September is here, and we are open for submissions for ARTEMIS RISING, our fourth annual month-long event across the Escape Artists podcasts featuring stories by women and nonbinary authors in genre fiction.
As your guest-editor, here’s what I’d like to see…
I know tough older women. Firefighters for the national forestry service. Mechanics. Veterans. Founders of engineering departments. I’ve been honored and humbled to call them sisters, mentors, and guides. They are weather-beaten and grizzled, and no less women for it. The live, love, and crack jokes. Some have families; some don’t. But there’s a perception that these women aren’t women because of their vocations, and those vocations have been the province of heroic male characters in fantasy for as long as I can remember.
If you want to explore archetypes, go deeper. “Strong female character” is as much a box as “hero’s girlfriend.” Show me complexity, experience, insight. Take maiden-mother-crone and shift it into youth-warrior-sage. I want warriors and sages in spirit, even if they never pick up a weapon. I want female heroes, non-binary heroes—and most of all, I want a damn good story.
If your best doesn’t quite match the above, but still fits the spirit of Artemis Rising, send it. Write what feels true… but for PodCastle’s slice of Artemis Rising this year, that’s what feels true to me.
Head on over to our submittable portal to submit now.
Setsu Uzume
Guest editor, ARTEMIS RISING
