Hear Me Roar: 17 tales of real women and unreal worlds The anthology focuses on speculative fiction stories about female characters who are strong in many different ways. There may be futuristic or fantastic settings, but one thing remains the same: resourceful, resilient women who are committed to doing what is needed, no matter what the cost. Cherith Baldry, “Star Bright” Jenny Blackford, “The Sorrow” Kay Chronister, “Dustbowl” Stephanie Gunn, “Broken Glass” Kathryn Hore, “Generation Zero” Kathleen Jennings, “A Hedge of Yellow Roses” Faith Mudge, “Blueblood” T R Napper, “The Silica Key” Rivqa Rafael, “Function A:save(target.Dawn)” Alter S. Reiss, “Catalysis” Jane Routley, “Barista” Cat Sparks, “Veteran's Day” Kyla Ward, “Cursebreaker: The Mutalibeen and the Memphite Mummies” Marlee Jane Ward, “Clara's” Susan Wardle, “A Truck Called Remembrance” Janeen Webb, “A Wondrous Necessary Woman” Eleanor R Wood, “The Fruits of Revolution”
Authors
I write fantasy with strong women characters. I’ve published 7 books as me – Mage Heart and the Aurealis award winners Fire Angels and Aramaya, The Three Sisters and The Melded Child. I have a queer time travel romance called A Shining Knight. I've begun a new series in a new world called Shadow in the Empire of Light. I am also publishing TTRPGs in Call of Cthulhu. My short stories have been widely anthologized, appeared in Meanjin and read on the ABC. My favourite writers are Jane Austen, Angela Carter, Sara Douglass, Janet Evanovich, and Gail Carriger. My current life ambition is to see an erupting volcano.
Cat Sparks is a multi-award-winning Australian author, editor and artist whose former employment has included: media monitor, political and archaeological photographer, graphic designer, Fiction Editor of Cosmos Magazine and Manager of Agog! Press. A 2012 Australia Council grant sent her to Florida to participate in Margaret Atwood’s The Time Machine Doorway workshop. She’s currently finishing a PhD in sci fi and cli fi. Her short story collection The Bride Price was published in 2013. Her debut novel, Lotus Blue, was published by Skyhorse in March 2017.
Kyla Lee Ward is a Sydney-based creative who works in many modes, that have garnered her Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards. She has placed in the Rhyslings and received multiple Stoker and Ditmar nominations. Reviewers have accused her of being “gothic and esoteric”, “weird and exhilarating” and of “giving me a nightmare.” This Attraction Now Open Till Late is her first collection of dark and fantastic stories after two poetry collections, The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities and The Land of Bad Dreams. Her work on RPGs including Demon: the Fallen saw her appear as a guest at the inaugural Gencon Australia. Her short film, 'Bad Reception', screened at the Third International Vampire Film Festival and she is a founding member of Deadhouse - tales of Sydney Morgue and the Theatre of Blood, which have also performed her work. A practicing occultist, she likes raptors, swordplay and the Hellfire Club. Please permit me to explain my personal scheme of ratings - I would prefer to simply provide reviews, but here at Goodreads, one is a necessary precursor to the other. 3 is the most common score I give, because it means the book was good. I enjoyed it, it was well-presented and properly proofed, and I consider the author to have achieved their objective. I give out 4s much more rarely and believe I have only ever given out one 5. 2s are also rare and mean I found the book flawed in respect of its own intent, or atrocious formatting and proofing errors. I have never yet rated a book at 1.
I’m a writer, reader and weirdo from Melbourne, Australia. I grew up on the Central Coast of New South Wales and studied creative writing at the University of Wollongong. I attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2014. You can find my short stories at Interfictions, Terraform, Apex, The Sockdolager, Aurealis, Mad Scientist Journal, Slink Chunk Press, Feminartsy and the In Your Face, Hear Me Roar, Kindred and Best Summer Stories anthologies. My debut novella, Welcome To Orphancorp, won Seizure’s Viva La Novella 3 and the 2016 Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction. It was shortlisted for The NSW Premiers Award, an Aurealis Award, and the Norma K Hemming Award. The sequel, Psynode, was released in May of 2017 and was shortlisted for Best YA Novel in the 2018 Aurealis Awards. The third and final book in the series, Prisoncorp, was released in 2019 and was nominated for Best Science Fiction Novella in the Aurealis Awards. My non-fiction can be found at Overland, Kill Your Darlings, Writers Bloc, Going Down Swinging and more.
Rivqa Rafael lives in Sydney, where she writes speculative fiction about queer women, Jewish women, cyborg futures, and hope in dystopias. Her short stories have been published in GlitterShip, Escape Pod, Resist Fascism (Crossed Genres), and elsewhere. She recently co-edited feminist robot anthology Mother of Invention, which won a Ditmar Award and a Norma K. Hemming Award. Several of her short stories have been shortlisted for Woollahra Digital Literary, Norma K. Hemming, and Ditmar awards; in 2016, she won the Ditmar Award for Best New Talent.
I’m Faith Mudge, a Queensland writer with a passion for fantasy, folk tales and mythology from all over the world – in fact, almost anything with a glimmer of the fantastical. I post regular reviews and articles on my blog at beyondthedreamline.wordpress.com, and also have unreliably updated presences on Tumblr and Goodreads. My stories have appeared in various anthologies, ranging from wronged sorceresses and wicked princesses to rebellious robots and cursed bookshops. Somewhere in the overcrowded menagerie of my brain, there are novels. I am even writing some of them.
Stephanie Gunn is a writer of speculative fiction, occasional reviewer and owner of too many books. She has been published in various anthologies, including the award-winning Defying Doomsday and Aurum. Her Aurealis award winning novella Icefall is published by Twelfth Planet Press. She lives in Perth, Western Australia with her family and requisite cat, who cares not for books at all.
