Last week I did an interview with Foz Meadows about her recently published novel, An Accident of Stars. As might be expected when you get two ranty feminists with a strong interest in gender together, we had a lot to talk about. In particular I wanted to talk about how Foz manages to do a whole bunch of things I would not normally recommend when writing a trans character and make them work. One of the reasons for this, of course, is that if you create a world in which transphobia doesn’t exist then most of the usual rules go out of the window.

Of course we managed to find lots more topics to discuss as well. In particular Foz sheds some light on her thinking when creating the matriarchal society in the world of her book. Foz also explains how the book is, in part, about the “Susan Problem”, something which all teenage girls who read Narnia will recognize.

Along the way there’s a brief shout out to the wonderful Trudi Canavan, and some words of praise for Seanan McGuire’s wonderful Every Heart a Doorway.

The interview took place over Skype with Foz in Queensland and me in England, so the sound quality isn’t up to studio standards. But hey, video phone call to Australia; we are living in the future.