Time to take down the Anatolian display and pack away the posters. The Pride Without Prejudice Show is done and dusted for another year and what a successful run its been. If you’d told me back in the day when I ebbed and flowed along the nose-to-nipple Victoria Line that, a few years on, I’d be showcasing a book I’d written at a bone fide exhibition I would have told you to where to get off (at the next stop and mind the gap). Did I sell any books from it? Your guess is as good as mine. At the very same time I was mounting the posters, I was featured on WordPress’ Blogger Profile site which has over 10 million subscribers. As soon as their interview was published, it all went a bit crazy for a while. If I did flog a few copies off as a result of the show it was icing on the cake.  Will I exhibit again next year with the Sisterhood? Wild goats won’t keep me away.

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.

14 thoughts on “The Show is Over Now”

  1. Wonderful Jack, and congratulations! It all sounds very exciting and positive. Oh, I love that quote from Neil Young…Applies to me, pretty much! Seriously though, I look forward to the new book. Brilliant!

    Like

    Reply

  2. You can now add “Jack the Exhibitionist!” as another feather in your cap. 😉

    If nothing else, as least your Pride show forced you out of doors and away from the keyboard for a short while to interact with your flesh & blood brethren rather than us ethereal digital nomads.

    Now please stop teasing me with “The Sisterhood”… my kindle is salivating with anticipation……………

    Like

    Reply

  6. Hate to praise you in public and all that but your exhibition was, have to say, rather good. Who’d have thought?

    Like

    Reply

      1. It’s extra special when the loved ones show you some love an appreciation… my own him-indoors is my harshest critic .. but my staunchest supporter… now if i could just get him to like my activity of facebook or comment on my blog, I’d be well away! 🙂

        Like

Share your thoughts

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.