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Elizabeth Leggett is a twenty-year veteran freelance illustrator. Her artistic influences include Michael Kaluta, Donato Giancola, John Jude Palencar, and Jeremy Geddes. She completed a seventy-eight-card tarot in a single year and launched it into a successful Kickstarter (Portico Tarot and Art Prints). In December, she won two places in Jon Schindehette’s ArtOrder Inspiration, and she provided internal art for the Women Destroy Science Fiction! issue of Lightspeed and is the Women Destroy Fantasy! cover artist and art director.
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Women Destroy Urban Fantasy:
An Interview with Carrie Vaughn and Kelley Armstrong
Sandra Wickham
I’m a big fan of Urban Fantasy. I read it, I write it, and I admire many of the authors in the genre. Urban Fantasy has been around for a long time, under different names, with varying surges and dips in popularity. I wondered if women writing in this sub-genre felt targeted by those who would say women are destroying fantasy. To find out, I thought I would go straight to the source.
It’s my pleasure to bring you a conversation with two of the top authors in Urban Fantasy, Carrie Vaughn and Kelley Armstrong, with their take on the genre. These two women have been highly influential in my own writing career, both as New York Times Best Selling Authors, mentors, and examples of prolific, successful, and professional women.
Our Panel
Carrie Vaughn is the bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series, the most recent of which is the twelfth installment, Kitty in the Underworld. Her superhero novel Dreams of the Golden Age was released in January 2014. She has also written the young adult novels Voices of Dragons and Steel, and the fantasy novels Discord’s Apple and After the Golden Age. Her short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, from Lightspeed to Tor.com and George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series. She lives in Colorado with a fluffy attack dog. Learn more at carrievaughn.com.
Kelley Armstrong has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers’ dismay. Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, kids, and far too many pets. Learn more at KelleyArmstrong.com.
What reaction do you have when you hear people say that female authors are destroying science fiction and fantasy?
Vaughn: Well, I kind of want to laugh. Women have been part of science fiction and fantasy all along, and that we’re even still having this conversation speaks to the way that women’s work is constantly marginalized. It’s so ironic that you’ll hear people talk in one breath about how women are better at writing fantasy and men are better at science fiction, and in the next breath talk about how of course men write better epic fantasy, and women really only write that “girly” fantasy. There are some folks who’d squeeze us out entirely if they could. As I said, we’ve been doing it all, all along, and it’s annoying that we have to keep pointing that out.
Armstrong: How exactly does anyone “destroy” a genre? The categories exist because readers say “I like this sort of book,” and a genre emerges or shifts to satisfy that market interest. There will be fluctuations within it, as interests change and the audience changes. That’s what keeps a genre alive, not what destroys it. It is destroyed when people stop reading it, and somehow I don’t think female authors are out there campaigning for people to stop reading fantasy and science fiction.
What stereotypes do you encounter in regards to Urban Fantasy as a genre? How do you respond?
Vaughn: I once did an interview where the first question I was asked was “How do you handle writing explicit sex scenes?” I responded with, “Ask me how I know you don’t read my books.” Because I don’t have explicit sex scenes in my books. I was also at signing once when someone walked up, looked at my books, and asked me if I wrote “that porn stuff.” So, yeah: People take one look at those hot covers with the sexy babes, and immediately think it’s all sex. These days, I just kind of sigh and shake my head.
Armstrong: I think it’s like any other genre—people who don’t read it are certain they know what it is and often have a very narrow definition. The stereotype I usually encounter is that UF is all overpowered, kick-ass chicks who are supposed to be saving the world but spend more time trying to pick a mate from the dozen guys pursuing them. I have never written that plot. I have never read that plot. It’s more common to see paranormal thrillers with capable women—sometimes fighters but often not—and long-term romantic relationships, with those relationships taking a backseat to the action and mystery.
Why do you think UF seems to be a female-dominated genre? Or is a statement like that perpetuating more stereotypes? Does the genre need more male authors?
Vaughn: The statement is perpetuating stereotypes, because it is a myth. (Like so many statements about women’s writing and women’s genres.) I’d guess something like forty to forty-five percent of my readership is male—this surprises people, but come to one of my signings or book events and you’ll see. Look at the comments on my Facebook page. Or any UF author’s page. Lots of men read this, and lots of men write this—if you see a UF book whose author uses initials, it’s often a male author trying to hide his gender. Just like so many female authors have done when publishing science fiction.
The other thing that happens is if the author is a man, it may not be classified as UF, even if it has all the hallmarks of the genre. And if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard the statement—”Well, I don’t really like urban fantasy—except for Jim Butcher’s books, of course.”—I would have a lot of nickels. We’re in Joanna Russ territory, here, in her analysis of the ways women’s writing gets classified as different or lesser, even when it looks just the same as men’s writing in the same category.
So yeah, I’d really like to stop with the “UF is female-dominated,” because in my experience it simply isn’t true. The perception has clouded the reality.
Armstrong: I’ve been around since the current flavor of UF began, back when these books were called paranormal suspense. Laurell K. Hamilton had been writing them for a few years. Then Jim Butcher started his Dresden Files. Charlaine Harris started the Southern Vampire series a year later, at the same time I started the Otherworld. So of the four, three were women, and not everyone included Butcher’s books in the same category. Those three also wrote female protagonists. The audience then was largely female—guys being less likely to read female protagonists, especially in first-person narration. When publishers went looking for more books “like these,” they actively sought out female authors. Women who already wrote fantasy were pointed in this direction, and that’s where many of the “next batch” of UF writers came from. It’s not surprising then that it became a female-dominated genre. And, yes, it would be great to see more guys writing it, of course!
What do you think the future holds for Urban Fantasy and its authors? Is Urban Fantasy on its way out as the rumors profess, or will women continue to “destroy” this genre?
Vaughn: You know, I’ve been predicting the end of urban fantasy for something like six years now, and I’ve been wrong all this time. That said, all the major series seem to be wrapping up, and there does seem to be a slowdown—I get the feeling it’s a lot harder to break in with UF than it used to be. But as with anything, a really great idea, a really new take on it all, will find an audience.
Armstrong: The form of UF that arose in the last decade is fading. Charlaine Harris has ended her series. I’ve ended mine. Kim Harrison is on her last couple of books. The list goes on. So far, though, the authors who are ending their series aren’t getting out of fantasy altogether. They’re just taking a slightly different approach. My new series is more mystery, less paranormal—incorporating folklore an
d superstition rather than werewolves and witches. I think this is how the genre will continue, evolving rather than dying out.
What advice would you have for other female authors of urban fantasy, paranormal fantasy, or fantasy that may be facing challenges based on their gender or their chosen genre?
Carrie: From a writing/craft standpoint, I have to get this off my chest: Be aware of the tropes you’re working with, and be very aware of stereotypes and pitfalls you might be falling into. It makes me sad that a genre that is supposed to celebrate powerful women so often perpetuates patriarchal patterns/clichés, and doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test.
And then, stick to your guns. UF has a huge, devoted audience, and cling to that to keep you going when the rest of the genre community seems to be sneering at you.
Armstrong: Ignore it and focus on your own path. That may not be a popular answer, but I was a computer programmer in the days when it was a rare career choice for women. I got used to being the only woman in the office other than the receptionist. I got used to being treated like an interloper or, worse, the product of affirmative action. I knew that wasn’t the case—I graduated at the top of my class—so I said “screw it” and focused on the work, and let the results prove that I’d earned my position. That’s what I do as an author. I write whatever I want and I ignore the noise. If I get snark from a male author, a look at his Bookscan figures kills the sting, because it’s the same thing I encountered in programming—the guys who outperform me aren’t the ones taking those shots, so I can chalk it up to sour grapes and move on.
© 2014 by Sandra Wickham.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandra Wickham lives in Vancouver, Canada, with her husband and two cats. Her friends call her a needle-crafting aficionado, health guru, and ninja-in-training. Sandra’s short stories have appeared in Evolve, Vampires of the New Undead; Evolve, Vampires of the Future Undead; Chronicles of the Order; Crossed Genres; LocoThology: Tales of Fantasy & Science Fiction; and The Urban Green Man. She blogs about writing with the Inkpunks, is the Fitness Nerd columnist for The Functional Nerds, and slush reads for Lightspeed Magazine.
In Other Worlds:
The Female Stars of Tie-in Fiction
Shanna Germain
Tie-in fiction—books and stories set in shared worlds—has a long history of providing fans with new dimensions and elements of their favorite games, shows, and movies. As tie-in fiction continues to grow in popularity, the field of talented, passionate authors also continues to grow. Here, we talk to four of them, delving into their career origins, the role that gender plays (or doesn’t) in their success, and the effects of constraints on creativity.
Please introduce yourselves, in case there are any readers out there who aren’t yet familiar with your work.
Erin M. Evans: I write the Farideh/ Brimstone Angels series, set in the world of the Forgotten Realms. My second book, Lesser Evils, won the 2012 Scribe Award for Best Speculative Original Novel, and my most recent title, The Adversary, was the third book of the Sundering series.
Elaine Cunningham: I started writing tie-in fiction way back in the Jurassic Era (aka “D&D Second Edition.”) My first novel was Elfshadow, a mystery in a fantasy setting. Since then I’ve written over twenty novels, about three dozen short stories, and a graphic novel. I’ve worked in a number of licensed settings: Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, EverQuest, Pathfinder Tales, and several small settings.
Margaret Weis: Thirty years ago, my co-author, Tracy Hickman, and I wrote Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first volume of the Dragonlance Chronicles based on the Dungeons & Dragons Dragonlance RPG for TSR, Inc. That book and the sequels that followed were on the New York Times bestseller list and have been in continuous publication ever since.
Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell: I’m the only author who has written official tie-in novels for the popular MMORPG, Dungeons & Dragons Online (The Shard Axe and Skein of Shadows, both of which were nominated for the IAMTW’s Scribe Award), so I’m pretty proud of that. I’m also currently working on the second book in a trilogy based on the Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice comic books, and when they come out, they’ll have both my name and Neil’s on the cover, so that’s pretty exciting. I also have two original collections out, Tales of Sand and Sorcery and Bridges of Longing and Other Strange Passageways, and my agent is currently shopping an original series about a paranormal profiler that I think will be a lot of fun.
Writing tie-in fiction isn’t the kind of thing where you went to your guidance counselor in high school and said, “What should my career choice be?” and she said, “Hey, I know—you should write fiction set in someone else’s universe for a living.” When and how did you first learn that writing tie-in fiction was an actual job option, and how did you get started down that career path?
Evans: My first job in publishing was with Per Aspera Press. The editor, Jak Koke, was the first author I’d met in real life who’d written tie-in novels. At the time, I didn’t really see the allure, but I can remember talking to him about what writing for a shared world was like. After that, I worked at Wizards of the Coast as an editor for their novel department, so I got immersed in shared worlds. One day, Susan J. Morris, the main line editor for Forgotten Realms, asked me if I wanted to audition for a Realms novel. It was for Ed Greenwood Presents Waterdeep, and it turned out that Susan and Ed loved my pitch for The God Catcher!
Cunningham: Back in 1990, Writer’s Digest magazine advertised an open call for a new fantasy line. I’d never heard of TSR or the Forgotten Realms, and at the time I had zero knowledge of D&D. But I bought the old gray boxed set, a couple of gaming modules, and all the novels written up to that point—I think there were four—and plunged in. Something clicked, and I knew this was a place I could happily inhabit.
Weis: I was hired by Jean Black, head of the TSR book department, in 1983. Part of my job was to work on the new Dragonlance game product created by game designer Tracy Hickman. The RPG was to feature twelve adventure modules with three tie-in novels. At the time, there had never been a novel tie-in for a game adventure. Since the plotline was quite extensive (covering twelve modules), my job was to provide background for the characters (all we had were the game stats and what they looked like!) and the plot for the novels. TSR planned to hire an experienced author to write the books.
The author they hired didn’t work out. By that time, Tracy and I were in love with this world and the characters and we didn’t like what was being done with them. We knew them better than anyone because we had been spending months working with them. Tracy and I decided to go for it. In one weekend, we wrote the prologue and the first five chapters and gave them to Jean Black, asking her to read them and, if she liked them, to let us write the books. Jean spent an hour with the chapters, then came to us and said, “Wow! This is what we’ve been looking for!”
She fired the other author and hired us. So, in a way, I didn’t decide to write tie-in novels so much as the tie-in novel decided I should write it.
Rockwell: I’ve been playing D&D since third grade, and writing my own fantasy stories since sixth. When I discovered that there was a medium that combined those two loves? That’s what I wanted to do. No Great American Novel for this wannabe—I really just wanted to write D&D books. So when Wizards of the Coast held an open call for Maiden of Pain (a Forgotten Realms novel in The Priests series) back in 2003, I jumped at the opportunity. My proposal didn’t win, but it did bring me to the attention of WotC’s editors, and I got the opportunity to submit to several more calls until I finally hit with one for the Eberron Campaign Setting (which eventually became the novel Legacy of Wolves).
Working inside someone else’s world has some constraints because you have to stick to the canon. Do the parameters feel freeing or do you find it constraining?
Evans: For me, the constraints are inspiring. I’ve had elements handed to me at the start. I’ve wound up where another creator has contradicted my story in some way. I’ve found places where the “lore”
here doesn’t match the lore there, or the lore is just confusing or goofy. At first, it’s maddening. But having those pieces that can’t move defines the space around them. What fits here? What can you do to shape the story the way you want, while accommodating this detail? What can you do to join this detail and that? I love that sort of problem solving and I think you get a whole other level of it when writing shared world.
Cunningham: Writing for a licensed setting is very much like writing historical fiction. You need to know the politics, the players, science and technology (which in fantasy includes magic), geography, belief systems, and social mores and customs. You have to know how people talked, how they made a living, and how they viewed the world. In short, you need to do a lot of research if you’re going to capture a sense of time and place. The process is very similar; the only real difference is that in fantasy, the “history” is fictitious. Maybe you can’t blow up a city or kill off a NPC, but there’s a great deal of room for creativity. Most of the time, you’ll be writing about characters you created. If you do write about existing characters, such as in the Star Wars Extended Universe, you get to create that story’s plot. Sure, there are several layers of review and approval, but I seldom felt constrained by a setting’s parameters.
Fantasy Magazine Issue 58, Women Destroy Fantasy! Special Issue Page 25