Headfirst Editor's Pick
"Queer reprint publisher Lurid Editions brings Brigid Brophy’s unremembered trailblazing novel of trans, non-binary fiction to Old Market’s refuge for small presses and radical politics. A tour-de-force of undetermined gender, identity and time-zones, In Transit is one of the great erotic detective airport novels."
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A event on Thursday 8th May. The event starts at 19:00.
"It’s easy to forget things when you go to the airport.
Including your sex."
Publisher D-M Withers and author and publisher (Strange Region) Joe Vaughan discuss the republication of Brigid Brophy's *In Transit*. Joe and D-M will discuss the landscape of reprint publishing, and the recent revival of Brophy's legacy, and how *In Transit8 - first published in 1969 - is an early example of trans, non-binary literature.
On *In Transit*:
Brigid Brophy’s revolutionary novel wildly celebrates the instability of sex, language, and gender. At the airport, Pat – an Anglo-Irish character of undetermined gender at the heart of In Transit – is called to a heroic quest. Adrift within the confines of the airport’s physical space and promise of multiple time zones, they undergo a journey of self-discovery.
Supersonic Concordes soar in the skies outside, but inside the airport Pat is uprooted as they savour a trendy cappuccino, walk through magazine stalls, and enjoy operatic melodies in the airline lounge.
They hop on a baggage conveyor which leads to an underground feminist movement, then engage in a lively trivia game show before witnessing the sparks of a socialist revolution. Next, they become a character in an erotic thriller and detective novel, encounter death, and emerge reborn—all while navigating sudden shifts in gender due to the onset of ‘sexual amnesia’.
Irreverent, camp, and hilarious, In Transit is a refusal to solve the puzzle of identity, a playful invitation to embrace undecidability.
“The airport authorities, I remarked from memory, had not yet caught up with the ambiguity of trousers, since the multi-lingual inscriptions which allotted the lavatory doors to the sexes were reinforced by ideograms in the silhouetted shapes of a skirted and trousered figure. But the authorities did not mean, I knew with a twinge, that anyone wearing trousers might enter by the trousers door.”
— In Transit
Bios:
D-M Withers is Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Exeter, and Director at Lurid Editions.
Joe Vaughan is a writer, publisher (Strange Region) and artist based in Bristol, UK.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
Including your sex."
Publisher D-M Withers and author and publisher (Strange Region) Joe Vaughan discuss the republication of Brigid Brophy's *In Transit*. Joe and D-M will discuss the landscape of reprint publishing, and the recent revival of Brophy's legacy, and how *In Transit8 - first published in 1969 - is an early example of trans, non-binary literature.
On *In Transit*:
Brigid Brophy’s revolutionary novel wildly celebrates the instability of sex, language, and gender. At the airport, Pat – an Anglo-Irish character of undetermined gender at the heart of In Transit – is called to a heroic quest. Adrift within the confines of the airport’s physical space and promise of multiple time zones, they undergo a journey of self-discovery.
Supersonic Concordes soar in the skies outside, but inside the airport Pat is uprooted as they savour a trendy cappuccino, walk through magazine stalls, and enjoy operatic melodies in the airline lounge.
They hop on a baggage conveyor which leads to an underground feminist movement, then engage in a lively trivia game show before witnessing the sparks of a socialist revolution. Next, they become a character in an erotic thriller and detective novel, encounter death, and emerge reborn—all while navigating sudden shifts in gender due to the onset of ‘sexual amnesia’.
Irreverent, camp, and hilarious, In Transit is a refusal to solve the puzzle of identity, a playful invitation to embrace undecidability.
“The airport authorities, I remarked from memory, had not yet caught up with the ambiguity of trousers, since the multi-lingual inscriptions which allotted the lavatory doors to the sexes were reinforced by ideograms in the silhouetted shapes of a skirted and trousered figure. But the authorities did not mean, I knew with a twinge, that anyone wearing trousers might enter by the trousers door.”
— In Transit
Bios:
D-M Withers is Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Exeter, and Director at Lurid Editions.
Joe Vaughan is a writer, publisher (Strange Region) and artist based in Bristol, UK.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
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