Last night I attended a book launch in Bristol. It was nothing to do with science fiction, but had a close connection with Wizard’s Tower nonetheless.

The book is called Free to be Me and is a history of the first 21 years of Freedom Youth, Bristol’s LGBT Youth club. Freedom Youth was founded back in 1995. One of the founders was Berkeley Wilde, with whom I now do a lot of trans awareness training via his company, The Diversity Trust. The club has kept going ever since through various changes of local government support, and I have had the pleasure of speaking at their meetings on several occasions.

The book is the brainchild of Rosa Fanti, one of the club;s current members, and has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. OutStories Bristol and our friends at Bristol Records Office have been helping Rosa with her research.

So where is the Wizard’s Tower connection? Well to start with Rosa’s mum is a big fan. Having told her of my trip to Finncon, I sent her off with a list of Finnish authors to read. Also the book is published by Tangent Books run by Richard Jones who kindly stocks some of my physical books in his store. And because it is a Tangent book the layout is done by Joe Burt who also does my layouts.

If you are interested in getting the book, it is on sale via the Tangent store. I expect it will also be on sale at Bristol Pride tomorrow.