But when did you start to apprehend that you might be trans?

Yeah.

I mean, like I said before, there's all these, you know, hindsight's a powerful thing.

There's all these moments I look back on and I go, oh, that's what that was about.

I had a shocking eating disorder when I was 16 and it was kind of rake thin and my hair was falling out and I stopped getting my period and I was completely flat chested and I really liked it because I had this very androgynous physique.

You kind of become ungendered in a very unsafe, horrible way.

but it's really common.

What do you like about that story, Zoe?

I'm

like, yeah, I was on set for like 12 days and I think the movie's cool too, but I'm watching it the same way you are.

And I think with a book, it's like this thing that has been, you know, especially for folks like us who are sort of used to working in, where the environment is so collaborative and so...

Like, it always feels like school camp to me.

Like, everyone's kind of just, like, hunkering down together and, like, trying to invent shit.

And it always gets inevitably a bit weird and then great again.

Big time.

Go for it.

What is it that he gets right about that experience or I guess being inside the body of Ari?

Yeah, I think it's actually something I've listened to Christos talk about in interviews where he talks about the distance between Anglo-Saxon writers and the body.

And I think... you know, ethnic writers or wog writers, whatever you want to call it, are so in our bodies that sort of writing outside of the body feels pointless or something.

It feels like what's the joy in writing if not writing from the body about the body? And I think that's what's so kind of timeless about it is it's so visceral and, yeah, embodied.

And I think also... there's a bluntness of language that is so satisfying and also just so Greek.

Like, I think that's something that no matter what age or sexuality, we just don't beat around the bush.

And I think that's something I really appreciate as well is that the queerness doesn't mean that language then must be... tender and floral and, you know, all of that.

So Zoe, what's the next book you'd want to offer up to us?

So I wanted to ask how you see the intersections between Cretan history and trans history and how that led you to write this book.

Yeah, I mean, they're actually far more linked than I ever thought possible in that I think, as is evident in the book, nature is such a huge part of both of those identities.

I think trans people feel... such an affinity with nature because, you know, in these times where our existence is being scrutinised and questioned and how the very fact that we have ever been here before is completely disregarded, nature sort of welcomes transness because Nature depends on transness.

Like, nature has depended on transness for the survival of its species, for life on Earth, for billions of years.

You know, there's, like, trans fungi and trans fish.

So I think trans people feel so welcome in nature.

And Crete, where my family's from, and nature are also inseparable.

that's the thing there it's great yeah lovely easter egg that's such an interesting process and zoe i would love to know more about how you approached putting together this book how did you decide which stories you were going to reimagine and what was that process like

Oh

... more than I ever have, and people saying stuff and, I mean, fortunately, it's n- never got to a physically violent place before.

But I remember one moment that just made me very sad, 'cause I love children so much, um, was I was in like the Blue Mountains or some shit, and there was one of those antique shops where there's a really narrow corridor.

And there was a mom, her husband, and a little girl, and I was kind of just in this narrow corridor, and the little girl looked at me, and I kind of smiled and waved, and then she smiled and waved back.

And then I just freaked out.

Like, I was like, "Oh no, the parents are gonna think I'm like trying to fucking steal their kid or like-

Yeah.

Now Greece.