Who wrote the Bi-ble?

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A new Edinburgh-based publisher, Monstrous Regiment


Find out more about the Regiment team on our blog! We're really cute I promise.

is doing a bisexual anthology. As it's been almost a year since the most recent one from the UK, this is of course welcome, but it would be good to be feel able to back it and, at the moment, I don't feel able to.

A month ago,


The #Bible lineup is shaping up, and now we just need a few more targeted pieces!

they said they would "still love to see" pieces on..

Trans* bisexual outlooks and experiences
The relationship between mental health and bisexuality
Coming out experiences in working vs middle classes
Bisexual experiences of the Irish Marriage Equality referendum
Comparisons of dating experiences with men vs women
Representation of bisexuality in the media/on screen/pop culture
Being a bisexual in LGBT* activist circles
Biromantic or pansexual experiences
An exploration of whether the bisexual label is now reductive or binary
Gender performance and bisexuality
Religion and bisexuality
Bisexuality and online dating

All those are, of course, interesting topics. Do they already have lots of content on things like the issues for bisexual people from various ethnicities? I'd hope so, but if that's the case why aren't they saying so as part of getting people to sign up for the Kickstarter? Another reason for wondering is they can't say in the middle of September how many contributions from People Of Colour will be in the book. The one that's due before the end of October.

So far, the only authors who've been featured in a series of promotional blog posts and tweets have been white women. If I were being asked about this issue, I wouldn't have done that. Or have a self-congratulatory tweet featuring a GIF of a Woman Of Colour:


The #Bible is a "Project We Love" over on @kickstarter

When she's an author in the book, let me know. Until then, don't. Just don't.

A rose by any other name would..?

One of the sayings of the publishing industry is that a book's cover is just there to encourage people to pick it up in bookshops. If it fails to do that, no matter how pretty it is, it's a failure as a cover. There are similar considerations when it comes to the title.

Amongst the perils of bi publishing is the temptation to go for a 'clever' title that starts with 'bi'.* My favourite example is probably still Bi-Us, which was a short lived newsletter between the end of Bi-Monthly and BiFrost – see? – becoming the newsletter of choice for the UK bi community.

There are a lot to choose from: one website lists over a thousand and some of them have meanings that are inevitably going to affect how people see your product. Calling it 'Bitch' could be done with a variety of intentions, for example, but you're going to have to work hard to get some people to look further to discover that you're raging against the patriarchy and you're using the word ironically.

'Bible' is another one. Yes, I get that the publisher's name is a reference to the bigotry of John Knox but it is because of the inevitable religious associations with the word that I would have expected that they thought that just perhaps having a book with currently no visible content on some essential issues called 'Bi-ble' might not be the best idea? Especially when you want to promote it with the hashtag #Bible? I'm an atheist, but I can see that calling something like this a 'bible' is going to offend some people of faith and put others off reading it because of their experiences with the faiths of the more famous one.

Even if the 'it's sooo clever, who cares if it puts some people off' view won out at the planning meeting that considered the title, did no-one think about the practical point of what happens when people search for #Bible or ask their local bookshop / library for a book called Bi-ble?**

* Yes, I know. But at least it's an accurate reflection of most of the content and doesn't have any other associations.

** I once had to meet someone at a pizza place in a city I was visiting. 'What's it called?' 'Five Star, it's on (probably the longest shopping road in the city).'

Have you ever tried to find an eating place called that on Google? I don't recommend it.

Their pizza was as awful as their naming sense too, with 'not mentioned on the menu' chilli added to almost everything.

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