She Is Here

I have very much enjoyed other books in the PM Press Outspoken Authors series. It has taken them a while to get around to doing a book with Nicola Griffith, but it has finally appeared and I have to say that it is about time. Griffith is very many wonderful things, and outspoken is very much one of them. She’s proudly lesbian, and proudly disabled, not to mention proudly female and Yorkshire. This book represents some of that.

One of the interesting things about this series is that each volume contains a variety of types of writing. In this case there are essays, there are short stories, there are poems, and there is an interview conducted by Nisi Shawl. The idea, I guess, is to give you an insight into the writer in all her aspects.

Most of the material in the book has previously been published elsewhere. The non-fiction includes Griffith’s contribution to Letters to Tiptree, her thoughts on author branding and on being a disabled writer, a letter to Hild of Whitby, and Griffith’s thoughts on being, and having, a wife.

The thing that will be of most interest to Griffith fans is a previously unpublished novella. ‘Many Things in Dumnet’ is a fantasy story set in an alternate world that has a lot in common with early mediaeval Europe. Anya, the heroine, travels from the Empire to an island that feels like Ireland given the names of the gods. Anya is not sure why she needs to go there, but her purpose becomes clear during the course of the story.

Griffith plays very much fast and loose with Irish mythology, even more so than she does in Spear. That’s fine by me because it is very clear that the story is not supposed to be set in Ireland. The names are just useful shorthand in the worldbuilding. Also the world is very interesting. There is enough there for me to want to know much more. Whether we will ever see any more is another matter. There is, after all, at least one more Hild book that needs writing. But if you need some new Nicola Griffith words while you are waiting, She Is Here is will worth a look.

Title: She Is Here
By: Nicola Griffith
Publisher: PM Press
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
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