Sarah Kanning

Got a present in the mail today (never mind it was from myself – those rarely disappoint): a much-worn copy of Amazons! edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. It’s a collection of high fantasy short stories featuring women, and has the now-classic story by Elizabeth A. Lynn, “The Woman Who Loved the Moon.” If you haven’t read that short story, go out now and find it; it’s just gorgeous. (You can find it in the Salmonson collection or in Lynn’s own collection of short stories.)

I remember finding this paperback long ago (it was published in 1979, but I got hold of it in a used bookstore maybe twenty years ago) and being thrilled to have a collection of heroic fantasy stories featuring women as more than cardboard cutout characters or buxom cover art. These were women who could and did kick ass. And a few of them loved other women.

Now I feel quite spoiled because I can find strong female characters in any issue of Realms of Fantasy (thanks to editor Shawna McCarthy), but I hadn’t ever forgotten this book or that story…now it’s back on my bookshelf!