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A video projected behind me. Slow motion of an older (60's? 70's?), woman on a swing intercut with footage of me having sex with fellow Kiss & Tell member Persimmon Blackbridge. I am reading a letter to my mother, about not being out to her. I cannot say this any other way.

I remember that first time on stage, with a lesbian audience that seemed thrilled before we even started. I remember the first laugh, the first hoot, the first holler, the first applause.

It's true. I've always been a writer. Until True Inversions, I wrote articles and essays, did interviews. Writing for performance scared me, and stretched the words in ways I hadn't imagined it would.

It was like opening a new world of expression, not essays, not constructed arguments. Since then I've written a novel, more performance, and short stories. So now I think a lot about the difference between the words on paper, and the words on the stage. Writing something for someone to read, wherever they are, however they read, is close to my heart. I read a lot myself, and feel a very personal connection to the writers of the work I love. Taking writing to the stage is something else, and increasingly it is something writers are expected to do. Audiences at readings buy books.

But this isn't about marketing. Performing isn't about marketing. It's just an offshoot sometimes. If I was looking for a way to make money off my words, I can't think of a stupider route to take. Performing is labour intensive and expensive, and while it's true that movie stars are rich, most actors and performers are poor. We do it for something else.

We love it. I know I do.

Why? Reading from a novel for an audience is completely different from writing the book and hoping they enjoy themselves on the bus. There they are, laughing (or not), nervous (or not). When I am writing I want to connect with the reader. At a reading, I want to connect with the listener.

I want them with me, and I want them with the characters in the story. I want the audience, and me, to have an experience that they couldn't have through the book. And I want them to have a good time. And I guess when they have a good time, they buy books. In a good performance, it's almost palpable, the energy flying between performer and audience. It feels like the audience lets me say things for them. They're right there, willing to go wherever the words lead, and they are also the director, determining where the words go. You do it together.

It's something about the body, about people, about human beings. There are lots of ways to communicate, lots of ways to raise feeling and connection, but there is something about the bodies in the same room. Something about what human beings say to each other without words or images or sounds, or with all of them at once. I don't know what it is, but I want it.