The Little Book of Coming Out Stories‘The Little Book of Coming Out Stories’ must in the running for the smallest book in print. Like me and gift boxes from Cartier, the best things come in pocket-sized packages. The book may be small in size but it’s big in ambition – 140 stories in 140 characters (or less) for £1.40. It’s a coming out textbook for the Twitter age. Compiled and produced by filmmaker/trainer Shelly Telly and poet/artist Vince Laws, the book is packed with abbreviated anecdotes that amuse, shock, sadden and liberate. Bravo to the people who shared their stories. Two tales, in particular, caught my eye:

My mother has Alzheimers so I have to keep coming out. Doesn’t get any easier!

I came out to my friends and family. My friends have been very supportive. My parents don’t talk to me. Water is thicker than blood.

The book is available to borrow from any Norfolk library or to buy from the Book Hive, the Greenhouse Shop or direct from Shelley (email shell@shellytelly.co.uk).

Now what would be my own coming out short?

I bounced out of the closet from a trampoline. The overcrowded cupboard was giving me claustrophobia. I don’t do orgies.

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as an indie publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

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