Exciting new year!

I’ve finally got some work done on translating my poems to english! We are a group working in Google docs. It is a great experience and I’ve learned more about the english language these past few days than I ever did in one school year.

The last year, I was ill a lot and had so many concerns about non-literary things. Now I finally feel ready to write and let my texts meet the public again. One of the most rewarding experiences of 2012 was a visit to a highschool/college (don’t know what word best describe the Norwegian “videregående”). The students sat spellbound for two hours, listening to my reading and talk. They also asked a lot of questions, about both writing and transgender issues.

I think I need to make the writing and publishing of a new book of poems my priority this year. Although I love the publisher of Frikar and Framandkar, I probably have to look for another one for the third book in this triology. And then there is this more concept-poetry idea that I’ve been working on.

I’m also exploring other art forms; acrylic painting and performance. Poetry is for me more than a form, more like a feeling, a need to express.

All of these exciting things would never be possible without my good friends. Thank you!

Please cry for me, Argentina!

Dear Argentinian Embassy,

I hereby wish to apply for political asylum in Your highly developed country. In my homeland, I belong to a minority who is denied medical treatment and correct papers of identification. I’m an illegal man in the eyes of the Norwegian state. It  is my hope that Argentina will be my new homeland.

Kind regards,

Tarald Stein

(P.S. Unfortunately I can’t afford the plane ticket (I’m an author), but if You could spare a one way ticket Oslo-Buenos Aires, it would be very apreciated!)

Argentina adopts gender identity bill

The Proust Questionnaire for authors

The Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival has interviewed some authors in this way, for example Stuart MacBride, one of my favorite crime fiction writers. No, I’m not invited to the festival, nor will I be able to attend, but I felt like answering the questions anyway.

“The Proust Questionnaire is believed to reveal an individual’s true nature. We have asked 2011 Festival authors 17 questions inspired by the questionnaire in an attempt to uncover who they are…”

Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories By S.S. Van Dine

I’ve seen these rules before and found them again here. I prefer mystery novels that follow them, in addition to my own rules(bold):

In 1936, S.S. Van Dine (author of the Philo Vance mysteries) published an article titled “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.” Obviously, a lot has changed since then — but maybe not as much as we might think. The rules are:

A life on stage

Yesterday I was part of a show at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset/Literatur Haus) here in Oslo. I read a few of my new poems. They are funny and easy to read. The audience was nice and I got more praise afterwords than I’ve ever gotten before. My old poems tend to leave people confused and full of thoughts, and people often don’t know how to respond.  These new ones are different.

Last weekend, as I anounced here on the blog in Norwegian, Peterson Toscano visited Oslo. He is a comedian, actor and performance activist (among other things). As I helped him prepare for the show on Saturday, we talked about being on stage, how things cease to be personal once they become a text or part of a show.

The power of symbols

This picture made me so happy. It really illustrates that there is hope in this world.

Hope

You can read the article about an Australian fight against homophobia and Islamophobia here.

An opening night

Last night I and some friends went to the opening of an art exhibition. The South African artist Nicholas Hlobo’s works can now be seen in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo. I recommend it to everyone!

Love poems in translation

For Valentine’s Day I decided to post a few poems, from my last book, that I’ve translated to English. The translation is not finished and might be flawed. If you’d like to use them; feel free as long as you mention that I’m the author.

Update in English

It is time for an update for my foreign readers. I’ve been bloging a lot lately, in Norwegian mostly. I’ve also finished the draft of my young adult novel and now having a break so I’ll be able to edit it later.

For a long time I didn’t want to blog about sex. But in the last few days I did. I’ve written about what kind of genitals I’d like (small, functional penis with no balls and my cockpit intact), godd reasons to be single and why I’m not in favour of monogamy.

I’ve also written about an ongoing campaign to stop bullying. Bullying is an extreme way of sustaining current norms in society and it can’t be stopped without advocating a more open and diverse society.

I hope to be able to write more original posts in English in the future.

More visual poetry

ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

For all those years

 

Keeping it together

Recommended: “Mute” by Raymond Luczak

This is a beautiful little book of poems, published by A Midsummer Night’s Press. I didn’t expect to be so breath taken by these poems, and that it would provoke such feeling of recognition and new thoughts in me. It is often hard for me to get something out of poems in English, because I often feel that I lack knowledge of the finer tunes of the language. But Raymond Luczak’s poems got through that barrier of language. I want to quote some verses from “Instructions to hearing persons desiring a deaf man”:

How do you know if transitioning is right?

One person I feel a deep connection with, athough I have never met him, is Matt Kailey. His book Just add hormones made a huge impact and I am forever thankful. I missed gay transmale idols and humour, and he filled that gap. On Mondays he posts answers to questions from his readers. There is always a lot of food for thought there, and I really recommend reading his blog. The quotes here are from his post Ask Matt Monday: Is This Enough Reason to Want to Transition?

I subscribe to the philosophy that transition is a necessity, and that if you need to transition, you will, and that if it is right for you, you will know.

I tried for years to define male and female, gender and sex, thinking that I needed to know what these were before I could do anything about how I felt. No one has ever been able to define these concepts in simple ways without excluding several groups of people or their experiences. And neither could I. This made me more and more depressed. When I finally decided to follow my gut feeling instead of my head, I felt extremely relieved.

The irreversible(?) changes of testosterone

The doctors usually have high reservations on prescribing testosterone to transmen. Female hormones do not cause as much irreversible changes as testosterone does.

I had a really hard time getting a prescription for testosterone because of this. Because I was not approved by the Norwegian gender clinic, I would not get testosterone from them either. I was ready to start hormone treatment when I went to the clinic the first time, fall 2006, but knew it would not happen.

My singing voice

I’m going to auditon for a choir on tuesday. So it was time for a reality check. Can I still sing?

I have thought about doing this for some time now and finally got to it. As you can hear, I’m still able to use my “old” female voice, but it’s more limited than it was. I think I still hit the notes and that it doesn’t sound too bad. What do you think?

This christmas, my mother said that my singing voice sounded better than the year before, more relaxed. I feel that way too. Transguys.com has a great article on the trans male singing voice. It suggests that starting on a low dose of testosterone is the best for the voice. That might be the reason I can still sing. I’ve now been on T for 2,5 years, most of the time on half the usual testogel dose. Fall 2010 I started Nebido injections and almost instantly felt all kinds of changes turning up speed.

Madonna and me

Here I would insert the non-existing picture of me and the pop star.

Years ago, before I started my transition, I wrote a blog post in Norwegian with this same title. I had just heard Madonna state that she was a gay man in a woman’s body. I had also heard Annie Lennox statement about being reincarnated in her next life with a penis.

Both these statements by well known musicians made an overwhelming impact on me. At the time I knew I was gay and that my body felt weired, but I had not yet taken any steps to transition. I felt very alone, very depressed. I thought I was the only one feeling this way about gender and sexuality. All the transmen I’d heard of was very masculine and straight.

The decade without a name

Where was I ten years ago?

I was living in a pecieved heterosexual relationship, and had been for the previous 3 years. I was studying creative writing (the first of two years), struggeling to write a novel that nobody liked but me. In between, I wrote short prose. A year ago, I looked at some of what I’d written and thought it was really scary.

Norwegian book publishing business

This text is meant to provide some background information for my Anglo-American readers. It is written from an author’s perspective with focus on poetry. It applies to books written originally in Norwegian.

To be taken seriously… or not?

I’ve recently had some experiences of being taken seriously and listened to in situations where I don’t expect to be. It puzzles me. Is it because my voice is deeper? Or is it a result of finally growing up? It might have something to do with the publication of my second book this year?

Writing like…

Ian Fleming, the father of James Bond!

At least that’s what the automatic analyzer at I write like concluded after analyzing my (so far) only erotic short story in English. I love the result! Erotica is literature with a simple purpose, and thus difficult to write. The language has to be simple and the genre conventions are strict. If my erotica has anything in common with the books about James Bond, I’m very happy.

There is of course the possibility that the outcome was a result of English not being my native language, and that my English really stinks. But I, of course, choose to ignore that possibility.