Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tenderberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

I spoke with William T. Voeman last week about his supernatural stories. But you know, between now and the last time

I saw him, he's written so much that I wanted to do a kind of potpourri of what he's been

up to. And the first thing that comes to mind, the most recent book before this, was called The Book of

of Dolores.

It's published by P.H. Powerhouse, which is a more or less new publishing venture, and

they were willing to take a risk on a very strange book.

Can you describe it?

Well, Michael, Powerhouse had done such a beautiful job on some of my

photographs of the Imperial and Mexicali Valley, and I thought maybe they would be willing to make a book

of my transgender self-portraits. So my editor, Craig, first said, you know, Bill, these are very disturbing,

but eventually he got over it. It was a little bit scary to do it, but I thought, why not?

And I had a lot of fun, just the way a little kid might have playing dress up and looking in the mirror.

And I learned so much about what my face looked like and what I thought I could be and never could be

and what I was stuck with being.

It was all a very good exercise.

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