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For many fantasy writers, one of the great joys of writing a book is the opportunity it gives you to build a brand-new world. It can be based on the one we live in but with key differences. What if animals could talk? What if fairies were real? The possibilities are endless.
However, no matter how different an author’s world is superficially, it will often contain building blocks of the one we live in. Some of these elements can be unconscious. They creep in because it’s just “what we know”. For example, why is it that so many fantasy realms are ruled by a king, or an emperor? Although a society ruled by men is one readers can readily imagine in terms of power structure and politics, why must patriarchy be inevitable?
In this episode, KL Kaine joins us to talk about her novel, Blood of Gods and Girls, the limitations of patriarchy, the promise of matriarchy and why we all deserve a better world than the one we have.
Katja Kaine is a Yorkshire-based writer of fantasy novels. She is also the creator of the Novel Factory software for writers and the Novel Writing Roadmap. She has won multiple awards for writing, including the Northern Writers Northern Promise Award, the SCBWI Undiscovered Voices competition and been shortlisted for the Bath Children’s Award and the Write Mentor Novel-In Development Award. Katja is half Singaporean and half German and when she’s not writing can be found cooing over forest fungi, bending into pretzel yoga shapes and raging against the patriarchy.
