Interview with Tilly Bridges

Monika: Tilly Bridges is an American writer of teleplays, comics, screenplays, and a pioneer of audio dramas. Along with her wife and creative partner, Susan Bridges, they are a married trans woman/cis woman writing team in Hollywood and their works include head writing for the 2021 Hugo Awards, 2023 Nebula Awards, writing for the new Monster High animated series, more than half a dozen comic anthologies, their unscripted podcast Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays and the Star Trek Adventures and Fallout role-playing games. She is the author of “Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of the Matrix” (2023). Hello Tilly! Thank you for accepting my invitation.

Tilly: Thank you so much for asking! I’m delighted to be chatting with you.

Monika: Before we talk about the trans allegories of Matrix, I want to ask you about your teenage years and the start of your professional career. Did you always know that writing would be your vocation?

Tilly: No, not at all. In the time and place where I grew up, being a screenwriter wasn’t something anybody had ever heard of or knew how to do. I would write a few stories on my own, and would love getting to write fiction for assignments in English class in school, but that was the extent of it. I wanted to know so badly how to write for movies and television, but that wasn’t an avenue that was open to me. I initially went to college studying for a dual major in chemistry and physics, but I grew disillusioned with it pretty quickly. That’s when the writing bug really bit me and there was no turning back.

Interview with Alysha Scarlett

Monika: Today I have invited Alysha Scarlett. Alysha has won 13 writing awards, is an American business owner, wrote a book, and was a screenwriter for a theatrical film. She is the first transgender or non-binary person to get their name and gender legally affirmed in a rural Utah county. Hello Alysha!

Alysha: Hi Monika! Thank you for having me on The Heroines of My Life!

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Alysha: I am 33 years old and from Utah. Accepting myself closes the book on a years-long journey to realize my identity. My accepting myself had a direct connection with me not letting residue from the Latter-day Saint (formerly Mormon) church influence me any longer. I am on hormone replacement therapy. I also look forward to doing all medical transition surgeries this year.

Monika: I have visited the website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been shocked by their attitude toward transgender people. In short, they do not allow medical, surgical, or social transition among their believers, and they specify that “taking these actions will be cause for Church membership restrictions.”

Alysha: This is one of many, many ways that the church doesn’t deserve to have “Jesus Christ” in its name.

Interview with Renee Norlander

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Renee Norlander, writer, blogger, the author of the biographical book titled “Life from Both Sides: Deciphering the Transgendered Mind” (2015). Hello Renee!

Renee: Hi, Monika!

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Renee: In addition to being a mid-forties transwoman with grace and dignity, I am a published author, screenwriter, and co-owner of Risa Tortuga productions. I am recently divorced from a 15-year relationship that garnered two wonderful and beautiful children.

I suffered through the vast majority of my life thinking I was wrong for feeling the way I did. Having thoughts of changing my gender in such a way as to live as a woman, the woman I always felt I was meant to be.

Interview with Josephine Emery

Monika: Today’s interview is with Josephine Emery, an Australian writer, screenwriter, script editor, and media and publishing strategist, from Cairns in Queensland, known for her work on Freedom (1982), Fever (1988), and The Coming (1981). She was the Director of Literature at the Australia Council for the Arts and Head of Screenwriting at the Australian Film, TV, and Radio School, and worked as a features journalist.

She is the author of "The Real Possibility of Joy: A Personal Journey from Man to Woman” (2009), shortlisted for the 2010 Nita Kibble Award for Best Life Writing by an Australian woman. Hello Josephine!

Josephine: Hi, Monika. It’s a little strange for me being asked to do this interview. I seem to have moved on a lot in my life since my gender history was a real concern of mine. Or writing, for that matter.

Monika: What are you doing these days?

Josephine: I’m 65 years old. I transitioned around the age of 58-59. Second Saturn Return to be astrologically specific. I’ve reached the point where I can say goodbye to the need to identify myself as a writer. I now live in a village of 1200 people, grow my own vegetables, and make bespoke furniture from reclaimed timber.
I fill in as editor of my local newspaper when the editor’s away. I’m getting better at blues guitar: playing slide, bottleneck, resonator. I’m catching up with the things I didn’t do enough of in the previous 65 years!