I’ve been writing stories since my earliest memories: my first masterpiece was two pages of foolscap – with illustrations – about a television programme of the time, and contained more uses of the word “then” than any other. I’d like to think I’ve improved just a little since then; after all, I was only about five.
My English teacher in secondary school didn’t care for the dark, gritty science-fiction I regularly turned in for class assignments either, yet I persisted. I was teaching myself more than she ever did! As an aside, she also ruined both Shakespeare and Dickens for me, but that’s for another time.
So, where to really begin? I’m already in my fifties, although I’ve no idea when that happened! I’m British, English by birth and currently Scottish by residence: I’ve been here for over ten years now, on a remote island that requires me to commute by ferry for the day job – one of the best journeys to and from work in the world, surely! In the summer at least... this provides my core writing time, and with a favourable wind I can turn out a fair amount in that time. My output over the last twenty years or so has included almost a dozen novels and a handful of non-fiction texts, the latter being well-known in their academic field – something of a boasting point, I’m afraid! There have also been short stories scattered here and there.
However... if you look for all these other books under my name, you won’t find them, and here we come to the part of this biography that, for all my years of dealing with it, I still don’t seem to have any proper sort of handle on.
I am transgendered. There, I said it! I am biologically male, psychologically feeling more and more female (whatever that means, but it feels that way to me) as the years go by. My writing allows me a useful window to explore this side of me, and undoubtedly helps keep me close to some semblance of sanity. My family (I’m married with children)are aware of this side of me, and have accepted it without question since the Great Secret coming out – for which I am incredibly, totally, grateful.
I love sharing what I do: I have taken to FaceBook like a duck to water, and I regularly post updates, snippets and recent news about whatever it is I’m doing. I also have a blog, after many years of Luddite resistance, and similarly I am finding this to be a fantastic way of getting this gender-related business out there into places where it will hopefully do a bit of good and promote some understanding – not least in me!
1.) Why did you write The Sisterhood?
“The Sisterhood” was written because I couldn’t find much if anything in the way of what I call “meaty” trans fiction. There are a few sex-based novels, where the trans part is a gimmick or a sideline, and not the main thread of the story. I wanted something where life as a transwoman was the total, the everyday thing, and could be explored in all its diversity. They do say “write what you know”, so I did, since nobody else seemed to be doing it!
2.) What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating The Sisterhood?
One of them was how easy it was (is, since I’m now into volume 3!) to write some of the girls and how hard it was to write others. Sarah tends to be easy – she’s the new arrival on the scene, and so there’s a lot of uncertainty and hesitation to explore, and that just flows. By contrast, Naomi the Mother Hen of the group is harder, because not a lot is actually happening to her!
3.) Was The Sisterhood harder to write considering how personal it is?
Hmm, interesting. Bits of it were, yes; at the time of writing I was not out to my family and I had no idea of what their reaction would be. So I wrote most of Cathy’s wife from a very despondent place – in the story, she is incredibly hostile and refusing to even try to understand, and my fear was that I’d get it for real if the secret were ever revealed. I’m happy to say I was totally, utterly wrong!
“The Sisterhood” was written because I couldn’t find much if anything in the way of what I call “meaty” trans fiction. There are a few sex-based novels, where the trans part is a gimmick or a sideline, and not the main thread of the story. I wanted something where life as a transwoman was the total, the everyday thing, and could be explored in all its diversity. They do say “write what you know”, so I did, since nobody else seemed to be doing it!
2.) What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating The Sisterhood?
One of them was how easy it was (is, since I’m now into volume 3!) to write some of the girls and how hard it was to write others. Sarah tends to be easy – she’s the new arrival on the scene, and so there’s a lot of uncertainty and hesitation to explore, and that just flows. By contrast, Naomi the Mother Hen of the group is harder, because not a lot is actually happening to her!
3.) Was The Sisterhood harder to write considering how personal it is?
Hmm, interesting. Bits of it were, yes; at the time of writing I was not out to my family and I had no idea of what their reaction would be. So I wrote most of Cathy’s wife from a very despondent place – in the story, she is incredibly hostile and refusing to even try to understand, and my fear was that I’d get it for real if the secret were ever revealed. I’m happy to say I was totally, utterly wrong!
4.) What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Facebook rules my life… Seriously though, well, I have in the past been involved very heavily in Viking-age re-enactment, though that’s on the back burner at the moment. I have a model railway in the garden and a trike in the garage, both of which need huge amounts of work to get them running; but in reality most of my minimal spare times goes towards keeping the house and cars running, and trying to care for the family.
5.) What does your family think of your writing?
Facebook rules my life… Seriously though, well, I have in the past been involved very heavily in Viking-age re-enactment, though that’s on the back burner at the moment. I have a model railway in the garden and a trike in the garage, both of which need huge amounts of work to get them running; but in reality most of my minimal spare times goes towards keeping the house and cars running, and trying to care for the family.
5.) What does your family think of your writing?
I got into such awful trouble for not telling them! They are immensely proud and supportive, but then I also write in my male persona and I’m not the only one in the family. Mrs Roz writes fantasy and fanfiction, and has her own website ( http://www.sinful-dreams.com/unicorn/fic/viewuser.php?uid=2, for those who enjoy such things), and my younger daughter also produces astoundingly complex and rich stories.
6.) When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I first wrote a story aged around 4, if I remember correctly, so it’s been pretty much a lifelong thing. I had a serious stab at getting published during a period of unemployment in my twenties – this was in the days before the internet and the self-publishing boom, when you still had to send off typed manuscripts! Then there were a few years off while I did my Degree – enough writing in that to scratch the itch, I suspect! Then it came back in the 2000s or so, and it hasn’t gone away yet. I’m lucky in that I can write while I commute, and that sort-of helps keep me sane, I think.
7.) What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I’m told I have a dangerous love of the semi-colon! I go in for long, rambling sentences, which seem to be totally at odds with the current trend for almost bullet-point writing, but I find it hard to read and impossible to actually produce! See, there’s another long sentence right there…
8.) What about the trans community would you like your readers to take away from your writing?
We’re just people, people! We’re not rampant sex fiends out to get you; we don’t doll up like this to trap men unawares… this is almost a mental health issue, in my opinion. We’re harmless, and just trying to work out this urge within us that simply won’t go away. Treat us as the people (because there are trans men as well, of course) we are desperate to be, and for preference, just ignore us if you pass us in the street, like you would anyone else. Thank you.
I’m told I have a dangerous love of the semi-colon! I go in for long, rambling sentences, which seem to be totally at odds with the current trend for almost bullet-point writing, but I find it hard to read and impossible to actually produce! See, there’s another long sentence right there…
8.) What about the trans community would you like your readers to take away from your writing?
We’re just people, people! We’re not rampant sex fiends out to get you; we don’t doll up like this to trap men unawares… this is almost a mental health issue, in my opinion. We’re harmless, and just trying to work out this urge within us that simply won’t go away. Treat us as the people (because there are trans men as well, of course) we are desperate to be, and for preference, just ignore us if you pass us in the street, like you would anyone else. Thank you.
9.) What, in your opinion, is the most important issue facing the trans community?
We seem to be in the spotlight just now: Time covers, mainstream television series with trans characters being made, and a general waking-up of the rest of the population to our existence and our reality, rather than the stereotypes that have been presented up until now. With acceptance, inevitably, comes backlash, and the management of that backlash, its exposure for the blind, insensitive and unfounded bigotry that it is, is perhaps our greatest challenge right now. I do hope that The Sisterhood can help with that, as it shows five girls just living their lives and dealing with it all.
10.) What are you working on now?
Well, volume 2 is finished and just awaiting an edit, really; I’m in the beginnings of volume 3 and idea for further books just keep coming! I’ve also done another, much sillier novel, and a novella detailing the subtle games played between two trans domes over an afternoon. Lots more sex in that one… then there’s the blog at rozwhiteauthor.wordpress.com, which I try and update about once a month, and my Facebook group is having a short story competition at the moment as well. Somewhere among all this, I work for a living as well!
We seem to be in the spotlight just now: Time covers, mainstream television series with trans characters being made, and a general waking-up of the rest of the population to our existence and our reality, rather than the stereotypes that have been presented up until now. With acceptance, inevitably, comes backlash, and the management of that backlash, its exposure for the blind, insensitive and unfounded bigotry that it is, is perhaps our greatest challenge right now. I do hope that The Sisterhood can help with that, as it shows five girls just living their lives and dealing with it all.
10.) What are you working on now?
Well, volume 2 is finished and just awaiting an edit, really; I’m in the beginnings of volume 3 and idea for further books just keep coming! I’ve also done another, much sillier novel, and a novella detailing the subtle games played between two trans domes over an afternoon. Lots more sex in that one… then there’s the blog at rozwhiteauthor.wordpress.com, which I try and update about once a month, and my Facebook group is having a short story competition at the moment as well. Somewhere among all this, I work for a living as well!
The lives of five transwomen are linked and enriched as the crises in their lives draw them closer together.
Buy the Sisterhood
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sisterhood-Roz-White-ebook/dp/B00VGAB4PS/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427836054&sr=1-2&keywords=roz+white
More by Roz
Links
Read Roz's blog: rozwhiteauthor.wordpress.com
Check out the group Roz admins:
And now I must away. Sky is about to crash. She needs a new HD. My husband is back though. I'll be having him redo DT's brain soon, so I'll be rocking my laptop again until Sky gets fixed.
