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literature..........................................dational element in emotionaland sexual same-gender-lovinginteractions.Your partnership with RikkiBeadle-Blair (Team Angelica’screative director) has beenfruitful and supportive. Howdid the two of you meet? Wemet about 27 years ago, when Icame to see a friend’s girlfriendin Wild at Heart, a musical Rikkiwrote, directed and starred in,at the Riverside Studios in London.On the closing night, Rikkibroke his foot mid-show (duringa dance-routine on the bonnetof a Thunderbird). Being atrooper, he kept dancing tillthe curtain came down and thebows were done. We got talkingafterwards, as he sat with a bagof frozen peas on his swellingfoot. Rikki was the first personto read the manuscript of myfirst novel, Black Butterflies.Would you say Rikki helpedyou discover the writing styleyou are known for today?Black Butterflies has a somewhatliterary style influenced byFaulkner and Baldwin. Whenhe read it, Rikki asked me if Ithought the sort of people itwas about (black working-classfolks) would find it particularlyreadable. I lied and said, ‘Yes’,as it was then the only style Icould write in. But the thoughtreverberated with me, and I’veworked my way towards a writingstyle that is muscular, directand stripped of any allusionsever since.What’s the most extremestreet-level writing you haveproduced so far? ProbablyYemi & Femi’s Fun Night Out,my latest venture. It’s a graphicnovella about two black gayLondon youths, sex, romanceand worries about HIV. Usingtheir voices, all the debates andwrangles about safe-sex issuesbecome vivid and funny. BMJohn Gordon will appear at Pridereading from his anthology Blackand Gay in the UK on Saturday1st <strong>August</strong> in Preston Park. Emailrachel.whitbread@brighton-hove.gov.uk for more information.....57....
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