Welcome to all the misfits, nerds, and geeks who are tired of being smushed into one token character.
So, I kind of grew up in a liminal space, a crossroads of geek culture. I am too young to be a child of the eighties, but too old to be a child of the nineties. I was about five years too early for Pokemon, and five years too late for Dungeons and Dragons. I grew up on Star Wars and Star Trek, Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffery, Tamora Pierce and Patricia Wrede. While Princess Leia was awesome, I resented having only the Pink Power Ranger to represent all girls. (And yes, I know that there was a yellow one, too, but I had already moved on.)
I wanted more from my geek culture. I didn’t mind cheering the boys one, but I wanted more than just the one girl, usually in glasses and never the love interest, to represent me. And yes, Tamora Pierce and Patricia Wrede were wonderful examples of what you could make work in fantasy, but none of that translated into the wider popular geek culture. Even Harry Potter, which taught kids that it was ok to like a fantastical world, only had the one bookish girl. It took four books and half a million words to get another major girl character as more than a fangirl. And they are still defined by their relationships with boys. The big question wasn’t “What does Hermione want to do with her life?”, it was “Who is she going to end up with?”. I long for a fantasy where the girl doesn’t end up with the boy. I am an asexual. There’s more to life than who ends up with who.
Fast forward 20 plus years, and I want to write books for that girl who was wandering the library stacks looking for girls like her. I want to celebrate the geek girls that are more than just support for the main boy character. And, yes, I want to flail and fangirl over Iron Man and Wonder Woman, over Captain Kirk and Luke Skywalker.
The more things change, am I right?
But what about me, really?
Honestly, not much to tell, right now. I am working on my first YA Fantasy book Winterhome. When I am not working on that, I am attending Sci Fi/Fantasy/Anime/Fandom Conventions, where I sell geeky mugs and Iron Man Gauntlets.
If I’m not talking about the geek in popular culture, I’m usually going on about my cats. I have four. Or sometimes six. Or eight. I’m a foster mom, so the population fluctuates. Or I am crafting in one form or another. I knit and crochet. I sew very badly on a horrible machine. Just recently, I am playing around with resin and alcohol inks. I put together cosplay for the conventions I attend. Any and all of these obsessions will be flailed about here!
Token Geek Girl 