The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani, trans Sam Taylor @SamTayl66360996 @FaberBooks @laurennicoll_ #TheCountryOfOthers #BookReview

 

1944. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France to join her husband in Morocco.

But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Her life is now that of a farmer's wife - with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings. Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm and by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner, Mathilde grows increasingly restless.

As Morocco's struggle for independence intensifies, Mathilde and her husband find themselves caught in the crossfire.

From the internationally bestselling author, The Country of Others is perfect for fans of Elena Ferrante, Tracy Chevalier, and Maggie O'Farrell.

The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani was published in hardback on 5 August 2021 by Faber and is translated by Sam Taylor. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review. 

I am a huge fan of this authors first two novels; Adèle, and Lullaby and have been looking forward to The Country of Others for some time. This novel is something of a departure for the author. It's the first in a planned trilogy and is based on her family history. The story begins toward the end of the second world war, so can be classed as historical fiction, and very different to her two contemporary novels. 

Once again Sam Taylor has expertly translated Slimani's French prose into a stunning story. 

However, just like her previous books, this is beautifully written and drew me in from the very first page. Once again, this author shines when creating strong female characters who are constantly battling wars. It is not just world war that Mathilde, the lead character, has to face up to, but the huge battle that her marriage often becomes. She faces hardships in a strange land, after marrying Amine, a Moroccan solider that she met when he was fighting in France. 

Mathilde moved from her home in Alsace, France to Amine's home; a rurally isolated farmhouse in Meknes. Slimani writes so descriptively. The countryside, the city, the people and the landscapes are all brought vividly to life for the reader. As someone who knew very little about Morocco and its history, I learnt so much from this story. 

The constant battle for independence from the French colonial rule is expertly portrayed, and the effects on Mathilde. a French woman married to a Moroccan man, who has children of mixed heritage is especially poignant.

There are times that the reader shares Mathilde's despair as her husband agrees with and allows the intensely patriarchal society to impact on her life, and that of her daughter and also her sister in law. There are scenes that are heartbreaking and quite devastating, but it is Mathilde's strength of character that shines through. She is able to pass on her wisdoms to those she has to live amongst and whilst not wholly accepted, she does become a valued member of the community. 

The Country of Others is a powerful, moving story that proves that this talented author can write historical fiction just as well as her contemporary stories. I was totally swept away by the prose, the characters and the setting and eagerly await the next in the series.

Leïla Slimani is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize,
the Prix Goncourt, which she won for Lullaby. 

A journalist and frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture. 

Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981, she lives in Paris with her French husband and their two young children.

Born in Nottinghamshire, England in 1970, Sam Taylor began his career as a journalist
with The Observer. 

In 2001, he quit his job and moved to southwest France, where he wrote four novels, learned French, and raised a family.

 

In 2010, he translated his first novel: Laurent Binet's HHhH.

 

He now lives in the United States and works as a literary translator and author.

www.samtaylorwriter.wixsite.com

Twitter @SamTayl66360996

The Lost Wisdom Of The Magi by Susie Helme BLOG TOUR @susiehelme @TheConradPress @RandomTTours #BookExtract

This engaging, meticulously researched novel tells the story of Sophia, a first-century Babylonian Jew who learns ancient languages at the royal archives of the Parthians and secretly studies the magic on cuneiform tablets. 

Sophia runs away from home, joining a Nabataean incense caravan, studies with the Essenes on the Dead Sea and joins with the militants of Qumran. 

As the Zealots battle to defend revolutionary Jerusalem against Titus, she falls in love with a Greek freedman, Athanasios, a comrade in arms. Jews and Christians briefly unite with Samaritans and the People of the Land. 

But messiahs can prove false.

The Lost Wisdom of the Magi : the memoirs of Sophia Zealotes by Susie Helme was published in December 2020 by The Conrad Press.

The book was recently awarded the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Historical 

As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today. 

Extract from The Lost Wisdom of the Magi by Susie Helme

Sisters of Alexandria, you have requested an account of my years in Palestine, and so I pledge these scrolls to you, a gift from sister to sister, in appreciation for all your works. Some

of you, my Sisters, are interested in the war, and want to hear heroic tales of Zealots. Some of you mourn Churban HaBayit (Destruction of the Temple), and wish to join my grief with yours.

I know that some of you, too, yearn for the Lost Wisdom. You are curious about magic; and I will teach you what I know. As my most beloved disciples, these things are for your eyes alone.

Our Academy is dedicated to the womanly promulgation of all the jewels of civilisation. This work must be part of that goal. In my memory, the story began on that night when I came to my senses on the sandy hill west of the ruins of old Babylon. Everything before that seems a far distant past. It was on that cold ground that my destiny was cast, the Evening Star shining down upon my dusty shawl and bloodied robe, a magical fox questioning my actions with a probing gaze. I’ve had to trace the story backward from that moment, as for many years my

mind blocked the memories of what had gone before.

I cannot report to you that event, Sisters, other than by start- ing from the beginning. I cannot confess to you my behaviour on that night before I tell you the story of who I was, for I was very different then as a girl from the old crone you know now.

As you know, I was born in the Land Between the Rivers, in the city of Babylon, which is called Seleucia on the Tigris by the heirs of Alexandros (Alexander the Great).

My father, Itamar son of Nebazak, was a keeper of the royal archives of the Parthians. It has been the tradition in our family for eighteen generations by virtue of our scholarship. We are in Babylon since the Captivity.

My mother, Sherah, suffered a grave illness in the years after my birth, and there are many years between me and my younger brothers.

Some moons passed her with no moonblood, other moons she bled so heavily she took to bed. Sometimes when she lifted something heavy, she would cry out in pain and curl into a ball on the kitchen floor. Father was so careful when he embraced her, it seemed as if he was afraid even to touch her. Of course, no one ever explains such things to children, but I later described the symptoms to Ima Devorah, and she said it sounded like scarring on the womb. When Mother conceived and delivered the first boy, Adam, the birthing must have cleared away the scarred tissue from her body. When she recovered, she had three more sons in a row, each born before the elder was weaned.

My father gave me a Greek name, Sophia. It was the fashion in those days among Babylonian Jewry to have Greek names, and Father, a Pharisee of the old school, had ever a soft spot in his soul for the Greek arts. Sophia is a Greek word. It means wisdom. I believe my father saw the true course of my spirit when he so named me. Mother was too ill to dispute it, though I think she would have done.

Grandmother lived with us as nurse all during my mother’s illness, remaining as minder to the boys, and as she aged, I was expected to replace her in that role. She constantly scolded me to do this or that ‘for Mother’ or ‘for your brothers’ and scolded me with the same words she scolded the slaves. The boys saw me as a maidservant. Not only did I have to do all the work, but I got no respect for it. My brothers asked me to fetch them things without saying ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.

Susie Helme is an American from Nashville, Tennessee, living in London, after sojourns in Tokyo,
Paris and Geneva with a passion for ancient history, politics and magic, mythology and religion. 

She is a political activist and a socialist. 

Once editor of Mobile Communications Asia and other mobile communications magazines, she co-authored the Jan 2000 Future Mobile Handsets. 

She published with the Conrad Press in December 2020 her first novel, The Lost Wisdom of the Magi 

She is founder member of the Bounds Green Book Writers writers’ circle, which published in Autumn 2020 an anthology of coronavirus-inspired fiction, Lockdown Lit—Inspiration in Isolation. 

She now subedits Dignity magazine, writes historical novels and grows organic vegetables. 

She offers freelance services proofreading or developmental editing for authors needing help with their novels and is open to offers of review-swapping and mutual beta-reading.

TWITTER @susiehelme

Three Words For Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor & Heather Webb BLOG TOUR @HazelGaynor @msheatherwebb @Harper360UK @RandomTTours #ThreeWordsForGoodbye

 

Three cities, two sisters, one chance to correct the past . . .

New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn their grandmother is dying, they agree to fulfill her last wish: to travel across Europe—together. They are to deliver three letters, in which Violet will say goodbye to those she hasn’t seen since traveling to Europe forty years earlier; a journey inspired by famed reporter, Nellie Bly.

Clara, ever-dutiful, sees the trip as an inconvenient detour before her wedding to millionaire Charles Hancock, but it’s also a chance to embrace her love of art. Budding journalist Madeleine relishes the opportunity to develop her ambitions to report on the growing threat of Hitler’s Nazi party and Mussolini’s control in Italy.

Constantly at odds with each other as they explore the luxurious Queen Mary, the Orient Express, and the sights of Paris and  Venice,, Clara and Madeleine wonder if they can fulfil Violet’s wish, until a shocking truth about their family brings them closer together. But as they reach Vienna to deliver the final letter, old grudges threaten their reconciliation again. As political tensions rise, and Europe feels increasingly volatile, the pair are glad to head home on the Hindenburg, where fate will play its hand in the final stage of their journey.

Three Words For Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb was published on 2 September 2021 by Wm Morrow.  My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this #RandomThingsTours blog tour 

Three Words For Goodbye is a sweeping historical saga that kept me engrossed from the enticing prologue when the reader is introduced to Violet in her East Hampton estate in the late 1930s. 

Violet is terminally ill and it is her dearest wish that her two granddaughters; Clara and Madeleine, will travel to Europe to deliver some letters for her. Despite being close as children, Clara and Madeleine have recently been estranged. Not speaking since her father's funeral some time ago. 

Here we have two very different women. Clara is artistic, yet traditional. She's engaged to marry Charles, a very successful businessman and envisages her future life as that of a dutiful wife. She would far rather stay in the US and make wedding plans than set out on a journey across Europe, especially as there's the threat of war in the air. Madeleine is a journalist, always looking beyond what is in front of her, looking for a story. She's unconventional in both her outlook and her dress. Trousers and brogues are her choice, rather than the dresses and fripperies favoured by her sister. 

However, the one thing that they do have in common is their love for Violet and it is this that is the deciding factor. They set out on a journey that has been carefully planned by Violet and will include trips on the Queen Mary, the Orient Express and finally, the Hindenburg. 

This is a wonderfully rich and emotive story of not just a geographical journey, but also a journey of discovery. As the sisters spend more time together, they begin to thaw to each other and these authors do such a beautiful job of examining this relationship in such depth. 

There's a tension that runs throughout the story too, with the ever worrying thought of war that is always present as they journey through Europe. There's glamour and there is emotion, along with constant discovery. The cities visited are seen through the eyes of the sister so well and their different view points are cleverly done as Maddie sees stories whilst Clare see the artwork, 

This is storytelling at its finest.  Recommended by me. 

HAZEL GAYNOR is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of When We Were Young
& Brave, A Memory of Violets and The Girl Who Came Home, for which she received the 2015 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Romantic Novel of the Year award.  Her third novel, The Girl from The Savoy, was an Irish Times and Globe and Mail bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year. 
In 2017, she published The Cottingley Secret and Last Christmas in Paris (co-written with Heather Webb). Both novels hit bestseller lists, and Last Christmas in Paris won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award. Hazel’s novel, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, hit the Irish Times bestseller list for five consecutive weeks. 

Hazel was selected by Library Journal as one of Ten Big Breakout Authors for 2015. 

Her work has been translated into fourteen languages and is published in twenty-one countries worldwide. 

She lives in Ireland with her husband and two children.

www.hazelgaynor.com

Twitter @HazelGaynor

Instagram @hazelgaynor

HEATHER WEBB is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of The Next Ship Home,
Rodin’s Lover, Becoming Josephine, and The Phantom’s Apprentice, as well as two novels co- written with Hazel, Last Christmas in Paris , which won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award, and Meet Me in Monaco, a finalist in the 2020 RNA Awards as well as the 2019 Digital Book World Fiction awards.

To date, Heather’s works have been translated into fifteen languages worldwide.

She is also passionate about helping writers find their voice as a professional freelance editor, speaker, and adjunct in the MFA in Writing program at Drexeul University.


She lives in New England with her family and one feisty bunny.

www.heatherwebbauthor.com

Twitter @msheatherwebb

Instagram @msheatherwebb

A Candle for Consuela by Mike Kingston BLOG TOUR #ACandleForConsuela #MikeKingston @RandomTTours #AuthorInterview

 

Though her wounds are well hidden, they sometimes emerge to drag her to a place she never wants to visit again. Having fled for her life from El Salvador, she trailed through the US, France and Britain before finding safety and work in St Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Church in London.

FATHER JOHN DOYLE, the devout priest at St Mary’s makes Consuela feel secure after years of turmoil, and they grow close as they work on the ‘Mission to the Homeless’.

When he meets SENOR ADOLFO GUZMAN at the church, however, Consuela sees him arrive. Memories of death, torture and loss consume her as the sanctuary of the church is snatched away from her.

When Father Doyle discovers why Consuela fears for her life, the evil truth about Guzman, and the tragic murders of six Jesuit priests at Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas in San Salvador, on 16th November 1989, a murder that echoed around the world, he is determined to make the right decision. Will he find the courage to stay true to his heart?

Will Consuela give way to the desperate feelings of revenge that consume her?

Find out in this gripping, disturbing political novel which explores a strong woman’s rage and her quest for revenge, forbidden love and a tortured romance, a gay priest who finds love and an explosive story where love triumphs over religion.

A Candle For Consuela by Mike Kingston was published on 27 May 2021 by Mitre Publishing.

As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I'm delighted to welcome the author here today for an interview.

Author Interview with Mike Kingston

Can you tell us a little bit about your book and why you wanted to write it?

The book is a memory of a part of my life that is impossible for me to ignore. The characters are a distillation of people who both inspired and disgusted me. A rough draft stayed in a drawer for many years before I summoned up the grit to confront those difficult times.

Have you always been a writer / wanted to become an author?

I have always written. During many of my activities, whilst there are intense bursts of action, there are often times of waiting for that action. During those times, I have always written.  However, to be an author seemed an unattainable and mysterious goal until very recently.

What made you take that leap and publish your book?

 It was time to stop prevaricating, finish the work I had started, and just put it out there.

Have you any more book plans in the pipeline?

Yes, three more in The Omega Files Quartet. All predicated on times and people I have known and experienced.

What advice would you offer other aspiring authors who want to self-publish their books? 

Take the plunge.

Mike Kingston - September 2021 

Mike Kingston has spent much of his career carrying out investigations throughout the world for
many organisations – from worldwide media companies to multi-national corporations and global law firms. 

He has been writing about and investigating corruption, espionage and conspiracy for more than 30 years.

His books reflect events he has encountered and the amazing characters, both courageous and wicked, he has met along the way.

Underlying his words is an enormous respect for the resilience of the human spirit in surviving heartbreaking situations and managing to live meaningful and fulfilling lives, often in desperate circumstances.

My Name Is Jensen by Heidi Amsinck BLOG TOUR @HeidAmsinck1 @RandomTTours @MuswellPress #Giveaway #Win #Competition #Prize

 

Guilty. One word on a beggar’s cardboard sign. And now he is dead, stabbed in a wintry Copenhagen street, the second homeless victim in as many weeks. Dagbladet reporter Jensen, stumbling across the body on her way to work, calls her ex lover DI Henrik Jungersen. As, inevitably, old passions are rekindled, so are old regrets, and that is just the start of Jensen’s troubles. The front page is an open goal, but nothing feels right….. When a third body turns up, it seems certain that a serial killer is on the loose. But why pick on the homeless? And is the link to an old murder case just a coincidence? With her teenage apprentice Gustav, Jensen soon finds herself putting everything on the line to discover exactly who is guilty …

My Name Is Jensen by Heidi Amsinck was published on 31 August 2021 by Muswell Press.

As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I have one print copy to give away. Entry is simple; just fill out the competition widget in the blog post.  UK entries only please.

Good Luck!

One copy of My Name Is Jensen by Heidi Amsinck

Praise for Heidi Amsinck

'Someone is bumping off hobos on the clean streets of Copenhagen. The redoubtable reporter Jensen is determined to identify the serial killer no matter what the risk to herself. She's a spirited soul, and the Danish capital is a picturesque backdrop to the wickedness exposed. Former foreign correspondent Heidi Amsinck ― unlike so many authors today ― does not waffle. My Name Is Jensen is streamlined Scandi-sleuthing and comprises a more than promising debut’. The Times Crime Club Book of the Week by Mark Sanderson

'A nice slice of creepy Scandi-noir’ Daily Mail.

‘Eerie unnerving stories, in equal measure charming and charming’ --Will Dean on Last Train to Helsingør

 ‘Intriguing and hypnotically readable’. Andrew Taylor

‘This was a compelling and thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish with a great storyline, interesting characters and all capped off by skilful writing…A great storyteller’ --NetGalley

Heidi Amsinck, is a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen. 

She was London Correspondent for the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten. 

She has written many stories for BBC Radio 4, including the story sets Danish Noir, Copenhagen Confidential and Copenhagen Curios, all read by Tim McInnerney. 

She was previously shortlisted for the VS Pritchett Memorial Prize. 

Heidi lives in London. 

Last Train to Helsingør her first collection of stories, was published in 2018.

Twitter @HeidiAmsinck1

Ruby and Pearl by Freida Daniels #RubyAndPearl #FreidaDaniels #AuthorInterview

 

Ruby and Pearl is a lighthearted look at a Mother and Daughter whose day to day life is entwined within the quiet, unassuming neighbourhood they live. 

Filled with equal measures of intrigue and humour, Foxley Grove is a cul-de-sac of 6 houses in rural England where each colourful character tells its own story. 

Max the charming, attractive lothario. Anne and Harvey the quintessential upper mid century, middle class couple. Millie the crazy dog lady. Sniper the tattooed biker with an aristocratic past. Rounded out with Pearl who has returned home to help her Mother, Ruby.

The mysteries that unfold will keep you turning the pages to uncover their journey.

Ruby and Pearl by Freida Daniels was published in July 2021. I am delighted to welcome the author here to Random Things today. She's talking about who she came to write Ruby and Pearl.

I have always enjoyed writing and like many people thought I'd like to write a book one day. 

I jotted ideas down on scraps of paper which would float around, until rescued and squirrelled away, in my handbag. 

Eventually I realised the only way to get the job done was to actually type Chapter One and begin at the beginning. 

Having the idea for the story is the easy part, making that into 80,000 plus words not so much. 

Books are long! 

I wrote on weekends, my goal being one chapter per day and became very invested in my cast of characters. I could picture them all and felt part of their lives. 

The feedback I've received from readers is about how visual it is and how they too feel as if they know all the people populating the fictitious town. I'm proud of that.

My eventual driving force came from observation of human nature. We are all good at feeling guilty when resentment creeps in when we have to dedicate our precious time to others. 

In 2014, when I wrote the story, there seemed to be a lot of news around relatives having to care for loved ones with Alzheimers and just how taxing that was. It got me thinking that it translated to all kinds of relationships, if you are responsible for another person you are giving up a part of your time, your life. 

How many mothers have time for themselves? 

I deliberately made the character of Ruby very affable and easy going to show that in spite of her being likeable and lovely she still drives Pearl crazy. 

The mother and daughter dynamic is the heart of the book, written to be light hearted with a sideline of mystery.

My hope is that whoever reads it will feel better about themselves afterwards. That's my message and my wish. 

Pearl may seem, to an observer, to be impatient and it's easy to judge her for it but the book is written from her perspective and you can get to know her well.

My heart goes out to young carers. 

Little mites having adult roles thrust upon them while having to navigate school life and growing up with all the added responsibilities and stresses. 

That's why part of each sale is going to them. My plan is that certain dates will give 100% to the charity, while 20% is the norm.

I had only planned to do one book but found I couldn't stop there. My fictional family wouldn't leave me so I wrote book number two. I have now started on book number three and it really will be the last.

I didn't grow up with social media, so having finished book one, Ruby and Pearl, it sat on my laptop for six years. It turns out that writing is the easy part!

As a therapist I have an ability to wholly feel what my clients feel and their emotional make up. I feel it as if it's happening to me, it's how I can understand them and how I can direct the treatment. 

I hope I brought this ability to my writing.

 

The wonderful thing about humans is, we are all the same. We have the same range of emotions, it's just that we are not all experiencing the same ones at the same time. 

Choose to feel good about you.

Freida Daniels - September 2021

Having returned to the UK after 29 years, Freida now lives, with her husband in Buckinghamshire. 

She appreciates the beauty of English countryside, more so, from having lived so long without it.  

Freida enjoys anything esoteric and mystical and worked for many years as an alternative therapist. 

Ruby and Pearl is her first book.

www.freidadaniels.com

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke @cjkasulke @Hodder_Studio @niamh_anderson #SeveralPeopleAreTyping #BookReview

 

Is it still WFH when you're now just binary code?

Whilst working on a spreadsheet for a New York-based PR firm, Gerald has his consciousness uploaded into his company's Slack channel. He posts for help, but his colleagues assume it's an elaborate joke to exploit the new working-from-home policy, and now that Gerald's productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from . . . wherever he says he is.

Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists co-worker Pradeep to care for his body and Slackbot, the service's AI assistant, to help him navigate his new digital reality. But when Slackbot discovers a world (and an empty body) outside the app, will it hijack a ride into the 'real' world?
Meanwhile, Gerald's co-workers are scrambling to stem a company PR catastrophe like no other, their CEO suspects someone is sabotaging his office furniture, and if Gerald gets to work from home all the time, why can't everyone?

Hilarious, irreverent, and wholly original, Several People Are Typing is the perfect remedy for any idle fingers waiting to doomscroll: a satire of both the virtual office and contemporary life, and a perfect antidote to the way we live #now.

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke was published on 9 September 2021 by Hodder Studio. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review. 

This is like no other book that I've ever read! Written entirely as entries in the chat function of the workplace app Slack, it's certainly a quick read. It's also a very clever, extremely funny and at times, quite touching look at how the modern-day office works. 

I work for myself, by myself. I do not have a workplace app, and I do not use chat rooms to talk to my nonexistent colleagues. However, my husband, who works from an office upstairs in our house, does use these things, so I do have some idea of them. I do know that they can be intrusive and annoying, but it also appears that they can be a way that colleagues can support each other. 

Set in a New York PR agency, the team are in crisis. One of their regular clients; a dog food manufacturer, has had a batch of poisoned food and dogs have died.  It is the job of this team to make it go away. 

Gerald is a member of the team and is currently working from home (WFH), but he's actually not fully at home. His body is in his house, but consciousness seems to have been absorbed into the Slack network and he can't get out. Of course, his colleagues assume that this is just a ploy, and that Gerald is just taking advantage of the company working from home policy. After all, it's a pretty incredible claim!

Not all of the characters in this fairly short novel are human. Slack has a #Helpbot, which is exactly that; a bot, yet somehow, this non-living, non-breathing character becomes a central part of the story. 

I really enjoyed this book. It's very odd, it's different and unusual and at times I just wondered what on earth I was reading. However, it's quite compulsive and the reader grows fond of the characters. They are a likeable bunch on the whole and I really wanted to know what was going to become of Gerald. 

I'm not sure that this style will really take off, but I have every admiration for the author's bravery in attempting to tell a story like this.  It's a funny quick read and certainly made a change. 

Calvin Kasulke is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York. A Lambda Literary Fellow, his writing and
reporting have been featured in VICE, Buzzfeed, and Electric Literature.

This is his first book.

Calvin says, ‘I started writing what would become Several People Are Typing shortly after my tenure as a BuzzFeed editorial fellow ended in NYC and I was first coming out as a trans. Having spent a summer as plugged-in to the internet as I’d ever been, my physical transition forced me to reconcile with inhabiting my body in new, sometimes amazing, and sometimes incredibly difficult ways.’

Plus, the co-creator of Big Mouth on Netflix and much loved comic actor Nick Kroll

has chosen Several People Are Typing as his first development project for Netflix

calvinkasulke.com

Twitter @cjkasulke

Instagram @cjkasulke