A Queer Kind of Justice: Prison Tales Across Time

A diverse cast of lesbian, bi, and trans women, on both sides of the bars and through the centuries, find life-changing moments of love, hope, fear, excitement, passion, desperation, and inspiration. Prison. The very word sends shivers of fear through the soul. A place of gloom and shadows, where freedom is taken, humanity is lost. A place of cruelty and pain, of claustrophobia, soul-searching, and waiting. A place where guilt and innocence fade away, identity is transformed, and the voice that cries in the darkness is no longer heard. One aspect of human existence that has endured through the centuries: incarceration, implied guilt, punishment. But when all is lost, so much can be gained. It is in prison that the colours of freedom become sharper and brighter, more alluring because they are distant. It is here that impossible relationships become reasonable, that hopes are kindled by a word or a glance. It is where senses are heightened, as alert to danger as to love, to fear as to passion. It is where everything is at once ordered and disordered—and queer is only relative.

Born in Nottingham, England, Rebecca's life has taken a few twists and turns, including a spell working as a private tutor in eastern Slovenia, but now she is back in her homeland again and working in the education sector of the museum and heritage industry. She returned to England in 2010, around the time her first novel was published. Her second novel, Ghosts of Winter, was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award. History is her passion and she has several historical works currently in progress.