Guest Post: PJ Manney on GameStop and the Power of Populism

When I first began working on a story about women who turned into werewolves as they entered menopause way back in 2009 or so, there was not a whole lot of representation of middle-aged and older women to be found in science fiction, fantasy, or horror. I mean, there were the evil middle-aged queens with talking mirrors, out to poison their younger, prettier rivals and the ancient witches who popped up to do terrible things or sometimes, provide directions, as the case may be. But, with rare exceptions, they were never protagonists, and they were seldom more than cardboard embodiments of evil or just plain window dressing.

Around 2010, that started to change. A bunch of other things happened around then too, including a huge growth in ebook publishing by indie authors and indie publishers which brought in a lot of voices that were not previously being heard from in more mainstream science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Along with that came writers willing to take risks, to tell new stories, to tackle things like representation that had been pretty sparse up until then. Those writers included women who were middle-aged and beyond looking to see themselves and their stories in the pages of the genres they loved.

Amongst those writers was yours truly. As I entered middle age myself, I wanted to see more protagonists that were dealing with the same issues around aging that I was dealing with and still having adventures along the way. Entering middle age often brings with it some big physical and psychological changes, as well as the potential for having one’s traditional social roles (perceived desirability and childbearing, for example) reduced. Menopause is either ignored or treated like a medical condition, and middle-aged women who are still interested in sex are often treated as a punchline to a joke. Quite a bit of this is culturally specific to Western culture as we practice it in the U.S., but that also makes it pretty pervasive.

Inspired by a write-up that I found on a medical site for “symptoms” of menopause (“Unexpected hair growth! Mood swings! Receding gums which make your teeth look longer!”) I embarked on what was originally a novella about a woman who discovers that when she turns fifty, she also turns into a werewolf. She also develops a crush on her next-door neighbor and finds a whole new community of local werewolves, all middle-aged and elderly women, and confronts the people out to destroy her newfound family. After getting a lot of positive feedback for the idea, the novella was followed by the first novel, Silver Moon, and now, the second one, Blood Moon. Some of the themes and issues that I tackle in the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series include coming out at midlife, the physical and psychological experiences of menopause, a magical system that values older women and ways to combat the isolation that can impact women as they age. Also: werewolves, because they’re cool.

Silver Moon originally came out in 2012 (it was reissued by Queen of Swords Press in 2017), joining a small list of novels and stories with female protagonists forty and older in sf and f. These included Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2003), a fantasy that sends a middle-aged noblewoman on a quest, and Remnant Population (2003) by Elizabeth Moon, which is a first contact novel featuring an eighty-year-old human colonist as the protagonist. There were also Nancy Springer’s middle-aged ladies of the fantastic featured in such titles as Fair Peril (1996), Larque on the Wing (1994), and Plumage (2000). YÅ«ya Satō’s Dendera (2009) is about a group of elderly Japanese women banding together to fight a supernatural bear, and most popular of all, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld witches, which were first featured in Equal Rites (1987) and Wyrd Sisters (1988).

Armed with the knowledge that there might be more stories out there, I went looking. I started a bibliography of the stories I found featuring science fiction, fantasy, and horror tales with female protagonists over 40 where I listed everything I knew about (10 books and/or stories) and then I asked for suggestions. And it turned out that I wasn’t the only one looking for more older women in speculative fiction. Suggestions trickled in and I checked them out and added them if they seemed like a good fit. The two biggest reasons for not adding a title were unspecified age (character felt “older”) and a misinterpretation of what a “protagonist” was. Middle-aged and older women apparently occupy an outsized role on the fictional page, such that even a walk-on and a couple of lines is as good as being a major player for some readers.

After the initial growth spurt, there were new and rediscovered works popping up every time I asked for suggestions. A nice fan I met at Helsinki Worldcon offered to create a Goodreads list, and things took off from there. The list has taken on a life of its own as people add books and readers discover it.

But apart from the obvious interest in the topic, there still remains the question of how broad and deep the representation these books and stories provide. There are, for example, still not many characters who are women of color and even fewer who are written by writers of color. There are some queer women, but not many. A list of trans women who are also elders in spec fic and protagonists, while longer than it would have been a couple of years ago, is still very short. Representation of aged characters is also full of magical and technological “cures” and other miracles.

There have also been some challenges making readers aware that the books and stories that do exist are out there. I, and now we, have been adding to and publicizing these lists for years and yet every six months or so, I encounter a post or commentary somewhere online to the effect that there are almost no older women featured as protagonists in sf and f. This is invariably followed by people suggesting the same five or six books, many of whom are amazed that there are many more stories than they thought out there.

As writers in the field age, their characters often age with them (sometimes subconsciously), so I think that we will see more of these stories in the future. Add to that the works that we have not yet discovered and included, particularly those from outside the U.S., perhaps not originally written in English, and there is fertile ground for exploring older women as central characters in speculative fiction.

Bio: Catherine Lundoff is the publisher at Queen of Swords Press, a Minneapolis-based small press focused on fiction from out of this world. Queen of Swords publishes work by A.J. Fitzwater, Alex Acks, Catherine’s own work and that of other authors. Catherine is also an award-winning writer and editor who works in IT and lives with her wife and their kitty overlords. Her books include the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series, Silver Moon and Blood Moon, Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories and Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic and as editor, Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space). She is the author of over 100 published short stories and essays which have appeared in such venues as Fireside Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, the SFWA Blog, Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, American Monsters Part 2 and World of Darkness anthologies Haunting Shadows, The Cainite Conspiracies and Ghosthunters. She teaches writing classes at the Rambo Academy and Springboard for the Arts.

Websites: www.catherinelundoff.net and www.queenofswordspress.com

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Raised by an Italian mother (don’t let my embarrassingly anglicized name fool you), the kitchen formed the hub of all activity in our home growing up. Not just for cooking meals, but also entertaining, welcoming guests, and even eating.

If anything happened in our home, it happened in the kitchen.

Few recipes stir up the memories and emotions I associate with then as risotto does. My mother had her own go-to risotto recipe that had evolved over the years she had learned it from her own mother, and it became a monthly tradition for her to cook up a batch of risotto rice, leek and chicken, which would keep us going for days.

I’m a big fan of meals that can be cooked in a pot. Not just because they can often be a bit more “˜hands off’ than other types of recipe (I’m infuriatingly lazy), but also because I find there’s more room to improvise and tweak it in line with your own personal preferences.

This risotto recipe is a bit braver than more traditional takes on the Northern Italian dish. It matches traditional risotto elements, like white wine, onion and garlic, with a much more outlandish pumpkin and walnuts. If I’m honest, I don’t think my Italian grandparents would approve (in fact, I know they wouldn’t – they never forgave me for my lazy tiramisu recipe) but if I didn’t deliberately undermine them at every given opportunity, then what kind of grandson would I be?

The truth is though, despite my tweaking on it, the recipe does still remind me of learning to cook in our home kitchen in the middle of the Berkshire countryside. And if a recipe can stir up intense memories like that, then it’s served its purpose.

One of the greatest cooking fallacies is that making a good risotto takes a lot of time and skill. Well, you’ll be glad to hear it only requires a good amount of time, and simply no skill. Fortunately this means that even someone as clueless as me can make it.

All this recipe needs is a lot of patience, and definitely a lot of stirring. Your arm might take a little while to forgive you, but the dish you get at the end more than makes up for it

If you’re making this in autumn or fall then you might already be drowning in pumpkin-inspired dishes (pumpkin lattes, pumpkin cookies, even pumpkin peanut butter), but this is too good not to try. Furthermore, it’s a great dish to break out for Thanksgiving as a vegetarian alternative to the more traditional meat-heavy meals on offer.

That said, I still love to break it out year-round, and enjoy it just as much in the summer.

Pumpkin & Walnut Risotto
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
45 mins
Total Time
55 mins

Servings: 2 people
Ingredients
1 cube Vegetable Stock
500 ml Water boiled
50 g Butter
1 White Onion. Finely Diced
1 Stick of Celery. Finely Diced
1 Garlic Clove. Finely Diced
150 g Arborio Risotto Rice
125 ml White Wine
150 g Pumpkin Puree
25 g Butter
50 g Roquefort Cheese crumbled
50 g Walnuts chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Add the vegetable stock cube to the boiling water and stir in thoroughly.
2. Heat up a large frying pan over a medium heat, add 25g of the butter.
3. Once the butter has melted, add the onion and celery. Cook for 10 minutes until softened.
4. Stir in the rice, until the grains start to turn translucent at the edges.
5. Turn up the heat a notch to medium-high, adding in the white wine. Stir until all the wine has disappeared. Add the dried sage.
6. Slowly stir in the vegetable stock by adding in one full ladle at a time, stirring continuously until fully incorporated and the rice is cooked. Do this over the course of about half an hour.
7. Stir in the pumpkin puree and take off the heat. Place a lid on top and leave to rest for 5 minutes.
8. As the risotto rests, melt the other 25g of butter in a separate frying pan add the walnuts to toast.
9. Serve the risotto. Top with the crumbled roquefort cheese and buttered toasted walnuts.

About the author:
Ben is a former semi-pro cyclist and big eater. Now he is just a big eater. He writes about food and drink for lazy cooks at The Eat Down.