Cranky Ladies of History Read online

  Cranky Ladies of History

  edited by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  Warriors, pirates, murderers and queens...

  Throughout history, women from all walks of life have had good reason to be cranky. Some of our most memorable historical figures were outspoken, dramatic, brave, feisty, rebellious and downright ornery.

  Cranky Ladies of History is a celebration of 22 women who challenged conventional wisdom about appropriate female behaviour, from the ancient world all the way through to the twentieth century. Some of our protagonists are infamous and iconic, while others have been all but forgotten under the heavy weight of history.

  Sometimes you have to break the rules before the rules break you.

  Cranky Ladies of History

  edited by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely

  Smashwords Edition

  First published in Australia in 2015

  by FableCroft Publishing

  http://fablecroft.com.au

  This book © 2015 FableCroft Publishing

  Copyright for all individual works remains

  with the author/artist

  Cover art by Kathleen Jennings

  Cover design by Amanda Rainey

  Design and layout by Tehani Wessely

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Supported by Arts Tasmania Crowbar grant

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Title: Cranky ladies of history / edited by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely ; introduction by Tansy Rayner Roberts.

  ISBN: 9780992553449 (hardback)

  9780992553456 (paperback)

  9780992553463 (ebook)

  Subjects: Women—Biography—Anecdotes. Women—Conduct of life—Anecdotes. Women—Attitudes.

  Other Creators/Contributors: Rayner Roberts, Tansy, editor, writer of added commentary.

  Wessely, Tehani, editor.

  Dewey Number: 305.4

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your preferred ebook seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors and publisher.

  Liz Barr © 2015 “Queenside”

  Deborah Biancotti © 2015 “Look How Cold My Hands Are”

  Joyce Chng © 2015 “Charmed Life”

  Thoraiya Dyer © 2015 “Vintana”

  Dirk Flinthart © 2015 “Granuaile”

  Lisa L. Hannett © 2015 “For So Great a Misdeed”

  Sylvia Kelso © 2015 “Due Care and Attention”

  Stephanie Lai © 2015 “The dragon, the Terror, the Sea”

  Laura Lam © 2015 “The Lioness”

  Juliet Marillier © 2015 “Hallowed Ground”

  Kirstyn McDermott © 2015 “Mary Mary”

  Sandra McDonald © 2015 “Cora Crane and The Trouble with Me”

  Foz Meadows © 2015 “Bright Moon”

  Faith Mudge © 2015 “Glorious”

  Havva Murat © 2015 “The Pasha, the Girl and the Dagger”

  L.M. Myles © 2015 “Little Battles”

  Garth Nix © 2015 “The Company of Women”

  Amanda Pillar © 2015 “Neter Nefer”

  Barbara Robson © 2015 “Theodora”

  Nisi Shawl © 2015 “A Beautiful Stream”

  Kaaron Warren © 2015 “Another Week in the Future”

  Jane Yolen ©1999 “A Song for Sacagawea”

  (first published in Lives: Poems About Famous Americans, reprinted with permission)

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The editors would like to thank the following wonderful people:

  Liz Barr, for the initial inspiration for this anthology;

  Amanda Rainey for the amazing logo and cover design;

  Kathleen Jennings who, as always, has made astonishing art;

  Katharine Stubbs, because she is the best intern ever;

  Elizabeth Disney, whose proofreading talents are wonderful;

  all the brilliant backers of the Pozible campaign, because we wouldn’t be here without you;

  the authors, for believing in the project and producing such marvellous stories;

  and our families, without whom we couldn’t do what we do.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  On Crankiness and Crowds and Ladies by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Queenside by Liz Barr

  The Company Of Women by Garth Nix

  Mary, Mary by Kirstyn McDermott

  A Song For Sacagawea by Jane Yolen

  Look How Cold My Hands Are by Deborah Biancotti

  Bright Moon by Foz Meadows

  Charmed Life by Joyce Chng

  A Beautiful Stream by Nisi Shawl

  Neter Nefer by Amanda Pillar

  The Dragon, The Terror, The Sea by Stephanie Lai

  Due Care And Attention by Sylvia Kelso

  Theodora by Barbara Robson

  For So Great A Misdeed by Lisa L. Hannett

  The Pasha, The Girl And The Dagger by Havva Murat

  Granuaile by Dirk Flinthart

  Little Battles by L.M. Myles

  Another Week In The Future, An Excerpt by Kaaron Warren

  The Lioness by Laura Lam

  Cora Crane And The Trouble With Me by Sandra McDonald

  Vintana by Thoraiya Dyer

  Hallowed Ground by Juliet Marillier

  Glorious by Faith Mudge

  Contributor Biographies

  Also from FableCroft Publishing

  With thanks to our Pozible supporters…

  On Crankiness and Crowds and Ladies

  Tansy Rayner Roberts

  It began with a face, glaring out from an oil painting. Australian social justice and media blogger Liz Barr posted an image of Tsaritsa Sophia Alekseyevna of Russia on her Tumblr account and then, receiving a hugely positive response to Sophia’s fierce expression, wrote a short essay about the woman in question, calling her a “would-be usurper, all-around cranky lady”.1

  There’s something about that phrase: cranky lady. There was a time when it would have been seen entirely as a put-down, a dismissal of female strength and power. Yet the idea of celebrating women for their crankiness—rather than their beauty, their docility, their compliance—feels empowering and deliciously rebellious.

  When we say ‘cranky’ and ‘ladies’ we also mean ‘anger’ and ‘women’. Throughout history, women have struggled to express their anger at mistreatment and injustice—when they have expressed that anger, they have been punished for it by the men closest to them, by society, by the law, and even by other women.

  The ability to express anger in a satisfying way has always been a privilege restricted to very few people in our society. Women’s anger is more socially acceptable than it used to be, but we still have a long way to go about accepting and listening to the rage and unhappiness of those who are not rich, white, able-bodied and male.

  Tehani Wessely of Fablecroft picked up the idea of Tsaritsa Sophia as one of history’s cranky ladies, and turned it into a book pitch. Tehani’s personal superpower (and her mission in life) is to take authors she loves and inspire them to write amazing stories. She knew tha
t ‘Cranky Ladies of History’ was a concept with something special behind it, something that would spark some of her favourite writers into producing work that she desperately wanted to read.

  So she made it happen, and she pulled me along for the ride.

  From the start, when Tehani and I talked about ‘Cranky Ladies of History’ as an anthology concept, people got excited. These days, when I give people advice about setting up successful crowdfunding campaigns, one of the first things I tell them is to choose the idea that sells itself—where people get excited from the first sentence, from the title of the project, before you’ve even explained all the nuts and bolts and rewards and payment options.

  Cranky Ladies was one of those ideas. We found ourselves in a whirl of positive interest, not only from writers who wanted to pitch stories to us, but from mainstream media and many people who didn’t have the time or the inclination to write for the book yet still wanted to support it, to promote it, and to help out with the campaign.

  Crowdfunding is one of the new norms in publishing, and has helped many small presses remain viable in a time when the entire book industry is in flux. One of the best things about crowdfunding is the ability to test ‘proof of concept’ and find out if your publishing idea has legs before everyone invests all their time and money into it.

  So many people we talked to wanted this book to exist, even if they weren’t personally involved, and that turned out to be crowdfunding gold. We pulled in many of our most enthusiastic activists to help with the campaign, to blog about their favourite cranky ladies, and to spread the word. We had chosen March (Women’s History Month) for the campaign almost on a whim, thinking it would be cute, but the further we got into the month the more we realised that people were hungry for these stories, not even just the fiction that we promised, but the anecdotes and essays about lost and misquoted and reclaimed women from history who were fierce, uncompromising and yes, angry.

  One of the rewards I took personal responsibility for was the Cranky Ladies Calendar. I loved the idea of making a calendar that celebrated important dates in women’s history, but also one using imagery like the Tsaritsa Sophia portrait that started it all—art depicting women who were angry. I was lucky in that several museums now have huge files of digital images of their art that are available for public use—but then I hit a wall because it turns out that art of named historical women isn’t as common as it should be, and art of named historical women who aren’t smiling is desperately rare. (Don’t even get me started on how much of this art depicted women of colour, because the answer is ‘almost none’) But I got there in the end, and any project that allows me to celebrate Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes is always going to be dear to my heart.

  The positive response we received to the Cranky Ladies crowdfunding campaign was invigorating and inspiring—especially when International Women’s Day brought national media attention to the book that didn’t even exist yet.

  When you’re making art that you think is challenging, rebellious and potentially controversial, there is nothing better than the feeling of having a crowd at your back, putting their money where their mouth is, cheering loudly, and keeping you company every step of the way.

  Once the month of crowdfunding was over, the real work began. The authors whose pitches we had accepted had stories to write—and not every story was going to make it into the final volume. We weren’t just looking for great stories, but also for a diverse mix of authors and historical figures, so that the book would cover a wide range of time periods, cultures and topics. We could, quite honestly, have filled the book just with female warriors of history, or pirates, or queens, but we wanted to show as many different ways as we could that women had rebelled against their society’s conventions—or, in some cases, worked covertly within those conventions.

  It was hard to accept that we couldn’t have everything in this book. Every story we rejected felt like we were losing a piece of the big picture we had wanted to create. We also had to accept that some of the stories we had hoped for simply didn’t come to us at all. We would have loved to include more pilots, sportswomen, scientists, and an even broader range of cultural diversity. We are particularly disappointed there are no Indigenous Australian authors in the anthology, and while we did receive a story that we deeply loved featuring an Aboriginal protagonist, we ended up having to let it go because of issues to do with cultural permissions that could not be addressed in time for us to go to print. This was possibly the most difficult choice we had to make with the book, and we remain very sad about it, though we stand by our decision to respect the cultural dictums in the matter.

  Tehani and I are, however, so proud to be able to bring you this anthology, and to introduce you to spectacular women from history, as told by many of our favourite science fiction, fantasy and historical writers.

  Thanks so much to all of our Pozible supporters2, to Arts Tasmania for the Crowbar grant3, and to every writer who pitched or wrote us a Cranky Ladies story, even if it didn’t end up in the final book. We love you all. Special thanks to Kathleen Jennings for the astounding art wrapped around (and hidden within) this book, and to Amanda Rainey for another fantastic design job.

  This book may look beautiful, but it has sharp teeth.

  Cranky Ladies of History started out as a joke title in many ways. It was supposed to be ironic, to remind us all of the many ways that words have been (and often still are) used to patronise and belittle women. But the snarky title should not disguise the fact that this book is serious. Angry. Fierce.

  Cranky Ladies of History is a book that doesn’t smile at the camera (or the portrait artist) unless it wants to.

  So let your cranky flag fly alongside those of Bloody Mary, Cheng Shih, Sacagawea, Countess Bathory, Hatshepsut, Nora of Kelmendi, Dr Lilian Cooper, Grace O’Malley, and many, many more.

  These women deserve to be remembered.

  QUEENSIDE

  Liz Barr

  My mother always said that nothing was so unbecoming to a child as a pout. So I told Lady Mary over our chess game, but she looked up at me with her pinched little face and asked if I thought her merely sulky and disobedient, and if so, wouldn’t I prefer the company of her guardians, or perhaps even to return to court and the queen.

  Truth be told, I regretted my words as soon as they left my mouth. And I did not prefer the company of her guardians, for Lady Shelton was aunt to Queen Anne, and I’d sooner look at Lady Mary’s honest unhappiness than Lady Shelton’s smiling ambition. As for the queen, I had known her when she was plain Anne Boleyn, lady in waiting to Queen Catherine, laughing and flirting and all the while plotting to destroy the royal family.

  I could hardly say any of this out loud. But I didn’t have to speak, because Lady Mary managed something very like a smile and said, “Elizabeth would miss you if you went anywhere. She loves you very much.”

  With that, she took my king and won the game.

  Elizabeth was more interested in smearing damson jam around her mouth than winning at chess and expressing affection for her old Lady Governess. But she looked up when her name was mentioned and said, “My Margie.”

  In the King’s family, love was very much like possession. I smiled, too, and said, “Eat your tart, your highness.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lady Mary’s face fall again.

  Little wonder that she was unhappy, poor love. Once, she had been a princess, her father’s heir, as happy and clever a girl as ever lived. She could read Latin and play the lute and talk philosophy and religion with learned men.

  Then came the King’s great matter, the Boleyn woman, taking it all away. In place of fine clothes and titles came bitter womanhood, unpredictable courses that kept Mary abed for days at a time, doubled over with cramps, and migraines that would leave her prostrate for a day, then linger as nagging headaches that made her bad tempered and unable to concentrate. Her mother was too far away to tell her that this was normal for some unlucky women
, so she let the Spanish ambassador persuade her that the queen was having her poisoned. For two months I had to prepare all her food with my own hands, and I was no cook but the widow of a knight and a baroness in my own right.

  Catherine died in January. Now I was all that Mary had.

  I had been her Lady Governess when she was a child, and I loved her as if she was my own daughter, but she was a difficult girl.

  ◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊

  It was a crisp, grey day in April, when the leaves were turning brown and the king—well, he had his own concerns, but we knew nothing of them until, just after noon, there was a bustle of movement outside, and we heard the servants calling, “The queen! The queen is come!”

  Princess Elizabeth dropped her doll and climbed to her feet. “Mama! My mama is here!” She toddled over to her sister, sitting in the window with a book. “Let me up, Mary, my mama is here!”

  Lady Mary made a great show of reluctance as she put her book aside, but she lifted her sister. I joined them at the window, expecting to see a great throng of people surrounding the queen. Royalty never travelled without their servants and courtiers, their courtiers’ servants, their priests and fools and jugglers. Today, Queen Anne was alone but for two ladies in waiting, and her smile was strained as she accepted her aunt’s embrace.

  “Mama!” cried Elizabeth.

  The queen looked up at the noise and waved to her daughter. She gave no sign of recognising Lady Mary or myself, but the strain around her mouth returned as she stepped inside.