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Scholarship  [message #67204] Mon, 03 December 2012 11:16 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I have recently read Scholarship, by Ian John Copeland and found it to be, somehow, far more than a simple school story. I shan't give away the plot, not at all. Our hero, Pip, we meet at some 8 summers, and leave him at some 14. By this you may realise that we are not speaking of a sexual romp. Indeed though there is sex in it, and though the author doesn't 'cut to waves breaking on the beach', the sex is not erotic, the story is fiction, not friction, and the plot is all.

We see the growing relationship between boys, mainly those on the cusp of puberty, though the relationships do start earlier as pure friendships. The school is an English Prep School, though the Cornish would dispute whether Cornwall is in England at all. The boys all board. The school is their main home; indeed, there is no life outside school. Family life hardly intrudes. The boys are real boys. I can see them all, and see which I woudl be friends with and which not.

I am enquiring gently of Ian whether he would appreciate the story's further exposure by being published here as well as in his own home for it. The answer depends upon his plans for his current and future writing as well as whether he sees this site as appropriate for this tale.

[Updated on: Mon, 03 December 2012 13:48]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Scholarship  [message #67206 is a reply to message #67204] Mon, 03 December 2012 16:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
solsticeman is currently offline  solsticeman

Likes it here

Registered: November 2012
Messages: 109



I agree with Timmy. It is a delightfully gentle tale. The writer/narrator gives us an insight into the confusion that occurs when body's development overtakes the mind's. When the moral compass is still that of the child whose mother taught him to avoid rude words and who cannot cope with the vision of a delightful bottom ahead of him on the stairs. It is set in a period when what happened within the closed walls of a boys' school could be intense and illicit while avoiding the penalties that awaited them if they didn't get it out out of their system by the time they met the world outside. The author deserves a wide audience. His work is exceptional. 
Re: Scholarship  [message #67207 is a reply to message #67206] Tue, 04 December 2012 11:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I have some good news. Ian has given the go ahead for the story to come here. Obviously there is the dozen weeks or so lead in time, and I know members of the forum will have read it all in the next 23 minutes anyway, but it's lovely to have another good author here. We are truly lucky to have such a good pool of authors and stories.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Scholarship  [message #67208 is a reply to message #67207] Tue, 04 December 2012 11:42 Go to previous message
Ian John Copeland is currently offline  Ian John Copeland

Toe is in the water
Location: South East
Registered: December 2012
Messages: 33



I hope I can live up to the kind welcome Timmy and solsticeman have provided!

You can see more about my somewhat fraught writing process at http://thepaintheagony.blogspot.co.uk/ in the meantime.

I hope to start reading some of the stories here.  Alas this has to fit round the real world of work and having a life.  But I will try my best.

Ian



Visit my Blog: http://thepaintheagony.blogspot.co.uk/
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