You may have noticed I’ve been MIA for a while, and that’s because I was attending this year’s Sirens Conference! What is Sirens, you ask? Sirens is a conference dedicated to women in fantasy literature. From their website:
In fantasy literature, women are revolutionary.
They wield swords, courageous. They battle monsters and are, themselves, monsters. They conjure love and hate and glory. Their intrigues are legion; their military campaigns tactically brilliant; their rule incomparably powerful. These women inhabit worlds different from our own because women authors have given them extraordinary opportunities: to grow, to love, to fight, to fail, and, sometimes, to save the world.
Sirens is a conference dedicated to the diverse, remarkable women of fantasy literature: readers and authors, certainly, but just as importantly, scholars, librarians, educators, publishing professionals, and even characters. Sirens is a place where a woman can, without shame or irony, declare herself a queen, a dragonmaster, a general. A place where women aren’t constrained by what our real-world society demands. A light in a world that frequently expects too much and offers too little.
The 2017 theme of the conference was women who work magic, with guests of honor N.K. Jemisin, Victoria/V.E. Schwab, and Zoraida Cordova, who each gave a keynote speech. In addition to that were multiple author-attended panels and presentations given by members of the Sirens community. As a brief snapshot of the types of presentations given: I attended a paper presentation on the history of fantasy literature, a presentation on the witch trials in 15th century England, a re-writing workshop, and a roundtable discussion of f/f works in fantasy. In one short weekend I learned so much!
The Sirens experience is unique for a fantasy conference because it is a woman-majority space. I think there were maybe like ten dudes there? And they were either gay or attached to their wives, which made for a very welcoming and low-stress environment. I never had to worry about being “on” or being hyper aware. For the entire weekend I was the most relaxed I’ve ever been; I felt like myself. The women there were progressive, open-minded, friendly readers, writers, librarians, and introverts. I felt like I was with my tribe. And my book haul? SPECTACULAR.
The one downside, in my opinion, was the location. The conference was held in Beaver Creek, Colorado, a resort town with a staggering altitude of 8100 feet! Coming from sea-level NYC, this was a difficult adjustment for me. For the whole weekend I was either physically ill or physically exhausted. I was constantly out of breath, I had trouble sleeping, and I just felt very out of it the whole time. Plus the town itself, as a resort town, felt artificial. Though pretty, it was enclosed and somewhat claustrophobic.
But that’s only a tiny downside! Being among so many kind and accomplished women was so inspiring. Victoria Schwab’s keynote speech nearly made the audience burst into sobs. N.K. Jemisin’s presentation on world-building was so useful I can’t wait for her to open up her own school of writing. I had such an excellent time! (As soon as they hold it in a location that isn’t at a death-defying altitude, I’ll go again, LOL.)
Has anyone here ever been to Sirens?
“Do not lose that hunger. You will always have to fight for everything. Even when you already have it, you will have to keep fighting to maintain it. You will have to be more ruthless, more brutal, more everything. Any weakness will undo everything you have accomplished. They will see any crack as evidence that they were right that a woman cannot do what you do.”
“There was no peace in continuing to do what had already proven unworkable. Sometimes tradition itself disrupted peace, and only newness could smooth the way.”
“But if you stay, no part of this comm[unity] gets to decide that any part of this comm[unity] is expendable. No voting on who gets to be people.”
“In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.”
“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
I discovered Jemisin almost by chance when stumbling through fantasy recommendations one day. I read the first book in the Inheritance Trilogy but did not continue for some reason. Then Jemisin started blowing up (this was even before The Fifth Season was published) so I went back and decided to keep reading. I liked the second book a bit less and hated the third (the only one of Jemisin’s books I adamantly do not like). Then I read the Dreamblood Duology, a spectacular work of Egyptian-inspired fantasy which is actually my favorite writing of hers. And of course, her magnum opus to date, the twice-Hugo Award winning Fifth Season.
This is where things may start to get a little embarrassing. As you will soon realize, I was absolutely obsessed with vampires and all things supernatural when I was a teen. I started reading Anne Rice at eleven years old, which is what happens when no one supervises your reading choices. I definitely would not give these books to an eleven year old, or even a young teen, to be honest. Part of the reason I’m not sure how many books I read is that at some point they all blurred together, a hazy vision of blood and sex and strangeness that made very little sense to me as a youngster. I barely understood most of what I was reading, but there were vampires, so I kept reading anyway.
I worshiped Amelia when I was a teen. Incredibly, she published her first novel at fourteen freaking years old! And it’s actually a decent, mature read about vampires! But Amelia doesn’t only write vampires; for me, her claim to fame is her Kiesha’ra series, about shapeshifting humanoids who have been at war for decades. Not only was this series rich in worldbuilding and characterization, it also introduced me to the concept of same-sex attraction and featured the first f/f romance I had ever seen. Needless to say, she was very formative for me (Amelia herself is a lesbian and I remember being fascinated with that as a kid, which makes sense to me now). I’ve been meaning to pick up some of her newer works!
I wasn’t even sure if I should include Tiernan; the only reason I’ve read so much of her is because the Sweep series is made up of fourteen teeny tiny novels coming in at less than 200 pages each! However, if we’re talking formative authors (which…I’m not sure that we are but I guess this is what this turned into) then I have to mention her. The Sweep series changed me as a person. It’s about a young girl coming into her powers of witchcraft. Tiernan seamlessly blends real-world religion Wicca with her own fantasy version. I remember being fifteen and so damn disappointed when I realized that Wicca as an organized faith only stretched back into the ’60s! I still have the Sweep series on my shelf and every now and then I re-read it. It brings me so much joy.
Clocking in at #2 is Darren Shan, of all people, famous for his Cirque du Freak series about vampires (are you seeing the pattern?). But the more formative for me was his second series, the Demonata, about a world adjacent to ours that holds bloodthirsty demons who are fighting to come into our world and kill us all. I read these books during my emo phase, when I was really into things being as gory and bloody as possible. And let me tell you, these books are hella gory.
Oh, boy. This one is really embarrassing, but talk about formative! I started Andrews’ work with her Flowers in the Attic series, infamous for its many incestuous relationships, including the central one between brother and sister. This is probably where my obsession incest ships began, to tell you the truth. Known for combining Gothic horror and family saga, V.C. Andrews is an interesting case because the actual Cleo Virginia Andrews died in 1986, in the midst of writing her second major series. However, her books were so successful and drew in so much cash that her estate hired a ghost writer by the name of Andrew Niederman to continue writing in her name. There is a noticeable change in quality between Anrews and Niederman. All the books are addictive trash, but I actually highly recommend the Dollanganger/Flowers in the Attic series just for how utterly disturbing it is. Andrews is another one I started reading very young, so I don’t remember how much of her work I read, but I definitely had a lengthy Andrews phase and I remember committing to reading everything under her name.
Hadeer Elsbai 