Ramona
is a thrill-seeking young woman who is about to find out that
being a real life queer bears little resemblance to the lesbians
in the books she's been reading under the covers. Before long
she's on a mission to become the queen of London's A-Dyke scene
via a series of misadventures with a cast of freaks, creeps, lovers
and assorted folks that you would never want to bring home to
meet mother. Part Please Kill Me part Rubyfruit Jungle with a touch of Rent Girl to boot, Cherry is funny and spirited, searing and modern - a topsy-turvy morality tale. It offers a radical, subversive, controversial trip through the grimy underbelly of the rainbow nation.
Read an extract.
How I came to write it
Cherry is my first novel. The commissioning editor at Millivres read and liked some of my zines and asked me if I'd like to write the first novel in a new series they were developing for gay women. I wanted to have a go and see what happened. It was important to me to use my real name on the book because I wanted to write about sex without shame, but I do not consider myself purely a sex writer.
Awards
DIVA magazine readers voted it their favourite read in 2002, naming it Book of the Year, and beating out the competition from Sarah Waters and Sandi Toksvig.
Canada
Cherry highlighted Canada Customs' long-standing problem with censorship, which impacts severely on independent bookshops. You can find out more here: Canada Customs Endorses Fisting. In 2007 I was invited to deliver the keynote at McGill University's LGBT Pride in Montréal to talk about what happened when Canada seized my book.
Press
Read some of the highlights.
Buying copies
Cherry sold out its first print run, though second hand copies are available online.
Email me if you are interested in booking me for a reading or a workshop.
Please get in touch if you are a publisher interested in producing a new edition of this book.
Cherry
Published by: Millivres/Red Hot Diva (2002)
ISBN: 1 873741 73 1