Well, Little Katie has a great idea. I think it would be great if all the authors took a shot at answering some of same questions. Soooo… I'll volunteer to be next.

In the beginning, I never wanted to be published. I wrote for my own therapy. Then when I did want to get published, I thought only of dead tree versions. My first attempt was something called "Jerry, Gerri, Jerry". I submitted it to "Empathy Press" in Seattle. Mercifully, I never heard from them and that manuscript was lost. Next, I discovered the Internet and Reluctant Press. I submitted "Alan Through the Looking Glass." I must have caught them at a busy time, because 90 days later, they still hadn't responded. In the mean time, I discovered that Microsoft Word, had a "Save as HTML" button. I also discovered that I could find HTML lessons on the net and with a little work, I could produce a rudimentary web site. So, "Patricia's Crossdressing Page, where boys can be girls" was born. It was a vehicle for "Patricia's Story Archive."

I no more then got my page up and running, where I posted eleven stories, including "Alan Through the Looking Glass," and I was informed by email that I was in violation of my contract with Reluctant Press because they had accepted my story and if I didn't take it down immediately I could be liable for the cost of printing my work. So I took down that story and sure enough, that very week, came my check and other perks of being an author. Oh, they change the tittle to "Looking Glass Girl." I guess they were afraid Lewis Carroll would come back from the grave and sue them for the similarity in title. ;o)

The next thing that happened was that Mindy decided to close down Fictionmania and Crystal opened up Storysite.org. It looked like a valiant effort to keep a quality TG-fiction site up. She was asking for authors to post there to make the site viable. So I posted "Lady Bugs Revisited" and discovered that posting to site's like Crystal's was so much easier then maintaining your own site. So now, most of my work is posted at such sites.

Q: Why write Transgender works?

A: I was once told that if you are going to write something; you should write what you know. Being transgendered myself, I know that. Like Katie, I often see myself as my lead character. I know that my writing got much better when some one suggested that I write from the first person. To do that, I have to become that character and it's easy to then tell my readers just what's going on in the mind. Hopefully that makes it easier for them to identify with that character. And like Katie, a lot of my writing is "what should have been" in a perfect TG-world.

Q: Why are most of your stories about children?

A: Most of my stories are of the "Pre-teen" age bracket, or as they are now called, "'Tweens." I choose that age group because it's easy to find reasons for them to do the things they do. They are not encumbered by fatal thinking and guilt of adults. This is especially true, if an adult gives them free rein to experiment with cross-gender living. But mostly, it's because it is at that point in my life where things would have become easier if I had dealt with my transgenderedness then instead of waiting until I was grown, married and had a child for it to reach crisis.

I think that no transgendered person ever felt that it would have been better to wait a few more years before coming to grips with who and what they are. Most of us regret that we denied it and stuffed it until we were really screwed up about it. It would have been better to just deal with it and get on with life at an early age. What better time the in the innocence of youth, before society screws up our thinking?

Q: What about sexual situations?

A: While most crossdressers have a time, especially during the teen years when hormones are raging, when sex and sexual stimulation plays a big part of the experience, I try not to involve sex in my stories because, when writing about minors it's inappropriate. Even when writing about adults, the story isn't the sex, it's the gender. Sex is what's between your legs; gender is what's between your ears. I do try to be realistic about my characters and their sexuality, but I make sex, the sex act, a secondary comment to the story line. In "JAN COMES OUT TO PLAY" I mention that Jon and Alice have sex, but never go into what it was that they did while in the act. In "The CNA" I deal with sexuality, but the couple never gets there. All the rest of my stories don't have any sex in them. Again, my stories aren't about sex, they're about crossdressing.

Q: Your stories never have a dark aspect to them. Doesn't crossdressing have a dark side?

A: The dark side of crossdressing comes from fear of discovery, guilt and shame brought on by fear of rejection and/or actual rejection. If you avoid these, then the dark side never surfaces. In "Tight Money", I touched on that dark side in my explanation of why Rick's dad accepted Sean and Rick in dresses. I prefer that my characters maintain their innocence.

Q: Why are your descriptions so sparse?

A: Unless how a person looks affects the story, their actual looks are best left up to the mind's eye of the reader. This allows them to make the character come alive in their mind. If I describe a character that doesn't fit the imagination of the reader, then the whole story could be thrown off by that incongruity. [Editor's note: I've heard this a lot from writers in recent years. It certainly has some validity but this is not how I was taught to write in the 60's and 70's. :) If you do it differently, you aren't doing it wrong unless it doesn't work. - Erin.]

Q: What is your style of writing then?

A: Writing style? I've never really thought about that before. Woody Guthrie was once asked if he could read music and he replied, "Not enough to hurt my playing." I don't think about my writing style enough to hurt my story telling. But considering it, I guess you could say that I'm a modern day fairy tale writer.

I write the could-have-beens, should-have-beens that make the reader feel good about the story that sometimes has a moral. Mostly I just try to make the reader understand just what the protagonist is feeling and thinking. Another important part of the story is the interaction with other important characters. I much prefer dialog to tell the story rather then narrative. Writing in first person allows me to use the hero's thoughts for the same purpose. (A neat way to disguise narrative.)

Q: What areas do you feel you need to improve?

A: Character development. Especially the secondary characters. Often I get so wrapped up in my main character and can't seem to give the reader any insight as to what's up with the other characters. I think if I could get by this hurdle, my stories would take on an air of realism they lack now.

Q: Where do you get your ideas for a story?

A: A multitude of places. My early stories were mainly fantasies of what I would have like to have had happen in my life. I borrowed from reality and took a different road, one that would have led to my femme personality being developed before I could develop any hang-ups about it. Sometimes I read someone else's story and I see a twist in it that they didn't develop. Or I'll hear something said by a coworker, as in "I Should Have Seen It Coming." Sometimes, it's just a concept. Right now I'm stuck on stories where one youngster is influenced to try crossdressing by another who is a crossdresser or ends up finding out there is another or some variation on that.

Q: Which stories do you enjoy?

A: I like stories that resolve the problems faced by crossdressers. Stories that deal with fear, fear of rejection and discovery, with the conflicting emotions that go along with being a boy who's different. Stories that deal with self-acceptance. Stories that have our hero, and his/her family facing the fact that they are crossdressers and it just is--neither good nor bad. It is important that the conclusion wrap up the loose ends in a way that our hero/heroine is happy with who he/she is and the life that will ensue from that. It's OK to leave them wanting more, but closure is the name of the game.

Q: Is it important to have a happy ending?

A: Well, I did say that I was a writer of modern fairy tales... The aim of my writing is to bring an air of lightness to what is a heavy subject. If you want to be depressed, go on the Internet news sites and do a search on Transgender crime. Read about the crossdresser who got beat up in Texas or murdered in Washington DC. Why should a writer of fantasy write stories that simply personify the news? Sometimes, I do include an educational side to my stories that might help the unenlightened understand that crossdressing simply is.

Q: Which stories do you dislike?

A: Any story that turns the genre into just another vehicle for porn. If a story requires a blow by blow of a romp in the hay to be interesting, then it's not much of story. Sex is a part of life and can be a part of a story, but it shouldn't be the main thing in either.

Q: Do you feel you are a successful author?

A: If I look at the "Storysite Counter System," and can believe what "Bobby Bookworm" form Storysite forwards me, I'd say I'm moderately successful. What's more, I've made nearly $600 as a published writer. However, I don't have the following that the really good writers do. But mostly, I write to please me. In that respect, I'm a huge success. I like my own work, but then, I may be prejudiced. ;o)

Q: What is on the horizon?

A: I have two stories that are nearly complete. "I See London," and "Bored." Both deal with a boy with too much time on his hands. The former is based on the old rhyme often heard on the playground in my youth. "I see London, I see France, I see someone's underpants." Leslie, spying on his neighbor has occasion to quote the rhyme and is challenged by the girl, who claims he's always trying to see up skirts, saying if he is so fascinated with panties he should wear them. Then, she offers him a deal he can't refuse. Our hero takes a bet. A sure thing he thought and of course loses. It wouldn't be a story if he won. The second is about a young man whose best friend gets in trouble for being too rambunctious and ruining his good clothes and is subjected to punishment. Not the usual grounding that doesn't seem to have any effect. On the contrary, he can go anywhere he wants and have friends in, but chooses not to do either. Our hero, driven to desperation because there are no other boys in the neighborhood, discovers the punishment and volunteers to join him just to have someone to play with.