Avast! Pirate Stories from Transgender Authors is a thrilling anthology of pirate tales edited by MICHAEL EARP and ALISON EVANS.
Read on for an extract…
ABOUT THE BOOK
Get ready to set sail with a crew of rebels and misfits in this thrilling anthology of pirate tales. From CD burners to space pirates with an otherworldly crew, these stories blur the lines between criminal and separatist, playful and heartfelt and showcase a range of unique characters and found families. Featuring seven long-form pieces of writing, including a graphic novella and a verse novella, this collection has been edited by and features trans and non-binary writers, ensuring a fresh and diverse perspective on the pirate genre. So come aboard and discover a world of queer pirates, exhilarating escapades and homebrewed ale.
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The Underside Of A Boat Is The Part That Touches Water
Madison Godfrey
Prologue
There are moments of the ocean that no body and no boat have ever touched. No crevice of my sex tastes like honey, or smells like flowers. When I call myself yours, it is a beast I unleash in a locked room. When I call myself mine, it is a mirror tied to a flotation device. All my friends are sequins who fall from wetsuits before the end of the night. We are all assigned land-dweller at birth, until we return to the water that coats the inside of our bodies. The ocean doesn’t care what your certificate says. Come back.
ACT ONE: THE UNDERSIDE
Ann
The email sunk into the depths of my junk mail,
where I let it stay, unread and unconsidered.
The title, LEAD ACTOR OPPORTUNITY: PAID
was improbable bait. There were not many fishes
left in this ocean. My acting career was barely
pescatarian at this rate. Even my IMDb page:
embarrassing. Less resume, more request
for creative resuscitation. At family gatherings
when everyone mentioned the adverts, asked me
to repeat slogans, I ’d giggle without baring
my teeth. Reply,
You’ll have to pay me for that.
Yet with rental markets so hungry, I don’t know
what I would’ve done, if an overenthusiastic uncle
slipped a laminated note into my palm. I probably
would’ve performed, as usual.
When I eventually opened LEAD ACTOR
OPPORTUNITY: PAID, I was dizzy
with sleeplessness, in a bed shared with a cat
I was allergic to: a cat who didn’t pay rent.
My itchy eyes opened like outstretched hands.
Paid role. Romantic lead. Pirate movie.
On-set accommodation included.
On board. On boat. Sea sick. Ginger
capsule? Dietary requests? Can you
swim? Can you tread water? Can you
come? Script attached. I responded
YES without remembering the word’s inverse.
Fish don’t consider saying no
when water tells them to swim.
Belly
You want me to hold a camera, on a boat?
Not just for a day, for a month?
High tech equipment, bundled up
below deck, surrounded by sea?
Not just for a day, for a month
you want me afloat and filming scenes,
shooting a deck surrounded by sea
for some cliché pirate romance movie?
You want me afloat and filming scenes
where a bad boy seduces a woman’s bare ankles?
Some cliché pirate romance movie, where
the plot is more predictable than the tide?
Boy, this seduces me like a bad idea. A barely
practical practice. Yet you say it’s properly paid?
Being tied to this life is an unpredictable plot,
surfing couches when I could be surfing a moment.
Practically speaking, you say you’ll properly pay
a babysitter of high-tech equipment, bundled up.
Okay. I’ll stop surfing couches to capture a moment.
On a boat, with a camera, I’ll hold –
Ann
It’s all research.
The popcorn in my lap: salt.
The languid bath: swimming.
The film on the screen: a premonition.
The blurry distance between my hand
and the stem of my wine glass: sea sickness.
Haven’t you read about method acting?
You play the part until the part plays you.
And yes, watching again tonight –
I did once harbour a longing for Orlando.
Wanted to be a curl blooming in his hair
just so he ’d brush his hands through me.
But also, have you seen Keira Knightley?
Notice the way her loose strands
can hardly resist the gasping
grasp of a sea’s breeze.
ACT TWO: OF A BOAT
Of A Boat
A pirate hat balances on a suitcase bursting with costumes.
Crates of equipment heaved by men wearing black jeans
and black shirts. A man with a red megaphone attached
to his lips. Another, smoking against the boat, smirking.
Men acting as if more important than they were this morning,
when they woke wearing sheets like silk nightgowns.
When they pushed themselves so close to their lovers
that they became, for a moment, their lovers.
Somewhere between the boxes and the boat ramp,
a woman politely declines the arms of men who
offer to carry her suitcase. She doesn’t want them to
know how heavy her survival feels when neatly folded.
Somewhere between the seagulls and the sailors,
a person approaches. Stops. Stares. Disobedient curls cascade
over their freshly shaven nape. Sighs. Shoves their hands into
baggy corduroy pockets. Shakes their head as if in disbelief.
Bodies are loaded like cargo. The megaphone, now an appendage
itself, announces sleepless arrangements. There is a room
for the woman and the person, who the megaphone collectively
terms our ladies of leisure. Both flinch at this phrase.
As the wooden sailing ship is untied from the soundness of shore,
a man who is boringly handsome, stands waving, as if
he is a soldier returning home in a war documentary.
The suitcase by his feet reads JOSH in permanent marker.
The person with baggy pockets wanders
rehearsing jargon in their mind.
Bow, stern, port, starboard. They make up riddles
to remember: we drink port with our left
hand while at sea. My lower back is stern
and stiff. Parents put bows on the front of their baby’s foreheads.
Bow. Stern. Port –
The person glances right for another riddle,
and there she is: standing starboard.
Ann
The film script keeps instructing she sighs every few lines.
I find myself sighing in frustration, instead of whimsy.
He wants me in a flimsy white dress that clutches my hips
but not my stomach. They packed me a suitcase of corsets
yet no sewing kit. As if damsel waists are one-size-fits-all.
Meanwhile Josh, the fictive pirate of my heart, has forgotten
acting is also re-acting. When I speak my lines he is already
imagining the moment when his mouth opens. None of Josh’s
directions instruct he flutters eyelashes or sighs with sincerity.
Lately I feel like I’m a spare tyre
riding in the car boot of my own story.
Josh
Yeah nice one sweetheart.
You look good standing there.
So Annie, wanna go for a swim later?
No bathers allowed. They’re
banned on this side of the equator.
Ha.
Just joshing.
You know my name
is actually Josh?
Ha.
I’m always joshing,
ain’t that right, babe?
You look cold – here,
let me help. Your skin is so
icy, do you eat enough
red meat? I could feed
you some meat, if you
know what I mean.
Ha.
You excited for the scene
where we pash? I would’ve
suggested a script edit,
something bust worthy.
You know babe, blockbuster
worthy, if they told
me what you –
Belly, what?
Where do you want me?
Over there? Right on
the edge? Come on, Belly
I can barely see her
from the bow.
How will Annie
hear me
deliver my lines?
Ann
I have felt alone on land. Yet to be alone
out here, serves a silence
so silent, that I suddenly miss
the microwave beep
of an empty kitchen.
Belly
Well, back home
I spend a lot of time
staring at security cameras.
Live footage, terrible quality, taken
from an angle where you can’t
see the emotions on shoppers’
faces, so you have to decipher
their states of mind from
which crisp flavour they choose.
Not many kids dream of growing
up and working at a deli, but I like
the routine of stocking shelves.
I like the smell of empty cardboard boxes.
I like the way you can tell yourself stories,
each scanned beep a plot point
in the evening I’m imagining
for this customer.
Does that make sense?
I make films the same way: clutch
each individual piece before I position it.
The pre-written scene waits before me
like an empty cardboard box, it’s my job
to decipher then decide how all these shots
are going to tesselate together, topsy turvy
isolated moments into a movie
that feels like a memory.
Even when it’s a movie about pirates
falling in love. No offence.
Working alone at the deli means I can scrawl
whatever I want on my name tag. Sometimes
I play pretend with people I could be.
Characters, I guess you ’d call them.
Most often, I just stick to my nickname: Belly.
On my first film set, there were two Belles,
to differentiate they used my full name, Belle Lee.
Soon Belle Lee became Belly. It stuck
to me ever since. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
For a person built of intuition to be named
after the hometown of gut feelings.
…
How about you? What do you usually do
when you’re not playing a pirate’s love interest?
Ann
Most of my money comes from grasping cheap
objects as if they are expensive. The flinch
fills my fridge. I’ve spent a lifetime
learning how to command desire.
Desire is a dog I trained to shake my hand,
even though he showed me his teeth first.
I know what you mean, about making a movie
feel like a memory.
Sometimes I feel that exact way, when we’re
shooting and you’re on me. Your gaze doesn’t reach
through, like some camera-people do, but you’re looking
at a version of me that doesn’t exist yet, a future actress
standing on that deck. It’s as though you perceive
the possibility of me.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Michael Earp is a non-binary writer living in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia), the editor of Everything Under The Moon: Fairy tales in a queerer light, Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories and co-editor of Avast! Pirate Stories from Transgender Authors with Alison Evans. With a teaching degree and a Masters in Children’s Literature, they have worked between bookselling and publishing for 20 years as a children’s literature specialist. Managing The Little Bookroom saw them named ABA Bookseller of the Year in 2021. Their writing has also appeared in Archer, The Age, PopMatters, The Victorian Writer, Aurealis and Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories.
Alison Evans is the award-winning author of the YA novels Euphoria Kids, Highway Bodies and Ida. Their shorter work has been in the #LoveOzYA anthologies Hometown Haunts and Kindred. They work as a children’s specialist bookseller and live on unceded Wurundjeri Land.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Alexander Te Pohe is a Māori trans man living on Whadjuk Noongar Land. His prose and poetry can be found in the collections Australian Poetry Anthology (Volume 9, 2021-2022) and To Hold The Clouds (2020, Centre For Stories), as well as publications such as Djed Press, Portside Review, and Strange Horizons.
Follow Alexander Te Poher on Instagram
Mx Maddison Stoff (she/her) is a neurodivergent, non-binary essayist, independent musician, and author from Melbourne, Australia. She writes unapologetically leftist, feminist and queer fiction set in a continuous universe that blurs the line between experimental literature and pulp sci-fi. Her work has also appeared in Aurealis, Overland, and Andromeda Spaceways.
Visit Mx Maddison Stoff’s website
Madison Godfrey is a writer, editor, educator, and the author of two poetry collections. Their writing is Madison Godfrey is a writer, editor, educator and the author of two poetry collections. Their writing is described as sensual and often funny by The Guardian and ‘fiercely punk and undeniably powerful’ by ArtsHub. Madison’s recent book, Dress Rehearsals (Allen & Unwin, JOAN), was listed as one of the most anticipated releases of 2023 by Refinery29, RUSSH Magazine, and Sydney Morning Herald. Madison has performed poetry at the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral and Glastonbury Festival. In 2019, Madison was awarded a Western Australian Youth Award for their ‘Creative Contributions’ to the state. After achieving their PhD in late 2023, Madison became Dr Madison Godfrey, and continues to teach creative writing and cultural studies at a local university. Currently, they live on Whadjuk Noongar land, with a rescue cat named Sylvia.
Visit Madison Godfrey’s website
Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi AKA Vika Mana is pretty hilarious and laughs too much, so much that her Black/Indigenous and Pasifika ancestors are probably tired of her. Luckily, she alternates burdening the two sides of her ancestry who are from Mer (Murray) Island, from the Zagareb and Dauareb tribes and Tonga, from the village Fahefa. She loves talking about all things nerdy, as well as decolonising spaces online and in real life. She is a sovereign storyteller that writes, creates, films and records their stories to share with the world. She’s been published in Fire Front (UQP), The Spinoff, Overland and so many other places. They hope to one day direct and film a documentary of their home on Mer. If she’s upset any of her ancestors whilst making this bio, she’s sorry.
Visit Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi’s website
Mia Nie is a Chinese-Australian comic artist, essayist, illustrator, zine-maker and award-nominated ex-poet living on unceded Wurundjeri country. In 2020, she was a recipient of the Wheeler Centre’s The Next Chapter award, and her comics have been nominated for the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Awards. She is currently Creative Producer at Express Media, and is working on her self-published serial webcomic, SAMSARA DREAMIN’.
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