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I hadn't expected to be able to announce this quite so promptly! Often it takes a few days to get the contracts sent out and returned, but things got turned around immediately. Now that all the responses have been sent out, here are the acceptances (in no particular order).

First off, a commissioned story from Catherine Lundoff, "The Pirate in the MIrror", another Celeste and Jacquotte story in the continuing series.

From Rose Cullen, we have "Battling Poll" a story of female prize-fighters in 18th century England. I'm particularly delighted to be able to buy this story as it had almost made the cut in a previous year and came back with revisions that made it an immediate "yes".

B. Pladek sold us a historic fantasy, "The Salt Price," involving salt-smugglers in 18th century France and a fairy bargain.

And Annemarie KD provides us with "To the Fair Muse Who, Loving Me, Imagin'd More" dreaming up some sapphic adventures for poet/playwright/spy Aphra Behn in the Low Countries of the 17th century. When this submission came in, I immediately thought, "I hope it lives up to the title because I'm in love with the title" and it did.

The fiction episodes are scheduled for April, July, September, and December this year. My next task is to start finding narrators who will best suit the stories.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 250 – All is Silence by Heather Rose Jones - transcript

(Originally aired 2023/01/28 - listen here)

I’m a firm believer in celebrating round-number anniversaries of things. With a podcast, it’s good to mark those milestones with something special. I have no idea how many episodes of this show I will have created by the time I decide to set the project aside. At the current rate of production I’d hit 500 episodes in another nine years, but that’s probably an unlikely goal. But if I celebrate the multiples of 50, that’s a milestone every two years or so, which feels like an appropriate rate.

I was casting around for an idea for a special episode and hit on the idea of posting my Arthurian fantasy short story “All is Silence” – which made me realize that I’d never done a regular episode about the medieval text that inspired it, the Romance of Silence. That gave me an opportunity to do last week’s show to set things up, not only in terms of content, but to make the episode number come out right. (This one’s a bonus episode outside the regular schedule.)

Medieval epics and romances continually re-worked existing material, adapting characters to new stories, revising the events and outcomes for new audiences, or moving the settings, either to make them more familiar or to make them more strange. I feel no qualms whatsoever in making my own adaptations to this story of a character caught between genders and struggling to find a path that will serve both honor and truth. Giving Silence two companions was a trivial change. The most drastic choice I made was to redeem the character of Queen Eufeme. In the original, she is a cartoonish villain: an adulteress, a woman who uses accusations of sexual assault for revenge, someone who will kill rather than be seen as less than a paragon. The original King Eban is less villainous, but he is weak, wishy-washy, and concerned more with his own reputation than the truth or falsehood of his wife’s claims. I have changed him only a little. It fits easily with his character that his jealousy and thirst for revenge are still unconcerned with truth or falsehood.

Silence, I feel I have changed very little, except in giving the character a different possible happy ending. Where the original text alternates between using Silence’s assigned gender and performed gender, I wrote the story in the first person specifically to allow Silence to tell the story without taking a stand on the question. My Silence is non-binary and most probably bisexual, though I think that aspect is still sorting itself out.

I love playing with these old stories and participating in claiming them for queer audiences. There’s a whole list of medieval texts that I’d love to write my own take on at some point. For now, I hope you enjoy my Silence.

This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.

This story was originally published in 2020 as part of the “New Decameron Project” curated by Jo Walton and available through Patreon as a fundraiser for Covid relief in the early days of the pandemic.

---

ALL IS SILENCE

by Heather Rose Jones

 

All is silence in the forest when the path opens from the realm of men to the other world. The birds hush and even the leaves make no sound underfoot. They named me Silence, thinking stillness would be my safety and my refuge, but I will speak. I first entered that waiting hush when I left the solid stone walls of Tintagel, in Cornwall, and rode out to seek my fate. That time, I sought answers and found only more questions. How could it have been otherwise? I rode into silence and found only Silence. So it had always been: I knew who I was, but not what.

King Eban had been the cause of that first journey, too, though not in the flesh, as he was today. Before my parents met and married, a quarrel at the court between sisters had provoked his judgment: women would no longer inherit lands and titles. And so, when it came to pass that a child was born to the Count and Countess of Cornwall, that child must be thought to be a son, raised to know the grip of a sword, skilled with courtly words and graces and all things that befit a noble knight.

When I first strayed into that otherworldly stillness on leaving Cornwall, the path led through the Drowned Lands and released me at last across the sea. This time I recognized it the moment my horse stepped off the road toward the dappled shadows. That first time I had been alone. This time Elider rode at my side, as he had in the tournaments in France and when we fought in battle beside Hoel of Brittany. This quest had been laid on me alone, yet he would not be left behind.

I glanced back before we entered into the trees and the towers of Herincestre could be lost entirely to sight. That was how I saw Rosete slip out through the postern gate and hurry along the paths of the pleasure-garden, separated from the margin of the wood only by a low hedge. I would not have waited but that I saw she carried my harp in its bag across her shoulder. I had thought it lost to me, left behind in the queen's chamber that fateful day.

"Did she send you?" I asked when she approached.

A flush crept across Rosete's cheeks where tangled dark curls escaped her veil.  "Do not blame the queen, Sir Silence," she said softly.

Elider said what no one had dared to voice in the court. "The queen lied."

"Of course she lied." Rosete answered him impatiently. "What else could she do?"

The queen could have done so many things. She could have asked me to sing for her in the open hall, not in her chamber. She could have invited me on a day when King Eban had not gone hunting...or one when he did not return unexpectedly. She could have told the king his suspicions were foolish and insulting. She could have told him that it was Rosete I gazed at when I sang, and not at her.

She could not have told him what only I knew.

The king would not have believed any of the things that she could have told him. But he would believe that I pursued the queen against her will and so that was what he heard.

"Let it be, Elider," I said. "I will hear nothing against Queen Eufeme."

"And so you keep silence."

I laughed at that. "What can I keep but Silence? Silence is all I am and all I have. And the queen will keep her virtue and keep her life. If silence can serve her in that, then Silence will serve."

I leaned down to take the harp case from Rosete's hands and slung the strap across my shoulder. It was no burden--small and light for traveling and for singing in a lady's chamber. She offered up a pair of saddlebags as well. The aroma of fresh bread and roasted capon escaped the leather flaps.

"The queen sent this?" I asked.

Rosete looked down and blushed again. No, not the queen.

"Peace be on you," she whispered. Another might have said God keep you, but Rosete's sire had come from Saracen lands.

On impulse, I pulled off a glove and leaned down to give it to her. "To remember me by, if I don't return," I said. What harm could there be in the gesture now? I had seen her long for some such token when I sang Toute Ma Joie as I gazed at her. I'd felt no right to offer it before, even though the gift made no promise beyond what I could keep. Now there was no need to ponder what else I might offer if I could, or to whom.

---

The silence brushed against us as the path led under the trees. Soon we were enfolded on all sides. Elider reined in his horse and glanced around, as if trying to locate the source of that stillness. "Do you hear...?"

"We are crossing over," I said. Having felt it once before, I recognized the gate. "Do you want to turn back?"

His look was half affronted pride and half humor. "And leave you to earn all the glory of the quest?"

But there was something else as well: something more than loyalty and less than...less than what I dared not claim. Perhaps this quest was an answer to that as well--to wondering what I would claim if I dared. We had grown comfortable together in our travels. Shoulder to shoulder in battle. Wits sparring with the other courtiers at the French king's court. Voices twined above the strains of the harp when the queen commanded our presence. The queen. There was the end to our idyll.

We urged our horses forward into that stillness and through the slowly rising mist, but they whinnied in fear and danced sideways. When we dismounted to lead them, they fought as if in the presence of wild beasts.

"I cannot see the path," Elider said. "There's nothing but this cursed fog."

I could see it leading out before me: a clearer space in the shining brightness where the forest litter could still be seen at our feet. The sign was clear.

"Elider, this is for me alone." I tied a cloth over my horse's eyes so it could be led, but Elider still stared around wildly. Even at so close a distance, I was already beyond his ken. "Let your horse lead you back to the world of men. Wait for my return when I have found the wizard."

I reached for his hand and his fingers grasped mine where they touched. "Be sure you do return," he said. "You know what the prophecy says: no man can force Merlin to his will; he has never been captured but by a woman's wiles."

"I know," I answered as my hand slipped from his grasp.

---

Time passed like the mist on the path before me: in drifts and tendrils with no edges, no beginning, no end. My horse had quieted into trust after the first few steps. Its feet made no more sound on that ground than my own. An hour? A day? Not that, surely, for the body has its own means of counting time. When I judged it must be near to dusk in the world outside, we came upon a widening of the road where a narrow stream veered closely to it, kissing the roots of an ancient oak, with tufts of grass offering rest.

I turned the horse's blindfold into hobbles and relieved it of saddle and pack. There were fallen limbs enough for a small fire, though it only turned the surrounding mist into a wall of white, rather than beating it back. And Rosete's provisions, though cold now, made a festive board of the gnarled tree root I perched on.

King Eban had called it a quest, but we all knew it for something else: a sentence, a test, an exile. The crime I had been accused of called for death, but in this way Eban could pretend to mercy. He'd said, I have business left unfinished with Merlin. Capture him. Bring him to me and all this will be forgotten. No one sent to capture the wizard of Celidon had succeeded. The others, at least, had enjoyed the freedom to return. No doubt the court expected me to accept it as exile, perhaps to return home to Cornwall in quiet disgrace.

How could I do that? I am the deeds I perform, the renown I achieve, the name I make for myself. That name may be Silence but I will not let it be silent. The wizard was somewhere here within the wood and the wood had revealed itself to me and allowed me entrance. If it were a test, I had passed the first gate.

Between one moment and the next, a figure appeared at the edge of the mist. His dark hair and beard were matted and tangled with sticks. The mass flowed down over his shoulders to merge with the rough skin tunic he wore, making him look more beast than man except for the knobbed staff he leaned on. My hand measured the distance to my sword but I stayed it, recalling the value of courtesy in places such as this. The wildman's lips parted, perhaps in memory of speech. His tongue moved restlessly and he stared at the remains of my meal.

I gestured in welcome toward the food, and in a crabbed, suspicious, scuttling movement he snatched it up and crouched just at the edge of the fire's circle to wolf it down. By the time the last crumbs of bread disappeared, the wildman's movements had become more deliberate and his eyes more human as they darted across my belongings and came to rest on the harp case where it lay beside me. He pointed a bony finger at the instrument and his lips moved again. This time a croaking sound emerged from his mouth and resolved itself at last into a question. "Sing?"

I nodded and drew the harp out to test the tuning. Without Elider to take the lead, I chose a song best suited to my voice: one of the old lays I'd learned in Brittany. And as I sang I could swear I saw tears well up from the wildman's eyes, though if they did, they disappeared into the tangle of his beard.

At the end, when I set the harp down, he sighed and his words came more easily. "I had forgotten."

"Have you spent a long time here in Celidon?" I asked, thinking he might have seen something of the wizard I sought.

"A long time, yes," he replied, though he might only have been echoing my words. "I had forgotten there were things beyond this wood worth knowing." His fingers curled to rake through the knots of his hair, seeming only now aware of them. He frowned. "Would you..." He seemed to be searching for lost words. "Have you a razor?"

"I have a knife," I replied. "And a comb."

Though I shrank from what I might find within that tangle, I bent to his request and parted him from the signs of his wildness.

When that task was accomplished, he ran his hands once more over his head and face, then down across the filthy skins he wore for clothing. "Have you a garment suitable for a man?" he asked.

There was nothing in my bags but one spare linen tunic, but the wildman's emaciated body was slight enough that it would cover him. I offered it, then turned back to arranging the bag to spare him shame at his nakedness, should he feel it.

"Who may I thank for these gifts?" he asked, his voice more assured and no longer with the creak of disuse.

"I am Silence of Tintagel," I said. "Count Cador is my father."

He nodded and his eyes took on a crafty, calculating look. I might have thought the madness was returning, but he said, "I have been in Tintagel, long long ago."

In that moment I knew him. I should have known from the moment he appeared in the firelight, but I had been seeking a wizard, not a woodwose. Was I now bound by my hospitality? How could I draw a sword and compel his return after having fed and clothed him? After dressing his hair as if he were a youth taking service with me? And yet he too might be bound such rules. "Merlin," I commanded, "you owe a debt to my lineage for the wrong you did to Gorlois, my ancestor."

He laughed--a high-pitched giggle that was ill at odds with his new dignity. "And what wrong do you think that was?"

"You know well: when you set his face and his form on Uther the king, so that he could sate his lust for Ygraine, of whose line I come."

He smiled at some secret joke. "Ah yes, that wrong. I did indeed transform Uther. But tell me this: if the man in Ygraine's bed had the body and the face and the form of Gorlois, then who was it who truly sired Arthur the king? If we are not our bodies, what are we?" Merlin watched me closely, his mouth still crooked in mocking laughter.

Now I did pick up my sword. "King Eban has sent me to bring you to Herincestre. You have refused his command and his messengers before." And I told him of the quest that had been laid on me and the reasons for it. "Will you come easily or must I compel you?"

"I will come," he said and laughed again. "Oh, I will come indeed to see what nest of hornets Eban has stirred up."

---

When we came out of the mist I saw the towers of Herincestre far in the distance. The wood had released us in a different place than I entered and we walked along its edges by the high road until I came to where Elider sat waiting for me. Joy and relief mingled in his eyes. Together we escorted the wizard past the guards at the portcullis and into the hall where King Eban waited.

When we were announced, it was not the king, but the queen, who caught my gaze. She sat white-faced at his side, with Rosete and the other ladies clustered frozen behind her like hens when a buzzard passes over. But surely...

"Tell us how you captured the wizard!" Eban demanded.

He expected a tale of valor and peril. I bowed before him and told the truth while the other knights--those who had failed the quest before--looked on in disbelief. But though I told of the mist and the meal, the harping and haircutting, I did not say plainly that I had not captured Merlin at all. That he had come for some purpose of his own.

The wizard stood quietly throughout the tale, still with his secret smile.

"Have I fulfilled everything you required?" I asked. Would King Eban find some other excuse to be rid of me?

"In prevailing, you have proven your innocence before God," the king said. He turned to Queen Eufeme. "And what have you to say to that, my lady? Either you or Sir Silence were faithless to me and God has judged. How is it you caused me to send an innocent knight to what should have been his doom?"

Oh innocent indeed! How could I not have seen that my vindication must be her guilt? I thought to throw myself on my knees before the king, but in that moment Merlin began to laugh, long and loudly, as if at the greatest jest in all the world.

King Eban turned on him angrily. "Be silent, wizard! Do you see humor in my queen's betrayal?"

When Merlin could contain his laughter, he answered, "I see many things, my lord king, but I see no faithlessness unless there can be adultery among women."

The court fell silent in confusion but Queen Eufeme grew even paler than before.

"Speak plainly, wizard," the king demanded.

"Arthur's was not the only birth I attended at Tintagel," Merlin said. "I was there again to mark the birth of Count Cador's daughter Silence."

They all stared at me and I tried to read each face in turn: the king's affronted chagrin, Rosete's startled wonder, and Elider...his face alone told no story. But in Queen Eufeme's face I saw despair.

---

I could not have saved the queen. No one could have saved her. The false accusation was only an excuse. Everyone knew it was King Eban's jealousy and her barrenness that had condemned her. And I? For the first time in my life I was a coward. I fled to the farthest corner of the castle. There I sat stone-faced within the niche where the windows looked out to the west, with only Elider for company.

He stared at me as if with doubled vision. Did he hesitate to speak, not knowing what name to use? The silence that once had made us companions now stood as a wall between us.

"Sir Silence," he said at last, retreating into stiff formality. "You bear no blame in this. The queen is guilty--not of adultery, it's true, but of lying to bring about your destruction."

I shook my head. "The queen is guilty of nothing except wanting to live. We all share that guilt."

"Honor is more important than life!" he answered hotly.

"Honor is for men," I returned. Yesterday I would have added, like us. "For women, honor is a cage, not a banner to raise on the field." He wouldn't understand that. He would never feel the bars of that cage weaving themselves about him.

Elider's voice turned stiff again. "You have only to command me and my sword is yours. There will be confusion in the court. If we act quickly and have swift horses waiting..."

"And what?" I asked. "Carry Queen Eufeme off by force? Here in the heart of Eban's lands? Like Lancelot abducting Guinevere? Eban is no Arthur; he would not stand aside. His knights would cut us down before we'd gone five leagues."

Even so far away, I could hear the voices in the courtyard. Or perhaps I only dreamed I heard them. In my dream I watched while Rosete cut the queen's hair to leave her neck bare, and receive the gown that slipped from the queen's shoulders to leave her naked in her shift, and stand beside her, tight-lipped, as she knelt before the block. Today I was a coward, but Rosete was not.

---

I was summoned before the king three days later, after the queen's body had been laid to rest.

"The law is reversed," he said. "No longer will I bar virtuous and worthy ladies from receiving the legacy of their birth. You will be Countess of Cornwall after your father. Now take up again a woman's proper garments and habits and be counted among the noblewomen of this court." And he commanded Rosete to attend me, now that the queen had no need of her.

It was hard to face her--harder than facing an army at Duke Hoel's side. Her eyes were red from weeping and she obeyed Eban's command as if facing her own doom. I would have thought myself the cause of her sorrow but that I saw the glove I had given her still tucked into her girdle.

I fingered the fine linen and golden samite the king had sent. Take up again a woman's proper garments. There was no "again," all these were strange to me. Rosete's hands shook as she unfastened my belt and fumbled with the clasp at the neck of my tunic. A crimson blush spread across her face and she said haltingly, "I have never--"

She was a maiden; she had never undressed a man. And I had never undressed before a woman...or any other since I was a child among those who knew my secret. Would she ever look at me again as she had when I gave her that glove in token? I turned away and hurriedly stripped off tunic, chausses, and braies, down to my skin, and then wrapped my arms around myself tightly, feeling the air play over my bare skin.

"My lady--" Her voice was tender--as a lover's voice might be tender--but I took it for pity. "My lady, your shift."

I held out my arms but did not raise my eyes until the linen settled down to hide my limbs. The gown was next, well-cut and fitted closely with lacing. A fillet on my brow and shoes of red cordovan. But when she would have tied a girdle of woven silk about my waist I reached instead for the battered leather belt that had held my sword. It settled on my hips with a familiar weight.

"Thus am I girded for battle," I said in what I meant for a jest, and Rosete rewarded me with a hesitant smile. Oh, to see her smile again for me as she had when I sang for the queen! I would never again know that innocent pleasure. And innocent it had been, for I knew it even then for impossibility.

The time came when I could hide no longer. I stood at the entrance to the hall and everyone in the court turned to watch me enter. I felt the weight of their gaze. Beneath my skirts, I was conscious of my bare limbs as the air stirred around my legs. I felt that every eye could see those parts I had been accustomed to keep covered. In that crowd, the only face I sought was Elider's. But when he came toward me, his every line and movement spoke of change. The doubled gaze was gone. The man who once had been my brother and my friend (but nothing more--surely nothing more) now came a stranger to my side, bowing and reaching to kiss the hand I did not think to offer.

"What shall I call you now, my lady?" he asked.

Silence. "I am still Silence, as I ever was," I answered at last.

He led me to the high table where the king seated me at his right hand. And throughout the banquet King Eban praised me for my loyalty and my valor and my virtue and my beauty and I believed not a word of it. My face was too brown and weathered for beauty and my loyalty had been for Queen Eufeme. So how could I trust any word from his tongue?

At the end of the evening, Rosete led me again to the chamber I had been given. She unbound the fillet from my hair and unlaced my gown and whispered, "Lord Elider sees you in a new light now, I think."

"Yes," I said, my voice thick with misery.

"Surely it is cause for joy," she offered, "to have had such a companion who hopes to be so much more?"

How could I explain? My mind could trace no path within this wood. This much she might understand. "My mouth is too rough for kisses," I said. "My arms know only battle and not embraces. I would look a fool in any game of love. I cannot be the lady he desires."

And then Rosete took my face in her hands and pressed her lips against mine.

"Not so rough," she murmured when we both could breathe again.

Somehow my arms had found that they knew how to embrace after all. I tore myself away. "Rosete..."

"I know," she said. "And now it is I who look the fool."

With that, she left me alone to spend a long and restless night.

---

I spent the next day in an agony, not knowing whether I wished Elider to speak or to hold his tongue. King Eban took that choice from both of us when he called all the court together as witness.

"I will redress the wrong that was done to Lady Silence," he said, "by making her my queen. She will give me fine sons to rule after I am gone." And then he took a ring from his finger and put it on mine as a pledge before any chance for yea or nay to pass my lips.

I sat at the king's right hand again when we dined. When he dined. I could scarcely bear the thought of food passing my lips. From across the hall, Elider watched me. And from my side, King Eban watched Elider and then looked at me and back again. And even when I was released at last, I dared not speak to my former companion, but sent Rosete as my messenger.

"Tell him to leave the court as soon as may be. I will not have his death on my hands. I cannot escape, but he must."

"And if he refuses?" Rosete asked. "If he will not abandon you?"

"Then ask if he wishes to have my death on his hands!" I said. And more softly, "Take my harp to him. Tell him to remember me when he sings."

---

I had not meant to see Elider again, but Rosete had returned with his promise to go if he could but speak to me once more. And so I rose before the dawn and went to walk in the garden beside the road that led away from Herincestre. Rosete kept sharp watch as I went to meet him at the gate. He had my harp slung across his shoulder and led two horses, not one.

"Come with me!" he urged.

I shook my head. "Do you think King Eban's knights ride more slowly today than they would have on the day Queen Eufeme died?" I would not be his death. Cruelty was my only weapon now. "Why do you think I would leave with you when I could wear a crown?" My voice betrayed me and he reached to take my hand but at Rosete's soft call I cried, "Go! Go!" and hurried from the gate.

But it was only Merlin, come to disturb our solitude. Perhaps his years in Celidon had left him with no love of walls, but his days here at Herincestre had left me with no love of him. I turned on him, demanding, "Why did you come with me only to make trouble?"

He did not laugh this time, nor even smile. "I came because you asked and the king commanded."

"You could have held your tongue," I said. "It would have made no difference to the poor queen and every difference to me."

Merlin leaned on his staff and stared into me as if he could see my very soul. "I speak truth when I am commanded. That is my nature. And it is the nature of kings to be angered by truth."

"I cannot marry him," I said, allowing my dread to show.

"Because it is not your nature?"

Truth, he had said, and there was none but Rosete to hear. "Because he murders his queens when they fail to please him," I snarled. "And I will fail. I cannot help but fail. I do not know how to be a woman, much less a queen."

Merlin considered my answer. "Do you recall the tale of Blanchandine?" he asked.

I blinked at him in confusion, but Rosete nodded and told the story. "Blanchandine loved Tristan of Nanteuil, and because she would not be separated from him, she dressed herself as a knight and rode as his companion."

It was not a tale I had heard before. "What is that to me?" I asked Merlin.

Rosete continued, "When Tristan was thought to be dead, the disguised Blanchandine was loved by the Princess Clarinde and commanded to marry her."

Merlin took up the tale. "And knowing of my skills, Blanchandine came to me and begged my aid to make the marriage possible. I could do the same for you, this time to make your marriage to King Eban impossible. I could change you to be truly what you seemed before."

I thought of what he offered. To be safe from Eban's desire. To be again Sir Silence and know the easy companionship I had enjoyed with Elider. To see again the worship in Rosete's eyes and know I had a right to claim it. And yet...

"What then of the law?" I asked. "What of my honor and my renown?" I looked to Rosete as if she held the answers. "Whatever I may be, these are the arms that won in tournament against the French king's champions. These are the hands that defended the Duke of Brittany against his foes. I won the king's promise that this body could inherit. Should all that be held at naught?" Looking into Rosete's dark eyes, I remembered the touch of her lips against my own. These were the lips she had kissed. Would that too be lost to me?

I turned back to Merlin and demanded urgently, "Who was it who truly sired Arthur?"

Merlin shrugged. "When a man takes up Excalibur from the stone and claims the crown of Britain, does it matter who lay in his mother's bed?"

I looked back toward the gate. In defiance of my command, Elider still waited. And there Rosete stood before me, clutching my glove to her breast as if it were a holy relic. Behind them, I could see the edge of the forest.

"Merlin," I begged. "If ever you owed me a boon, let it be this: open the way to Celidon."

Merlin laughed, and with that laughter a mist began rising from the ground. I held out my hand to Rosete and together we hurried through the garden gate.

---

Rosete sat pillion behind me as we entered the wood. Elider still carried my harp for I could not have both at my back. The mist curled around us, leaving the path bare ahead, and our horses took it, sure-footed. Perhaps it would lead back to Cornwall, perhaps to Brittany. It scarcely mattered. We would be far from King Eban's reach. The birdsong grew faint behind us and the leaves ceased to rustle underfoot. For now the way was open, leading us I knew not where. I was content, for in the forest all is silence and Silence is all.

---

Show Notes

A bonus fiction episode to celebrate episode #250: “All is Silence” by Heather Rose Jones, narrated by the author.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 249 – The Romance of Silence - transcript

(Originally aired 2023/01/21 - listen here)

People who have a passing familiarity with medieval European literature will know about the cycle of Arthurian romances – Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, Merlin, Gawain, Percival, and the like. Perhaps you’ll be familiar with the Roland cycle, built around the historic court of Charlemagne. But there are many less familiar tales of this type—some surviving only in fragments or secondary references, or perhaps only in a single unique manuscript.

The fascinating Romance of Silence certainly deserves to be more widely known, and it’s of particular interest for its startlingly unexpected explorations of gender concepts and gender presentation. Themes that are particularly relevant to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project include gender disguise, characters assigned female who display martial prowess, and situations that flirt with the appearance of same-sex desire due to disguise and/or ignorance. Not all of these themes are unproblematic, as we shall see, but they offer a glimpse into imagined possibilities that medieval authors and audiences were familiar with.

The Text

Because most listeners will be unfamiliar with this work, I feel the need to begin by explaining that “Silence” is the name of the central character, though it is also a theme of the work—of the inability to speak of one’s identity or of one’s innocence. In the original text, the name is used in distinct feminine and masculine forms, as “Silencia” and “Silencius,” which adds another layer to the marking of gender identity and presentation.

The Romance of Silence survives in a single manuscript dating to the 13th century, written in French, and attributed to an almost certainly fictitious author Heldris of Cornwall—a name borrowed from a character in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. The translator of the edition I’m using, Sarah Roche-Mahdi, suggests the possibility that the author may, in fact, have been a woman, based on a distinctly feminine sensibility in the text. The attribution of original works to fictitious authors or historical figures was common in medieval literature—rather the opposite of the modern dynamics of plagiarism.

The plot and characters have clear connections with the Arthurian cycle, particularly in the involvement of the wizard Merlin, although King Arthur himself is mentioned only in passing as a historic figure. The action takes place in the time of King Eban of England, who is not a historical figure, and it would be a mistake to try to estimate what relationship the setting has either to Arthurian chronology or actual history.

Here is the plot, in a nutshell. Due to a fatal quarrel at court between two men who married sister-heiresses, King Eban has declared that women may not inherit lands. So when Count Cador of Cornwall and his wife have a daughter rather than a son, they decide to raise the child, named Silence, as a boy for the sake of inheritance. On reaching adolescence, Silence learns of this unusual situation and, after listening to a debate between the personifications of Nature and Nurture regarding which gender to inhabit, Silence decides to live as a man, feeling ill-prepared to live as a woman. Silence runs away to France, becomes a minstrel and then gains fame as a knight, and eventually comes to the court of King Eban and Queen Eufeme. Eufeme is, as we learn, a piece of work, taking multiple lovers, including one man who maintains access to her in disguise as a nun, and sexually harassing young men she’s attracted to, including Silence. Silence rejects her and she takes revenge by accusing Silence of having tried to rape her. As a punishment that is intended to be fatal, Silence is ordered to capture the wizard Merlin who—according to prophesy—can only be taken by a “woman’s trick”. Silence successfully brings Merlin back to court but Merlin reveals Silence’s assigned gender, as well as revealing Queen Eufeme’s adultery. The queen is executed. Silence is required to begin living as a woman and King Eban marries her and makes her queen, as well as restoring the right of women to inherit, in her honor.

So, as you can see, we’ve got some very problematic tropes here, including the idea of men disguising themselves as women for sexual access, the position that anatomy trumps gender identity, punishing women’s sexual transgressions with death, and the notion that marriage to a king is supposed to be a happy ending despite all the foregoing.

But what I want to focus on in this episode are the scenes in which traditional ideas about gender and identity are challenged in ways that are surprising for the era, and on how motifs like gender disguise and accidental same-sex desire are introduced.

I’m going to be providing extensive excerpts—far more than fair use would allow with regard to Roche-Mahdi’s translation. So I’m going to render the meaning in my own words to respect her copyright, but I want to make it clear that my paraphrasing relies very strongly on her work, even when I refer back to her edition of the French text for inspiration.

The treatment of Silence’s gender in the text is eclectic. Sometimes it follows the gender Silence is presenting at the time, sometimes it follows the gender that a point of view character considers Silence to be. And let us keep in mind that Silence is a fictional character whose gender treatment is based on authorial decisions, not a historic person where we are guessing about self-identity. To the extent that the text provides clues about Silence’s internal gender identity, we are seeing the author’s worldview as displayed through a fictional character.

From a modern perspective, Silence can either be viewed as transgender, but eventually pressured into accepting an assigned gender. Or Silence can be viewed as gender-queer, due to a cross-gender upbringing, and trying on various identities. Or Silence can be viewed as a cis woman, forced by a misogynistic social structure to adopt a male social presentation for specific purposes. Because of these ambiguities, I’ll generally be following the gendered language chosen by the author (Heldris or whoever it was), which will vary between feminine and masculine.

Is that enough of an introduction? Then let’s get on with the fun parts.

Silence’s Birth

You need to understand that Count Cador and his wife (who is also named Euphemie, like the queen, just to confuse the issue, but she’s out of the picture fairly quickly) are very very much in love. There’s, like, over a thousand lines of verse leading up to Silence’s birth that’s all about how much in love they are. And Silence’s mother is the most beautiful woman in the world. When she becomes pregnant, the two discuss the possibility that they might have a daughter rather than a son, in which case their child would inherit nothing. Cador comes up with a plan. When it comes time for the birth, the countess will be attended only by one woman, a cousin of Cador’s who is completely loyal to him and will keep his secrets. If the child turns out to be a girl, they’ll raise her as a boy with no one the wiser.

As we’re waiting for the birth, we get an entire little essay in the voice of the personification of Nature talking about how Nature is going to make the baby into the most beautiful and perfect creation ever made.

Silence is going to be Nature’s own little girl, made from the finest of materials that she’s saved up when making lesser babies. Nature has a chest full of a million baby molds for making different types of babies, but there’s one mold that she’s never used before because she was saving it for a very special baby. We are given a long poetic passage in which Nature describes how she forms each and every feature: curly golden hair, wide-set eyes, red cheeks, a tiny mouth with white teeth, a long neck, small hands with long fingers, a rounded breast and hips and soft legs—I think maybe Nature has forgotten that we’re making a baby here, not a grown woman!

In any event, the child is born, it’s a girl! But the count’s cousin comes out into the hall in the presence of all his barons and proclaims, “Congratulations, you have a son!” When Count Cador goes to his wife and learns the truth, he tells her he loves the child as she is, and wouldn’t exchange her for a son.

Well, except that he turns her into a son. Just in case they have no further children, you know. He describes just how this will be done: they’ll cut her hair short and dress her in breeches and tunics with split skirts. But first they’ll send her off to be raised by a relation of the countess in an isolated house in the woods with only the count’s cousin to care for her. The two adults will know the truth, but there will be no one else who might ask or inspire questions as Silence grows.

Nature vs Nurture vs Reason

We now get a long rant by the personification of Nature, raging about how “You have insulted me by treating Nurture as more powerful than I am! I made Silence into the most perfect girl there could be but they’ve turned her into a boy! Nature will always out! If a man does good things because of how he was nurtured, eventually he will turn out bad if that’s his true nature. And if a good man is hardened and turned bitter because of his nurture, he can be saved though only with great difficulty.” We haven’t met the personification of Nurture yet at this point, but Nature frames Silence’s upbringing as the actions of this personified force.

I think Nature is selling herself short, though, because as Silence grows older and is educated in all the proper learning and skills for a boy, Silence is just naturally better at everything than other children. It’s a gift from God! He’s more valiant and more noble and more honorable, just as much as he’s more beautiful than everyone else. The author is tipping the scales here in Nature’s favor, even when that nature is manifested in male-coded virtues.

But eventually Count Cador decides it’s time to let Silence in on the secret. The text says this happens, “when the child was old enough to understand he was a girl,” which perhaps we may understand to be puberty. Cador explains about the fight over the heiresses, and how King Eban disinherited all the women in England because of it, and that’s why Silence is being raised as a boy. And Silence replies, “Ok, if that’s the way it is, I won’t tell anyone and will continue being a boy.”

Silence is getting more physical training now that they didn’t have to worry about him accidentally revealing or learning about his assigned sex. Riding and hunting, wrestling, jousting, and swordplay. He is twelve years old and better than everyone he meets. But Silence is starting to worry that living as a boy is a form of deception, and that’s when Nature and Nurture show up to have a little chat with her.

“I made you into the most perfect, most beautiful woman,” Nature says, “And you’re ruining it all by running around in the sun and wind, spoiling your beauty. There are a thousand women madly in love with you because of your beauty, but don’t you think they’ll feel deceived if they find out you don’t have the essential thing it takes to be a man?”

There are two interesting things going on here. First up, it’s clear that Nature is annoyingly bio-essentialist. But then, perhaps it’s just in her nature to be so? Little joke. But the second thing is that we’re seeing how ideals of beauty are presented as non-gendered. This is a regular trope in medieval romance (and medieval art, to some extent). The characteristics that are idealized as representing beauty are described in similar terms for both female and male characters. Nature has made Silence exceedingly beautiful, but that beauty is causing women to desire him. It isn’t a different flavor of beauty, just a different audience. And though the text doesn’t pursue this angle, it raises the question of whether those thousand women would still desire Silence if they perceived her as a girl. This, too, is a repeating trope in medieval romances: that superficial appearance as “the opposite sex” is sufficient to trigger desire.

But Nature isn’t just bio-essentialist with regard to appropriate targets of desire, she also has strict opinions about restricting the sexes to gender-segregated behaviors and berates Silence, “You have no business jousting and riding and hunting! Go to a chamber and take up sewing! That’s what you’re supposed to be doing!”

Silence, being obedient and biddable, begins to be swayed by Nature’s arguments and contemplates giving up her hope of inheritance for the sake of learning to sew. But in the nick of time, Nurture shows up and says, “Whoa! Hold on there! What’s going on?”

Silence explains, “Nature has convinced me that I should change my ways—that none of my foremothers have ever behaved as I am. So I’ll take up feminine habits, stop cutting my hair short, stop wearing breeches. I’ll stop hunting with bow and quiver, and I’ll stop playing boys’ games, even though it makes the other boys call me a sissy. As it is now, every time I get undressed, I’m afraid someone will find me out. Perhaps I should let all this go and live quietly as a woman.”

Nurture is outraged. We shouldn’t read too much into the fact that Nurture is personified as female, just as Nature is. This is, to some extent, a consequence of linguistic gender, as the underlying concepts are grammatically feminine. Nurture exclaims, “Leave my child alone, Nature! Silence will always resist you. I can make a thousand people turn from their nature through nurture.” We may wince a bit at Nurture’s next statement, that she has “turned a noble child into a defective male.” But this is the author’s phrasing, we must remember.

A third personification takes the podium. This time it’s Reason, and she lays out the case why, if Silence abandons what she has gained through Nurture to stick only to Nature, it would be as bad as suicide. “Buck up,” Reason says. “If you listen to Nature, you’ll never train to be a knight. You’ll lose your horse and chariot. And never think that King Eban will change his mind about disinheriting you.”

If Nature is an annoying gender-essentialist, and if Nurture (who doesn’t get much air time) seems indifferent to the actual specifics of one’s upbringing, for good or ill, Reason is a pragmatist. “Look, kid,” Reason implies, “we live in a misogynistic world and right now you have the upper hand. Do you really want to give that up?”

And Silence thinks to himself, “If I’m on top, why would I want to step down? As a man, I’m valiant and given honor. Would it be taking the easy way out to be a woman? Besides, I have no practice in being feminine. I don’t know how to kiss or caress softly. And I don’t know how a woman is supposed to act in bed. Besides, I’d turn my father into a liar for telling the world that I’m his son.”

So Silence determines to continue living as a man, but has a certain amount of lingering inner conflict.

Life as a Minstrel

This is the point in The Hero’s Journey where it’s time for our hero to go out into the world, and just in the nick of time, two wandering minstrels headed for Brittany stumble across the manor house in the woods where Silence is being raised. After listening to the minstrels, Silence thinks about how he doesn’t know what the future will bring—whether he will need to live as a man all his life, or whether King Eban will die and women will be able to inherit again. But if he’s not going to learn feminine arts, and if he isn’t certain he could succeed as a knight, maybe he should go with the minstrels and learn their trade so he can make a living that would work either for a man or a woman.

So Silence sneaks off and goes with the minstrels to Brittany, leaving his parents and guardians in deep despair. Silence is, once more, the best at everything he tries, and within three years he’s better at minstrelsy than his companions, which makes them jealous and angry. At the court of the Duke of Burgundy, Silence gets all the praise and adulation and the other minstrels plot to kill him, but…well, we’ll make a long story short and say it doesn’t happen and his former companions take themselves off.

Silence has become homesick and heads back to Cornwall, traveling as a minstrel. But there’s this problem: you see, the Count of Cornwall has a grudge against all minstrels because a pair of minstrels kidnapped his only child years ago, and minstrelsy is punishable with death! Silence is hauled before the Count for judgment, but fortunately an old man recognizes him, and by means of a unique birthmark, Silence proves his identity and is joyfully welcomed.

King Eban’s Court

King Eban—you remember King Eban, the one who disinherited all women?—hears of Silence’s fame and summons Silence to his court to join his household. But immediately there is trouble because Queen Eufeme falls in lust with Silence and schemes to get him alone when the king goes out hunting. Now perhaps—our narrator says—if Silence had looked like a girl, the queen wouldn’t have desired him, and much could have been avoided. This brings us back to the question of what it means to “look like a girl” if both male and female beauty is described in similar terms. Throughout the romance, the only absolute gender marker is clothing, given that appearance is ungendered and Silence’s behavior is consistently male-coded. But in any event, the queen gets Silence alone and confesses her desire for him though, the narrator notes, she’d never get more from him than a kiss and would only be even more upset once she learns Silence can’t perform sexually as a man.

The queen embraces and kisses Silence. “Just relax,” she says, “and kiss me.”

Silence, recognizing the hazard of making the queen angry, kisses her chastely on the forehead. The queen goes back for five more very passionate kisses and when Silence tries to get away, she protests that she’s offering her body to him completely. She starts to undress. Silence protests, “Look, lady, I’m your husband’s vassal. What you’re asking me to do is sin and treason.”

“What a monk!” the queen jeers. “Go tell your father you’re ready to take your vows.” She turns sweet and angry by turns. Silence is in an impossible situation. She could reveal that she is a girl and be free of the queen’s lust, but then she would lose her inheritance. The queen, seeing she’s not making any headway, says, “Ha ha, just joking. If I’d really been serious you wouldn’t have refused me.” But she’s furious and determined to get back at Silence. She can’t understand why Silence would refuse her. It can’t be out of a sense of honor and duty, it must be because he’s gay. Yep, the medieval text actually says that. Which is interesting because while the author recognizes that a man might have an exclusive homosexual orientation, there’s nowhere any hint that the “thousands” of women who desire the male-presenting Silence might continue to desire Silence-as-a-girl.

In any event, the queen assures Silence that the whole episode was just a test to find a vassal who was the most loyal and honorable for a special assignment, and Silence passed the test, so they’re all good, right? “Thank God,” says Silence and naively thinks everything’s ok. But the next time the king goes off hunting, the queen gets Silence alone once more and when Silence again rebuffs her, the queen hits herself until she bleeds, and tears her clothing, and screams rape until the king comes back and the queen can accuse Silence of assaulting her. She demands the king’s vengeance, and meanwhile Silence feels like she can’t say anything because it would be disobedience to the queen.

But the king doesn’t want to put Silence to death. After all Silence is the son of one of his important vassals. Besides which, he argues, if he punishes Silence severely, then people will believe that the queen was, in fact, compromised, and surely she wouldn’t want that, right? The queen fumes but can’t find a good argument. The king says, “I’ll send Silence to the French court, that should take care of things.” Which, if you think about it, had Silence actually sexually assaulted the queen, that’s the sort of shell game that we still see so often when men in power abuse their authority.

In any event, the king has his chancellor draw up a letter of recommendation to the French king, suggesting that Silence should be welcomed and knighted, and at the same time the queen writes her own letter, which she substitutes for the king’s, which says, “Kill the bearer of this message.”

The French Court

But remember that Silence just has this shining charisma that makes everyone love him, so when he hands the letter to the French king’s chancellor, the chancellor thinks, “OMG, I can’t allow this noble youth to be executed, I should lie to my king about what the letter says, but that would be dishonorable and maybe get me killed, what shall I do?” He brings the dilemma to the king and explains that he thinks it would be a dreadful thing to kill such a noble youth. And the king has also fallen for Silence’s charisma, but he’s already welcomed Silence to his court and given him the kiss of peace and his reputation would be shot if he turned and executed him after that. The king consults with his advisors and they spend pages and pages of verse arguing over whether the more honorable thing to do is to kill Silence or to let him live. Finally one advisor says, “Look, this is a bit out of character for King Eban. What’s the chance the letter is a forgery, created by someone with a grudge against Silence? Maybe you should write back to King Eban for confirmation and include the original letter?”

So while Silence is all in ignorance of this, the query is sent off and King Eban says, “What the fuck?” and throws his chancellor in prison for screwing up the letter so badly. But the chancellor, after wracking his memory for a while, recalls that the queen had handled the letter before it was sealed and dares to suggest to King Eban that maybe his queen was the one who was trying to get Silence killed. Yeah, that makes sense, thinks the king to himself, but he still wants to conceal what happened between the queen and Silence so he blames someone else. But he sends his chancellor to France to explain the mixup and that they’re all good.

So Silence joins the French court and, as usual, is better at everything than everyone else. The French king knights him. And our narrator seems to be softening a little toward the side of Nurture, noting, “[One] might well say that Nurture can do a great deal to overcome Nature, if she can teach such behavior to a soft and tender woman. Many a knight unhorsed by Silence, if he had known the truth at the time she knocked him down, would have been terribly ashamed that a tender, soft, faint-hearted woman, who had only the complexion, clothing, and bearing of a man, could have struck him down with her lance. And do you know what I really think? One should behave properly every day… Many act dishonourably every day, but if they…had been raised with [honor] from infancy, they would reject base deeds. If they behave improperly, they can’t help it; they’re only practicing what they’ve learned. Silence had no regrets about his upbringing, in fact, he loved it.” In other words, if Nurture guides you into correct behavior, it becomes an inherent part of you. You aren’t stuck with exactly and only what Nature gave you.

Back to England

But in the meantime, war broke out in England against King Eban and he decided he needed as great a warrior as Silence had become, and never mind how the queen felt about it. So Silence returned to King Eban’s court with a troop of thirty warriors. With their help, King Eban defeated his opponents (though this takes many more words in the original than I’m using here) and the French troops were sent home with gold and glory.

That leaves Silence back in the same court as Queen Eufeme. And the queen still bears a grudge. She tells the king that Silence is still pestering and harassing her, and suggests that the way to deal with him without sullying either the queen’s or king’s reputations is to send him on an impossible quest. Merlin the magician, she says, is wandering the woods as a madman and it’s said that he could never be captured except by a woman’s trick. So tell Silence that you need Merlin to interpret a dream for you, and send him out with instructions to bring Merlin back or never return. That way we’ll be rid of him.

Silence realizes that this is all Queen Eufeme’s doing and is in despair. I guess either Silence hadn’t heard the bit about a “woman’s trick” or thinks it doesn’t apply to her? In any event, Silence wanders in the woods for half a year and then happens to encounter a man with long flowing white hair at the edge of a grove. Now you might think that this was Merlin, but no, this is the mysterious old man who explains to Silence how to capture Merlin.

“Here’s the deal,” he says. “I’ll give you wine, milk, honey, and meat. Go to this place where Merlin hangs out and start a fire and start grilling the meat. That will attract Merlin. When Merlin shows up, fade back into the woods. Oh, and make sure the meat is very salty, so it will make him thirsty. Now place the honey, the milk, and the wine at intervals leading away from the fire so that he encounters them in that order. He’ll drink the honey first, then the milk, which will make him bloated and even more thirsty. Then he'll drink the wine straight down. And because he’s no longer accustomed to drinking wine, he’ll go right to sleep. Then you can grab him.”

As Silence begins following the old man’s instructions, Nurture and Nature show up and start quarreling again. I keep envisioning this as a comic bit in a stage play. In any event, Merlin is being tempted by the roasting meat but Nurture tells him, “Look, you’ve been living off raw plants and herbs in the forest for years and have become accustomed to them. Nature may tell you to eat cooked meat, but surely Nurture will trump that and you’ll walk away from the fire.” Which is a rather odd argument, when you think about it, because surely eating random raw foods direct from the land is what Nature gives us, while the cooking of meat is a cultural skill that we’re taught by Nurture? Let us not forget that the author’s ideas of Nature and Nurture are themselves culturally conditioned.

In any event, Nature and Nurture get into the verbal equivalent of a knock-down drag-out fight over which of them is responsible for the Fall of Adam and Eve. And whether the logic and theology is sound or not, in the story, Nature wins the argument, then grabs Merlin by the scruff of the neck (literally, I mean, that’s what the medieval text says), and shoves him toward the meat roasting over the fire. He gobbled the meat, then drank down the honey, milk, and wine in turn, then passed out drunk.

Silence grabs him and as Merlin is going, “Wait…what?” the plot takes an unexpected turn. Silence proclaims, “I want to kill you, because you caused the death of my ancestor Gorlain, duke of Cornwall, when you disguised King Uther in Gorlain’s appearance so he could seduce Gorlain’s wife and conceive King Arthur.”

Merlin (who seems to have gotten over his wild-man phase) says, “So what? The ends justify the means and King Arthur was a highly justified end.”

And somehow Silence is ok with that and drops the matter, simply hauling Merlin back to King Eban’s court. Merlin is ok with that because he’s looking forward to stirring up a few hornets’ nests. There’s this interesting sub-plot as they return where Merlin bursts into laughter at three seemingly inappropriate circumstances. He’s brought into the king’s presence laughing uncontrollably and uproariously. King Eban is furious that Merlin won’t explain why he’s laughing and throws the magician in prison to think about it for a while. In a few days, he hauls him out and Merlin is more amenable to talking but demands that the king won’t punish him for anything he says, because he isn’t going to like it.

So Merlin explains the hidden meaning behind the three things he laughed at. The king is somewhat mollified, but protests, “But Merlin, you’re a false prophet, because you prophesied that you would never be captured except by a woman’s trick and yet here you are. You lied!”

In the meantime, Silence is standing there sweating because she knows what’s coming. She’s brought her own doom to court. And Merlin explains that he was captured only because he was tricked into thinking that Silence was a man, but that she is a girl under her clothes and that was the woman’s trick. (There’s also a sidebar where Merlin exposes the queen’s male lover who has been hanging out in her apartments disguised as a nun. But we’re coming to the climax so let’s not get distracted.)

The king is furious at various of them for various reasons. He has both the nun and Silence brought forth and stripped to expose the bodies beneath the clothing. Silence is required to explain herself (though one hopes that she was allowed to put something on first) and not only the reason for her gender disguise but the basis for the queen’s enmity is laid out.

King Eban says, “Silence, you’re loyal and virtuous – a precious treasure. You have saved yourself, and on your behalf I’ll reverse the law against women’s inheritance. But Queen Eufeme, you have betrayed me. Both you and your lover will be executed. Oh, and Silence, since you’re so beautiful and virtuous, you’re going to be my next queen.”

Conclusion

And so ends our story. This isn’t a story with clear conclusions or morals about gender and virtue. Not even really about Nature and Nurture. But it’s a medieval romance that talks more about issues of feminist interest than most do. And if the triumph of Nature within the framework of the story doesn’t align well with modern notions of gender identity, the simple fact that the author is framing gender as something where the influence of nature and nurture can be debated is intriguing.

One shouldn’t interpret gender-crossing characters like Silence as indicating a completely open mind about women who cross-dressed or who engaged in male-coded behavior. Even in the context of the story, Silence is very aware of how people would react to her if her full story were known. Medieval people were ok with praising fictional gender-crossing characters while looking askance at those who behaved similarly in real life. But a story like the Romance of Silence can expand our understanding of the medieval imagination and the identities they could conceive of existing, even if they didn’t embrace them.

When I read stories like this, I’m often inspired to think of ways they could be adapted with just a little tweaking into something that retains the feel of the original but is more queer-friendly for a modern audience. I’m not the only person to have reimagined Silence in this way and authors have envisioned Silence with a variety of gender identities and story outcomes. My own version is titled “All is Silence” and will be featured in a special bonus fiction podcast next week, to celebrate hitting episode number 250. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

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Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• The medieval “Romance of Silence”
• Ideas about gender, and nature vs nurture
• An extended plot synopsis
• Sources mentioned
  • Roche-Mahdi, Sarah. 1999. Silence. Michigan State University Press, Lansing. ISBN 0-87013-543-0
• This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here: Roman de Silence (Heldris de Cornuälle)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 248 - On the Shelf for January 2023 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2023/01/07 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for January 2023.

Here’s looking forward to a new year of content, so let’s take a look back at what the Lesbian Historic Motif Project has done this year.

With 30 podcast episodes, in addition to the monthly On the Shelf roundups, we published five original stories: “Palio” by Gwen C. Katz, “The Spirits of Cabassus” by Ursula Whitcher, “A Farce to Suit the New Girl” by Rebecca Fraimow, “The Wolf that Sings on the Mountain” by Miyuki Jane Pinkard, and just last week “From the Bird’s Nest” by Jennifer Nestojko, who will be joining us in an interview later in this episode.

This year, I kicked off a new series that I’ve been contemplating for a while: “Our F/Favorite Tropes” – you can’t tell in the audio version, but that’s written “Our F-slash-F-avorite Tropes”. This series will explore how the dynamics of popular historic romance tropes change when a female couple is involved. In the five episodes so far we’ve explored tropes for only one bed, spinsters, marriage-based plots, kissing lessons, and widows. The trope series is being a lot of fun and I intend to continue for as long as I can come up with interesting tropes to explore.

The remaining 7 episodes covered many of our popular topics: a biographical look at 18th century gender non-conforming actress Charlotte Charke, a tour through three works of literature – John Lyly’s play Gallathea, the 2nd century Greek novel Babyloniaka, and the 18th century legal appeal of Anne or Jean-Baptiste Grandjean, all of which coincidentally touch on the motif of two women marrying. The show did an interview with Erica Friedman about her book on the history of Yuri anime and manga. There was an episode on the motif of the ”lavender menace” throughout history, that is, the way accusations of queer sexuality have been used to undermine feminist movements. And we put together our second multi-media show on the topic of the history of lesbian sex in pornography.

If you missed any of these and want to go back and check them out, you can find a cumulative index on the website. I’ve been thinking of doing some thematic indexes as well, collecting up the fiction episodes, biographical episodes, interview episodes, and so forth for easier browsing.

In the past year, the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog has published summaries of 51 publications. Those are harder to sum up, especially since I was doing a fair amount of working my way through a random collection of downloaded articles. The most ambitious project was publishing an edition, translation, and commentary on the Grandjean appeal. This past month’s entry was Lisa Moore’s Dangerous Intimacies: Toward a Sapphic History of the British Novel, which I chose along with a couple other forthcoming items as background for a podcast on the gothic genre.

I felt a bit like I was slacking off this year, but when I look at the numbers, the only year I covered more publications than this was in 2014, when I first started the project and kick-started it by posting a publication every day for a while. No need to worry about running out of material, though. I’ve covered a total of 385 publications, but my database lists close to a thousand. Many of the ones I haven’t covered yet are either hard to track down, of only marginal interest, or largely duplicate content I’ve already covered. But that still leaves several hundred titles on the to-be-read list.

While we’re talking about annual summaries, in another month or so I plan to do my usual summary of topics and dynamics of the sapphic historical fiction field. That will be posted on the blog, since it involves a lot of data crunching that may not be of general interest. I always find it interesting to see how many books I’ve been able to find, what the balance is between big press, small press, and self-published, and how the settings are distributed in time and space.

News of the Field

In addition to annual summaries, of course, January means that the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast is open for submissions to our fiction series. We’re looking for short stories up to 5000 words, for which we pay 8 cents a word. The stories must be set in an actual historic time and place, although fantastic elements that are appropriate to the setting may be used. And the date of the story must be pre-20th century. The central character should reasonably be categorized as lesbian or sapphic, although there’s no requirement for the story to be a romance, and in fact romance plots should have something else interesting going on as well. If you want more details and a bit of insight into what I’m looking for, follow the link in the show notes to our call for submissions. It’s fairly comprehensive.

I won’t claim that this podcast has up-to-the-minute media news, but in case you aren’t already aware of it, there’s a new BBC series on Marie Antoinette that evidently leans in to the rumors of her lesbian relationships. It’s by the same writer as The Favourite which had a similar spin on Queen Anne. It’s Marie Antoinette, so don’t go into it expecting a happy ending, but it looks lush and entertaining.

Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction

Of course, the heart of these On the Shelf episodes is the new book listings.

Periodically I like to talk about my adventures in putting together the new releases. I pick up a fair number from mentions on social media, and there are a few queer and lesbian small presses that I check out every month. I skim through the more general lists of queer books that other organizations compile—especially useful if they tag them with the type of representation and the genre. Very rarely, an author will reach out and let me know about an upcoming book, which I love because it means people are aware of what the podcast is doing. But for the final “what have I missed” check, I grind my way through listings on Amazon. Because, like it or not, that’s the most efficient place to look.

My standard method is to do an “advanced search” for everything published starting 2 months before the episode I’m putting together. So for this January show, I asked for everything published in November 2022 or later. It’s an absolute must to cover the previous month, since many self-published books aren’t listed on Amazon before their publication date. (This, as I often note, isn’t ideal for getting eyeballs on a book. And in a moment I’ll point out one more reason for this.) Going back 2 months is extra work, but sometimes it turns up titles I hadn’t seen before. My standard keywords are “lesbian or sapphic” plus “historical,” and specifically excluding “erotic” and “erotica”. (If you do a similar search and instead require the keyword “erotica” you’ll see why excluding that tag cuts down on irrelevant books, without excluding relevant ones.)

Now you might think that searching on the keywords “lesbian” plus “historical” would mean that the majority of books returned by the search would be potentially relevant to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project. But you’d be wrong. I’ll set aside the question of what gets tagged as “historical” because there are perfectly reasonable applications of the term that aren’t what I’m looking for. But one thing is immediately obvious: there are books being tagged with every possible queer-related term, even when the book has a much narrower focus. How else to explain why so much gay male romance turns up in my search results? (This is a problem that’s even more striking when searching keywords in Audible for audiobooks.) But there’s an even bigger keyword problem in Amazon, and that’s what I call “classics spam”.

There are entities—hard to know whether they’re organized enough to be called companies—who package up popular classic novels that are in the public domain and game the Amazon algorithms to get their items up to the top of searches. You can identify the ones I’m calling “classics spam” because they are whole arrays of titles with identical covers, listed as being “independently published” and all with a very recent publication date. And that’s where the books become a problem for searches, because the entities continually re-issue the same titles over and over, presumably to take advantage of an algorithm that prioritizes new releases. And whoever is issuing these books is packing their metadata full of irrelevant keywords to get them to turn up in searches. I have no idea what other irrelevant keywords they might be carrying, but I can tell you that there’s no valid reason for the works of Charles Dickens, or Joseph Conrad, or Charles Darwin, or Robert Louis Stevenson to be turning up in a keyword search for lesbians.

How much of a problem is this? I crunched the numbers this month, because that’s what I like to do for fun: crunch numbers. The search I ran this month returned 44 pages of results. At 16 titles per page, that’s about 700 titles. Of those, 176 listings—about a quarter—were for future publication dates. The “classics spam” listings are never set up in advance of publication, so those future titles are free of them. But in the listings for books already in publication, the “classics spam” drown out the genuine organic search results. Out of 350 December books, ¾ of them were spam. Out of 170 November books, a little over a third were spam. (As I mentioned, the spam listings get recycled with more recent publication dates, so the further back you go, the smaller the proportion gets.)

This means that if I don’t know about a book in advance of publication, I need to wade through pages and pages of search results that don’t merely fail to hit the specific target I’m looking for, but that have been deliberately designed to make it difficult to find what I’m looking for. Before I got a sense of how this dynamic worked, I often stopped browsing the search results once I was getting entire pages full of classics spam. Now I know I was overlooking books that were getting elbowed out by the spam. Even filtering out the spam, out of the 191 already-released listings returned by this month’s search, 25 titles actually fit the criteria I use for the podcast—about one-eighth. But that’s better than the rate with the spam included, which is about 5%.

I want to point out that there’s nothing illegal in classics spam. The works are in the public domain and anybody who wants to can publish a new edition. I could do it; you could do it. And in a system where publishers get to pick the keywords they attach to a book, there’s no good way to legislate where you cross the line from keyword optimization to making search functions unusable. But just as we’re seeing with the decline in the usability of Google searches, gaming the system is a parasite that eventually kills its host.

So all in all, trying to find recent, thematically-relevant books using Amazon keyword searches is a daunting task. If you’ve ever wondered if people are going to stumble across your book on Amazon without knowing to look for it specifically, the answer is “probably not.” What can you do to make it more findable? So many things, but that’s a topic for another day.

And with that said, I’m doing my bit for getting out the word about new books.

I have one correction to make for a book mentioned in last month’s show. Elsie Sees it Through by Derek Ansell is published by Next Chapter Publishing, rather than being self-published. I think that when I took the listing information from Amazon, it must not have included the publisher information at that time, but the author kindly wrote to me to provide me with the correct data. Yay, author feedback!

Also, I’m still holding off on discussing books from any of the several Harper Collins imprints until their strike is settled. This is something that has been requested by the striking workers as a way of supporting their action. The “on hold” list is up to three titles now.

There are three November titles that I only just discovered, all set in 19th century America.

A Rose Blooms at Golden Fork self-published by Rachel Anderson appears to be the start of a three-book series with a common setting.

It's the start of the 1849 Gold Rush and young frontier woman Rose Davis has just struck out from her homestead for the booming town of Golden Fork. Can a young, single female make it on her own on the wild frontier? Pull up a stool at the Lucky Shoe saloon and find out all that's happening from the mill to the mines. Rose follows her dreams and her heart to unexpected places in this historical romance.

Just Wide Enough for Two self-published by Kacey M. Martin offers a fictionalized take on the relationship between poet Emily Dickinson and Susan Gilbert.

Everyone in Amherst, Massachusetts knows that Emily Dickinson is odd. But no one really knows her better than Susan Gilbert. Friends since childhood, Emily and Susan can always be seen walking arm and arm and sneaking off into the woods, though what they do alone out there, no one knows. But when Emily’s brother, Austin, takes a romantic interest in Susan, things begin to change for Emily as she starts to experience a feeling she doesn’t quite understand – jealousy. When Susan Gilbert moves back to Amherst it becomes clear that her family has certain financial needs that need to be met. It also becomes clearer that the family is depending on Susan to meet those needs. A man like Austin Dickinson solves all of those problems. He’s handsome, kind, seemingly intelligent, and wealthy. The only issue? Susan is madly in love with his sister.

Rachel Kelly and the Vigilantes (Rachel Kelly in Oregon County # 1) self-published by Pamela Cabot gives us a Western adventure.

Rachel Kelly wasn’t the only person who wanted Frank Dawson and his vicious gang brought to justice. Over the years many others had tried to locate the hideout of the outlaws who robbed banks, murdered, and took captives to work as slaves. Yet somehow the gang always managed to escape the law. Dawson made his biggest mistake on the day he raided Rachel’s homestead and murdered her family. She took it very personally and made it her life’s work to find them. The breakthrough came when Rachel met a gang member who claimed she was able to smuggle in hand-picked vigilantes, masquerading as captives, into the stronghold. One potential recruit was a full-blooded Native American skilled in the use of her bow and knives with deadly accuracy. It was no easy task to assemble a group of capable, courageous vigilantes, but find them she did. Each had their own reasons for joining. Each having to decide whether they were willing to risk their lives to end Dawson’s reign of terror and free the captives. Brave indeed, but were they riding to the rescue or into a clever trap?

I have five more December books, plus a couple of related series titles to mention that were published earlier this year. They’re set in a wide time-span from mythic Greece up through the fateful voyage of the Titanic.

Most stories set in classical Greece have strong fantasy elements, and it can be tricky to judge whether to count them as historicals or not. I leaned in favor of Unchain My Heart (which has the sub-title “A Fantasy Lesbian Romance in Classical Greece” in case you weren’t sure). It’s the first volume in the Bonds of Fate series, self-published by R.J. Martin.

 Kyra the Bard has given up on love. Zoe the Amazon doesn’t believe in it. It will take a powerful magic to convince either of them to try love again. When Zoe learns her sister isn’t in their homeland but instead marrying an Athenian, she leaves her comfortable new life in Egypt to confront her. What should be a simple journey across the Sea is complicated by a sudden storm, a villainous mutiny, and a monstrous ex-lover. Kyra would have been just another fling on Zoe’s way to Athens, but the gods know better, and ensure they're bound together until they realize they can help each other heal old wounds.

I almost managed to have read this next book before it showed up on the podcast, but it’s way up there at the top of my to-be-read list, based on the cover copy. The title, Sixpenny Octavo self-published by Annick Trent, is a reference to a particular size of book in the printing trade.

Clockmender Hannah Croft's friend Molly has been arrested for her connections to a Jacobin club. In the tumultuous political climate of 1790s Britain, being in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to land Molly in gaol. Hannah's one hope to free her lies in the testimony of housemaid Lucy Boone. Lucy has spent her entire life moving from one household to another, never forming a true connection with her fellow servants—nor with her occasional lovers. She prefers it that way. When you can rely on yourself, why would you need anyone else? But when Hannah Croft asks for help, she cannot say no. Working together to free Molly, the two women don't try to ignore their growing attraction. For Hannah, Lucy is a beacon of hope at a difficult time. And Lucy finds herself loving her new life, made welcome by Hannah and her friends. But their situation is fraught with danger. Rumours abound of an informant in their midst, and a sinister man from the magistrate's office dogs Lucy's steps. One wrong move could land them in gaol—or splinter their new relationship from within.

As proof that my method of identifying new releases has gaps in it, I only ran across this next Regency-set series when book 3 came out. The series title is Diary of an Obstinate, Headstrong Female, and the first two titles are Vanilla Kisses and Appetence. By the way, in case, like me, you’ve never encountered the word “appetence” before, it means a strong desire or craving, related to appetite. The December publication in this series, volume 3, is Midwinter and the series is self-published by C.C. Burns.

A cosy country Christmastide. An ill-timed quest to expose injustice. A determined pursuit that sets everything asunder. When Eleanor and Annalise arrive at Stapleford Hall and begin to acclimatise to the slow rhythms of a secluded country life, they expect the remaining months of Eleanor’s confinement to continue as uneventfully as they began. But then a Christmas outing sets them on an unexpected mission to seek justice for the women of Cambridgeshire who are subject to the tyranny of the University Proctors and the questionable practice of confining them to The Spinning House without reasonable cause or a fair trial. Their quest to expose this unlawful custom leads them on a path of spontaneous adventure, new acquaintances, and a chance to test their thespian skills and new disguises. It would be risky business in any event, but with Eleanor lying low and Giles expanding his countrywide search for her, the timing might have been better. As the Midwinter winds set over the frost-bitten Fens, unforeseen danger begins to crystallise in the powdery snow trails of their perilous footprints.

Olivia Waite, whose “Feminine Pursuits” series has hit many people’s favorites list, has a new self-published short work out for the holidays, titled Hen Fever. I’m not sure whether it connects in any way to the Feminine Pursuits books.

Lydia Wraxhall is on her best behavior every day of the year—except one: the annual Bickerton Christmas Poultry Show. On that day she brushes her birds, sharpens her tongue, and engages in the closest thing the village knows to war. Harriet Boyne is a soldier’s widow reeling from the worst years of her life. She and her friends have inherited a manor on the village outskirts, and Harriet is looking forward to a quiet holiday far from the anguish of the battlefield. But a dispute over a flock of loose chickens — a rare local breed, which Lydia thinks could be champions and Harriet thinks could be delicious — draws Harriet into the competition under Lydia’s grudging guidance. Harriet’s frozen heart is thawed by Lydia’s gentleness, and lonely Lydia blossoms under Harriet’s keen regard. But the day of the poultry show is fast approaching, and everyone’s drawing up battle lines. And in the contest between secret love and public glory, there can only be one winner.

This is my regular bewilderment at the fashion for secondary titles that explain what the book is about, but with White Star: A lesbian Gilded Age romance set on the Titanic self-published by Laura Jelenkovich, at least you know for certain what you’re getting.

They thought they had six days to be together away from the world, the lies and fake smiles that tore their spirit to shreds. Just the two of them, young women trapped in an impossible love. With a twist of fate they had embarked happiness in Southampton, the Titanic sailing for New York on her maiden voyage. But that same fate would soon reveal its true face, disrupting the lives of 2,200 people on the freezing moonless night of April 15, 1912. Billions of stars twinkled, reflected on the still waters of the mirror-smooth Atlantic, the only witnesses to a tragedy no one could ever forget. Or maybe someone could, at least for a while.

There are six January books in my spreadsheet so far, with a similarly wide time-spread as the December books.

The Demon Gospel (Hidden Gods #2) by Ariel Dalziel from Bongo Productions Press signals fairly clearly that this historic fantasy has significant erotic content, and based on the cover copy it looks like you’re going to get non-consensual sex. It wasn’t entirely clear to me whether the first book in this series has sapphic content, but you can check it out for yourself.

After the sacking of the Judaean city of Makor, Chana is a slave to a truly demonic Master—Alexander of Rome. When he brings home a powerful shapeshifter, Chana is subject to witnessing and participating in their ever-growing depravities. But the shapeshifter is just as much at the Master's nonexistant mercy as Chana is. Together they forge a secret bond, hoping that Alexander will never find out. How long can they fool a centuries-old demon? Worse yet, Rome herself descends into chaos, going through four Emperors in eighteen months. From Nero and Otho's suicides, through Galba and Vitellius’ bloody ends at the hands of the mob, Chana witnesses it all. As Eve and Chana learn more about the Master, they find his sinister backing behind the Empire itself. But as Eve learns to control her tremendous powers, Chana harbors the secret hope of freedom. Will she find it? How does one escape a demon?

Violet Cowper has joined the significant crowd writing Regency-era sapphic romance series. This month’s contribution is Her Enticing Muse (Ladylike Inclinations #3).

England, 1792. Maria Balcombe refuses to forsake her talents. Fleeing an unwanted arranged marriage, the gifted young artist hopes to make a name for herself in London’s competitive streets. So when a celebrated portraitist agrees to her pleas for mentorship despite their clashing styles, she gratefully accepts the beautiful woman’s strict conditions. Stella Wesley needs an obedient student. But with limited opportunities for creators of the fairer sex, she reluctantly bends her ideals for a confidante who’s willing to flaunt society and act as a living anatomy model. And she soon finds the hours she spends exploring the artistic intimacy of the female body are turning into an undeniable, smoldering attraction. Angry at a world that demands conformity over innovation, a conflicted Maria throws their future into jeopardy with her stubborn frankness. And when Stella is torn between abandoning her protégé for a one-in-a-lifetime offer or succumbing to her deepest desires, she fears more than one heart will end up broken. Will their forbidden strokes reveal love’s vivid promise?

Forever's Promise by Missouri Vaun from Bold Strokes Books is part of an ongoing string of Westerns, although it doesn’t appear that they are part of a connected series.

Wesley Holden migrated west with her brother, Clyde, to build a life neither of them could hope for back East. To share the homestead claim, Wesley had to disguise herself as a man. As brothers, Wesley and Clyde began to carve a new home out of the Kansas frontier. When Clyde is unexpectedly killed, Wes is left alone with the farm, determined to carry on, but more isolated as the days pass. For the promise of a better life, Charlotte Rose answers an ad for a bride. But the hope of a frontier husband ends when she arrives to find Clyde Holden is dead. Charlotte can’t return home because she discovered en route that she’s pregnant. Her only hope is to convince Clyde’s brother, Wes, that she can be a good wife. Desperate and out of options, Charlotte is resolved to win Wes’s heart. Allowing Charlotte to get too close is dangerous. If Wes marries, she’ll have to reveal her secret and risk everything for a woman who might never really love her, but resisting Charlotte is easier said than done.

Another story in the Western genre is The Ashes of the Brothel: Betrayal in the Wickedest Little Town in the West self-published by Katryna Lalock.

Jolted by her mother's horrific death during a California-bound train ride, Louisa never had much choice but to accept that life can be as brutal as it is beautiful. After arriving in Jerome, Arizona, with her father, Pa, and younger sister, Heather, Louisa can only hope for an uneventful reset. But their new home, dubbed the Wickedest Little Town in the West, might have a slew of even harsher lessons in store. Tragedy strikes again, and Louisa must pave the way for her sister's survival, even if it means doing something that makes Heather resent her. Becoming the right-hand woman to local brothel owner Miss Jennie, mingling with wealthy investors, and conning her way into a slice of the local mine fortune were never on Louisa's to-do list. Then again, neither was murder. Now, as Louisa's cunning little schemes ignite, it won't just be her life going up in flames.

If you’re a fan of literary novels, you definitely want to check out this next title, which was long-listed for the prestigeous Booker Prize: After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz from Liveright.

“The first thing we did was change our names. We were going to be Sappho,” so begins this intrepid debut novel, centuries after the Greek poet penned her lyric verse. Ignited by the same muse, a myriad of women break from their small, predetermined lives for seemingly disparate paths: in 1892, Rina Faccio trades her needlepoint for a pen; in 1902, Romaine Brooks sails for Capri with nothing but her clotted paintbrushes; and in 1923, Virginia Woolf writes: “I want to make life fuller and fuller.” Writing in cascading vignettes, Selby Wynn Schwartz spins an invigorating tale of women whose narratives converge and splinter as they forge queer identities and claim the right to their own lives.

And we’ll conclude with In the Shadow of Truth (Shadow Series #3) by J.E. Leak from Certifiably Creative LLC

New OSS trainee Jenny Ryan is brimming with equal parts excitement and fear. She is one step closer to serving her country overseas, but when her ambition costs her dearly, she realizes the fight has come to her and love has turned to lies. OSS instructor Kathryn Hammond is no stranger to sacrifice. But when doing her job means sending the woman she loves into the churn of war, her devotion to duty is tested like never before. When shocking revelations and the cruel march of time threaten their love, will Kat and Jenny embrace the truth and find each other again before it’s too late?

What Am I Reading?

I look at my list of reading, watching, and listening for the year and realize I’ve entirely fallen out of the habit of posting reviews. I think I need to power through and blog some mini-reviews for the whole year. The problem with having high standards for writing reviews is that it’s easy to psych yourself out of doing it entirely.

This month was another audiobooks-only month. I took in The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin, the sequel to The City We Became, about a group of people who become the living avatars of New York City in a fight against a cosmic evil that manifests as gentrification and other urban threats.

I was intrigued by a YA historic fantasy, The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones, due to the elements of medieval Welsh legend and the promise of sapphic elements. (I became aware of it when putting together the book listings.) Although the main character does have a significant past relationship with another woman, the central romance is with a man, which is a hazard of identifying queer content by hints and rumor. The book was perfectly ok, but didn’t have the content I was hoping for.

I also got a bit of a surprise from Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell. Inspired by the character of the young girl Adele in the novel Jane Eyre, I had thought, from the cover copy, that this tale of girl-gang rage against the patriarchy would be a bit more of a madcap heist than it turned out to be. Instead I’d describe it as a dark gothic, and it should have content advisories for sexual assault and threat of incest. Don’t get me wrong, it was a powerful, well-written book, and I definitely enjoyed it. It just wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

Author Guest

We finish up this show with an interview with Jennifer Nestojko, the author of our December story, “From the Bird’s Nest.” Jennifer is a teacher, poet, and storyteller, living on the central coast of California. We’ve known each other for quite some time—several decades—which I tend to feel nervous about mentioning, lest people think that being a personal friend gets you a leg up on selling stories to the podcast. It doesn’t. But it’s possible that people who know me have a slight advantage in knowing what sorts of stories I might like.

[Interview transcript will be posted when available.]

Show Notes

Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

• A summary of what the podcast and blog have covered this year
• Upcoming BBC series with a sapphic take on Marie Antoinette
• Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
  • Moore, Lisa. 1997. Dangerous Intimacies: Toward a Sapphic History of the British Novel. Duke University Press, Durham, 1997. ISBN 0-8223-2049-5
• New and forthcoming fiction
  • A Rose Blooms at Golden Fork by Rachel Anderson
  • Just Wide Enough for Two by Kacey M. Martin
  • Rachel Kelly And The Vigilantes (Rachel Kelly in Oregon County # 1) by Pamela Cabot
  • Unchain My Heart: A Fantasy Lesbian Romance in Classical Greece (Bonds of Fate #1) by R.J. Martin
  • Sixpenny Octavo by Annick Trent
  • Vanilla Kisses (Diary of an Obstinate, Headstrong Female #1) by C.C. Burns
  • Appetence (Diary of an Obstinate, Headstrong Female #2) by C.C. Burns
  • Midwinter (Diary of an Obstinate, Headstrong Female #3) by C.C. Burns
  • Hen Fever by author
  • White Star: A lesbian Gilded Age romance set on the Titanic by Laura Jelenkovich
  • The Demon Gospel (Hidden Gods #2) by Ariel Dalziel
  • Her Enticing Muse (Ladylike Inclinations #3) by Violet Cowper
  • Forever's Promise by Missouri Vaun
  • The Ashes of the Brothel: Betrayal in the Wickedest Little Town in the West by Katryna Lalock
  • After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
  • In the Shadow of Truth (Shadow Series 3) by J.E. Leak
• What I’ve been consuming
  • The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin
  • The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones
  • Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell
• Call for submissions for the 2023 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
• This month we interview Jennifer Nestojko and talk about:
  • The inspirations for “From the Bird’s Nest”
  • The joys of epistolary stories
  • Writing disabilities in a historic context
  • Being a writer and a teacher
  • Ideas for an Anglo-Saxon setting and playing around with Beowulf
  • Books and authors mentioned:
    • Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
    • Work by Louisa May Alcott
    • Sarah Orne Jewett
    • “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    • Re: Beowulf-related novels:
    • Jennifer may have been thinking of Grendel by John Gardner.
    • The novel written from the viewpoint of Grendel’s mother that I was thinking of was The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley, who also wrote an acclaimed modern translation of Beowulf.
    • Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
    • Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
    • Fairacre Series by “Miss Read,” pen name of Dora Jessie Saint

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Twitter: @heatherosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)