So would you share with the audience where you think the NPR falls short or is of concern to you?

Well, I'll begin with an analogy.

In the medical field, the Hippocratic Oath says to doctors, do no harm, do not harm the patients.

And I regretfully say that the NPR is almost the way medicine was practiced in the 18th century, where they bled the patients and they actually made the patients worse.

And I'm sorry to say that.

I wish I had felt really differently, but let's go through kind of the three top things I don't like, and maybe people will understand where I'm coming from.

One is it's a technical language, asset thresholds.

But before we do that, share with the audience three things you do like in NPR.

What was that?

Well, I think it goes back just through my life.

I was an actor for...

So I went to drama school when I was 18.

And then I graduated.

And this was 2012.

And I...

What inspired you to satirize an oblivious straight woman's comfort with co-opting and capitalizing on queer culture? That's a good

So what was it for you that didn't live up to that sort of fantasy?

I think I'll be careful because my experience is my experience, and lots of people do enjoy drama school and lots of people have a great time.

And I was very vulnerable when I went to drama school, and I'd grown up not knowing myself and fighting against a version of myself that I was and presenting-- and learning a performance and presenting myself in a certain way.

I think many people who are creative grow up in a vulnerable position in that they're usually quite emotionally exposed or open and at 17, 18 years old that makes you vulnerable.

And I went into a drama school that, this is twen- 2009 that I went and, you know, I w- that it was not okay to be a gay actor then.

That I was told many times by people, "You can't be gay.

People can't know that you're gay." I got told, you know, you won't book jobs.

In terms of edging on relapsing.

Why was it important for you to share this perspective of pain in the queer community as well?

I'm just interested in how we view other people's pain and what we will tolerate and through which lens we will take it.

And I think as an author, having written books before in the publishing industry, not just...

Proof Pie is not my first book.

I've written some young adult books before this.

And I'm interested in publishing houses who say they want authentic voices and what that actually can look like or mean.

Is it... actually you want authentic voices or you want what the people want to see or how they you know a palatable version of that diverse group or a version of that group that they can resonate with and get behind or do you want an authentic voice you know and people are scared to talk about chem sex people are scared to talk about shame pain but you know we're in 2026 I suppose lots of gay people want to think no we're fine now we don't need to keep saying that it's hard for us but it is incredibly hard for the whole of the LGBTQ plus community and uh it is it is not some people are like oh you can get married now you're fine and I think you know, also in the wake of PrEP, which is a drug that men can take to prevent HIV transmission.

What do you want the reader to take away with that? Because it's obviously such a contentious and heated debate that we still are having over who gets to tell whose story.

When you first went into that, had the writing started, you know, at the same time or had you always been writing a little bit, even when you were acting? No,

I'd never actually been writing while I was acting.

I hadn't really tried it.

I think what I'd done is attempted to be an actor and found it quite difficult in terms of my relationship to it was not a great one.

And I was struggling at that time with my own mental health and how I was perceiving myself.

And I just didn't know myself.

And I felt very lost.

Yes,