My Background as a Writer
My writing journey began quite some time ago, in 1991 when I came home feeling particularly fragile
after a night on the scene.
Though I had never kept a diary, I picked up a notepad and jotted down remembered flashes of discomfort related to the alienating nature of the night’s experience. The following day, I found myself fleshing out these snippets of raw emotion into full sentences and paragraphs, which later became the opening chapter of ‘North and Left from Here’ Born of French parents in Casablanca, I am a native French speaker, although I completed my formal education in the United States at The University of Texas [Austin], majoring in English Literature. Around 2000, I launched into the writing of lesbian romance novels with a definite slant on social realism made possible by characters cast as women who empower themselves to struggle out of their adverse situations. I went on to self-publish seven books, the best-selling ones being Silent Goodbyes, Jagged Dreams, Far From Maddy and, in 2004, its sequel centred around an empathetic transgender male character, Morgan in the Mirror. From there, I released various short stories with themes ranging from erotic ‘fairy’ tales, The Crab- Catcher and the Fish-Whisperer, to strong spiritual writings such as Awakening, a Tao inspired tale. It is around 2007 that I chose to confine my writing to All Matters of the Soul. It is then that I also stopped promoting my novels and short stories – and withdrew from attempting to strengthen an online presence. The line of inquiry led by my mentor, Yudit Cohen-Shoore, who resided in Jerusalem, Israel, has taken me on an ongoing 17- year journey of transformational spirituality through deepening my understanding of What-Is underfoot. I now understand that nothing works better than a moment by moment practice intended to clarity, through coherence, the emotions of the heart and the thoughts, intentions, actions, reactions and inactions triggered in our mind. I have since published many articles which have been revised and gathered along with fresh material in the first two books of my series, Stepping Stones To The Top Of The World [volumes 1 and 2] – amalgams of mind meanders on all matters of the Heart and Soul of our culture, with a strong slant towards inner wellness and transformational spirituality. Destination Rainbow, published in 2023, is the third volume of the Stepping Stones series Each complete volume of the Stepping Stones series is about 300 pages long. These are eBooks no money can buy, as they are not for sale. I have chosen to let them find their own way as immediate free download – no registration needed. The first two volumes give a secular insight into what Karma and Soul really are and into what unconditional love really means, here and now, namely being aware and accepting What-Is. Simultaneously with that acceptance, we should also manage coherently the recurring flurries of catastrophizing What-Ifs so often triggered by emotions linked to our minds’ amalgamation of ‘memories’. It is in our best interest to embark on such a practice because, as is well-known these days, where our thoughts go, our energy goes, as well. These classic concepts of psychology and Zen spirituality leading to an ‘empty mind’, [oddly named ‘mindfulness’], are brought together to create a genuine rewiring of the brain. It is a rather well-known fact, these days, that new findings in the field of neuroscience, along with research in stress management, mindfulness and heart intelligence, corroborate the importance of activating these concepts throughout the many separate moments that, daily, present themselves in the series of moments underfoot. .
You are very welcome to use, free of charge, any article authored by C.C. Saint-Clair or any section thereof, provided:
•
you acknowledge me as the author
•
you do not edit the content
Heartfelt thanks to Jayne Doah for the cover designs she has donated to the Stepping Stones series.
Interview by Kathy Fox for Queensland Pride
Interview by Melissa for Lesbians On The Loose
magazine - November 2007
Interview by Angela Yin for QNews
Another of my past endeavours focuses on the conundrum posed by Jesus of the Christian faith and his role in history.
Did such an historical figure ever really exist?
What if the Jesus of the New Testament fame had been adapted from a Hebrew prototype named Yeshua?
Such questions have resulted in a long series of articles entitled Seeking Jesus in All the Right Places and From Gethsemane to
Arimathea, a novella focusing on the last 24 hours that led to the crucifixion, at the end of which Jesus was taken from Gethsemane, at
the foot of the Mount of Olives, to Arimathea for burial.
It is commonly agreed that the gospel writers were heavily inspired by the Five Books of Moses – known as the Torah – and by the Book of
[Hebrew] Prophets.
So am I – but from a secular perspective.
As you can imagine, dear Reader, all of this has been keeping me busy – and out of trouble – for several decades
already. Yes! Time does fly.
Kind thoughts,
Interview by Freelance Writer Pam Harrison
Novels That Are So Much More Than Books
Snap Review by Kris Witan
The one main difference between a C.C. Saint-Clair novel and most of the competition in the LGBT genre is the range and depth of emotions her writing drudges up in the unwary reader. The deceptive simplicity of her plots pushes buttons, and because Saint-Clair’s novels are “not for readers who chose to live, eat, breathe and read in the mainstream, but for those who dare to explore,” C.C. has put together a website – https://www.ccsaint-clair.com – that provides free-ranging opportunities to sample each of her urban storylines and the often gritty social issue flagged. Each one of C.C. Saint-Clair’s 7 novels carries her trademark blend of layered sensuality folded through raw emotions and around harsh but textured real-to-life issues. C.C. Saint-Clair’s novels are much more than books. They are means to an end: empathy for those women whose real personal struggles and emotional baggage she imagines for her fictitious characters.One Author Well Worth Reading by Sil Whitmarks
November 2007
Books are amazing vehicles. They can transport you & me to anywhere in the cosmos, limited only by the imagination. They can teach us the great truths of the past & the revelations of the future. We can travel like molecules inside bodies & machines to discover their workings, or we can learn how to perfect a Pavlova or build a boat. But let me tell you about books that are altogether quite different. In some respects, these feed the voyeuristic side of our nature. Oh, come on now, we’re all voyeuristic to some degree. Why do you think the likes of Big Brother & every other ‘reality’ show on T.V. top the ratings? Just watch ‘Australian Idol’. We sit through weeks of auditions insulting to the ear till we gradually weed out the good ones then follow their progress as they blossom into stars. It’s not so much about the music; think about it, we relate to the kids struggling to fulfil their dreams. We see the tears & the tantrums & the makeovers & we relate to it. We live our own little fantasies through the medium of television. What’s all this got to do with books? Well, I’ve found a genre of books that does just the same thing and, collectively, they are the writings of C.C. Saint-Clair. She’s written seven so far & I impatiently wait for the next instalment in the lives of her characters. Like reality shows, her characters aren’t great adventurers, heroines etc. They’re you & they’re me. As you read them, you can’t help thinking, “Oh my God! It’s like she’s read my diary … or that of a friend”. None of us, in spite of our striving for individuality, want to be different. But we all think we are & that often worries us no end. Saint-Clair’s books show you that you’re not different, & as you read [through her characters] of the struggles others face, especially in our world of homosexuality, you end up feeling ‘normal’, not different. This woman has attracted the tag of “the thinking woman’s lesbian romance writer”. I’ve read that line in so many reviews, it’s almost become ‘cliché’, but I’m afraid it’s so accurate that I, too, have to use it. Saint-Clair writes with an innate sense of understanding of the fragile nature of our minds & how our attitudes to life take us down one particular road or other. She writes with empathy, she truly allows us to feel the pain & the joy of her characters. She guides us through the sexual side of these lives with just as much realism. We all run the gamut of emotions from doubts about our prowess in the love chambers to our soaring bouts of sex goddess; from self-conscious doubts about our bodies to utter bliss over the acceptance of them & the joy we’ve given our lovers. Saint-Clair’s stories show us in through visuals & words we understand that there IS LIFE AFTER LOVE. And haven’t we all been there! That’s what I mean about heroines or other fictional personas …… we’re reading about ourselves or our sisters & we end up feeling like we are all part of a familiar landscape. I hope, now that you’ve reached this point, you aren’t thinking, “Yeah …… but I’m 18, or 32, or 60.” Or ‘But I’ve been abused.” Or “Nothing dramatic has ever happened in my life.” Or “But I’m a mechanic/lawyer/ mother…” because it’s ALL there, girls. YOU are there, somewhere in one of her plots! Each of Saint-Clair’s books is a stand-alone but it’s almost like each belongs to a family & we see some characters from one book re-immerge unexpectedly in the plot of another. Alex is the first woman we meet & then Emilie. These are our older lesbians, & then we meet Tamara, Maddy, and Jo & most recently, Morgan. There are lots of support characters as well, like so many of our mothers, sisters or aunts. Or perhaps a father, a brother or a neighbour. Not necessarily nice and emotionally healthy people. I guarantee you’ll ‘recognise’ someone. And the stories flag social, emotional & political issues in their unfolding. We read about incest & rape, child abuse, homelessness, & that gives way to thinking that we can actively reach out & help one another & ourselves. We read about DV (domestic violence) even among our own, about discrimination & the still present need for varying degrees of being closeted just so we can keep a job. We learn what it’s like to be a trans man. There are love triangles & there are precious friendships. You can sail the Whitsundays on a yacht or challenge the sand beneath the wheels of your Suzuki or Renegade as you speed down the beach & bellyflop in the dunes. If any of these things touch something in you, you’ll definitely want to become a Saint-Clair reader.
INDEX
My Background as a Writer
My writing journey began quite some time ago, in 1991 when I came
home feeling particularly fragile after a night on the scene.
Though I had never kept a diary, I picked up a notepad and jotted down remembered flashes of discomfort related to the alienating nature of the night’s experience. The following day, I found myself fleshing out these snippets of raw emotion into full sentences and paragraphs, which later became the opening chapter of ‘North and Left from Here’ Born of French parents in Casablanca, I am a native French speaker, although I completed my formal education in the United States at The University of Texas [Austin], majoring in English Literature. Around 2000, I launched into the writing of lesbian romance novels with a definite slant on social realism made possible by characters cast as women who empower themselves to struggle out of their adverse situations. I went on to self-publish seven books, the best-selling ones being Silent Goodbyes, Jagged Dreams, Far From Maddy and, in 2004, its sequel centred around an empathetic transgender male character, Morgan in the Mirror. From there, I released various short stories with themes ranging from erotic ‘fairy’ tales, The Crab-Catcher and the Fish- Whisperer, to strong spiritual writings such as Awakening, a Tao inspired tale. It is around 2007 that I chose to confine my writing to All Matters of the Soul. It is then that I also stopped promoting my novels and short stories – and withdrew from attempting to strengthen an online presence. The line of inquiry led by my mentor, Yudit Cohen-Shoore, who resided in Jerusalem, Israel, has taken me on an ongoing 17- year journey of transformational spirituality through deepening my understanding of What-Is underfoot. I now understand that nothing works better than a moment by moment practice intended to clarity, through coherence, the emotions of the heart and the thoughts, intentions, actions, reactions and inactions triggered in our mind. I have since published many articles which have been revised and gathered along with fresh material in the first two books of my series, Stepping Stones To The Top Of The World [volumes 1 and 2] – amalgams of mind meanders on all matters of the Heart and Soul of our culture, with a strong slant towards inner wellness and transformational spirituality. Destination Rainbow, published in 2023, is the third volume of the Stepping Stones series Each complete volume of the Stepping Stones series is about 300 pages long. These are eBooks no money can buy, as they are not for sale. I have chosen to let them find their own way as immediate free download – no registration needed. The first two volumes give a secular insight into what Karma and Soul really are and into what unconditional love really means, here and now, namely being aware and accepting What-Is. Simultaneously with that acceptance, we should also manage coherently the recurring flurries of catastrophizing What-Ifs so often triggered by emotions linked to our minds’ amalgamation of ‘memories’. It is in our best interest to embark on such a practice because, as is well-known these days, where our thoughts go, our energy goes, as well. These classic concepts of psychology and Zen spirituality leading to an ‘empty mind’, [oddly named ‘mindfulness’], are brought together to create a genuine rewiring of the brain. It is a rather well-known fact, these days, that new findings in the field of neuroscience, along with research in stress management, mindfulness and heart intelligence, corroborate the importance of activating these concepts throughout the many separate moments that, daily, present themselves in the series of moments underfoot. .
Interview by Kathy
Fox for Queensland
Pride
Interview by Melissa
for Lesbians On The
Loose magazine -
November 2007
Interview by
Angela Yin for
QNews
Another of my past endeavours focuses
on the conundrum posed by Jesus of the
Christian faith and his role in history.
Did such an historical figure ever really
exist?
What if the Jesus of the New Testament
fame had been adapted from a Hebrew
prototype named Yeshua?
Such questions have resulted in a long
series of articles entitled Seeking Jesus
in All the Right Places and From Gethsemane to Arimathea, a
novella focusing on the last 24 hours that led to the crucifixion, at
the end of which Jesus was taken from Gethsemane, at the foot of
the Mount of Olives, to Arimathea for burial.
It is commonly agreed that the gospel writers were heavily inspired
by the Five Books of Moses – known as the Torah – and by the Book
of [Hebrew] Prophets.
So am I – but from a secular perspective.
As you can imagine, dear Reader, all of this has been
keeping me busy – and out of trouble – for several
decades already. Yes! Time does fly.
Kind thoughts,
Novels That Are So Much More Than
Books
Snap Review by Kris Witan
The one main difference between a C.C. Saint-Clair novel and most of the competition in the LGBT genre is the range and depth of emotions her writing drudges up in the unwary reader. The deceptive simplicity of her plots pushes buttons, and because Saint-Clair’s novels are “not for readers who chose to live, eat, breathe and read in the mainstream, but for those who dare to explore,” C.C. has put together a website – https://www.ccsaint- clair.com – that provides free-ranging opportunities to sample each of her urban storylines and the often gritty social issue flagged. Each one of C.C. Saint-Clair’s 7 novels carries her trademark blend of layered sensuality folded through raw emotions and around harsh but textured real-to-life issues. C.C. Saint-Clair’s novels are much more than books. They are means to an end: empathy for those women whose real personal struggles and emotional baggage she imagines for her fictitious characters.One Author Well Worth Reading by Sil
Whitmarks
November 2007
Books are amazing vehicles. They can transport you & me to anywhere in the cosmos, limited only by the imagination. They can teach us the great truths of the past & the revelations of the future. We can travel like molecules inside bodies & machines to discover their workings, or we can learn how to perfect a Pavlova or build a boat. But let me tell you about books that are altogether quite different. In some respects, these feed the voyeuristic side of our nature. Oh, come on now, we’re all voyeuristic to some degree. Why do you think the likes of Big Brother & every other ‘reality’ show on T.V. top the ratings? Just watch ‘Australian Idol’. We sit through weeks of auditions insulting to the ear till we gradually weed out the good ones then follow their progress as they blossom into stars. It’s not so much about the music; think about it, we relate to the kids struggling to fulfil their dreams. We see the tears & the tantrums & the makeovers & we relate to it. We live our own little fantasies through the medium of television. What’s all this got to do with books? Well, I’ve found a genre of books that does just the same thing and, collectively, they are the writings of C.C. Saint-Clair. She’s written seven so far & I impatiently wait for the next instalment in the lives of her characters. Like reality shows, her characters aren’t great adventurers, heroines etc. They’re you & they’re me. As you read them, you can’t help thinking, “Oh my God! It’s like she’s read my diary … or that of a friend”. None of us, in spite of our striving for individuality, want to be different. But we all think we are & that often worries us no end. Saint-Clair’s books show you that you’re not different, & as you read [through her characters] of the struggles others face, especially in our world of homosexuality, you end up feeling ‘normal’, not different. This woman has attracted the tag of “the thinking woman’s lesbian romance writer”. I’ve read that line in so many reviews, it’s almost become ‘cliché’, but I’m afraid it’s so accurate that I, too, have to use it. Saint-Clair writes with an innate sense of understanding of the fragile nature of our minds & how our attitudes to life take us down one particular road or other. She writes with empathy, she truly allows us to feel the pain & the joy of her characters. She guides us through the sexual side of these lives with just as much realism. We all run the gamut of emotions from doubts about our prowess in the love chambers to our soaring bouts of sex goddess; from self-conscious doubts about our bodies to utter bliss over the acceptance of them & the joy we’ve given our lovers. Saint-Clair’s stories show us in through visuals & words we understand that there IS LIFE AFTER LOVE. And haven’t we all been there! That’s what I mean about heroines or other fictional personas …… we’re reading about ourselves or our sisters & we end up feeling like we are all part of a familiar landscape. I hope, now that you’ve reached this point, you aren’t thinking, “Yeah …… but I’m 18, or 32, or 60.” Or ‘But I’ve been abused.” Or “Nothing dramatic has ever happened in my life.” Or “But I’m a mechanic/lawyer/ mother…” because it’s ALL there, girls. YOU are there, somewhere in one of her plots! Each of Saint-Clair’s books is a stand-alone but it’s almost like each belongs to a family & we see some characters from one book re-immerge unexpectedly in the plot of another. Alex is the first woman we meet & then Emilie. These are our older lesbians, & then we meet Tamara, Maddy, and Jo & most recently, Morgan. There are lots of support characters as well, like so many of our mothers, sisters or aunts. Or perhaps a father, a brother or a neighbour. Not necessarily nice and emotionally healthy people. I guarantee you’ll ‘recognise’ someone. And the stories flag social, emotional & political issues in their unfolding. We read about incest & rape, child abuse, homelessness, & that gives way to thinking that we can actively reach out & help one another & ourselves. We read about DV (domestic violence) even among our own, about discrimination & the still present need for varying degrees of being closeted just so we can keep a job. We learn what it’s like to be a trans man. There are love triangles & there are precious friendships. You can sail the Whitsundays on a yacht or challenge the sand beneath the wheels of your Suzuki or Renegade as you speed down the beach & bellyflop in the dunes. If any of these things touch something in you, you’ll definitely want to become a Saint-Clair reader.
INDEX
