Kicking off the first of our roundtable-style interviews for Women in SFF 2024 are the Gollancz debut authors!

Let’s dive straight in and meet them – you can find biographies about each other and links to their books at the end

Welcome to the Fantasy Hive and our Women in SFF feature! 

We’re thrilled you could join us for an interview about your debut novels.

To begin with, can you briefly describe your story in three sentences or less?

• Lauren Dedroog (LD): A Curse of Crows (book one and two) explores what it takes to turn a lovable hero into a cunning villain in a way that keeps readers rooting for them; what it takes to build them up, break them and set their rage loose to change the worlds. So much history has already taken place before ACOC starts, and the series sets out to show the accumulation of said history, the consequences and after waves of centuries of a twisted game of revenge.
• Emily Hamilton (EH) The Stars Too Fondly: Twenty years after the mysterious disappearance of the crew of the Providence I, Cleo and her friends break into the abandoned spaceship. They’re only looking for clues, but when the dark matter engine starts up all on its own, they’re stuck on a one-way trip to Proxima Centauri with only a hologram of the ship’s missing captain, Billie, for help. There’s adventure, there’s space magic, there’s alternate dimensions, there’s a sapphic romance with a hologram… I think TSTF has it all, frankly.
• Jennifer Delaney (JD): Tales of a Monstrous Heart – A fey girl accidentally lets a demon out of a book and then must partner up with an occultist Lord to avoid a worse punishment. Unfortunately… Lord Blackthorn is very handsome, mysterious and also might have no soul. Murder, madness and chaos ensue (as well as ALOT of forbidden yearning).
• Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson (EJP): The Principle of Moments is an epic, century-spanning space fantasy story that follows a girl named Asha, living in an dystopian future, who finds out she has a sister imprisoned by the emperor, and decides to go and save her. Along the way, she meets Obi, a time-traveller who forms one half of a Regency Era love affair, and is desperately trying to get back to the prince waiting for him in the past. Together, Asha and Obi travel the stars, escape prison (twice), find love and lose it, and uncover a prophecy that has been millennia in the making.

Can you tell us a bit about your main character? What kind of personality do they possess?

• LD: Diana starts off as a rather timid woman, scared of the opinions of others, used to being shunned by the Court she lives in. Though she quickly starts growing more comfortable with herself, and throughout book one, learns to love herself. She’s a very sarcastic and emotionally aware person; soft and loving around her friends and family, and intimidating and scary when crossed. Once she’s had her first taste of power, her sense of ambition sparks alive, and she starts craving more. To protect herself, her people and make this world safer for daemons too. Aedlynn, on the other hand, is the type of character that takes no shit from anyone, and isn’t afraid to call out even the King of Gods. If there’s a deadpan reaction to anything, it’s likely said by Aedlynn. She’s easily one of the most powerful players in this game, and the only one who doesn’t care about power.
• EH: Cleo is a Sagittarius disaster dyke who is very smart with computers and very stupid about feelings. Between her fraught family relationships, late-stage climate change, and an exuberantly avoidant attachment style, getting stuck on a ship to another solar system with her three best friends sounds like her ideal scenario, actually. Meanwhile, Billie is very disgruntled to have woken up as a hologram. She was a world-renowned astronaut, and she was supposed to be the captain of the first manned mission to an exoplanet. But now she doesn’t have a body, her digitally uploaded memories are all scrambled, and this annoyingly chipper (and aggravatingly beautiful) rando seems to have stolen her ship.
• JD: Katherine Woodrow is our fey female lead in Tales. She’s feisty and formidable. Brave, intelligent, resilient and loyal. But at her core, Kat is just kind and still believes in the goodness in the world and the people in it. Even after suffering at its cruelty and the brutality life has handed her. She makes mistakes, she can be stubborn and reckless but  Kat is a small light in a very dark world, a woman with dreams and aspirations who battles with a world that wishes her to fail. She might give up, but she never gives up on herself.
• EJP: Asha is stubborn, and angry, and fierce, but she has a really vulnerable heart that not many get to see. With her, I wanted to address a conundrum that so many Black and mixed race girls experience. As human beings, we have so many complex emotions, and as Black women, we have very valid reactions to injustice we experience in our every day lives. However the spectrum of emotion we are allowed to display is limited—we can’t be too angry, too loud, or too much of anything without it adversely affecting our lives. So I wanted to write a protagonist whose anger and fierceness is her strength.

How well do you think you’d fare in your fictional world?

• LD: I would thrive there. I’d sell my soul to actually live there.
• EH: Not great! I nearly lost my mind in quarantine, and at least during lockdown I could still go on hikes and such. If I was stuck in a tin can hurtling through the vacuum of space for untold months or years, I would probably dissolve into a pile of depressed goo that was only capable of rewatching rom-coms and mainlining freeze-dried coffee.
• JD: Awfully. I barely survive this one. Never mind with creatures actively trying to take me out. I’d probably end up being burned as a witch or something for telling the wrong joke.
• EJP: Not well at all! In the world of TPOM, humans are indentured servants, doomed to work until they can pay back all the debt they incurred as a result of settling illegally on the Emperor’s land. The entirety of humanity are climate refugees working in horrific conditions, who sleep in sterile cubes and drink their meals out of nutrients sachets. No Netflix, no hot chocolate, nothing to read… I would be dead and gone within hours. 

Did you create mood boards to help set the atmosphere of your story? If so, what did your mood board consist of? 

• LD: My stories are very character-driven, so for ACOC, I made Pinterest boards for every character to figure out their aesthetic, personality and vibes. I did the same to explore the different species in the series as well as some of the realms. Once I have an idea for a story, I usually make one big board just to get an idea of the general themes, and from there on, I start focusing on individual characters, and so on.
• EH: Oh yes, I’m a big Pinterest girlie. I have boards for all the major characters in TSTF: Cleo’s is mostly maladaptive memes and Billie’s is mostly moody poetry, but they also include outfits, aesthetics, and story vibes.
• JD: I had an 18hr long spotify playlist. That my dad calls my ‘depressive music’ because I love the sad melodies! Music is a MASSIVE inspiration for me, that was before I found pinterest. BUT as I’m a thriving gothic girlie, I also LOVE a gothic ruin. Nothing better to be inspired by.
• EJP: I don’t really make that many moodboards, but similar to Jennifer, music is a huge inspiration for me. Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer albums was on repeat for me during the writing of TPOM: “Black girl magic’y’ll can stand it / y’all can’t ban it… they been trying hard just to make us all vanish / I suggest they put a flag on a whole ‘other planet.”

The path to publication can be such a varying one for everyone – how was yours?

• LD: Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it. I started writing ACOC during COVID. I work as an ICU nurse, couldn’t leave my house due to restrictions, was combining my job with another bachelor’s education, and desperately needed a reprieve from it all. So I started writing, and then later planned on self-publishing it, started making posts on Instagram and marketed it in Belgium and the Netherlands, and was met with so much enthusiasm and interest from readers and bookstores alike. Didn’t expect that to happen at all. Due to an ISBN slip-up, bookstores accidentally sent their orders to a Belgian publisher as well as requests to hire me for signings. That publisher then reached out to me, we started talking and they eventually requested I send them the manuscript. The next day, we agreed to work together and ACOC was published in Belgium in October ‘22. The foreign rights agent then went one step further and somehow managed to sell the world English rights to Gollancz barely a month later.
• EH: I began writing TSTF in November 2018, just a couple of weeks after I’d started a publishing job as an assistant to two literary agents. Publishing turned out to not be for me, and I quit to move to Vermont with my now-wife. At my going-away party, my friend and fellow assistant made me promise to send her my book when it was done. I did, and now she’s my agent. I wouldn’t trade the experience of working in publishing for the world. I could never take for granted the opportunities it opened up for me, and I feel very lucky to have gotten so familiar with the industry before entering it from the other side as an author.
• JD: From the age of 14 I’ve been writing. A BA, MA and a dyslexia diagnosis later… and many failed books. Reader, it was June 2020. I completely gave up. I was deep in my failed artist depression at 27. Then as I was wallowing in my bed, I saw a copy of Jane Eyre on my shelf and remembered how much I loved that book – and I thought… what if it had a fantasy twist? So June 2020 TALES was born, a story I wrote for fun and for the love of writing. It was finished June 2021 and I started querying it. I got an agent and it was out on sub January 2022 and I had a deal by November 2022. Which is CRAZY. Honestly still pinching myself after 10 years of actively trying to be published – here we are.
• EJP: I started writing TPOM when I was in secondary school, during a time when I desperately needed to escape. It kind of became my diary, and just a huge mess of everything I have loved since I could read/watch TV. Then I got older, edited it, still loved the story, couldn’t stop thinking about my characters. At that point they were a part of me. I tried querying with minimal success. No one knew how to market the book, or where it fit in the market—the price of doing something totally new. As a last ditch effort, I entered the first Future Worlds Prize, and I won. It’s been a whirlwind since then – the best kind of chaos.

Just for fun, how would you pitch your book as a 1-star review?

• LD: Local Florida batwoman cries a lot, especially when she sees an animal that is just too darn cute. Throws a temper tantrum any time a man disrespects her, hoards pears in her shadows for the occasions she could use a little snack, tries to seduce the Darkness because it gave her a cool new tattoo her parents will undoubtedly disapprove of. She’s obsessed with her crush because, apparently, that’s what daemons do when they find a mate. Surely drinking his blood won’t cause her to spiral and become horny? Aaaanddd she’s on him. Good gods, this is a chaotic mess. Honestly, Aedlynn is the only voice of reason here.
• EH: DNF. Too much genre. If you’re somehow a die-hard fan of Star Trek, chick flicks, comic books, Mary Oliver poems, mysteries, AND gay people being so horny it’s honestly kind of insane sometimes, go crazy I guess.
• JD: I thought they were supposed to be solving a murder? Not oogling each other. People are dying. The amount of pining is ridiculous. Just shag and get it over with. The FMC is too strong and too clever. Unrealistic for a woman to swing a sword that big. DO NOT RECOMMEND. 
• EJP: Why this author thought it would be a good idea to mix a space fantasy with a regency romance is anyone’s guess. Totally unrealistic for a teenage girl to take down an empire. And DON’T get me started on the gay kissing. Everyone knows there’s never been a gay prince before, the author should have respect for royalty and their close personal friends. The time-traveller needs therapy. In fact, everyone does, but if they went, I suspect there would be no more plot. Also, does the mad space dictator give anyone else Jeff Bezos vibes?

Without giving away too many spoilers, tell us about a scene you most enjoyed writing?

• LD: Pretty much every scene where Keres and Diana have an intimate moment, as it slowly shows Diana’s journey from making it out of an abusive relationship to learning what love truly is, which felt very healing to write. There is another scene near the end of (the revised version of) book one that was pure catharsis. I wrote the raw draft of it while I felt nothing but anger for a gaslighting narcissistic ex, and I edited it many weeks later—when I’d let it go, when Diana could let it go too. Whenever I reread that scene, I’m reminded of why I started writing in the first place. How much of a coping mechanism it’s become for me.
• EH: The third-act “ALL IS LOST” moment is always going to have such a chokehold on me. Every time a reader tells me they were screaming/crying/throwing up at the end of Chapter 12, I grow more powerful. I don’t think I can say literally anything else without spoilers. Like if you screamed, comment if you cried, Venmo request me for damages if you threw up.
• JD: I think this is mine and my editors favourite scene. It makes me cry every time. Just when this strong, formidable and kind character is overwhelmed and broken by a flashback of their trauma. When it completely takes their legs from beneath them and they fall apart… only for their friend to be there and to hold them and allow them to fall to pieces. That you can be strong and delicate at the same time. That people carry the weight of their pasts differently and that’s okay.
• EJP: There’s a scene where Obi helps Asha braid her hair. It’s a very intimate moment between two allies who are turning into friends. It gets a great reader response, and hearing people connect with it always makes my day.

Who are the most significant women in SFF who have shaped and influenced your work? 

• LD: I’m a huge fan of Sarah J. Maas’ work. She helped introduce me to romantic fantasy works, opening up a whole new genre to me. Carissa Broadbent’s books have me in a bloody chokehold. Since I started out as an indie author, I have so many other authors to thank from that community. When you’re starting out, you have no one believing in your work but yourself. You’re your own greatest advocate—or critic. It’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole. But I’ve always found endless support with the indie pub community. Especially from my girl Wendy Heiss, who writes some excellent female villain fantasy as well as bittersweet novellas. So a massive shout out to her.
• EH: Radiance by Catherynne Valente, The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson, and Light From Other Stars by Erika Swyler were my biggest lodestars for TSTF, and they are to my mind criminally-underrated modern masterpieces that I recommend every chance I get. I also find that the way I write action scenes has been hugely influenced by N.K. Jemisin, and (on the opposite end of the vibe spectrum) the queer found-family dynamics I write owe a lot to Becky Chambers. I’d also be remiss not to mention that my next project is a sci-fi epic that deals even more heavily than TSTF with capital-R Romantic and Audre Lorde-style Erotic themes, and I’ve found so much inspiration from going all the way back to Mary Shelley and the early pulp-era author C.L. Moore.
• JD: Charlotte Bronte for writing Jane Eyre, the book I found at 13 that made me want to read. Stephanie Meyer for writing Twilight, the book that changed my brain chemistry. Amy Plum, I was OBSESSED with Die For Me – the romance undid my little teenage heart. Naomi Novik for writing beautiful stories that made me fall in love. Susan Dennard with her amazing worlds and characters with such heart. Too many to name but the female writers in the 2000’s onwards who turned up and wrote the stories I needed, and that changed the industry and made me believe I could tell stories too, and that there were lost girls out there who needed them.
• EJP: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, everything Octavia Butler, or Becky Chambers has ever written. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I love reading any sci-fi that makes me feel as though my brain is physically expanding. 

If you could visit any fictional coffee shop or restaurant or tavern (etc!), where would you visit and why?

• LD: Whatever place that sells that funky blue milk from Star Wars. 
• EH: Whoopi Goldberg’s cocktail lounge on the Enterprise. Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever answered a question faster.
• JD: Prancing Pony, LOTR – just when Viggo Mortensen’s Strider is sitting in the shadowed corner being extra AF. Just to look at his perfection.
• EJP: I want to try the Goulash from Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone… and eat bacon and eggs with Howl and Sophie.

If you were to have your story adapted, what medium would you choose—anime, Netflix series or feature length film? Who would you cast for your main character? 

• LD: I’d pick a series. I think Victoria Pedretti would be a fantastic Diana. I haven’t found a fitting actress for Aedlynn yet.
• EH: Definitely a film. TSTF is such a contained, stand-alone story. If any casting directors are reading, I envision Billie as Lili Reinhart and Cleo as Margaret Qualley, styled basically just like she was in Drive Away Dolls.
• JD: It’d be an epic with extended DVD’s that come in a fold out book and it would be filmed by Peter Jackson – with a documentary of the making of that would be a comfort watch.  I think Kat belongs to anyone who reads Tales and she can look however you wish – but in my head she’s Rachel Weiss inspired, specifically in the masterpiece… The Mummy 1999. I try to imagine Emrys Blackthorn in many forms… *Insert any dark haired tall man that makes you feel things* I have a list of many, Henry Cavill is top.
• EJP: I think TPOM would go insanely hard as an anime, but in my heart I want a three season TV show with the same budget as The Rings of Power. Some chapters would need a whole episode, and I don’t think you could fit it all into a movie. I‘ve never seen an actress that could play Asha – maybe Leah Sava Jeffries? Obi would be Ncuti Gatwa but he’s a little busy these days…

What will you be doing to celebrate your release? 

• LD: Host a little party with the fantastic friends who’ve been supporting me since the beginning, who’ve gone to the UK with me and taken me for boba tea whenever I was overrun with anxiety. And raise a toast to these silly characters, who’ve changed my life in ways I’ve never dared dream.
• EH: I’m very lucky to be getting the little book tour of my dreams, starting in Vermont and stopping in New York City, Boston, Montreal, and the lesbian bookstore in my college town. After every event, I plan to drink a very fancy cocktail with my friends and then go to bed.
• JD: As nobody in my real-life quite knows what to do with a published author… we’ll all be staring at each other in disbelief – and then we’ll drink. Have a launch and get to squeeze my amazing editor (who literally changed my life) as my book baby flies off into the world. Just be surrounded by amazing people and finally get to meet the amazing readers who’ve already shown me so much love!
• EJP: My paperback release is coming up, and I will be going to WorldCon in Glasgow and having a grand old time with my author friends! Can’t think of anything more fitting.

Finally, how do you hope your readers will feel after finishing your novel?

• LD: I started writing this when I felt miserable and self-conscious. Changed jobs, learned to straighten my spine and like myself. That’s reflected in Diana’s journey too. This was a safe space for me when the real world wasn’t. So I hope readers find a giggle between the pages, a character they relate to and feel seen in. And I hope they come out liking themselves a little more than they did before starting this story.
• EH: My debut novel is, in many ways, my life’s work — even though of course I plan to write many more books over a long and fulfilling career. But TSTF is, I feel, the story I was born to tell: A joyful, queer, funny, emotional tribute to sapphic love, classic sci-fi, 1990s rom-coms, and the late-twenties coming-of-age that happens when you’re a lesbian with mommy issues and a pathological fear of talking about your feelings. I wrote the book I wanted to see in the world, suspecting that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see it. I hope the readers I wrote TSTF for find it, see themselves, laugh and cry and cheer for these characters, and close the back cover feeling as effervescently happy as I was as I wrote it.
• JD: They’ll 100% be annoyed by the cliff hanger. I expect complaints. BUT, I hope the people who need TOAMH find this book. They find Kat’s strength, her struggles and her hope. That they feel that impossible things can happen and that the world can be dark but there is beautiful light to be found in it, and you have every right to be here. That your voice, your heart and your hopes matter. That grief and trauma might take you away from who you wished to be, but you’re still worthy of everything.
• EJP: I hope they understand that the path stretching out before them—the one they can choose to take to find a better world—is a hard one, but surmountable with enough love behind them. Anyone of us can make it to the other side, if we have a hand to hold, and a shoulder to lean on.

Thank you so much for joining us for Women in SFF!

Jennifer Delaney – Tales of a Monstrous Heart – 29th August 2024

Jennifer Delaney is a fantasy writer from Liverpool.

She began writing at the age of 8 after seeing Lord of the Rings and fell in love with all things Fantasy.

Jennifer graduated from Liverpool John Moores University in 2014 with a BA in Creative Writing and Film. Then she returned to Liverpool John Moores to acquire her Masters in Writing which she received in 2019.

Jennifer is represented by Nina Leon of Perez Literary. Her debut fantasy novel TALES OF A MONSTROUS HEART will be published by Gollancz in 2024

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Lauren Dedroog –  A Curse of Crows – 19th September 2024

Growing up in the countryside of Belgium, Lauren always dreamed of writing books, and devoured fantasy and romantasy stories, as well as mythology. If you had a weird mummy or Greek-mythology-obsessed kid in your class, chances are you sat next to her. If so, you may be eligible for compensation. Reach out to your attorney.

Figuring that a degree in languages, history or writing wouldn’t fare well in this capitalistic world, she got a bachelor’s in nursing and became an ICU nurse instead. Funnily enough, the COVID pandemic was the final push she needed to actually start writing – as a form of escapism and coping.

Since then, she’s crafted complex fantasies about the after waves of revenge, villains and how everything we know is only a mosaic of perspectives glued together to create a grand story. With a dash of spice and sapphic yearning.

In October 2022, she debuted with her English fantasy ‘A Curse of Crows’ in her home country with native publisher Hamley Books, and a mere month later, signed with Gollancz for a worldwide release of a re-edited and revised edition, set to release in September 2024.

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Emily Hamilton – The Stars Too Fondly – Available now

Emily Hamilton is a science fiction author who writes about women kissing in space. Her debut novel, The Stars Too Fondly, is available from Harper Voyager (US) and Gollancz (UK). She is also an award-winning staff writer at the alt-weekly newspaper Seven Days. She lives in Burlington, Vermont with her wife and their tiny dog Mimi.

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Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson – The Principle of Moments – Paperback release 8th August 2024

Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of The Order of Legends trilogy. Inaugural winner of Future Worlds Prize Award in 2020, her debut novel, The Principle of Moments, was published in January 2024 , by Gollancz. She holds a BA in English Literature and Classical Studies from the University of Exeter, where she enjoyed writing essays on Disney villains and reading Greek lyric poetry in the same day. As an author of Nigerian, Jamaican, and British-Australian heritage, her work primarily focuses on people who live at the intersection of identities, whether that’s here on Earth, or in far away galaxies of her own creation.

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