Written by:
Catherine Plato
High school English teacher by day and romance writer by night, C.C. Saint-Clair has been turning on the ladies of her Australian homeland for years with her steamy prose. Saint-Clair’s social realist leanings have earned her work the reputation of “the thinking lesbian woman’s romance.” Born to French parents in Casablanca and educated in Texas, Saint-Clair calls Brisbane home these days. Her most recent novel, Morgan in the Mirror, is the story of a Australian FTM who falls in love midway through his transition. Upon its publication last February, Morgan elicited strong reactions of every sort from readers, and is now in the process of its own transition into a screenplay. Why weren’t my high school teachers ever this cool?
Q&A:
Do your students know that you’re also a lesbian romance novelist?
I’ve been teaching in the same inner-city high school in Brisbane, Australia, for the past 10 years. Chunky boots, six-gauge lobe plugs, spiky salt ’n’ pepper hair and the rather large wrist tattoo of a pink orchid — semiotics that I’ve chosen to attach to myself — keep the rumor mill humming among some groups of students. Although I’ve outed myself to the principal, both as a dyke and as a writer of lesbian romance, the local political climate where I live in the state of Queensland is just not conducive to an outright public disclosure either to parents or to students in regards to what I do after hours. What I deplore the most is that, though we are five or six gays and lesbians on staff, we cannot be actively involved with the welfare of the students who identify as GLBT. I have, however, put my hand up to be a part of the first queer health cell to be set up in our school.
You’ve lived in several different parts of the world, and yet your stories all feature Australian main characters. Was it a conscious decision to focus on the Australian experience?
The Australian experience has been my reality since 1981 and it has led to the conscious decision to spell my novels in Australian-British English, though I was educated in the United States. A flow-on from that was the conscious decision to set the best part of each plot within the city of Brisbane and its surroundings, though the characters are not necessarily Australian, as is the case with Alex, Emilie and Solange, who are French. Having said that, my transcontinental past works beautifully as triggers for my characters’ exotic out-of-the-moment experiences. Most of their flashbacks, dream sequences and unresolved circumstances are set overseas.
Which novel are you most proud of?
I can’t say that I am more or less proud of any particular novel, but I often say that my novels are like so many children and because I have hatched seven in four years, I do feel like a sole parent who needs to be actively involved with all of them, separately and collectively. I do not have a favorite novel, though the most recent, at any given point in time, is the one that requires sustained attention and energy, particularly post-launch. I am very proud of North and Left From Here [TakeII], my first novel. It has set me on the path I am traveling today.
Which of your characters do you identify with most strongly?
A reader once told me that while reading North and Left, there were times when she wanted to shake Alex to make her more proactive in her love pursuits. I can relate to that. There has been many a moment when I should have shaken myself, too, when I was Alex’s age.
How and when did you begin publishing your own books?
I almost gave up on the idea of seeing anything of mine published back in 2001, after the mandatory three-chapter selections were returned, unread, by three of the leading feminist/lesbian publishing houses. … I’m a Leo, so patience is not my forte. I gave myself a choice: either give up the dream or fund my own adventure. I chose the latter and have never looked back. In the process, I have learnt that when you have a dream, regardless of what the maxim says, you have to do a lot more than merely follow it. You have to bust a gut, again and again. You have to go out on many limbs before you can hope to make it happen. Just when I think I might run out of puff and give up, I get a flurry of heart-warming mail or come across posts from total strangers who explain they found such and such a plot too intense to read in one gulp and yet impossible to put down. Or that a plot pushed buttons they weren’t aware they had.
Would you work with a larger publisher in the future, or does the freedom of self-publishing outweigh the benefits?
Technically, I do not self-publish my books. What I do is produce them in collaboration with Book Makers Ink very much like a musician might produce a CD under her own label. I haven’t regretted putting some of my hard-earned cash behind one project after the other, though this path is a lonely one to travel. Editors and reviewers on whom I totally depend for exposure tend to shy away from anything that has not come through the established channels. They do reply very politely that they do not cover self-published works — a blinkered attitude which only reinforces the status quo. How will alternative, quality publishing ever get buzzed if our mind-shapers only walk the same old, dated but familiar path? … I am very much a one-woman band when it comes to marketing my novels on a now spaghetti-thin shoestring budget — my Web site and word of mouth are the only tools I have at my disposal. However, now that the big expenses involved with setting up seven novels are behind me, now that the books are out there and are being read, I can acknowledge the enjoyment of casting characters and circumstances in total creative freedom.
Morgan in the Mirror has caused a bit of controversy among transgendered readers who think that, as a non-trans woman, you don’t have the authority to tell Morgan’s story.
When I introduced Morgan to various TG newsgroups and webmasters, pre-launch, I did cop a few flames … I have also received criticism from disgruntled readers who felt betrayed by moments of intimacy between a “freak who thinks she’s a man and a screwed-up female cop.” To make matters worse for these readers, knowing that the FTM condition is a gendered one, not a sexual one, I chose to have Morgan identify as straight. … Actually, the FTM community, as opposed to the wider TG community, has been extremely supportive. The webmasters behind the FTM International and FTM Australia sites were quick to add Morgan to their bookshelves, and some individuals have referenced it on their personal Web sites, while others post heartwarming testimonials. My absolute favorite feedback to date came from a young FTM who said that, as an intro to the difficult disclosure he had yet to have with his new girlfriend, the day came when he sat her down on the sofa with the book opened at the scene where Morgan discloses to Christen. When the young woman had finished reading and looked up, all he said to her was, “I am like Morgan.”
What are you working on these days?
I have put writing the next novel on hold until the word of mouth spins more widely the titles that are already out there. I need to concentrate on finding more and more promotional pathways, alleyways and avenues. That, and connecting with a producer who will take Maddy and Morgan to the big screen … keeps me tied to my keyboard and out of mischief.
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