Support Women Writers With This All-Day Speculative Fiction Fest About Badass Ladies

Our friends at Tor.com have cooked up a wondrous feast of words in celebration of International Women’s Day. Named “Nevertheless, She Persisted,” after the now-infamous phrase used to reprimand Senator Elizabeth Warren, Tor’s online event will host new short stories by your favorite speculative fiction writers.

Tor was inspired by the long and tangled history of women creating genre works. As editor Diana Pho explains:

International Women’s Day is aspirational, striving toward a more gender-inclusive world. Speculative fiction has had an impact in fostering this egalitarian dream through creative expression and critique. After all, science fiction in particular was born with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written in the “Year without a Summer” while tumultuous storms raged over Lake Geneva. This dream was the utopia penned by Muslim feminist Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain in her 1905 story “Sultana’s Dream”, and the same year Charlotte Perkins Gilman published Herland in Forerunner magazine. In the decades since, women have provided some of the most crucial and insightful voices in our community.

Teleport, don’t walk, over to Tor.com throughout the day, where you’ll find stories by Charlie Jane Anders, Brooke Bolander, Maria Dahvana Headley, Amal El-Mohtar, Kameron Hurley, Seanan McGuire, Nisi Shawl, Catherynne M. Valente, Carrie Vaughn, Jo Walton, and Alyssa Wong. Their stories follow the theme of women “inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and—of course—dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances.”

Taking the time to read and share “Nevertheless She Persisted” is an excellent way of keeping in solidarity with International Women’s Day and the related strikes that are happening around the world. This is content created with the express purpose of celebrating female and gender nonconforming creators and creations. Whether you’re on strike yourself, unable to strike, or want to make an impact as an ally, you can show your love for tales where women traverse the boundaries of the known universe.

(via Tor.com, image via Esteban de Armas / Shutterstock)

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Kaila Hale-Stern

Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.

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