Dear Big Issue team,
I’d like to pitch an opinion piece for The Big Issue:
Queer writers shouldn’t have to be tragic to count
Pride Month gives queer stories a burst of visibility, but too often the stories that get treated as important are the ones built around pain, rejection, survival and explanation.
Those stories matter. I’m not arguing against them. But there’s something limiting about a culture that mainly makes room for queer writers when we’re useful, wounded, educational, or ready to turn ourselves into evidence.
I’m a gay novelist whose new romantic comedy, Lisa Doyle Is Absolutely Fine, is published on 18 June. It’s a Manchester-set novel about a woman who invents a fiancé called Brian after too much wine, then has to deal with the fallout when her imaginary fiancé shares a name with her very real, very married boss.
It isn’t a coming-out novel. It isn’t trauma-led. It isn’t asking to be praised for suffering. That feels like the point.
The piece would argue that queer writers belong in mainstream culture too, writing comedy, romance, bad decisions, fake engagements, office politics, difficult families and complicated happy endings. Pride should not only make space for stories that explain queer lives to everyone else. It should also make space for pleasure, silliness, desire, ambition and ordinary human mess.
Growing up gay, I learned to read myself into stories that weren’t written for me. Straight romantic comedies, women’s fiction, friendship dramas, family rows, doomed crushes, people pretending to be fine when they absolutely weren’t. Now I write from that angle: not outside those stories, but looking at them slightly sideways.
I can write 700–900 words quickly and supply the finished piece in the body of an email, along with an author photo, cover image and preorder link.
Confirmed coverage and appearances around the book include BookBrunch, QX, The Bookseller, Writing.ie, Book DNA, PinkNews, Queer the Streets Festival and Hertford Literary Festival.
Best wishes,
Mo Fanning
07881 925376
mofanning.co.uk