‘Between 2001 and 2002,’ explains Roberts, ‘Libertas [the women’s bookshop in York that Roberts opened], and the Lesbian Arts Festival dominated an already busy life. As a consequence my writing time suffered and I couldn't finish Dead Reckoning properly until after I had passed on Libertas and the festival to other people last year.’

Roberts makes no secret of the fact that she was born a man and is now, very happily, a woman. Dead Reckoning is Roberts’ first novel to make transgender issues its core. ‘Actually,’ Roberts says, ‘I hate the term transgender as it lumps a whole range of very dissimilar people under one label. I identify primarily as a dyke but openly admit to being transsexual. I try and pick what might be described as a different alternative lifestyle for each of my books. In Needle Point it was squatting and squatting politics, in Breaking Point it was animal rights. When I came to start Dead Reckoning I wanted to pay some sort of homage to the city and the lgbt community that helped me so much - so I chose the gay village and Greater Manchester as the backdrop - and the secrecy and difficulties faced by two of the local cross-dressers became the basis for the plot. There is no reason why I waited until the third book. I simply didn't think of the plot until then!’

Roberts doesn’t think there’s much of herself in her heroine, Cameron McGill: ‘I hope that I share Cameron's ethical approach to life but I'm pretty sure I fall short. She's much younger than me, better looking and much more courageous/brave/foolhardy than I am. And while I admire many of
her qualities, she remains at heart quite a traumatised, vulnerable and unhappy character - though someone I like enormously.

’ How does writing short stories compare to novels? ‘I prefer novels any day,’ Roberts says. ‘Short stories are only one step up from poetry for me. The story and the language has to be kept very tight, and, though they can be written in a day or two, there is little scope for description, plot or background colour. I hope to write more short stories but I will always prefer the broad canvas of a novel.

‘I wanted to write all my life but I was too occupied with family and work and too confused about my gender to focus properly. I wrote Needle Point in the year after I came out as a dyke and it was really in response to reading a mountain of women's studies books, lesbian crime and women's fiction. I had no job so, for the first time in my life, I had the time to sit down every day and make myself do it.

‘I always tell aspirant authors that they shouldn't imagine that there is anything wrong when they find that they can't just sit down and knock off a masterpiece. Nearly every published writer I know will tell you that writing is very hard. It's mostly about effort rather than inspiration. The important thing is to reserve time, to discipline yourself to write in that time (whether you feel like it or not), to get something down on paper (however bad - and that means the whole story not just one chapter) and then rewrite, rearrange, change, edit and polish until you get something that works. Even then you must be prepared to consider changing it when an editor asks you to. And you must be prepared all the time for rejection. Only the truly determined make it through to a published book, but it is definitely worth the effort!’

Roberts isn’t sure whether she agrees that lesbian detective fiction is a genre on the rise, though: ‘I used to agree with that, but recently there has been such a decline in lesbian publishing in this country that, sadly, I don't think it is any longer the case. With the ending (for the moment anyway) of Diva Books and the closure of Women's Press a few years ago, Britain is left with only one very small lesbian publisher. At the same time, the bigger publishers are often demanding projected sales of around 30,000 books before they will consider an author. A novel perceived as “too lesbian” won't even get a look-in. Dead Reckoning aside, all the current new lesbian crime books seem to be coming from the States - and even then they are few and far between. The readers are still out there but we need more publishers and we need more crime writers.’

How has life changed - and, more to the point, how has Roberts changed - since she underwent her sex-change operation? ‘I don't think that I've changed at all inside of myself as I have always felt like the person I am now. I spent 50 years pretending to be a man, being treated as a man, being excluded from women's company in the way that men are, hating straight sex and penetration and putting up with a body that I despised. Changing to the real me and identifying as lesbian after the operation was a coming-home which has broadened my horizons and given me the ability to live my life to the full. I think I've probably changed much more since I met my partner Ann. Being loved is a wonderful thing and I'm more content now than any other time in my life.’

But have things changed over the last few years? Does having media-friendly trans people like Nadia from last year's Big Brother help? ‘Happily,’ she says, ‘difference as a whole is becoming widely accepted and trans people are no exception. As in the caes of lesbians and gay men, the EU has been very helpful in pushing the UK government into bringing forward anti-discrimination laws. Since May I've been legally female and have a birth certificate in the name of Jenny Roberts to prove it and, thanks to the Civil Partnership Act, Ann and I can, at last, get legally hitched (as lesbians of course) around the end of this year. ‘I think that all high-profile people play some kind of a part whether we take to them or not. I admired what I saw of Nadia but since I can't stand the show, I wasn't exposed to her very much. In the end I believe that 'normalisation' of hitherto taboo lifestyles comes from people's contact with positive images. We all play a part in that and we can all help to change the prejudice that remains.’

Roberts is currently working on a spy novel, Deep Indigo, featuring another strong woman: ‘Jamie Driscoll, an ex-Army Intelligence and at some odds with the spymasters of MI5. It is still in the very early stages and, if accepted, because of the pondorous ways of publishing is unlikely to reach publication until 2007. Early next year I hope to begin the fourth Cameron McGill book which will carry on from the end of Dead Reckoning and will probably be set in Rotterdam. Apart from that Ann and I are enjoying gardening, time with our grandchildren and our two Miniature Schnauzer dogs, Cassie and Sammie.’

© Shout! Magazine 2005

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