Be Safe origins
Be Safe was first and foremost written for myself, as most stories are, as a way of processing my experiences growing up religious, alongside exploration of identity. I started writing this stand-alone story July of 2023 and it all came pouring out of me and evolved into a story I'd like to eventually share with the world, in the hopes of inspiring healing in others. Read ahead to find out the themes and topics Be Safe covers, ideal audience, as well as preliminary content warnings.
About the book
Be Safe fits the genres of literary fiction, queer stories, and coming out. Essentially, this novel is queer Christian identity, meets religious trauma, meets nonbinary coming out. It's written for a young adult/ new adult audience (exact ages the book is appropriate for will be defined later).
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The reason I'd like to share this with the world eventually is because writing it has been so healing for me and involved a lot of research as well as drawing on my own personal experiences, conversations I've had, homophobic comments I've been subjected to, and my studies of Ministry and Theology before the church that was sponsoring me pulled out after I came out as a lesbian. It's raw and full of real-life inspiration, and hopefully relatable to readers for that reason, if nothing else.
I hope to use this novel to facilitate healing and hard conversations among others with religious trauma, who have had to correlate being queer with being religous and found themselves caught in the liminal state. I proudly identify as both and the clear stance the novel takes is that the two identities can coexist comfortably, while acknowledging the harm religious communities do to young queer-umbrella-identifying people.
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Content warnings are subject to change and will eventually be clarified futher into trigger and content warnings. For now, the manuscript includes religous trauma, homophobia, transphobia, self-harm, depressive episodes, panic attacks, a suicide attempt and its aftermath, and alcohol dependance.
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Check out my Instagram @r.c.thomson for more info and regular updates!