have you decided to subject yourself to my nosy questions?

I’ve recently released the first 2 books in my LGBT+ romance series, Beyond the Binary! I’m super excited to share my work, and hope it will speak to fellow members of the community and allies alike.

What started you writing?

I’ve enjoyed writing stories since childhood, and would often start random projects with no idea where they were going. I’ve now realised that my passion is writing wholesome LGBT+ stories that are accessible both to those within the community and without.

Where do you write?

I rent a room in a shared house, so that’s where I usually write, but when the weather is good I like to scribble ideas in the park.

What do you like to read? 

I don’t read nearly as much as I write, but one of my favourite authors is Jodi Picoult. The way her complex characters speak frankly to the reader has been a big influence on my work.

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

This would have to be split between one adult novel, one children’s book and one poetry book:

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult – this is my favourite of her books. It features a woman who separates from her husband and finds herself falling in love with another woman. Opposing views are presented compellingly and the lesbian relationship is treated with great sensitivity.

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss – did you know he wrote this in order to win a bet with his publisher that he could write a whole book using only 50 different words?

The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear – Lear is one of the poets who have inspired me most, along with Lewis Carroll, Hilaire Belloc, Ogden Nash, Edgar Allan Poe, Roald Dahl and Spike Milligan.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I do an exercise routine every morning, and love going for walks, especially when I need inspiration. Besides writing, my main creative outlet is acting; I have been a member of two amateur theatre groups for many years. I also like to play the keyboard, but am not especially good.

I love cats too! Who doesn’t?

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

Skylar, the protagonist of the series, has many similarities to me: they are non-binary, in their twenties, suffer from depression and write poetry as a means of coping. I had wanted to write a story about a character like Skylar for several years, but I had no plot to go with the raw concept. It turned out that leaving my job to focus my energy on writing was what I needed to be able to develop the idea.

It took me about four months to write the first two books. It was a great challenge, but very rewarding on a personal level: it has been a pleasure to pour my own experiences into fictional stories that represent the LGBT+ community in a positive light. Although a lot of progress has been made in recent years, we still see too much media that encourages people to see LGBT+ characters as nothing more than objects of desire, novelty or simply comic relief.

I don’t stop at having a non-binary protagonist; Skylar is in a polyamorous relationship with a trans man and a cis man, and their friends include a trans woman who comes out during the story, a pair of queerplatonic partners and an asexual person. Some of these characters haven’t been explored in great depth yet, but will be in future instalments.

How I found myself

The introductory novella to the series, How I Found Myself, is available for free here.

Barry is aggressive, abusive and the most prejudiced individual Skylar has ever met.

Following their dad’s premature death, Skylar had hoped that their mum would find a new boyfriend, but she couldn’t have chosen a worse man: it has been clear to Skylar from the beginning that Barry will not accept them for who they are.

Skylar already struggles to fight against their own depression, but now that Barry is in their life to stay, they face the possibility of alienating themself from their one remaining parent. The best hope Skylar has of overcoming both obstacles is the support from their love life, but it would be impossible to reason with Barry if he knew the nature of the relationship…

The tension and uncertainty increase with each day the issue goes unresolved. Skylar will have to face Barry eventually, but how can they do that, and what will be the consequences?

They certainly won’t be doing it alone.

The first full-length novel, How I Found Ariana, can be purchased here

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