11 May 2020. So, I’ve never been a woman, and I don’t have any plans to become one. NOT that there’s anything wrong with that. We celebrate diversity here. And I’m not always sure I know what I want. The majority of fantasy readers are male. Mostly straight, white males. Again, nothing wrong there, either. But a lot of talented women write fantasy. Many of them are the reason that I love the genre. Mercedes Lackey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Weis, Anne McCaffrey (sci-fi that feels like fantasy), C. J. Cherryh, Samantha Shannon, and so many more. Is there something that fantasy is missing that could draw more women to the genre?
Romantasy
There is a new genre in town, and it can be very steamy. The Romance genre sells books–more than any other genre lit. Women comprise a huge majority of romance novels. Ask your bookstore assistant, Google, or Amazon to help you find titles in this fun, new subspecies. You may have to loosen your collar or turn the A/C colder when you give Romantasy a read. Some of the queer Romantasy fiction I’ve read lately should almost be in the “Erotic Fiction” section.
People are all unique. There is no answer to the question “what do women want?” The same thing goes for other groups you could replace “women” with in the question. So, for our purposes here, everyone, just answer the question “what do you want?”
Todd A. Howard, Author 