Women in SF&F Month: N. E. Davenport
Apr
25
2023

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Today’s guest is N. E. Davenport, aka Nia Davenport! She’s the author of The Blood Gift Duology, which starts with The Blood Trials. The first book in this science fantasy series is described as a “fast-paced, action-packed debut [that] kicks off a duology of loyalty and rebellion, in which a young Black woman must survive deadly trials in a racist and misogynistic society to become an elite warrior.” The concluding volume, The Blood Gift, was just released last week. I’m delighted the author is here today with “Why I Write Confident Heroines.”

Cover of The Blood Trials by N. E. Davenport Cover of The Blood Gift by N. E. Davenport

Why I Write Confident Heroines
by N.E. Davenport

It’s interesting that male characters and female characters are often held to different standards. A reader might approach a story that features an arrogant male protagonist and adore the character trait. The hero is praised as enthralling and charismatic simply for being audacious. When the same character traits of brazenness and extreme confidence get assigned to a protagonist who identifies as a woman or young girl, some readers immediately perceive the heroine as too arrogant and critique the character for not being humble enough. This isn’t merely a trend observed with books, it happens with TV shows, movies, and even in real life arenas where education and the workplace are concerned.

I imagine that for a portion of society, it’s a thinking rooted in antiquated ideas, stereotypes, and sexism that must be interrogated, subverted, and dismantled. I purposefully write my heroines, as well as most of my secondary female characters, to possess extreme confidence in themselves, their abilities, their value, their strengths, and their physical appearances. In fact, most of my female characters may even skew toward being a tad bit vain, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Often, young girls and women are made to feel like we need to shrink ourselves and not shine as bright, so others feel better about themselves. Young girls are too often overtly or covertly taught not to be vocal about their strengths and achievements because it’s “improper” and a reflection of “poor etiquette.” I don’t ascribe to any of this. Younger girls and women should be able to be unapologetically and unabashedly proud of their achievements and joyfully vocal about them without criticism.

This may be a constant struggle for some of us in the real world, but that’s the beauty of science-fiction/fantasy. I can make my worlds, their rules, and how they operate be entirely what I want; I can make them part escapism, even when they’re interrogating or subverting prejudices. In my SFF worlds, women are proud, confident, bold, arrogant, and very vocal about their strengths and achievements. They’re extraordinary, they are aware that they’re extraordinary, and they let the world around them know they’re extraordinary. Yes, they brag a lot. Because why not? If nobody could beat me in a fight, or if I was the ruler of a powerful realm, or the fiercest dragon rider, or an infamous pirate captain—I’d endlessly brag about those feats too!

In my debut science fantasy, THE BLOOD TRIALS, and its sequel, THE BLOOD GIFT, I created a heroine that I’m super proud of and admire the heck out of. I created a young woman, Ikenna, who has achieved at nineteen years of age what it took me a bit longer to accomplish. She knows her worth, recognizes her value, adores herself, understands her strengths, and is her own greatest champion. And she’s boastful. Without an ounce of embarrassment, shame, or misplaced guilt, Ikenna does not hesitate to proclaim to the world that she’s extraordinary—and she ensures those who’d belittle her to place themselves on a pedestal of false superiority never forget it.

I spent a good amount of my own youth yearning to be the type of person who projects an effortless confidence in themselves. That younger version of me didn’t quite know how to achieve this until my mid twenties. I’ve overcome this personal challenge in the present day. In many ways I’m a lot like the heroines I write and I’ve never experienced more joy. There’s something profoundly fulfilling in being sure of yourself and knowing you’re spectacular—even while living in a world that tries to tell you daily that you should be more humble and that you aren’t good enough. I didn’t focus much on my race or ethnicity while drafting this guest post, but I am a Black woman and existing as a Black woman within a world where anti-Blackness pervades the globe is one factor that carried my greatest challenges regarding learning to be confident and sure of myself when I was a young girl. They’ve been hard won achievements, and I celebrate them now (while lessening old stings) through writing heroines that have the fortune and joyful experience of recognizing how truly amazing they are from day one and making the world recognize it too.

Photo of N. E. Davenport Nia “N.E.” Davenport is the Science Fiction/Fantasy author of The Blood Gift duology (Harper Voyager), Out of Body (Balzer+Bray), and Love Spells Trouble (Bloomsbury). She’s also a member of the Hugo-nominated FIYAHCON team, in which she helps organize the SFF convention’s programming. She attended the University of Southern California and studied Biological Sciences and Theatre. She has an M.A. in Secondary Education. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and being a huge foodie. She’s an advocate for diverse perspectives and protagonists in literature. You can find her online at www.nedavenport.com, on Twitter @nia_davenport, or on Instagram @nia.davenport, where she talks about binge-worthy TV, fun movies, and killer books. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids.
Women in SF&F Month: A. Y. Chao
Apr
24
2023

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This week of Women in SF&F Month starts with a guest post by A. Y. Chao! Her upcoming fantasy book set in 1930s China, Shanghai Immortal, is described as “a stunningly rich novel with a snarky, irreverent main character struggling to reconcile her mixed heritage—it’s not easy being half vampire and half hulijing fox spirit—whilst solving a mystery concerning the King’s Dragon Pearl and accidentally falling in love.” The UK edition of her novel will be released on June 1, and it will also be published in the US and Canada on October 31. I’m thrilled she’s here today to discuss erasure and identity in “Mirrors and Doorways.”

Cover of Shanghai Immortal by A. Y. Chao

Mirrors and Doorways

“[W]hen I didn’t see myself in a mirror, I smashed it and saw myself in the pieces.” Diana Pho, “Breaking Mirrors”, jimchines.com

Erasure is an insidious thing. Identity—from the individual to an entire culture—is treated as if it doesn’t exist. It says: You don’t matter. You’re not wanted. You don’t belong.

But enough of that. We’re here to talk about me.[1]

I was born in the foothills of Alberta, Canada—a transition zone, or as I like to think of it, a melding space between the prairies and the Rocky Mountains. Neither completely one nor the other, but something which embraced both. My Chinese Canadian diaspora identity is much the same—created in a melding space where the traditions and cultural values my immigrant parents brought with them were woven together with local traditions and social mores.

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with Butterball turkeys from Safeway roasted with 臘肉糯米飯[2] stuffing. Christmas came with stars atop decorated trees and 紅包[3] galore. We celebrated Lunar New Year with dancing lions, and to the delight of children and singletons, even more 紅包[4].

My identity however was entirely absent in popular culture and literature. I was a teen who laughed raucously at Saturday Night Live’s “Church Lady.” I listened to New Order, a-ha, and Jacky Cheung. I was respectful to my elders. I didn’t roll my eyes at my grandmother (even though I wanted to) when she insisted I go to church because otherwise, not only would I burn in Hell but also how would I ever meet a husband?

My parents, like many Chinese parents, showed their love through acts of service and sacrifice. They also skied, played golf and mahjong, watched ballet, and liked to dance. But in Western media, I never saw parents like mine, or kids like me. The collective mirror of popular culture erased us. When they did give us space in the mirror, what peered back was ugly and distorted: a sidekick, an object of mockery stripped of dignity; Mickey Rooney in yellowface, Long Duck Dong.

How was it that I swooned over Sixteen Candles, sighed wistfully at Audrey Hepburn’s gamine fragility in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, despite the dreadful rep and enjoyed the countless books, films and TV shows set in worlds where I simply didn’t exist? I lacked the vocabulary to pin-point the dissonance and discomfort I felt. I lacked the understanding that I was not alone in those feelings. (That epiphany would come much, much later.) I did not lack, however, the ability—learned by necessity—to smash the mirror, turning a carefully blind eye to the edges that would draw blood, and pick out only those shards where I might see myself.

“That was how I learned to survive; by seeing myself in the pieces I could, even if I didn’t exactly, see me.” Diana Pho, ibid.

In 1989, I read Amy Tan’s blockbuster hit The Joy Luck Club. It was the first book where I didn’t have to shatter the story into tiny bits to find myself. The 1993 movie that followed with a full-on Chinese cast of gorgeous, glamourous women blew. my. mind. It was the first time I’d seen my community portrayed by Hollywood in a way that didn’t denigrate. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the community I grew up with, because Amy Tan’s writing is informed by her lived experience, not mine. There are a billion Chinese people and its diaspora is huge[5] and varied, hence why not a monolith deserves to be a truth universally acknowledged.

It wasn’t until the recent windfall of books with Chinese casts (naming only a handful of many: Fonda Lee’s Jade City, Cindy Pon’s Want, R F Kuang’s The Poppy War, Sue Lynn Tan’s Daughter of the Moon Goddess, Andrea Stewart’s Bone Shard Daughter, Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun, and Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow) that I felt seen and understood how bereft I had been. In these stories, I no longer have to scrabble in the dirt for shards of mirror.

“We are all products of our context. We are all descendants of something and someone.” Daniel Kwan, 2023 Oscars “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Best Director acceptance speech

My own writing is fuelled by my lived experience—the sour hot mixture of defiance and guilt when faced with parental disappointment (yes, even as an adult!), the visceral rejection of the ‘only boys do that’ scoldings, the joy and comfort in that quiet love language typical of older generation Chinese, my somewhat dark, somewhat arch, often in the toilet, Canadian sense of humour. I wanted to see myself in my writing and offer my mirror to others, in the hopes they can find themselves in the story without needing to sift through broken shards.

While this article is ostensibly about me, in truth, it is about all the women who came before me: my mother’s indefatigable spirit and support, who taught me to love my dual heritage; the authors who paved the way by writing their truths; the readers who opened their hearts and embraced our stories; the editors who fought to open publishing’s doors, who bought and published our stories, especially the ones who never said, oh we already have one of those; and the entrepreneurs who created a space and demand for diverse voices[6] and their stories. I see you. I am here because of you.

Together, we’re creating a kaleidoscope of representation and wedging the door wide open. Come on in.

You matter. You’re wanted. You belong.

[1] Because self-representation and context matter.

[2] Pork belly and sticky rice (larou nuomifan).

[3] Red envelopes (hong bao) also known as laisee, are festive gifts filled with cold hard cash. When you greet your elders with 恭喜發財 (gong xi fa cai) Happy New Year! during Lunar New Year, children and singletons receive a hong bao. A somewhat cheeky rhyme I never dared use with my elders but would exchange with my cousins went 恭喜發財 紅包拿來 (gong xi fa cai, hong bao na lai) which means Happy New Year! Bring me hong bao! which has definite Show me the money! vibes.

[4] As Ronny Chieng would say, “Hope you get rich.”

[5] 60 million if you count descendants.

[6] I’ve written mostly about Chinese diaspora representation, but the growth of nuanced representation goes hand in hand with overall diversity in publishing. Shout out to Illumicrate and FairyLoot, UK SFF subscription book boxes founded by, respectively, Daphne Tong and Anissa de Gomery, two incredible women who have created space for diverse voices and a healthy demand for diverse stories.

Photo of A. Y. Chao A. Y. Chao is the author of Shanghai Immortal (Hodderscape, 2023). This fantasy novel stars the gloriously snarky Lady Jing, an outcast noble in the court of the king of Shanghai’s nether realm, who sets out to uncover a conspiracy to steal the Dragon Pearl, and finds her own identity—and a little love—in the process.

Born in Canada, A. Y. Chao lives in the UK with her husband and daughter. She is a recovering lawyer with a xiaolongbao habit and a predilection for knitting.
Women in SF&F Month 2023: April 24–27 Schedule & Week in Review
Apr
23
2023

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It’s the last week of the twelfth annual Women in SF&F Month. Thank you so much to all of last week’s guests for the wonderful essays!

There will be more guest posts this week, but before announcing the schedule, here are last week’s pieces in case you missed any of them.

All of the guest posts from April 2023 can be found here, and last week’s guest posts were:

And there are most guest posts coming up, starting tomorrow! This week’s essays are by:

Women in SF&F Month 2023 Schedule Graphic

April 24: A. Y. Chao (Shanghai Immortal)
April 25: Nia / N. E. Davenport (The Blood Trials, The Blood Gift)
April 26: Kemi Ashing-Giwa (The Splinter in the Sky)
April 27: Moniquill Blackgoose (To Shape a Dragon’s Breath)

Women in SF&F Month: Martha Wells
Apr
20
2023

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Today’s guest is Martha Wells, who is joining us for Women in SF&F Month once again! (She discussed her Books of the Raksura during the very first event in 2012.) Her work includes the fantasy novels The Element of Fire and The Death of the Necromancer, collected in the upcoming edition The Book of Ile-Rien (2024), and City of Bones, which is being rereleased on September 5, 2023. She has also written books set in the Star Wars and Stargate Atlantis universes, and she is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling science fiction books in The Murderbot Diaries, winner of the Hugo Award for Best Series. Her next novel, the fantasy book Witch King, is described as “a remarkable story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.” It’s coming out on May 30, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it (as well as a few other books) in her guest post, “Deconstructing Epics.”

Cover of Witch King by Martha Wells

Deconstructing Epics
by Martha Wells

The typical image of an epic is a set of thick multi-volume novels. But the secret is, you can write epic fantasy and science fiction at any length, using any structure you want.

When I started writing Witch King, I thought I was writing a story set in the aftermath of a multi-volume epic fantasy. What happens after the evil empire is defeated. I’ve always liked stories that start after the classic happily-ever-after. Like The Cloud Roads, where Moon finds his people and the home he’s always been searching for, but that’s just the start of his problems.

In the past of Witch King, a conquering genocidal empire has invaded a group of civilizations who had been living together in peace. The main characters are immortals with a deeply personal stake in their world, and even though the war is over, they find themselves in a deadly political battle to keep the alliance that defeated that empire from turning into an empire of its own. But to tell that story effectively, I realized I needed to show at least part of that past. Then I realized the past and the present storylines were intertwined and equally important, to tell a story about found family and betrayal and fighting to preserve the world you fought so hard for.

I know I couldn’t have written this book ten years ago and I know it certainly wouldn’t have found a publisher. One of the things I love about the last decade or so in science fiction and fantasy is the way it has broken out of restrictive categories and storytelling conventions. The influx of new writers and new voices and established writers employing a greater range of storytelling styles and subjects has generated a lot of brilliant and original work. And I’ve been heavily influenced in the last several years by writers writing epics, but at shorter lengths or using structures that aren’t typical for epic fantasy in western fiction.

For me, probably one of the best examples of epic storytelling at a shorter length is The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. It’s a brilliant short novella that tells an epic story of revenge and the fall of empire, as a historian and cleric interviews the one remaining witness who was in the room where it happened. This is an intensely personal story of a woman who masterminds the fall of the emperor who imprisoned her and the people who gave up everything to help her cause. This is an epic compressed down to bite-size length, but for me it makes for an even greater impact.

For a science fiction example, Karen Lord’s upcoming novel The Blue, Beautiful World is set in the same universe as her novel The Best of All Possible Worlds. Though the new novel follows some of the same characters and continues their storylines, it also tells most of the story — the culmination of  a tense long-ranging effort to stop the exploitation and takeover of Earth by aliens — from outsider perspectives, that of the people who are being taught to help save themselves.

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera is not a short novel, and it’s the first part of a trilogy, but it’s also a gripping epic fantasy in one volume, telling a generational story of Imperial and cultural and personal conflict and a war against encroaching demons. All through the focused lens of an intense first person account of a lifelong friendship and romance between the two women main characters.

Fantasy and science fiction has been called a genre of tropes, but the secret is that you can do anything you want with it, and tell your story in the way that works for you. The element that makes each story special is the person writing it, and the more of yourself you put into it, the better.

Photo of Martha Wells Martha Wells has been an SF/F writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes The Books of the Raksura series, The Death of the Necromancer, the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, The Murderbot Diaries series, media tie-in fiction for Star Wars, Stargate: Atlantis, and Magic: the Gathering, as well as short fiction, YA novels, and non-fiction. She has won Nebula Awards, Hugo Awards, and Locus Awards, and her work has appeared on the Philip K. Dick Award ballot, the BSFA Award ballot, the USA Today Bestseller List, and the New York Times Bestseller List. She is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and her books have been published in twenty-five languages.
Women in SF&F Month: Lauren J. A. Bear
Apr
19
2023

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Today’s guest is author Lauren J. A. Bear! Her debut novel coming out August 8, Medusa’s Sisters, is a reimagining of the story of the titular characters described as follows: “Monsters, but not monstrous, Stheno and Euryale will step into the light for the first time to tell the story of how all three sisters lived and were changed by each other, as they struggle against the inherent conflict between sisterhood and individuality, myth and truth, vengeance and peace.” I’m excited she’s here today to share how female fantasy authors and characters helped her in “Finding Fantasy, My Postpartum Power.”

Cover of Medusa's Sisters by Lauren J. A. Bear

FINDING FANTASY, MY POSTPARTUM POWER
Lauren J. A. Bear

I begin with a radical admission: I have never read The Lord of the Rings. For though I am a voracious reader, my speculative fiction journey was stunted. As a kid, I had the potential to be a proper SFF fan. I loved Patricia C. Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons series, trading Marvel Series 4 cards on the playground, pretending to be Xena or Princess Leia in my backyard. But as I got older, the books in class changed. This was “literature,” my teachers said, and these were the novels that mattered. Goodbye, warrior princess. So long, mutant powers. I was nothing if not a good student, and I tucked away my battered copy of Redwall, never to look back. At UCLA, I took my English major very seriously, restricting myself to serious works only. Give me the esoteric, the painful, the plotless. The less digestible the better. Because I reveled in my seriousness.

In 2016, I became pregnant with my second child, my first daughter. It was an exhausting, uncomfortable pregnancy, further exacerbated by a one-year-old at home and my teaching load. My middle school Humanities class focused on American history and literature, and I struggled to process these lessons while becoming increasingly obsessed with the news cycle. I absorbed the polls and cruel sound bites, holding my belly tight, consumed with apprehension. My little girl was born in 2017, into the chaos of #metoo and hurricanes, mass shootings and the Syrian refugee crisis. A time where the violence against women and children seemed to be at an all-time high, haunting me from all angles, every screen.

It seemed like my daughter was entering a society at its worst, and these dark thoughts sunk me into a deep pit of postpartum anxiety. I felt I was treading in a quicksand of sadness—monotonous and insurmountable, humiliating, and lonely. What can I do? Is she going to be ok? Simple, devastating questions. My sweet husband, desperate to help, urged me to read more. But the types of novels I preferred no longer offered solace. Literary fiction and its gritty stories of broken women, abused children, and failed families were a mirror of the reality I sought to escape, only intensifying my despair.

I was stressed, sinking, and so very alone.

But then, thanks to a book review online, I learned about a different kind of story: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. “A YA fantasy?!” my inner Honors student scoffed, “how old are you?”

Still young enough to learn a new trick, apparently—and thankfully.

For in Ember, I found strong women—with swords—who fought for their families in righteous battles as I longed to do. Magic, I realized, fed my soul and I devoured it all: Masks and Dregs, Red Queens then Sun Summoners, wyverns to rukhs. In each new landscape, the female characters showed remarkable agency, and despite their dire circumstances, never lost a sense of optimism—a hope I desperately needed. Move over Harry, these were The Girls Who Lived.

Saying YA fantasy is just for teenage girls implies that there’s something wrong with teenage girls. But what of Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai? Anne Frank? Joan of Arc? The extraordinarily interesting and fierce young women I’ve taught over the years? I understood—with much shame—that I disparaged all of them with this line of thought. At what point in my formative years did I internalize this misogyny, this genre prejudice? I mean, we would all be lucky to have daughters like Katniss Everdeen.

As I’ve told my students time and time again, reading begets reading. I discovered adult SFF writers R.F. Kuang and N.K. Jemisin, women writing deeply cool stories with astute social commentary. And I saw so clearly how SFF writers offer their readers a unique catharsis, an invitation to enter a world (that may look different, but feels familiar), and then kick ass. I dove deep into the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, who even remarks on the limits of realism, arguing in her defense of genre fiction that “realism is quite incapable of describing the complexity of contemporary experience.” It is fantasy, she argues, that best reflects reality.

Fantasy, folklore, and the mythological canon offered me connection. I felt a part of a rich history of protagonists navigating the big bad. I felt seen. Better. Stronger. When the intrusive thoughts came—of my daughter hurt or lost—I had something else to think about. A balm and a distraction, yes, but also a maybe, a what if? Sometimes all you need is just that sense of possibility. These stories alone did not cure my postpartum depression, but they did empower me when I struggled to understand the current world and my place in it. They allowed me to access the inner heroism I needed to save myself.

C.S. Lewis says, “Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” And maybe I’m finally mature enough to pick up the works of his old buddy Mr. Tolkien.

Better yet, maybe I’ll read them with my daughter.

Photo of Lauren J. A. Bear by Heidi Leonard
Photo by Heidi Leonard		 LAUREN J. A. BEAR was born in Boston and raised in Long Beach. After studying English at UCLA and education at LMU, she taught middle-school humanities for over a decade—and survived! She is a teaching fellow for the Holocaust Center for Humanity and lives in Seattle with her husband and three young children. She likes crossword puzzles and being on or near the water without getting wet. Learn more at www.laurenjabear.com or follow Bear on social media:

Twitter: @laurenjabear
Instagram: @laurenjabear
Women in SF&F Month: Gemma Weekes
Apr
18
2023

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Today’s guest is author, poet, and scriptwriter Gemma Weekes! Her work includes the coming-of-age novel Love Me and writing for the children’s animated series JoJo & Gran Gran, and her speculative fiction includes the short story “(Dying of) Thirst.” The latter is published in “Glimpse: An Anthology of Black British Speculative Fiction,” described as including “Afrofuturistic, magic realism and transformational stories” that “create a dichotomy between the comfortable and the mysterious, tantalizing in their mystique and refreshing in their insight.” I’m delighted that she is here today to discuss her love of fantasy in “Coming Home to Magic.”

Cover of Glimpse: An Anthology of Black British Speculative Fiction, featuring Gemma Weekes

Coming Home to Magic
By Gemma Weekes

I was always coming home to magic.

As a child I was obsessed with fantasy. Every book was a door. Each story was a passage into wonder; an initiation into the promise of an expanded, heroic self. Books were the beginning of magic: fairies that lived at the bottom of the garden; portals to enchanted forests through a wardrobe; entire kingdoms floating in the clouds. I would wrench the cover open and feel the climate of distant vistas. I would fall beyond the loneliness of childhood afternoons that rattled empty as the biscuit tin. Hours that lasted centuries, sagging between lunch and dinner while the adults went about their daily panic. When reached for, books reached back. Books weren’t frazzled or overworked. They weren’t too tired to answer all the questions. They spoke slowly and with great care, building new worlds one sentence at a time. They softened with re-reading. They smelled like sawdust. They poured gold into time.

Fantasy taught me that I could identify with anyone. I could empathize with elves and weep for talking animals. I learned the habits of a broad mind and curious heart. By reading, I developed the sense that there existed only the thinnest of veils between everyday life and a dimension of limitless, delicious mystery. By writing, I discovered that I too was a door.

As I left behind those interminable childhood afternoons, stories changed with me. I was full of longings I couldn’t name and feelings that made me a mystery to myself. I went out into the world and found it strange, chaotic and unjust. I discovered the literary writers who built doors inward, into the tangle of human motivation and subtler forms of magic such as compassion and love. My writing then consisted of maps that would keep me from being lost in a dangerous and complex world. I was less concerned with flying than digging. I was more concerned with the ocean bottom than the sky.

Nowadays I have my own daily panic. I find myself in the nexus between the past and the future, in the space between inner and outer realms. My elders have lapsed into the loneliness of long afternoons. When they reach for me, I try to reach back. I have a teenage son in the grips of his own love affair with magic. He has discovered that he, too, is a door. The world he inherits is even more dangerous than the one I grew up in: blind to its own illusions, polarized by algorithm. In a culture that fetishizes weakness; the promise of an expanded, heroic self is more important than ever. In a climate that ennobles limited perspectives; a broad mind and curious heart are our only hope.

Through him, my writing has remembered me as a child. I dig through everyday life into wild and diverse magics. I escape through myself into wonder. I am obsessed with play, with the potential of speculative forms to remind us of all the delicious mystery beneath all human doing, how that can make us humble and curious once again; courageous enough to ask all the questions. To speak slowly and carefully in a world that values fast opinion over slow fact. To build bridges one sentence at a time. To fall beyond ourselves into the unseen. To pour gold into wounds. To recognise that above all, we are miraculous dust. And that each of us is a door.

Gemma Weekes is the critically-acclaimed author of Love Me (Chatto & Windus), screenwriter (JoJo and Gran Gran), lecturer, mama, widely-published poet and playwright. Her story (Dying of) Thirst is featured in Glimpse (Peepal Tree, 2022), the first anthology of speculative fiction by Black British writers.