Women's History Month: Kate Forsyth

In search of Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force

Although my body is here in my study, in Sydney in the 21st century, my mind and my soul have spent most of the past year in Versailles, at the magnificent and corrupt court of the Sun King, in witty Parisian salons, and imprisoned within the walls and locked doors of a Benedictine nunnery.

I never expected to find myself immersed in the grand siècle world of King Louis XIV. I thought I was writing a quite different novel. But sometimes authors set out to write one story, and find themselves instead in thrall of something quite different, a tale that demands to be told.

So it was with me and Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force. ( Click here to discover more )

Kate Forsyth’s novel Bitter Greens will be published with Random House Australia next year. It interweaves a retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale with the life story of one of its first tellers, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force.

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It's Friday and I think you all deserve two WHM posts today. I might do two on Monday, as well, given it's Canberra Day.

In other news, things are still going triple the normal pace at the same rate of bad things to good things. What this means is that I now have several rather nice things to jubilate about, when the bad stuff decides to go away. I'm maintaining my Red Queeness, but it requires much focus. Also coffee.

I have two lists for today - one is the 'can't avoid' and the other is the 'really ought to do.'

Women's History Month: Jeri Westerson

Gillian asked me to write a post about my passion. Well, I’ve got two. One is history. And the other is writing. Lucky me, I get to combine them when I write my medieval mysteries.

Publishing my novels was something that was a long time in coming. Through over a decade of hard work, perseverance, and support from a lot of women in the same boat, I finally saw the fruits of my labors.

I don’t write about women much in my novels. I always had a rather male-centric writing style, but I certainly benefitted from association with women. Specifically, Sisters in Crime. Sisters in Crime or SinC is not a group of manic nuns. Instead, it’s an international organization of women crime and mystery writers who share their woes, their stories, their successes with like-minded women on listservs and in person in chapter meetings all over the country and at various mystery fan conventions and writing conferences. It’s tough as a would be author to slog through the mire of the publishing industry. I don’t even see how it’s possible to get published in the traditional sense with an agent and big New York publisher without some sort of help. For me, that help came in this organization. Writing is a very solitary job. You sit in an office alone, writing for hours at a time with nothing but your keyboard and your imagination. And though I do enjoy this solo enterprise, you can’t succeed in a vacuum. It takes the eyes of critique partners and perhaps a shoulder to cry on. Sometimes my mail delivery was full of rejections. It’s hard to take that alone.

Twenty-five years ago, mystery author Sara Paretsky saw inequality when it came to reviews in the major publications. Mystery novels written by women were being snubbed when it came to reviews. Why the inequality? In some cases, male reviewers flat out refused to review books written by women. Are you shocked? So was she. She networked with other female mystery novelists and ended up developing Sisters in Crime.

Today, the main mission of Sisters in Crime is to “promote the professional development and advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry.” It doesn’t mean we exclude men from membership. Oh no. They are our “misters” in crime. But each year, SinC surveys various periodicals throughout the country and does the numbers. The survey shows how many men and how many women authors are reviewed. Unfortunately, the numbers are still unequal, even though more women than men write mystery novels and more women than men buy them.

I don’t mean this to be a big advertisement for Sisters in Crime, but it has been the one place where I have truly gotten some meaningful help in my long search to get published. Through the information I gleaned and the networking I did, I was able to get a handle on this difficult and challenging industry.

And what finally happened, you ask? In 2007, I sold my first book, VEIL OF LIES. Now in 2011, I am looking forward to the publication of my fifth novel. Write on!


Jeri Westerson is the author of the Crispin Guest Medieval Noir series. She is also the president of her chapter of Sisters in Crime in Orange County, California. You can read excerpts of her novels or follow the discussion guides at www.JeriWesterson.com.

On women in spec fic

I want to direct other women who write spec fic to Jeri's post. We've been complaining for a while about inequities, but we're short on solutions (I'm very short on solutions - this might be might be something to do with my actual height being five foot and three inches). There was a big kerfuffle over awards last year, and a bunch of us have been noticing and commenting on the reviewing situation and certain tables of contents.

I don't know if an equivalent of Sisters-in-Crime would work for us, or if we're too delightfully idiosyncratic, but bears thinking about and Jeri has given us something to start that thinking happening.

Women's History Month: Pamela Freeman

Here’s a forgotten woman of history for you: Mrs Harry Bonney.

Never heard of her? Although that’s the name she preferred, she’s better known as Lores (pron. Lory) Bonney, and she was one of the first great pilots in Australia.

She was the first woman to fly from Australia to London (in 1933) and the first person to fly from Australia to South Africa four years later.

For many years she held the Australian long distance flying record.

Why haven’t you heard of her?

Well, because she didn’t die, basically, and because she stopped flying during World War II. She was well-prepared, fully-funded (by her husband and Shell Oil), and lucky. She made it through several close shaves but always emerged with her poise and her frocks intact.

Also, she arrived in London not long after Amy Johnson had successfully made the Lond-Australia flight, and the Brits weren’t nearly as impressed by this colonial flyer as the Australians were by Johnson. (And maybe it’s because she was happily married and used her husband’s name – not so attractive to those looking for feminist role models.)

What I love about Lores Bonney (and I was lucky enough to meet her and interview her when I worked for the Powerhouse Museum) was that she didn’t confine herself to flying. At 65, she went down the Amazon by canoe. At 70, she went to Japan and became the first Westerner to be accredited as a bonsai master.

Incidentally, she never learnt to drive, because her father made her husband promise Harry would never allow her to before he would consent to their marriage. Harry kept his promise – but he paid for her flying lessons, and bought her a Gypsy Moth instead!

Her advice to me (and Karen Miller, who was with me on that day) was the best advice I’ve ever been given:

Don’t let them tell you you can’t do it.





Pamela Freeman is an Australian writer whose first adult fantasy series, the Castings Trilogy (Blood Ties, Deep Water, Full Circle), is published globally by Orbit Books. Pamela is also an award-winning author of 19 children’s books. Her most recent children’s book is Lollylegs, from Walker Books, which is published here and in the UK next month. Pamela’s new adult fantasy novel, Ember and Ash, will also be published in March and she is working on a fantasy series for children for Walker Books. [She also has a secret passion for green bunnies (but don't tell her I told you! Gillian]