Following a discussion with my wife we’ve decided that Australia is blessed with so many excellent female speculative fiction writers. Must be something in the water. Not only are these women fabulous at the craft, but I have always found them to be gracious in their support of the Australian Writing community, and have helped put our little country on the world literary map. In so many countries around the world I hear the complaint that Spec fiction is a male dominated domain. With talent like this as an example, perhaps it is time the rest of the publishing world took a look at what’s happening here.

Here are some of the names we’ve came up with, (With assistance from Facebook friends, thankyou). Care to add any…?

Emily Rodda, Isobelle Carmody, Marianne de Pierres, Kate Forsyth, Kylie Chan, Rowena Cory Daniells, Kylie Fox and Amanda Wrangles (Had to put A.K. Wrox together 🙂 ), Nicole Murphy, Gillian Polack (One L), Kim Falconer, Sara Douglass (RIP and a great loss), Kim Wilkins, Juliet Marillier, Sophie Masson, Alison Goodman, Alison Croggon, Lian Hearn, Pamela Freeman, Karen Brooks, Belinda Murrell, Kate Constable, Jennifer Fallon, Fiona McIntosh, Angela Slatter, Margo Lanagan, Keri Arthur, Kylie Scott, Kylie Griffin, MJ Scott, Karen Miller, Anita Bell, Janette Dalgliesh, Tracey O’Hara, Valerie Parv, Cheryse Durrant, Glenda Larke, Kirstyn McDermott. Felicity Dowker, Jo Anderton, Kaaron Warren, Trudi Canavan, Cat Sparks, K. S. Nikakis, Traci Harding, Louise Cusack, Erica Hayes, Rhonda Roberts,

KJ Taylor, Maxine McArthur, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Sara Creasy

I believe that a huge part of Australia’s success in turning the world’s statistics on their head is because of the support of the writer community here. In interviews, blogs and social media it is normal to hear reference by one Author to other Australian authors and that sense of community is building a thriving creative environment. (This is my belief anyway.)

In creative industries, seeing each other as competition is counter-productive. All it does is makes it harder for all those incredible minds to find avenues that are open to creative expression.

What a terrible shame it would have been if we had never had the words of these great authors to share because of their gender. So to all those fabulous women Author’s worldwide, take a leaf from the Aussie experience. Support each other, celebrate each other and promote your fellow writer’s of the female persuasion. Maybe this will help to level the playing field worldwide.

A world that only hears the Male voice is a world that only has half the story. What a terrible shame that would be.

Christopher Kneipp

Addendum… For a collection of fantastic interviews with some of these great authors and some excellent male authors as well. They are well worth a read if you want an insight into the authors’ minds. (Thanks to Rowena Cory Daniells for the wonderful work she did on collecting them.) CLICK HERE