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Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Lindsey Byrd! She is the author of On the Subject of Griffons, a fantasy novel about a woman who ends up working with her deceased husband’s former mistress to seek a magical cure for one of her children. The Sun Blessed Prince, her next novel, is the first book in an epic fantasy duology with romantic elements that features a prince and an assassin with opposing gifts who might be able to put an end to a war. I’m thrilled she’s here today to share some thoughts on the “not like other girls” trope and discuss two female characters in her soon-to-be-released novel—which is coming out on May 1 in the UK and May 6 in Canada!

Cover of The Sun Blessed Prince by Lindsey Byrd

About The Sun Blessed Prince:

A battle-weary prince meets a reluctant assassin. But could their bond end their war?

SEPARATED BY WAR, UNITED BY FATE…

Prince Elician is a Giver. He can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life. He also can’t be killed, so is cursed to watch his country wage an endless war.

Reapers can kill with a single touch. When one attacks Prince Elician near a hotly contested battlefield, but fails, the Reaper expects a terrible punishment. Instead, Elician offers him a chance at a new life and a new name on enemy territory. Cat, as Elician calls him, hadn’t realized he could ever find something, or someone, to make life worth living — until the prince. Yet Elician is unaware that his enemy plans to turn his kindness against him until danger engulfs him in turn.

As the pieces of a deadly plot come together, featuring abduction, treachery and forbidden magic, tensions escalate at court and on the battlefield. The fires of conflict burst into new flame — but can those who wield the powers of life and death find peace?

Whenever I hear the phrase “not like other girls” about a character in a book it’s usually accompanied by a rolling of the eyes and a huff or great sigh of disdain. The accompanying dialogue is something to the tune of “I was reading a book and this girl was just insistent on being not like other girls.” The offending character perhaps even makes the claim herself, insisting how she’s unique and special. She doesn’t wear dresses, she drinks, she likes to go to fight club or has any number of traits that set her aside from the traditional “feminine.” If it isn’t how she presents herself physically, then it’s her mental state. She doesn’t chase boys, she has no interest in child rearing, or she abhors any type of presumed gender role.

Audiences have love/hate relationships with these characters. While some see them as wish fulfilment, the embodiment of everything they themselves wish they could do if not held accountable to the societal norms placed on them, others (quite loudly) consider them tacky, annoying, or out of touch. Fandom circles, in particular, can be ruthless when it comes to any female character, but the use of the “not like other girls” trope can engender additional vitriol.

I confess, as a young writer first developing my craft — I was terrified of writing female characters because of the backlash they often receive. If not outright vitriol, then pure silence in the comments section certainly makes it loud and clear that audiences prefer to read about their male favourites over the female co-stars. And, as a young writer, I was more prone to writing wish fulfilment characters in general. Self-insert, Mary-Sue, sister-fics and the like were a therapeutic form of self-comfort. Unhappy with my life beyond fiction, these characters were written specifically to make me feel that: if only the [insert special event] happened, then I could be a hero, and would receive praise, glory, love and affection too!

But very quickly, it became obvious: such characters were not to be written about or posted in public because no one wanted to read it. It was so unrealistic — even the random internet strangers knew better than to cater to it. And as a young writer, I internalized that any girl who dared to break the mould of acceptability was not to be written about. The male characters were the only ones that were truly of interest. This internalized misogyny breached past the Rubicon of just “not like other girls” to ensure that I felt that all female characters in general should be used sparingly in my writings.

It would be years before I even confronted that thought process and what it actually meant.

For weeks now, in preparing this blog post, I’ve rolled around the notion of what “not like other girls” really means and who is impacted by it. I think it’s relatively safe to say that everyone wants to feel special and important at some point in their life. That there is some unique identifier within you that makes you stand out and worthwhile. Whatever the hardships that you have faced, you overcame them, and the way you overcame them made you strong.

When someone else (particularly a man) says “Wow, you’re not like other girls,” though, it creates a kind of strange social dissonance where your personal status is now being judged by a metric of a whole gender. A gender which presents itself in a myriad of beautiful and often disparate ways. Which girls are being discussed? From which race and social class or culture of origin? Because perhaps the actions of that individual are perfectly normal in their own community, or perhaps this enforced othering is a mechanism through which “other girls” can be disdained. This is particularly true in cases of white “normativity” in writings, and when white culture is used to create a separation or a judgment on non-white women and their behaviour. Are they not like other girls because they’re not white or white-woman enough? Which group are they being compared against? And does this factor into how they’re being judged in the first place?

Several books (and fandoms) do celebrate the “not like other girls” characters once the character in question has proven herself to be “one of the good ones.” Here, because they have adopted the more masculine actions and responses to certain situations, while simultaneously proving themselves to not be too “obnoxious” in the process (a fine line), the female character can be praised for being heroic. She managed to overcome her fragile femininity to become a hero. She could play with the big boys and hold her own. This female character can thus be praised in canon for her accomplishments in the superior gender field without betraying her obvious womanhood. It’s a strange dichotomy, highlighting one set of behaviours over another and squishing gender somewhere uncomfortably in the middle for good measure.

These female characters, though, face the double-edged sword of never quite being masculine enough or feminine enough. Their womanhood is often called into question as they justify their masculine traits. Natasha Romanoff in the MCU, for instance, both caters to her feminine sexuality while also emphasizing the masculinity of brutal murder and violence. She also, very controversially, was revealed to be unable to have children and her womanhood and ability to be a proper woman was thus called into question. Her trauma over her not being able to have children was infuriating for those who didn’t want to consider such things, as well as another sign of her womanly body being used against her. As much as she played in the masculine: it was impossible to forget she was a woman dealing with woman issues at the end of the day.

So long as the narrative distracts the reader from the fact the “not like other girls” character is a woman, by and large she’s successful. The sword-fighting badass character can be congratulated and celebrated, only until the attention returns to the fact that she is a woman at the same time. The Aryas are to be congratulated over the Sansas, for the Sansas can never hide their femininity, and should she manage an act of heroism, it is always failing to quite meet the same mark as other more accomplished male characters. When used like this, the trope is specifically making a point to highlight one gender’s perceived traits over another, and to ensure the audience knows which one (the masculine) is superior.

I struggle with all of this.

I am no longer a young writer, nor am I someone desperate to make sense of why (during a difficult childhood) I always felt left out. My childish yearning to say my differences made me special and therefore I couldn’t be like “those other girls” did not in fact take into consideration what those other girls might have been feeling. For I suspect, now as an adult, they likely felt quite similar.

Everyone has a right to the feeling that they personally are unique and not like the people around them, but by insisting that is the case — and using gender as the barometer on which those differences are judged — it flattens the experiences of all those others within that gender. All those times a fellow girl felt or did exactly the same thing.

In The Sun Blessed Prince, there are two very different female characters that take up a lot of time on page: Fen and Adalei.

Fen exists in a place of longing and yearning and development. She is a child, filled with the black and white thinking of a child, but she is desperate to be taken seriously as an adult. She wishes to express her individuality, but she equally hates the fact that she is different from the people she wants to be like. She feels as though she is not like other girls, and yet — she is exactly like other girls. She is filled with the same uncertainty, confusion, and longing to fit in as her peers. Her rebelliousness and even her bigotry are black and white because as a child — that’s how she can perceive the world. In black and white. Only as she matures does that binary begin to fade, and with it: the self confidence that comes with accepting herself for who she is.

To Fen, she is not like other girls. She feels othered and outcast. She feels like she will never fit in. However, she is exactly like all her peers, facing the same feelings of grief and uncertainty, struggling with her body and how she fits in it. Her worries and concerns and her uncertainty are entirely normal, as are her desires to do something. When she is told her limitations, she questions those that placed the limitations on her in the first place because she feels she can do better. This is an entirely natural reaction, and though she makes mistakes: her mistakes follow her journey into womanhood in a progression that does not highlight how unique she is, but just how bitterly normal a coming of age truly is. Grief, despair, longing, joy, and surprise are all a part of the process. She may not feel like she is like other girls, and yet she is. And it is that understanding, I feel, that helps provide nuance to the trope. Not quite a subversion, but rather an understanding that what someone feels and what someone is can be two very different things.

Adalei’s story is quite different. Already a full-grown woman, she has no progression or march towards an uncertain end. She knows who she is and what she wants. She is, also, a lady in every sense of the word. She runs her household, she participates in domestic crafts, she engages in politicking but in a quiet and reserved manner. She is fully aware of her body and her appearance and the impact these may have on others. She also has reached the point of her life where she has been hardened to the cruel words of others.

When Fen professes a desire to wield a sword, she implies her desire to actually, physically, commit to taking an action that has a tangible result. Take sword, hit thing, win. Adalei refrains. Her desire for tangibility is far more subtle than that. She’d prefer to take her time, and this preference is not a weakness. Women who do not fight are not fragile meek characters. There is depth and nuance to their struggles, and there is a strength that must be appreciated. To be a lady means to take command of an entire household and manage it, to be aware of every task being conducted under the roof and to ensure that any plans made are conducted exactly as the household requires. Adalei does this not only for her house, but for her country. She has no need for physical strength and prowess, but this in no way makes her inferior.

To disdain women who do not fight is simply to disdain women.

Not all women fight with their fists, and failure to wield a sword does not make someone any less of a hero.

The “not like other girls” trope is never going to go away. However, I do hope that readers and writers alike can add nuance to it. What is the purpose of the character, what is the author trying to convey, and also: who is the author writing for? Are they writing for their own inner child? Someone else’s inner child? Or are they truly displaying a deep disdain for the feminine?

I personally would reject any notion that the feminine is something to be discounted. But I also would reject the idea that the “not like other girls” trope is inherently bad. Subverting the trope, or even calling attention to it in the narrative itself, can help provide perspective within the text that may be helpful. And perhaps, in this way, these discussions about self-doubt and insecurity can help address the internal fears and concerns readers have. Perhaps, even in some cases, help them heal. That in itself would be worth writing for.

Photo of Lindsey Byrd Lindsey Byrd grew up in New York before moving abroad for graduate research studies. She is an amateur birder and enjoys going for hikes to take photos of nature. She enjoys all forms of speculative fiction, and is an avid researcher of history. She currently runs the Youtube channel and podcast “Lindsey Byrd in Writing is Hard!”

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Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Mia Tsai! Her debut novel, Bitter Medicine, is a xianxia-inspired contemporary fantasy book featuring a magical calligrapher descended from the Chinese god of medicine and a half-elf security expert working at the same agency. The Memory Hunters, her second novel coming out on July 29, is the first book in a science fantasy duology featuring an archaeologist and her protector that is described as a “mind-bending queer adventure for fans of Inception, Arkady Martine, Samantha Shannon, and Emily Tesh, asking: who has the right to remember?” I’m excited she is here today to discuss creating new settings without real-word prejudices in “Conflict and Discrimination in Secondary Worlds.”

Cover of The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai

About The Memory Hunters:

A reckless archaeologist uncovers an earthshattering heretical secret in this mind-bending queer adventure for fans of Inception, Arkady Martine, Samantha Shannon, and Emily Tesh, asking: who has the right to remember?

Kiana Strade can dive deeper into blood memories than anyone alive. But instead of devoting her talents to the temple she’s meant to lead, Key wants to do research for the Museum of Human Memory. . . and to avoid the public eye.

Valerian IV’s twin swords protect Key from murderous rivals and her own enthusiasm alike. Vale cares about Key as a friend—and maybe more—but most of all, she needs to keep her job so she can support her parents and siblings in the storm-torn south.

But when Key collects a memory that diverges from official history, only Vale sees the fallout. Key’s mentor suspiciously dismisses the finding; her powerful mother demands she stop research altogether. And Key, unusually affected by the memory, begins to lose moments, then minutes, then days.

As Vale becomes increasingly entangled in Key’s obsessive drive for answers, the women uncover a shattering discovery—and a devastating betrayal. Key and Vale can remain complicit, or they can jeopardize everything for the truth.

Either way, Key is becoming consumed by the past in more ways than one, and time is running out.

Conflict and Discrimination in Secondary Worlds

Let’s be honest: People will fight over anything.

And that’s interesting. Conflict drives stories at every level, and we as the audience want to know how the characters will or won’t resolve those conflicts. Secondary world fantasies, especially epic fantasies, often have conflicts at the personal and international scale. It’s one of the hallmarks of epic fantasy—there’s an oppressed people, and a hero arises to triumph over the oppressors, and triumph results in change not just for the hero but for their people and their country.

In times previous, authors often leaned on historical conflicts for inspiration. The War of the Roses, or the Trojan War, or any number of moments in our world where the wagon wheel hit a pebble in the road and bounced out of its rut. I could go on about how our concept of secondary world fantasy has been, until recently, very colonial and West-centric, but I’m going to hit my own pebble in the track and talk about building secondary worlds without importing real-world conflicts.

How do you write about other cultures and oppression without relying on stereotypes? This is a question I’ve gotten at a lot of Diversity 101 panels, both in person and online. And it’s a 100-level question for sure; the easiest and quickest answer is to stop thinking about other cultures as homogeneous entities. Inspect that question further, however, and problems arise. What do you mean by other cultures? What do you mean by oppression? Whose cultures and whose oppression? Whose point of view are you taking when you ask about other cultures and oppression? A writer’s point of view, for sure, but that’s still a point of view.

I’ve answered this question more in depth before; when I did, I leaned on breaking down the assumption that groups of people hold the same ideas and that individuals in those groups are interchangeable. People disagree. This holds true no matter what group you’re talking about, whether it’s a fake nation in D&D or the people in your neighborhood. Writers can’t even agree on how to write! And also, this is fantasy. We make everything up. Why should there be racism or bigotry? They don’t have to exist if we don’t want them.

But, as the first sentence says, people will fight over anything. The challenge, then, is to build that secondary world without the parts we dislike. For example, I think racism and bigotry don’t have to be default states in speculative fiction. My worlds generally run without those two, though when writing in contemporary settings where the world is ours, just with magic, it’s not possible to avoid racism and bigotry because of how our world’s history has shaped us. And if you’re thinking, “Why, I can for sure write a contemporary world without racism and bigotry!” I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, plus millions of gallons of white paint.

What remains, then, when creating conflict in a secondary world? For me, I look at my world’s resources and technological level to give me ideas. It’s very possible, for example, to have a secondary world that never had racism or colorism; I have no interest in importing a history of chattel slavery or a caste system. The absence of racism and colorism means there’s less white supremacist scaffolding. It doesn’t mean that there’s a utopia with resource and technological equality and a classless society, however, so those are two areas where non-real-world conflict can be created.

New technology creates imbalance automatically because not all people will have access to that technology. We must always ask questions about various technologies and who benefits from them, as well as who does not. If you’re working in a world that is industrializing but does not have the full distribution network set up, you then have a resource-rich area and a resource-poor area. When I’m world building, I think less about adding and more about answering questions. If resources are distributed by train, which resources would have long enough shelf lives to be transported? What kind of production scale results in having enough product to necessitate freight rail? Who is doing the work to create so much product, and who is driving the trains and laying the tracks?

Immediately, class and labor issues appear. What follows are more questions about who is doing what and whether those people are compensated. The presence of resources like textiles (cotton, linen, wool, silk) and luxury foods (sugar, tea, coffee, chocolate) mean that the writer must think about whether they want the accompanying issues, especially when production scales up. The textile industry is especially labor intensive. Cotton, wool, and linen aren’t just harvested; they must be grown and tended to by people with specialized knowledge. If the people in your world can purchase their clothes instead of making them, then textile mills and clothing factories exist. (Ah, the textile mill, famously free of child labor, dangerous machinery, toxic chemicals, and industrial waste!) If mills and factories exist, then there need to be people to build, operate, and service those machines, as well as workers and managers or bosses.

In just thinking about what clothes people are wearing and how easy it is to get them, we’ve unlocked the potential for multiple conflicts and discriminatory practices. This is the writer’s playground, and we have not touched upon real-world issues like racism. We have just created a class of people who have enough money and time to demand premade clothing. Are these people going to be high, middle, or low class? What cultural meaning is assigned to people who can purchase clothes as opposed to making them? Is this a society where the makers are venerated, or is it a society that largely forgets whose labor has created the product? What are the clothes used for, and how do those uses fit into and create culture?

I don’t want to ignore another facet of this work. The bird’s eye view, the meta view, also plays an important role in determining what your world’s biases are. Some people might say this is the writer avoiding getting canceled, but I see it as the writer being as clear as possible about what the conflict is. The writer has to figure out what others will project onto the world. Accounting for an infinite number of interpretations is not our job as writers, but making sure that the conflicts we build aren’t easily mapped onto real-world conflict is (unless your aim is to map it onto the real world, but that is a different blog post). Is your world the fantasy version of the Sneetches, or is your world’s conflict grown organically from the people inhabiting it?

The central conflict in my upcoming book, The Memory Hunters, is about access to information. Within the area between the ocean and a mountain range called the Spine, there are specialized knowledge workers who can “dive” into the genetic record of the past to excavate memories and expertise lost during an event called the Decade of Storms and its aftermath. Those people, called memory hunters, grant huge advantages to others who have access to them. Prominent memory hunter families have, since the Decade, become extremely wealthy on the backs of their discoveries; they also sell their services to those seeking answers from the past, ranging from family disputes to design specs for vacuum-tube radios. That wealth has allowed them to build long-term housing in places unlikely to be flattened by hurricanes.

The ability to dive is not prevalent at all in the southern part of the Spine or on the coasts, and thus the people living there are at a disadvantage in a world founded on the bones of the past that also has ancestor worship as its religion. Ancestor worship developed as a grief and trauma response to all the people displaced, lost, and killed during the Decade, and the memory hunters can give glimpses of passed relatives to those who ask. The memory hunters, however, are unwilling to head to where storms routinely wipe out entire communities, and so the inequality continues to perpetuate as time goes on and more and more people are lost (and more memories are found and enshrined in museums absent their cultural contexts). With this foundational inequality, I was able to expand my world into one where classism and xenophobia are used to discriminate against others.

I find that in world building, the existence of the most mundane objects can reveal so much in terms of a world’s history and culture—while also shedding light on assumptions made by the writer. And I think this is where I have the most fun, if one can call creating conflict and discrimination in a secondary world fun. But, like I said, people fight over anything. I’d rather create my own path than set my world into highly constraining wagon ruts. Doing this is hard work and requires so much thought and consideration. But it’s also disruptive. It’s fresh and showcases how deeply you build. And it’s very, very rewarding.

Photo of Mia Tsai
Photo Credit: Rebekah Chavez Wynne, Wynne Photography
Mia Tsai is a Taiwanese American author and editor of speculative fiction. She debuted with Bitter Medicine, a xianxia-inspired contemporary fantasy. Her next novel, The Memory Hunters, is forthcoming from Erewhon Books on July 29, 2025. She lives in Atlanta with her family, pets, and orchids. Her favorite things include music of all kinds and taking long trips with nothing but the open road and a saucy rhythm section.

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Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Linsey Miller! Her work in young adult speculative fiction includes “A Helping Hand” in the horror anthology The House Where Death Lives, “Give Up the Ghost” in the Lambda Award–nominated anthology Being Ace, the Lambda Literary Award–nominated dark fantasy novel What We Devour, and the fantasy novels in the Mask of Shadows duology (Mask of Shadows, Ruin of Stars). Coming out on June 3, her next book, That Devil, Ambition, is a standalone YA fantasy novel described as “an incredibly fresh, twisty love letter to dark academia…with a body count.” I’m delighted she’s here today to explore what it means to do the right thing in “A Descent into Kindness.”

Cover of That Devil, Ambition by Linsey Miller

About That Devil, Ambition:

From Lambda Literary Award finalist Linsey Miller comes this thrilling stand-alone fantasy about the lengths we’ll go to get ahead—an incredibly fresh, twisty love letter to dark academia…with a body count.

Perfect for fans of A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, Gallant by V. E. Schwab, and All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and C. L. Herman.

There is only one school worth graduating from, and it creates as many magicians as it does graves…

First in his class and last in his noble line, Fabian Galloway’s only hope of a good future is passing his elite school’s honors class. It’s only offered to the best thirteen students, and those students have a single assignment: kill their professor.

If they succeed, their student debt is forgiven. However, if an assassination attempt fails or the professor is alive at the end of the year, the students’ lives are forfeit.

And dealing with the professor, a devil summoned solely to kill or be killed, is no easy task.

Fabian isn’t worried, though. He trusts his best friends—softhearted math genius Credence and absent-minded but insightful Euphemia—to help. After all, that’s why he befriended them.

As the months pass and their professor remains impossibly alive, the trio must use every asset they have to survive. Or else failure will be on their academic records—and their tombstones—forever.

A Descent into Kindness

I like kindness. Nice characters. The sorts of characters who wouldn’t get a second glance if lined up beside their grittier, darker, flashier counterparts with sarcastic one-liners and smoldering gazes. Kindness is relegated to secondary characters who can offer an empathetic ear or healing touch to the lead because we often equate kindness with boringness. A kind character will always do the kind thing. The predictable right thing.

And “the right thing” is what I love exploring.

It’s more common in middle grade and young adult novels. There’s a misconception that kindness and optimism, that striving to create a better world by being kind, is childish idealism. Often, characters will learn some lesson about how everyone around them is living their own life and deserves some grace. The kind thing is what most readers would expect, and some of my favorite examples are the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce, Lirael by Garth Nix, and Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is one of the only recent(ish) books I’ve read featuring a truly earnest character continuing to be kind in the face of cruelty that is neither about how his choice to do so is a mistake nor written for a younger audience. The characters in these books do not meet cruelty with cruelty. It’s cathartic.

Then, of course, there are the (often revenge-driven) stories about good people who decide that the only way through cruelty requires a specific level of violence. Killers and manipulators grapple with the moral quandary of bystanders’ deaths for the sake of their ultimate goal, and usually that goal is one that fits within the readers’ ethics—killing murderers, nobles, tyrants, and gods. Isn’t removing someone who actively chooses to do harm a kindness? These characters are not “good,” but they are doing a kindness for the world by eliminating entrenched corruption. They have decided that killing a few is acceptable for either justice or progress.

Cover of Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller Cover of What We Devour by Linsey Miller

In my debut novel, Mask of Shadows, Sal was an assassin out for revenge who had seen the horrors of their world firsthand and decided to remove the source, like debriding a wound. They were driven by both selfish and unselfish goals in equal measure. In my last standalone fantasy, What We Devour, Lorena is kind. She works as an undertaker, tending to the dead to spare others the task, and she agrees to be arrested to keep her lover’s family safe. Then, she decides that the kindest act of all is to welcome in a magical apocalypse.

Sal and Lorena have calculated the cost of souls, their own included, and decided that they are willing to be cruel and ensure the deaths of the corrupt upper classes and their families to allow a kinder world to rise from the ashes. It is not what many readers would consider to be the ethically correct thing, but it’s something we can forgive. Vengeance and wanting a better world are understandable.

The main characters of That Devil, Ambition are not out for vengeance or a better world but themselves. Fabian, Credence, and Euphemia are three best friends on the cusp of adulthood and graduation who must kill the devil summoned to teach their class in order to receive tuition waivers. If they fail, the devil will kill them.

And they agreed to this! They matriculated knowing the cost of the school, the deals of their loans, and the requirements of the tuition waivers. They did not have to study magic. They did not have to pursue the waivers and could have just paid back the money. They are young, ambitious, and even though they might possess kindness that would lead to them creating better worlds after graduation, they are not primarily motivated by what most morality systems would consider “good.” As the weeks of term go by and their devilish professor remains alive, they must decide what lines they are willing to cross in order to graduate debt-free.

(Alright, maybe contemplating crime to pay for student loans is still understandable and forgivable, but it is not the narrative-standard calculus of souls we’re accustomed to.)

There is a certain ferality to it that is usually reserved for anti-heroes and beloved villains. The trio is kind; they each sacrifice something of themself to protect another. They believe that they are capable of changing the world for the better as educated magicians, and so, aren’t they justified in their selfishness? If they are certain they will accomplish morally good things, then aren’t all of their actions good? If they minimize the harm and destroy themselves in body and soul first before anyone else, then is the end result not worth it? Are they not kind?

Dozens of books have made me really dig in to the meaning of kindness and forced me to shed my own morality while reading, but here are a few favorites that made me ask, “Is a character selfish and morally gray if they become the bloodiest, cruelest version of themself so that no one else needs to get their hands dirty, or is that simply kindness in its most base form, like a sheep in wolf’s clothing?”

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis
The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Photo of Linsey Miller by Tara Welch
Photography by Tara Welch
Once upon a time, Linsey Miller studied biology in Arkansas. These days, she holds an MFA in fiction and is the author of the Lambda-nominated What We Devour. Her other works include the Mask of Shadows duology, Belle Révolte, The Game, the first three books in the Disney Princes series, That Devil, Ambition, and various short stories. She can be found in Texas writing about science and magic anywhere there is coffee.

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Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Pat Murphy! Her work includes the short stories in Women Up to No Good, the Philip K. Dick Award–winning collection Points of Departure, and the Nebula Award–winning novel The Falling Woman. Pat’s latest SF&F novel—her first in more than 20 years—is The Adventures of Mary Darling. This subversive retelling of Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes focuses on Mary Darling—the mother of the children who flew away with Peter Pan and the niece of Dr. John Watson, best friend of Sherlock Holmes. To rescue her children, Mary travels halfway around the world, with Watson and Holmes in pursuit. Described by the Library Journal as “a dangerous and delightful adventure that turns the bigotry and misogyny of Victorian England on its head,” The Adventures of Mary Darling will be released by Tachyon Publications on May 6, 2025. I am thrilled that Pat is here today to reveal how she managed to keep working on this novel for more than twenty years in “The Power of Community”—and to be giving away two copies of her book!

Cover of The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy

About The Adventures of Mary Darling:

Who is Mary Darling? In this subversive take on both Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes, a daring mother is the populist hero the Victorian era never knew it needed.

Mary Darling is the pretty wife whose boring husband is befuddled by her independent ways. But one fateful night, Mary becomes the distraught mother whose three children have gone missing from their beds.

After her well-meaning uncle John Watson contacts the greatest detective of his era (but perhaps not that great), Mary is Sherlock Holmes’s prime suspect in her children’s disappearance. To save her family, Mary must escape London—and an attempt to have her locked away as mad—to travel halfway around the world.

Despite the interference of Holmes, Mary gathers allies in her quest: Sam, a Solomon Islander whose village was destroyed by contact with Western civilization; Ruby, a Malagasy woman on an island that everyone thinks is run by pirates (though it’s actually run by women); Captain Hook and the crew of the Jolly Roger; and, of course, Nana, the faithful dog and nursemaid.

In a witty and adventurous romp, The Adventures of Mary Darling draws on the histories of people indigenous to lands that Britain claimed, telling the stories of those who were ignored or misrepresented along the way.

Enter The Adventures of Mary Darling Giveaway

The Power of Community
by Pat Murphy

My novel, The Adventures of Mary Darling, will be published on May 6, 2025. This will be my first new novel in a very long time. To be exact, it has been 23 years and six months since my last SF&F novel!

As you might expect, I’m excited that this book is finally coming out. In this essay, I could tell you at length about why I wrote this novel — a historical feminist fantasy mashup of Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes. I could talk about my research on women fencers in late 19th century London, on dime novels (aka penny dreadfuls), on Wild West shows created by people of the Mohawk (Kanien’kehá:ka) nation, and much, much more. But for that sort of thing, you’ll have to check out my website.

Right now, I want to talk about how I managed to keep working on this novel for more than twenty years. What kept me going?

You did. All of you helped keep me going.

I want to talk about the power of community — and give thanks to the SF&F community that encouraged me during my early years as a writer — the twenty plus years when I was getting started and publishing regularly. But even more than that, I want to thank the SF&F community for encouraging me during the twenty plus years when I wasn’t publishing much at all. And finally, I want to reassure any authors who might be reading this that it is possible to return from a twenty-year dry spell.

First, a bit of history

I started writing science fiction and fantasy when I was in college. I took a writing course in the English department and the professor’s reaction to my efforts at science fiction was…not good. Not because of the writing (though that definitely needed work), but because of the genre in which I chose to write. It was very clear that science fiction and fantasy were not this professor’s preferred reading.

I had better luck in two other writing classes — playwriting and “daily fiction” (where the only requirement was submitting 350 words of original prose each day). In those classes, my urge to write SF&F was tolerated, though certainly not celebrated.

In 1978, two years after college graduation, I attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. And that’s where I found my people.

For six weeks, I joined seventeen other want-to-be SF&F writers in a college dorm at Michigan State University. Six professional SF&F writers taught us — one each week of the first four weeks, then Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm, working in tandem, for the last two weeks.

Every morning, we workshopped stories that had been turned in on the previous day. During the workshop, the students took turns talking about a story. After all the students had commented, the pro weighed in, critiquing the story and telling us about plotting and viewpoint and where ideas come from and how stories work.

Each afternoon and evening (and often far into the night), we students read stories and wrote stories. The university administration forbade typing in the dorm — the late night pounding of our typewriter keys kept everyone else awake. So a large room that I think was a banquet hall under normal circumstances served as a sort of communal office.

By week four, that banquet hall was littered with papers that had been ripped from typewriters, crumpled, and hurled to the floor. Late one night, the crazed energy of multiple frantic writers morphed into a paper fight. We tossed crumpled pages like snowballs, bashed each other with paper swords that broke in our hands, then collapsed amid the drifts of paper, still thinking of whatever story we were working on, that damned story that could be wonderful but wasn’t — at least not yet.

We were a roving pack of young would-be writers, talking, always talking about things we’d read, things we wanted to write, about alien worlds and alienation, about ideas and dreams. We were desperate to figure out how to write it all down, how to capture our thoughts in words, how to describe the characters who spoke to us in dreams or nightmares.

The professional writers watched from the sidelines, offering sound advice, patient counselling, and more. I remember repeatedly asking Damon Knight to explain how plot worked. I had a tattered copy of an anthology he had edited and I challenged him to tell me what made each story work. None of them seemed to have the elements of plot the pros kept talking about. So where’s the plot? And what about this story — show me the plot points!

Clarion was a masterclass in writing — and that was important. Clarion was also my introduction to the SF&F community. In the long run, I think that may have been even more important.

The best advice I have for any writer is this: Find your community. Find the people who understand what you are trying to do, who speak the same language, who understand the particular brand of madness that makes you want to write.

The Madness Continues

I thought I had found my community at Clarion, but that was just the start. In the fall after I attended Clarion, I went to the 1978 World Science Fiction Convention. IguanaCon II was a gathering of almost five thousand science-fiction fans, pros, and editors, held at a Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix.

Harlan Ellison, the pro guest of honor, had apparently claimed that he could write anywhere, any time. So the con organizers put up a clear plastic tent in the central atrium of the hotel and provided Harlan with a table, a chair, a manual typewriter, and a ream of paper. For most of the con, Harlan was in his tent, banging out a short story. From the balconies surrounding the atrium, you could look down at the once-elegant lobby — which quickly began to resemble that banquet/writing room at Clarion.

At IguanaCon, I hung out with my Clarion classmates and met graduates from past Clarion classes. I went to parties filled with people who were interested in the things I was interested in. I met established authors and to my amazement they were willing to talk to me. It was crazy, it was amazing, and I loved it.

At Iguanacon, I began to understand what I had stumbled into. Clarion wasn’t an isolated phenomenon. There were conventions — held all over the country — where science fiction fans and writers congregated. And the line between science fiction fans and professionals was a blurry one. I learned that Damon Knight — who had patiently explained plot to me — had started as an SF fan, writing for fanzines.

I was fortunate to join the SF&F community at a time when feminist SF was on the rise. Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, one of the first novels recognized as feminist science fiction, came out in 1969. It was followed by Joanna Russ’s The Female Man in 1970 and Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time in 1976. Just two years before Iguanacon, SF fan Susan Wood had organized a panel on “women and science fiction” at MidAmericon, the 1976 Worldcon. That panel led to the founding of A Women’s APA, the first women’s amateur press association.

After Clarion, after IguanaCon, I kept on writing, no longer alone in my aspiration to publish SF&F. I got together each month with a group of Clarion graduates to workshop stories, becoming part of a long-running SF&F tradition. (Back in the early 1930s, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were members of the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group at the University of Oxford that provided these authors with feedback on their early work.) I attended science fiction conventions.

With the support of my workshop, I wrote stories and I sold stories. Eventually, I published eight novels. I won Nebula awards for my novel The Falling Woman, and my novelette Rachel in Love. I won the World Fantasy Award for my novella Bones.

I taught at Clarion, giving back to the community that had nurtured me. I attended other science fiction conventions and joined the never-ending conversation about what science fiction is and what it isn’t. With Karen Joy Fowler, I co-founded the Tiptree Award to reward and celebrate science fiction, fantasy, and other forms of speculative narrative that expand and explore our understanding of gender. We named the award after James Tiptree Jr., the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon.

During that time, I was publishing a book every few years. My biggest project was a series of three novels connected by the pseudonyms who wrote them, a grand metafictional project.

Then…stuff happened

The first book in that grand metafictional project was There and Back Again, by Max Merriwell, which came out in 1999. The second book came out in 2000, and the third book in 2001. Then, when all the books were finally done, the first book was taken out of print because of a lawsuit. (Long story that. Better told elsewhere.) The removal of that book ripped the heart out of a project that had taken me years to complete.

I was working on a novel, but I had to stop. That story included characters from the book that had been taken out of print — publishing it would have resulted in another lawsuit.

I was discouraged, to say the least. Around then, my day job started taking up more time. My elderly parents needed assistance — and I had to step up and help. The bottom line: I didn’t have much time to write SF&F.

During the 24-year period between my last SF&F novel and The Adventures of Mary Darling, my science fiction and fantasy output was just nine short stories. That’s less than a story every two years. I did manage to complete a children’s book that was published and well-received, but that wasn’t the genre where my heart lived.

As a writer with little time to write in a life packed with eldercare and a full-time job, I came to appreciate the SF&F community even more than I had as a beginning writer. I stayed connected to the writing life through my monthly writing workshop with friends and colleagues. I could read and comment, even when I had no new work to contribute.

I made an annual trek to Wiscon, a feminist science fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin. There I had interesting and challenging conversations that reminded me of why I write. With the help of Debbie Notkin, I started a discussion group where mid-career writers could talk about the challenges we all faced and share sympathy, strategies, and assistance.

Somewhere in there, I started working on the novel that became The Adventures of Mary Darling. I worked slowly, in scraps of time between other tasks, in the late hours of the night or the early hours of the morning. There were great gaps when I had no time (or no energy) to write at all.

During those gaps, it would have been so easy to forget about writing. Why bother? After all, it’s not as though publishers were clamoring for another book.

But I had something that mattered more to me than publishers. And that was a community — a place I belonged, a group of people who understood what I was trying to do.

Oh, I had many friends and family outside the science fiction and fantasy community. My writing mattered to them because it mattered to me. But the SF&F community was different. To my friends in SF&F, the writing mattered, the ideas mattered. Whenever I managed to attend a convention, I returned home re-energized and inspired.

In 2014, at the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, I did a reading — a scene from The Adventures of Mary Darling in which fourteen-year-old Mary Darling (the future mother of the children who fly away with Peter Pan) meets her uncle’s friend Sherlock Holmes for the first time — and questions her uncle’s respect for the man.

After hearing me read that scene, Jeanne Gomoll, a good friend from Wiscon, told me she wanted to read that novel. Over the next five years, she nagged me (in a polite sort of way), reminding me that she wanted to read that novel. She was patient (sort of), but persistent. She made it clear that there was an audience for this book. (And yes, I sent her a complete first draft as soon as I had one.)

In many ways through the long years, the SF&F community reminded me that there was an audience waiting for me. Fans reviewed and wrote about my published work. Anthologists sought out my older stories. Editors invited me to write for anthologies.

The Ensemble Cast

Fast forward to 2022. I quit my day job at the end of that year. My eldercare duties were over. I finally had time to write.

In November of that year, I attended the World Fantasy Convention in New Orleans — my first big convention in decades. Walking into the hotel, I was worried. I hadn’t been to a large convention or published a novel in many years. Would anyone remember me?

The people who read and write and publish science fiction — my people — have long memories. Of course they remembered me! Without hesitation, they welcomed me back. So what if I’d been away for a couple of decades? That didn’t matter. I was back at last.

Many SF&F stories celebrate the lone hero — the extraordinary individual who saves the day. My own work tends to take a different approach. I favor the ensemble cast — a community working together to save the day; people inspiring each other, supporting each other, and helping each other in unexpected ways.

To finish The Adventures of Mary Darling, I needed the help of an ensemble cast of SF&F readers and writers and bloggers and editors and reviewers and publishers. I couldn’t have done it without you — and I thank you all.

Photo of Pat Murphy Pat Murphy writes science fiction and fantasy about women who defy and subvert their societies’ expectations. Her most recent novel, The Adventures of Mary Darling, will be released in May 2025. Her past works include The Falling Woman (winner of the Nebula Award for Novel), “Rachel in Love” (winner of the Nebula Award for Novella), Points of Departure (short story collection and winner of the Philip K. Dick Award), and “Bones” (winner of the World Fantasy Award for Novella). For more information and a complete list of Pat’s published fiction, visit www.patmurphy.net.

Book Giveaway

Courtesy of Tachyon Publications, I have two copies of The Adventures of Mary Darling to give away!

Giveaway Rules: To be entered in the giveaway, fill out Fantasy Cafe’s Mary Darling Giveaway Google form, linked below. One entry per household and the winners will be randomly selected. Those from the US are eligible to win. The giveaway will be open until the end of the day on Monday, May 5. Each winner has 24 hours to respond once contacted via email, and if I don’t hear from them after 24 hours has passed, a new winner will be chosen (who will also have 24 hours to respond until someone gets back to me with a place to send the book).

Please note email addresses will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winners. Once the giveaway is over all the emails will be deleted.

Enter The Adventures of Mary Darling Giveaway

Women in SF&F Month Banner

The fourth week of Women in SF&F Month starts tomorrow, with four new guest posts and a book giveaway coming up this week. Thank you so much to last week’s guests for their fantastic essays!

Before announcing the schedule, here are last week’s guest posts in case you missed any of them.

All guest posts from April 2025 can be found here, and last week’s guest posts were:

In addition to essays, there was also the cover reveal of The Essential Patricia A. McKillip with a giveaway of the 30th anniversary edition of the author’s fantasy novel The Book of Atrix Wolfe. (Two copies, US only.)

And there is more this week, starting tomorrow with both an essay and book giveaway! This week’s guests are as follows:

Women in SF&F Month Schedule Graphic

April 21: Pat Murphy (The Adventures of Mary Darling, The Falling Woman)
April 22: Linsey Miller (That Devil, Ambition; What We Devour)
April 23: Mia Tsai (The Memory Hunters, Bitter Medicine)
April 24: Lindsey Byrd (The Sun Blessed Prince)

Women in SF&F Month Banner

For Women in SF&F Month today, I’m revealing the cover of The Essential Patricia A. McKillip—and giving away two galleys of the 30th anniversary edition of her fantasy novel The Book of Atrix Wolfe! This is an honor since I love her writing, from the magic and beauty of her prose to the wit and wisdom that shines through her stories. She is the author of two of my favorite novels, The Changeling Sea and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, but her short fiction also holds a special place in my heart since I was introduced to her work through her enchanting collection Wonders of the Invisible World. She was also here as a guest during Women in SF&F Month in 2013, where she discussed writing her first major fantasy from a female perspective (though she’d not often read books featuring one) and why there may have been such a large increase in science fiction and fantasy by women being published between then and the mid 1980s.

The Essential Patricia A. McKillip, a new short fiction collection featuring an introduction by Swordspoint author Ellen Kushner, is coming out on October 28!

Cover of The Essential Patricia A. McKillip
(click to enlarge)

Cover Designer: Elizabeth Story
Cover Artist: Thomas Canty

About THE ESSENTIAL PATRICIA A. MCKILLIP:

World Fantasy Award winner Patricia A. McKillip (The Forgotten Beasts of Eld) has inspired generations of readers with her enchanting, and subversive fiction. This lovely hardcover career-retrospective edition offers McKillip’s finest short stories. Featuring an original introduction by Ellen Kushner (Swordspoint) and cover art from frequent McKillip illustrator Thomas Canty, The Essential Patricia A. McKillip is a must-have for fans of classic fantasy.

Patricia A. McKillip has been widely hailed as one of fantasy’s most significant authors. She was lauded as “rich and regal” (the New York Times), “enchanting” (the Washington Post), and “luminous” (Library Journal).

Within McKillip’s magical landscapes, a mermaid statue comes to life; princesses dance with dead suitors; a painting and a muse possess a youthful artist; seductive sea travelers enrapture distant lovers, a time-traveling angel endures religious madness; and an overachieving teenage mage discovers her own true name.

Patricia Anne McKillip, widely considered one of fantasy’s finest writers, was the bestselling author of more than thirty adult and children’s fantasy novels, including The Riddle-Master of Hed, Harpist in the Wind, and The Bards of Bone Plain. McKillip received three World Fantasy Awards, for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Ombria in Shadow, and Solstice Wood; for the latter, she also received the Mythopoeic Award. Born in Salem, Oregon, McKillip lived in Germany, the UK, and the Catskills in New York.

Enter The Book of Atrix Wolfe Giveaway
Cover of The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip

About THE BOOK OF ATRIX WOLFE:

This brand new edition celebrates the 30th anniversary of a classic, luminous novel from the World Fantasy Award–winning author Patricia A. McKillip (The Forgotten Beasts of Eld). In McKillip’s stunning cinematic prose, the human world and the realm of faeries dangerously entwine through chaotic magic. Discover the spellbinding legend of generational atonement and redemption between a reluctant mage, a powerful wizard, a struggling heir, fae royalty, and a mysterious scullery maid.

When the White Wolf descends upon the battlefield, the results are disastrous. His fateful decision to end a war with powerful magic changes the destiny of four kingdoms: warlike Kardeth, resilient Pelucir, idyllic Chaumenard, and the mysterious Elven realm.

Twenty years later, Prince Talis, orphaned heir to Pelucir, is meant to be the savior of the realm. However, the prince is neither interested in ruling nor a particularly skilled mage. Further, he is obsessed with a corrupted spellbook, and he is haunted by visions from the woods.

The legendary mage Atrix Wolfe has forsaken magic and the world of men. But the Queen of the Wood, whose fae lands overlap Pelucir’s bloody battlefield, is calling Wolfe back. Her consort and her daughter have been missing since the siege, and if Wolfe cannot intervene, the Queen will keep a sacrifice for her own.

This edition includes an original introduction and cover art by World Fantasy, Ditmar, and BFA Award-winner Kathleen Jennings.


Book Giveaway

Courtesy of Tachyon Publications, I have two galleys of The Book of Atrix Wolfe to give away!

Giveaway Rules: To be entered in the giveaway, fill out Fantasy Cafe’s Atrix Wolfe Giveaway Google form, linked below. One entry per household and the winners will be randomly selected. Those from the US are eligible to win. The giveaway will be open until the end of the day on Friday, May 2. Each winner has 24 hours to respond once contacted via email, and if I don’t hear from them after 24 hours has passed, a new winner will be chosen (who will also have 24 hours to respond until someone gets back to me with a place to send the book).

Please note email addresses will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winners. Once the giveaway is over all the emails will be deleted.

Enter The Book of Atrix Wolfe Giveaway