Thank you very much to last week’s guests for their essays! Here are links to the final pieces in this year’s series in case you missed either of them: Mary Fan (Jane Colt, Starswept) discussed writing female secondary characters who are not sidekicks to the male protagonist—and how she avoided this in her dark YA fantasy novel Flynn Nightsider and the Edge of Evil (coming out on May 15!). Ann Aguirre (Sirantha Jax, Razorland, Ars Numina) shared some of her […]

Today’s guest is RITA Award–winning writer Ann Aguirre! Her Sirantha Jax books, beginning with the romantic space opera Grimspace, are addictive reads that wonderfully balance plot and action with character development and relationships—and due to that combination, it was a series that made me realize that I could love science fiction every bit as much as fantasy! She’s also the author of many more books, including but not limited to the Corine Solomon series (urban fantasy), the Dred Chronicles (romantic science […]

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Mary Fan to the blog! She’s the author of the Jane Colt books, a completed space opera/cyberpunk trilogy, and Starswept, YA science fiction romance featuring a violist. In addition to writing novels, she also co-edits and has written stories for the Brave New Girls series, science fiction anthologies about girls in STEM, whose sales benefit the Society of Women Engineers scholarship fund. Her next novel, the young adult fantasy Flynn Nightsider and the Edge of Evil, will […]

Thank you so much to all of last week’s guests! Here’s a summary with links to their pieces in case you missed any of them: R.F. Kuang (The Poppy War) wrote about the lesson the Chinese legend of the Moon Lady teaches girls and her love for Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender with all her ambition and rage—and touches a little on the women of The Poppy War, of whom she writes, “They want power, they kick down doors […]

Today, I’m thrilled to welcome Claire North! Claire North is a pseudonym for Catherine Webb, who has written several young adult speculative fiction novels including two Carnegie Medal finalists, Timekeepers and The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle. She is also Kate Griffin, who authored the Matthew Swift and Magicals Anonymous books—two related urban fantasy series set in the same version of London. As Claire North, she’s published the Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist The First Fifteen Lives of Harry […]

Today I am delighted to welcome Jeannette Ng! Under the Pendulum Sun, her debut novel, is gothic fantasy in which Victorian missionaries journey to Arcadia with plans to convert the fae to their religion. It was just released in October 2017—and, as was announced just a couple of weeks ago, Jeannette Ng is one of this year’s finalists for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer! An Incomplete Taxonomy of Fairies, with examples Mystical, mysterious and magnificent, everyone […]