Last week I received an email message from my friend Mark Williams with the following re message: “An excellent memoir for Pride Month!” He went on to tell me about Samis Rose’s new memoir, Two of a Kind: A Love Story. As Mark put it, he helped his “friend Samis Rose edit and format an eBook of her ‘Thoughts’ (actually brief bits of memoir) about her life and particularly her love with Billie Rose.”
Intrigued, I set out to learn more about Samis and her new memoir, but I knew that I needed to move quickly in order to get my post up by June 30, since that is the last day of Pride Month. I immediately contacted Samis and asked her for more information about Two of a Kind. Here is what she sent to me:
I grew up in a small community in North Carolina. In Two of a Kind, I tell the story of growing up gay in the South, finding the love of my life, and then losing her all too soon to cancer. Told in a series of “Thoughts” rather than in one continuous narration, my observations and opinions are woven into my memories. Readers should expect empathy, humanity, and kindness among these pages, amid the challenges of living life as a Lesbian woman in a conservative society.
These writings all began because I needed something to occupy my time now that I am retired and wheelchair bound. I began to write about my memories and opinions. Having nowhere else to disseminate these little gems, I began sharing them with friends on Facebook as a sort of serial. They were well received, so I set out to turn them into a book. I had help with this project. The one person I need to thank is Mark Williams. He formatted and edited the book and encouraged me far beyond what I thought possible.
This is not your conventional book. It doesn’t have regular chapters. It doesn’t have murders or car chases…well, not many. The occurrences shared here are all from my life. Along the way, I became a skilled singer, juried craft show artist, Wimmin’s Festival vendor, raised and rescued various animals and made an appearance on a major game show in New York. Most importantly I shared 22 years with Billie, my real-life love story. These writings are small, self-contained nuggets that can be read at anytime, anywhere. Like real life, there are good moments and bad.
Charlotte has been my home for many years, and my writings draw deeply from that well….of wisdom, common courtesy and human empathy.
For readers who want to know more about Samis’s memoir, please click of this link: https://a.co/d/hIQm0eO
For readers who want see a slide show of the photos from Two of a Kind accompanied by Samis’s recording of a song from her album Dancin’ Slow, please click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTzysMEMqUY
For readers who are interested in the Billie and Samis Rose Papers at UNC Charlotte’s J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, please click on the following link: https://findingaids.charlotte.edu/repositories/4/resources/1385
While reading several of Samis’s “Thoughts” from Two of a Kind, I had my own thoughts about these passages. They remind me of beads. Since Samis and Billie made jewelry together, I asked Samis the following question: “When you create jewelry, do you use beads very much? It occurred to me that your ‘thoughts’ are kind of like beads on a necklace.” She responded by saying, “Yes, we did beaded things. What a lovely thought!” All of us in Storied Charlotte and beyond are fortunate that Samis has strung together these memory beads to create this new beaded thing that she calls Two of a Kind.