S5, E12 Libro Levi Bridgeman | Writer editor and lecturer

In this episode, we meet Libro Levi Bridgeman - a non-binary writer, editor, and lecturer based in London, whose work explores gender identity, queer desire, and creative resistance. Trained at E.15 Drama School and holding a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, Libro teaches across institutions including Birkbeck, Guildhall Drama School, and Imperial College London.

Their internationally acclaimed verbatim theatre piece The Butch Monologues has toured globally. Libro’s recent screen work includes Private View (2022), a documentary on queer identity and friendship, and the forthcoming TV project Parker Parker.

As co-founder of Hotpencil Press and a passionate educator — including work in UK prisons — Libro champions inclusive storytelling and contemporary queer narratives.

Episode recorded on 6 August 2025

Websites: librolevi.com | hotpencilpress.co.uk | incisionpress.com
Instagram: @librolevibridgeman | @hotpencilpress

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Podcast email: artiststalespodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.artiststales.net
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Welcome to Artist Tales, the podcast that features and celebrates artists from different walks of life. I'm your host, Heather Martin, and in this episode I'm joined by London-based writer Libro Levi Bridgeman, a non-binary writer, editor, lecturer, and performer. Libro blends the critical inquiry with the rawness of lift experience.

They trained at E 15 drama school and began their artistic life with new writing theater companies. Their commitment to queer storytelling is unwavering. From the deeply personal letter to my little queer self, to the internationally acclaimed the Butch Monologues, a verbatim theater project described as a very tangible vehicle for social change.

Libros voice resonates across film fiction and festival panels. The work exploring gender identity, queer desire. Creative resistance and visibility for those so often are erased. Co-founder of Hot Pencil Press and a featured speaker from Manchester to Melbourne. Libro reminds us that storytelling isn't just art, it's activism.

Welcome, Libro. Thank you. Nice to be here. It's great having you as a guest. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into kind of being the writer, editor, and performer you are today. Yeah, I mean, so it's kind of an an interesting first question really. When I was a kid, I was at, sort of at school, I was a little bit caught between, I wasn't the bright kid, I wasn't the sporty kid.

I wasn't the, I came from a family, I had two older brothers that were, that were quite academically successful. And I, and I kind of was like sort of the one that wasn't kind of achieving at school. And I found a time to sort of find a, a place for me. To fit into. And you know, as you're kind of being brought up, your parents shove you into this class and this class, and they try and get something going for you.

And I stumbled across acting classes at school when I was 12, and I totally, totally fell in love with the idea of being an actor. And just as you cited in your initial introduction, I applied to drama school, left left school. Moved to London, applied to drama school and I got into East 15 and I thought that's what I was gonna do.

I was gonna be an actor. And of course it's, you know, this was back in 1987. So the, in terms of the gender binary being very much in place. Um, you know, if you are not, not the sort of like gonna play the young lead, the young heroine, you're always gonna be the character part cut to the chase. I mean, I did three year training there and cut to the chase I left in 1990 and I had, um, a few jobs with, with performing theater companies and I did some touring East European tours and stuff, but I really hated that feeling of being.

An actor waiting for the phone to ring, and this is back in the day before mobile phones or so, you're literally at home, you're sending out cvs and then you're literally at at home waiting for your landline to ring to see whether you've got an audition or a part. So I kind of got a bit frustrated with that.

So I started to write. I, I didn't really know how I was writing or what I was writing, but I just stepped into that space and I started to develop my own material. So that would've been sort of like the early nineties, and I was doing stuff at the over house theater. In the early nineties and started to do my own solo work and then started to write plays.

And actually, strangely enough, I'm very longstanding friends with Joel Taylor. And Joel Taylor was coming outta the oval house making work and, and, and writing about lived experiences around the same time. So that's how the intersection of sort of performance and writing sort of came about for me. And then the acting fell away because it's hard to just wait by the phone and wait for someone to give you a job.

And people kind of responded to the writing in a really specific way. So I just pushed the writing and I kept on moving through. And in 1997 I got, I applied for some money from what was then called the London Arts Board, and is no longer there. And in 1997, I applied to do a piece of work called Lunatic, which is about running, uh, runaways and missing people.

Joel Taylor was the director of that piece, and I got my first serious funding. I got 15,000 pounds to make that piece of work, and I felt like a millionaire, and Joel and I worked on that piece of work. And then. That for me was the turning point and I sort of stopped looking for acting jobs and I thought, I'm just gonna throw my weight behind writing and see where that takes me.

So I was making, before I was kind of doing like a commission a year, I guess, that sort of from lunatic, I got invited to paints, plow writing workshop. Sarah Kane was leading the workshop. I got picked up by Radio four. So I had a little flurry, and I always say this to. Students that I work with or emerging artists work leads to work.

So I was in pain's, power writing shop, and then I did some radio fore plays and then I carried on for a little while. And then 2002, I thought about. Really thinking about writing as a practice more seriously. And I'd never been taught how to write or to think about writing just on its own terms. And that's when I applied to go to UEA and I got into the creative writing program there and I did an MA in the.

Creative writing there. And just to clarify, UEA, is that the University of East, east Anglia? Yeah. Yeah. East Anglia. So it had a, it has a recognized, still has a very well respected, recognized creative writing program. I'd never done a first degree because I went to drama school, but they, they accepted me because I'd had commissions as a writer.

I was working as a professional writer and, um. It's the first time I ever wrote any academic papers was completely outta my debt. But in the cohort or the, in the writing program that I was part of, and in my class, Naomi Alderman was in my class. And so it felt like at the time it felt like. I, I went there really to, to raise, raise my game, and to just be in a space with other writers.

And they were more or less text based writers, novelists, short story writers. So it's a different, completely different medium for me. But I kind of really en enjoyed being in workshop, developing my own creative practice and. Yeah, it, it just, it, it was pretty challenging having other writers read your work and then feedback to you and you had to sort of deliver 5,000 words.

5,000 words, so you were kind of under the microscope. But I think it was a fantastic experience for me. And then from that MA program that finished in 2003, then. Signed up to the PhD. I don't know why I did that, but anyway, I did that. And would you like to talk a bit about your PhD? Yeah, I suppose I could.

Yeah. I worked with, uh, I worked with, um, I had an amazing supervisor in 2002 to 2003 called Patricia Duner, who's written a number of, uh, novelists, who's written a number of tech, a number of texts, one in particular that I love called James Miranda Barry, which is about a sort of a. Uh, a, a, a masculine presenting surgeon who passed as male.

Actually, Patricia and I had this like, massive connection and she was always very, very supportive of my work. And then I said that the, I think the MA started in September and finished in June, so it's not even a full year. And I said to her, I really feel like my feet haven't touched the ground and I would like maybe to do a PhD, but I didn't have any funding or anything in place.

And at the time I was telling my, my flatmate at the time. They were charging 2,800 pounds for an MA or a PhD just in fees. I mean, now that looks like, you know, ants, but I didn't have any money to do the PhD. And then Patricia sort of front, front loaded my experience and then they were able to actually, the university covered for my fees to do the PhD, so suddenly I was signed up to the PhD and then I, I did a, a critical paper on writing as process.

And then I wrote, I developed a novel in the same time. But I mean, a PhD is a, as anyone would tell you, is an ous ous task, but, and that I completed everything and got the PhD in 2009. So it sounds like quite the journey and, and from the sound. Yeah. It also sounds like quite an adjustment from where, where you were in just, you know, developing writing to a very academic space and having those connections.

The reviews from peers or other, you know, other writers, what's that impact on you? How has that affected you in, in your writing? I mean, I think it's, you know, it's a really interesting question and, you know, if I, I have a son, me and my ex-partner raised my son. My, my son is now 36. I'm not the birth. I raised my son from sort of the age of three and a half and he went through the school system, but actually my ex partner's, French, my son went to the, went and did a baccalaureate, uh, in the French Leese down in London, and he was already doing philosophy at school and he was already engaging with areas of critical thinking.

Like inside the school program before he'd, before doing the baccalaureate. And I think for me, well obviously that's not really taught in the English school system, but for me, I think what the PhD gave me was this chance to explore. And really develop ideas around critical thinking, because initially when I was writing academic papers, my supervisor, just British, British Duner, used to say to me, what are you writing?

That this isn't an academic paper. You're just writing your thoughts and your feelings. So to back up everything with, with, you know, with sort of reading material support, every argument that you've got. So it's a totally, totally new experience for me, and it was an opportunity for me to develop. That side of my brain.

But I just feel that, just looking at my son who did that inside a school program, if we had a different school program inside the uk, young people would be getting into that space much, much earlier on. And it's not, I mean, people say, oh, PhD and this, that, and the other. It is a big ask, but at the same time, academic writing is just a technique and I think people are fearful of it.

And you know, I acknowledge the graft obviously, of it, and I acknowledge the, you know, the sort of dedication you need to have to your creative work, any kind of practice that you're doing a PhD on. But at the same time, I think there's a, there's a sort of a pre, pre-judged fear that you have. Oh, I can't possibly do that.

But actually I found as soon as I got my head around it. As I say, it's just a technique and actually I think what's harder to achieve for certainly for writers. And to keep hold of is this idea of voice and originality of thought and point of attack. And when I teach students in university, that's what I'm trying to get across.

It doesn't matter how academic or intellectual you are, and we know so many writers that don't barely get through a school program and a phenomenal creative writer. It's just about that really. So as a writer. Not to overthink things, but you can certainly step into a space where you are sort of breaking down ideas and looking at concepts, and obviously putting research into it.

But also, if you don't have originality of thought or you don't have a point of attack, you are not gonna produce a PhD. As well. So for me it's, it's more about those components. So it sounds like it's, you know, it has influenced you and certainly given those insights for you. Now, I did mention some of you writing liked the letter to my little Queer Self and the Butch Monologues.

Would you like to talk a little bit more about how those two pieces of work came about? Yeah, I mean, um, I, I run a press called Hot Pencil Press. And I set that up 11 years ago with a longstanding friend of mine and now also a work colleague. So. Sge approached me, SGE, you know, is a trans-masculine activist really, who started something called Trans Fabulous back in the day that people remember with an with enormous fondness.

And he approached me and said, I'm thinking of doing a piece of work, like a stage show. A little bit like the Vagina Monologues, but with a cast of trans-masculine people. But I'm not a writer, so I need to work with her. And I looked at her, so this would've been 20 2009, and I looked at him and I said, that's probably the best thing that anyone's ever said to me.

So we worked together on that and we took into, so it was the first time I worked in areas of verbatim theater, and I really didn't have any experience of that at all. I'd, I'd written about my own life, but I hadn't sort of recorded other people's lives. So we, we did that as a collection. It was called the Trans Manina Monologues.

And then that was our first publication. It came out, is, there is No Word for It, which is about finding language for your body. And Lois Weaver from Split Britches hit company. And an icon in Butch fan theater. Um, worked as a director with us on that piece of work and we performed it at Queen Marion at Soho Theater and there was kind of a, a big response to it and a positive response to it.

And then probably in I think 2010 or 2011, I was, you know, obviously sort of the Facebook top days were kind of with us. And I was going out in the scene and I was working in a club called Bird Club, which was run by Bird, LA Bird, and it was down in Bene Green working in men's club. And this sort of like, in terms of the, with the presentation, I, you know, was turning up to work suited and booted and, and so I was hanging out in particular with other butchers.

During that time and somebody called Aston Martin, who was used to work down at the British Museum, approached me on Facebook and said, I'm interested in, in forming a butch club, a butch members club. Would you like to join? And I'd only ever met them socially or whatever, so I was like, okay, I'll join. I dunno what we are gonna do, but I'll.

So we ended up meeting in a, in a, in an apartment, in their apartment. And then we met, the second time we met, there was six of us originally. And the second time we met, it kind of grew and we were, and we met in, um, Dawson Superstore and everybody was talking. It's the first time I really got intimate, I suppose, with other butchers or masculine presenting people.

And we were talking about the experience you have, you know, going into the toilet and somebody challenging you or. Stuff you might hear in the street or what you wear to work or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I just sat there listening to people's experiences that were very, some of them were very similar to my own and some of them were very different.

And I just, it just came to me and I said, um, maybe I wanna move into a space where I record our stories. Because at the time, in, in 20 10, 20 11, the. The transmasculine space, cultural space was being taken up by people that are transitioned, but the butch voice was kind of lost. And as a butch presenting person, you were considered, potentially considered as trans light if you weren't trans transitioning.

So I kind of said to the people around me, would you be interested in being? And they were kind of like, yeah, whatever. So I started take recordings and then I approached somebody called Julian McMan, who, who's a theater director who had known for a very long time, and I said, I wanna do a piece called the Butch Monologues, and I'm starting to record stories.

They jumped on board. And then Chance, who was Cha Chaska, who was running Diva Magazine at the time, put it forward to the South Bank for a festival called Wow Festival. And we went down there for a meeting and there were already photos of us. The, the, the butch company that I joined was called the Drakes.

And everyone was just, people were taking photos of us and we were all just suited and booted and rocking up to events and. We presented it at to the committee at the South Bank and they accepted it. We went into the rehearsal. I took more interviews, spliced the stories together. We went into a rehearsal room with five butches.

Some of them didn't have stage experience at all. We presented it down at WOW Festival in a small studio space on the sort of in the basement, the blue room, and people buy tickets for WOW Festival and then rock up to whatever events they want to attend. We started doing the piece. And the door was swinging open.

I did the intro, introduction to the show, and then the show kicked off and the door was banging, banging, banging. And I came back and I spoke to one of the ushers. I said, what's going on? Because we had, I don't know, 60 people in the space, and the ushers said to me, I've got 200 people waiting outside trying to get in.

This is the first ever showing. And so we didn't really, didn't realize. I don't know. We were, we were excited by the work. We were proud of the work. We, we didn't realize the cultural impact that it would have. And I turned around to the director and I said, oh, maybe we'll do it for a couple of years. And, you know, we did, we toured that show for 10 years.

We toured it and we went to Belfast with it. We went to New York with it. We went to Australia with it. Everywhere we went, we sold out. And that was it. You know, I was trying, I was trying to sort of engage a younger audience and, and, and ask. Sort of people that were mass presenting to come and talk to me.

And a lot of people at the time said, I don't classify as butch because it has negative connotation. But now the landscape is very, very different. So there's a sort of a celebration of Butch. The first publication we did of the Butch Monologues through Hot Pencil Press, and also vital exposure, collaboration, uh, the first print run we did in 2017.

We sold out three times of a print run. We don't do anything on that activity at all. So the workers in the world, somebody posted it on TikTok a few months back, we got 22,000 likes on TikTok, has enormous cultural traction that we're very, very proud of. And then moving on from the butch model, which, which we didn't know would still have cultural currency now.

Serge and I were, were talking during pandemic, uh, about how we advance the, the press and the, and the publishing company. Everyone was stuck at home. So I said to Serge, why don't we do a letters collection? So this is, you know, in answer to your question, this is how a letter to my little queer self came about because everyone was stuck at home.

We reached out to 29 activists and artists. Some are, some are not sort of like, I don't know, established writers or anything. And we said, you know, everyone's stuck at home. Would you like to consider writing for this project right to your former set? And everybody just jumped on. So we came up with that collection.

We worked, it was the first time we worked with the designers design print bind, and they did a fantastic book for us. Which is the design is really important to us. It's also tiny. We decided to go with a small book that fits into a jacket pocket or a handbag, and that we did, we had to do an online launch 'cause everyone was stuck in home at home.

So that we did in 2021. And again, we just keep on doing more and more print months. So. We've got some incredible writers and artists and activists in that work, and it was the first time that we thought about making collection with diff very distinct, different voices and different tones and different lengths of pieces, and then how you do a story arc for a collection.

So, yeah, and that's uh, uh, both the butch monologues and letters to my little queer self sell constantly in bookshops and online. And, yeah, just hasn't stopped. The appetite hasn't stopped. So it really sounds like it's tapping into, you know, people's experiences or that, you know, giving people an opportunity to kind of perhaps read about themselves or explore that sort of queer culture or potentially who they are as well.

'cause I, I, what I'm thinking of and what struck me from earlier on in the interview or our conversation is your comment about people responding to your writing in a very specific way. Mm. Is this sort of the engagement you're getting, is that sort of what you're referring to? Or has, has the engagement changed over the years?

Yeah, that, I mean, that's interesting. Yeah. I don't know. It is just like, I think as a writer, an editor, or. Somebody that's running their own press. I think for me the key is just to be inside the work like a rock, and you really committed to the work and you really believe in the work, and you really believe in the people that you are working with and you're collaborating with.

I think it's a danger to think about how a readership or an audience might respond. It's not your responsibility how people respond. You can't predict it. You can't, you know, it's kind of slightly. I don't know. You can't manipulate it. You can't patronize it. So I think for me, the sign off is I absolutely believe in this work.

I'm absolutely inside this work like a rock. And you can't do anything about that. And whether people like it or don't like it or shut it down or what, you know, it's kind of, for me, that's the sign off as an artist really. And as an editor and being in communication and in in conversation. People that are delivering their work to us and are trusting us to do that.

And I think Sege and I, we run hot pencil press. You know, people sort of say, well how do you do this? And how do you do that? And how do, and actually we just, we kind of keep the brief quite broad. So we've just produced another collection called Letter to My Little Trans Self, and we don't dictate or prescribe.

Some people would like to write. A very traditional letter to their former selves. Other people might come in with a poem or haiku or something like quite esoteric, and we don't ever prescribe what people should do. We, we have a cutoff for a word count. Sometimes people we've worked with, we did a launch at the ICA last Wednesday actually, and one of Bambi.

Jordan Phillips worked with us and Bambi's really from a a, a sort of a, a, a club scene and a voguing practice. Very, very well, very well respected, and a dancer, very well respected. And when Bambi came up to take the microphone, she said, I don't feel like a writer. And I feel self-conscious to, because we had, you know, other sort of recognized writers like Juliette Jakes.

Lauren J. Joseph Sa Childry, Gareth Gavin, Dean Mortimer, Eva Echo. We had some sort of like very established kind of writing voices on stage, but actually afterwards, Bambi said, you know, I feel now I should do more writing. I want to do more writing. And I think for us it's always. You know, to reach out to people, to be part of the experience and we're not going to sort of be elitist about who gets to do what, or we're only gonna work with people that are, you know, five or 10 years inside their, their writing practice.

So I think in terms of that, you get a different readership as well, and you invite people, people. I've worked for, I've worked in five UK prisons teaching creative writing, so I've worked with a body of people who don't believe that, you know, maybe their stories are anything. Maybe they can write anything.

Maybe they've got anything of value to put down on a page. And I think those kind of voices sometimes. That's the key. And you can unlock a key or the key that can unlock a door. And I think for us it's always to go back to what we're trying to produce and our sign off is on that. So whoever reads it, whatever experiences or whatever I think you are, I think you kind of can't quite predict what an audience can do.

And I certainly did. The butch model in particular, I certainly didn't ever envisage the, the social impact of that. Really. It changed my, you know, it changed my life. What I'm hearing though is you seem to be capturing kind of authenticity or authentic voice. Perhaps people who are not polished, you know, who are not, you know, who write from a real authentic or unpolished sort of way, or, you know, don't have the veneer of, they've done hundreds or thousands of interviews, or they've written hundreds of thousands of things.

And also what you're also just, you know, touching on with, with your publications are voices, as I've mentioned in in my introduction, that are. Not visible or have been erased, you know? And there just is such appetite to feel seen and heard, and I'm wondering if it's a combination of all those things that kind of draws people in and engage with the work.

Yeah, I think it's a really good point and I think that's a sort of feels like a cultural positioning as well. I was recently in, I've just got back from Dublin with a. Within a, a, a stop motion film. I wrote a piece. I'm a, I'm a grandparent and I wrote a, I wrote a poem from my grandson who's, who's based in France with my son and, and, and his partner.

And I also just recently have a granddaughter as well. So my grandson's three and a half and my granddaughter's about three months old. I wrote a poem about trying to explain to a, to a young person that I'm not a grandmother and I'm not a grandfather. I'm a non-binary grandparent, and how does that look and feel?

And I think for me, always it's about, yeah, I mean, it's a good point about making the invisible visible or being conduit for those stories. But when I was out in Dublin, I met somebody who, her name's Anna Nolan, and she works in a TV company based in Dublin. And I think we were talking about the sort of lived experience.

So I guess that, I guess Anna's sort of similar age to me. I'm 58, so I think she's 55 or whatever. And it feels like that's a kind of a cultural movement as well for people to own their own stories. Own their own experiences, own their own neurodiversity. And it feels like for us, from our generation, that wasn't really the case.

I think there was a lot of, only certain people can tell their own stories. What is, like what that's kind of pale, male, stale. So if you're cis, you know, cis normative, heterosexual white, middle class, you know, you can tell yourself, but nobody else has got the right to do that. But I think tv, even though people kind of like have a.

Complicated relationship with reality TV shows. I think what that has done is changed the landscape in terms of people stepping up and saying, I have Tourettes, I'm autistic. I'm on this show. So it feels like that feels like quite a contemporary area of discussion or unpacking our own lives. And I think from people from my generation, that feels quite refreshing and new.

Certainly back in the day, I don't think people would've owned their own lived experiences in the same way that they do now. So there's kind of agency in that that there wasn't in certainly, you know, I was a kid growing up in the seventies and it's like you weren't, you weren't kind of. If you had, I don't know, say you were dyslexic or there would be shame around that and people wouldn't be vocal about that, but that's, that's a shift, that's a cultural shift.

So in terms of your point, people not being visible and people who become visible, I think that feels energetically, that feels like a contemporary conversation that's happening now, and I think people of my generation can totally tap into that space and say, actually, I think that's really healthy and that feels progressive as well.

Yeah, and I'm mindful that, you know, we're really starting, and I, I'm debating whether to use the word starting, but you know, there are more conversations around neurodiversity or Tourettes or you know, gender and sexuality, but I'm conscious that with those conversations. The kind of, you know, backlash or pushback from, from people you know, being woke or, or whatever, you know, terms they want to use to push back on that.

So, I mean, how does that feel for you? Or how do you think your work kind of sits within a contemporary conversation where, yeah, we're starting to talk about things more, but also that kind of pushback? Hmm. On those conversations. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, look at the, look at the political climate.

Trump Kier, you know, the role I lived through Section 28 plus 28, section 28 in this country, and now there's gonna be, you are gonna be, you're not allowed to promote homosexuality in schools as of 2026. So that's what Kier was putting on the, putting on the table who's, you know, what's more offensive to us or more triggering for us.

That's a labor politician. We lived through Margaret Thatcher. You know, obviously he was a conservative, so it feels like things are being rolled back and it feels like very vigilant, you know, aggressive times. And this idea, you used the word woke. You know, this idea that things have gone too far and we need to dial it back.

You know, I think I'm mindful of that and I think there is a, there is a dialogue around that. And you know, I mentioned my age, I'm, I'm sort of like more concerned about people that are teenagers or in their early twenties. You've only experienced a landscape of permission and now that's being removed and how problematic that can feel.

Kate Bornstein wrote on Facebook and I dunno how long ago it was, maybe six, eight months ago, and said, you know, we've been here before. Obviously Kate Bornstein is based in New York. We've been here before. We feel that everything's been taken away from us, but actually we've gone 10 steps forward and now things are being removed and maybe we're going six steps back, but we're still four steps forward.

So I think it's about feeling like a sort of a, sort of a bandwidth within it and feeling that things are flexible even though. You know, trans healthcare is being removed, puberty blockers are being removed. We, we understand that we're under attack and there are things that are not going to be possible anymore in the way that they were possible.

But within that, I just take, I don't know, I take a lot of. I dunno. A lot of comfort, I guess, and a lot of inspiration from the fact that the community is coming together and galvanizing. I went on the, the first march that was happening, just post the Supreme Court ruling that came through and that fell over the Easter weekend.

And I think the police were expecting 200 people to turn up. Uh, and there were 20,000 people that turned up to that, and people canceled Easter weekend in order to get trains to come into London. I won in the Trans Pride March in London. Just this, um, just Saturday before, what was it, Saturday, the, was it the 26th?

A hundred thousand people there. So the community's very strong and very, very powerful, and you know, somebody's always gonna say something about something, oh, you're too woke, or You're too this, or you're too that. Well, we get it. It doesn't really matter what anybody says to you. I guess it's the fact that gender's out of the box, as you say, kind of language is out of the box in terms of people expressing and owning who they might be.

Working with a student population, I now might kind of ask people to come up in the first break, come up and, and describe to me if they feel comfortable about what their neurodiversity might be. Before, out of, you know, out of a class of 20, I might get three people come up and say, this is who I am. And now you get half a class come up, you get eight to 10 people come up, explain their personal situation.

So for me it feels, you know, I think it's. It's really incredible that young people are, are feeling confident in that and actually acknowledging who they might be and how that, how that serves them in terms of their passage through the world. And certainly, you know, being in the ra being raised or growing up in the seventies, you just, you didn't have access to the language at all.

And just for clarification and and background for listeners, the Supreme Court judgment you referenced is in the uk is to do with how women or genders defined, or women as gender is defined. And that's based on a very narrow definition of biological. So just for clarity for listeners. But just listening to your, to you speaking, I, I'm also hearing or also thinking actually, it makes your work even more relevant or very relevant even in today's world.

You know, I'm sure it would've been relevant even in the seventies, but it's even now very relevant and giving people language and, and access to, actually, I'm not alone. I think it's, yeah. You know, when, when we did our present collection letter to my little trans self, we, you know, we wanted to work exclusively with the trans and non-binary community and we reached out to, to, to approach 30 activists and artists and writers, and they started writing their letters and we kind of assembled the collection and we finished assembling the collection probably sort of September, October last year.

We didn't know how the landscape was gonna change. We didn't know the Supreme Court ruling was coming in and, but just, you know, people wrote in the spirit of the thing and obviously the spirit of the time with which they were approached. And then it's just, you know, just we did the launch at the ICA and one of the questions I asked the people on stage, it's like, how would your letters have been different if we'd approach you now?

So, you know, we, we are sort of constantly in flux, but I think, yeah, I think, I think language is important and I think trying to kind of articulate the lived experience, and that's a, that's a point that you've been constantly referring to during this interview. I think trying to capture the lived experience is also important.

And sometimes finding a language for all that, or finding a tone for that is the artist's struggle. And I think then if you, you know, you don't know, like for us, we've, we've taken down these stories. We've got a new collection. We're selling it in indie bookshops, we're selling it online. It's been available for about six weeks.

We've already sold out half our print run. You know, I just think it, there's an enormous appetite now. The read, I'm really sort of cheered by the fact that people are committing to the reading experience as opposed to sitting on YouTube or sitting, you know what I mean? People actually, you know, it's important for a lot of people.

I read a lot of stuff on Kindle, but a lot of people want a book in their hand, you know? So I think that also. Yeah, quite moving for me. And you don't know, you just put some work out in the world that you believe in and it might resonate with a few people, or it might be exciting or dynamic or powerful.

But as I said before, I think if you start a collection thinking about, or starting a piece of work, thinking about that, you're kind of, you probably won't achieve I, I think you probably wanna achieve it. Now. My last question is, what's next? You know, do you have an idea of where your career might go? Nice.

I mean, you know, as every artist you kind of think you've got sort of irons in the fire, have a TV script sort of hanging out there in TV land. So we'll see what happens to that. And that's about a queer family. It's a queer family road movie. So I'm trying to get that out into the world. And then I just took, you know, it always for me, and we've kind of discussed like the different.

I dunno, intersections of my practice and different way things have taken me more, more recently, I've been committing to writing poetry. Don't really consider myself a poet. And I had a, uh, uh, I submitted a piece of work. I had a hip replacement in 2020. I had osteoarthritis and was in a lot of pain and, um, I had a hip replacement in 2020.

So I wrote about my experience of having osteoarthritis for, it was a call out, a general call out by, it was called the, the anthology is called Ible. And it was set up by two editors and they had sort of a mentorship under 14 poems. And I put in, they were looking for queer crip, kind of erotic poetry.

And I wrote a piece of work and I just sent it in. So that's just been produced and is out in the world. It kind of like we did a presentation at ESOP down in soho for Pride. They do a kind of free. They take over the, they take, they take all the products out the shop and they put books in the shop and we all did, there's four of us.

They wanted to sort of highlight the trans and non-binary writers this year. So the four of us took stools and we, and we did the reading and, and I did a sort of a, a small kind of intro at the beginning, and I said, I don't really consider myself a poet, but I've started to work with language and material in short form like this.

And afterwards the editor said, we really didn't know that when we read your stuff. So I'm just stepping into a space of looking around, looking at anthologies that I can, you know, maybe get my work into. And that feels quite empowering because it's a short form, which I love. But the discipline is absolutely there.

And again, you know, as we've discussed tonight. This feeling of the lived experience and language and it feels you could get out a, you know, a sort of a rapid fire of I ideas in a short form that can have a lot of impact as well. So I'm kind of excited about that and I just want to keep applying for anthologies, get the work in the world and see how that builds.

It sounds like you have a number of irons in the fire, so to speak. I'd like to thank you. It's been wonderful speaking with you, and I wish you all the best in in your future projects. Thank you. Thank you, Heather. It's been great actually, to chat tonight. Sorry the camera's not been working, but I've been delighted to see your face.

It's made it easier for me to speak, but no, it's been a great opportunity. Thank you for, for Thank you for the offer and the invite. Not a problem, and thanks for being on the podcast. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks for tuning into my conversation with Libro. What a powerful way to close this series. I hope there are reflections on queer storytelling, creative resistance, and the art of listening left.

You inspired If this episode spoke to you, be sure to explore Libra’s work through the links in the show notes, and if artist tales became part of you creative journey, help us keep the momentum going. Share the podcast with your friends, you community, or anyone who finds meaning in the stories behind art.

This series may be wrapping up, but the journey continues. I'm already looking forward to bringing you more voices, more visions, and more artistic tales in the next series. Until then, stay curious, keep creating, and let your story echo in the world around you.