Seanan McGuire is known for writing urban fantasy, but under the alias Mira Grant, she brings to life stories of medical Science Fiction and Horror. When asked about her inclusion of characters within the LGBTQA+ community within her novels, she explains:
“I didn’t set out to change the way QUILTBAG characters are included in literature–that would have been a little daunting. I just wrote the people I know. The wonderful, complicated, confusing, diverse people I know. I actually feel like my work is still straighter than my life, where “oh, I’m bisexual, poly, married, monoromantic, kinky, and straight-edge” is a sentence that can happen over dinner without making anyone bat an eye. If I can let one person see themselves in fiction, if I can give one person that moment of “I exist, I get stories too,” I will feel like I’ve won.”
She has won multiple awards for her writing, and is capable of spanning many genres within a single bound. If zombies, killer mermaids, fae, and/or parasites are your jam, you might really want to consider checking out some of her work:
McGuire/Grant identifies mainly as bisexual and demisexual. She has said on the topic, “The line between bi and pan is both flexible and mobile, and three people will get you five opinions. I’ve never been anything other than what I am, even if the name has changed.”
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I love McGuire, and she’s a perfect author to highlight. Middlegame is probably my favorite of her books😁
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Thank you! That is one of hers we haven’t personally read yet, so we’ll have to keep that one in mind! 🙂
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I was pleased that Into the Drowning Deep included two Deaf characters and their older sister, not deaf but part of the Deaf community as an interpreter. I definitely felt seen there. I was so traumatized when the first twin went down in the little capsule thingy. Also, Grant acknowledges that she didn’t include what the signs say correctly, which I think she wrote was done for continuity? I disagree with that choice but appreciate that she acknowledged that ASL and English are two entirely different languages. For instance, as the one twin decided to go down into the ocean in the pod thingy, she was likely asked, “Why do you have to go down?” whereas in ASL it might be “DOWN. YOU GO WHY?”
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Oh, wow, that’s really interesting about the sentence structure differences. I’ve only ever learned certain words in ASL to communicate better with some of the participants at my job, but since they only ever use a couple words themselves, there’s a lot I haven’t learned about it yet beyond that.
Yeah, I agree, I think it would have been better to present the parts in ASL as how they actually would have been signed.
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What it is, is you always start with the topic so someone knows what you’re going to sign about. Once you make sure they know, you move on to the time (tomorrow, today, etc.) and then the details. Questions always come at the end, but the other person knows it’s a question because you make a certain face, which denotes punctuation. It’s pretty cool!
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That IS really cool! Thank you for explaining it. 😀
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