Reddit mentions of Dead Living (Spirit Caller Book 5)

I wrote a damn essay, so here's the rest of it eye roll

2 Why do you folks feel that there has been an influx in female representation within the genre of late?

From George Elliot to JK Rowling, women have always written. I simply think everyone is becoming more aware, more vocal, more tired, more frustrated, more (insert emotion here) that they keep being forgotten. Be it women readers or authors, they are tired of being afterthoughts. This is not isolated to fantasy. Women gamers are having the same conversations, as are women in media.

3 Did female authors of the past feel marginalised or hindered by the predominance of male authors within the field?

I think that’s a question left to others who worked in the field a few decades ago. Janny Wurts has talked openly about how some things are actually harder now as a female author than before, and CJ Cherryh has talked very openly about being a woman in science fiction.

4 Do you feel that readers would suffer from a selection bias based upon a feminine name (resulting in all the gender-ambiguous pen names)?

We’ve had this discussion a lot. It’s even in the comments of this thread. I’ve talked about the comments I’ve had in person at conventions and speaking events. We’ve had this discussion in urban fantasy recommendations. We’ve had this discussion when Lyrreal created her urban fantasy not romance thread and people bitched that women were on the list and didn’t complain about the men. We’ve had this discussion in Janny Wurts’ last AMA. We have this discussion every time the phrase, “I only read good books” comes up and the person reads nearly all male authors.

We’ve also had this discussion when someone asked me why Skyla Dawn Cameron’s Bloodlines cover has a softer, more romancey cover, when I’ve insisted it isn’t a romance and that the book ended with me wanting to throw my Kobo at the author. (If I ever met her in person, I’ve teasingly warned her I might do that). Or why Lillith Saintcrow went with a man titty cover for one of her books that isn’t a PNR. Or why I’m rebranding my series that Charles de Lint called “a breath of fresh air” as paranormal romance for the complete box set that’ll be out in the early summer.

Why? Because the original covers were all meant to appeal to a more urban fantasy, less romance audience – and only the girls were buying our books. The PNR readers were all avoiding it, especially with mine because they looked too “horror” for many, and strangely, guys weren’t picking it up…until recently.

And we have bills to pay. We know a certain readership will like our books and so we all (and loads more like us) have decided screw it. Let’s bring them in because, as I always say, I drive a Jeep Rubicon. That sucker ain’t cheap.

So, yes. I think there are readers who suffer from selection bias. And am I contributing by changing my series from this style to this image?. Probably. Oh well. I have a Jeep payment to make on the 20th.


5 Do you think that women in fantasy are still under-represented?

I think there does need to be more ground-level stuff to encourage WOC and LGBTQ+ authors to submit their stories, etc. There also needs to more efforts to hire agents, editors, marketing people, etc to help foster these authors, stories, etc. Romance and YA have been leading the charge with this, but we’re seeing more and more with Lightspeed, including their new Kickstarter for “POC destroy SF and fantasy and horror, too” project. (I believe this is their 3rd now, right?)

There’s still loads of issues with under-recognized, of course. r/fantasy is doing its own little bit with things like Fantasy Bingo, which is helping expose folks to different flavours within fantasy. Oftentimes, we just need small steps.

6 Do you feel that proportional representation of the genders should take precedence?

There’s a rather huge jump between “OMFG read books by women” (direct Krista quote from 8 months ago) and a quota. I think I read more fantasy books by men last year than women. I also read all of Simon R. Green’s “Secret Histories” series, which might be skewing my numbers. Meh. Sure, I know that people who like Dresden are going to then read Iron Druid, then Laundry Files, then Nightside. I know this. It’s cool. All I’m asking is that, when you’re done, give maybe someone else a try. Like Seanan McGuire, Lilith Saintcrow, or SM Reine.

7 Do you think that certain types of fantasy are written better on an innate level by men/women?

I don’t know.
I have noticed that authors who mock erotica and romance, or who brag they don’t read that filth, tend to write romance subplots that I find unappealing and/or immature. It tends to be more men than women, but I still think that’s a cultural/social thing more than anything.

8 Is the reader base for fantasy in general a boys club or is it more even than that?

I don’t know if I ever thought of fantasy as a boys club. But I’ll tell you this. A lot of my readers are women. A lot are in the 30-50 range. The majority of them have been reading fantasy longer than I have. When I give talks, I have 50-100 people come out. There are as many woman as men; sometimes more. And their ages are from young 20s to elderly women with canes.

I’ve given lectures and panels on “should we still be talking about women in SFF” and the audience is often skewed older than I am, pretty equal across gender. And they’re like, yup, we should be talking about it.
From a marketing perspective, it probably is. From a ground-level perspective, it’s probably a lot more diverse than marketing would lead us to believe.

9 Do you feel that the increasing relevance of women in fantasy literature is making up for lost time in a sense?

More like it’s a loss of patience.

Anyway, sorry for the long essay.


Tl;dr Krista is being herself again. Ignore.

(edits for formatting and lack of proper english)