LHMP 2018 Fiction Line-Up

The submissions have all been read and sifted through, the contracts have been sent out and signed, and now it's time to announce the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast's 2018 original fiction line-up! When I finished the first read-though of submissions, I knew immediately that I had a problem: there were just too many good stories that I wanted to buy. Fortunately, I could solve this with an executive decision. Rather than buying two stories for a half-year trial run of the fiction project, I'd just go ahead and buy four to cover all the "fifth Saturday" episodes for the entire year. That will also give me more data to see whether and how I want to extend the fiction project in the future.

The first story will be airing at the end of March and I'm already in negotiations with one potential narrator. I haven't decided on the order of appearance for the whole season yet, but here are the selections in chronological order of setting:

• "Peaceweaver" by Jennifer Nestojko - In 6th century Denmark, one of the secondary characters from Beowulf comes home again, looking for a different type of peace than she once wove for her kingdom.
• "At the Mouth" by Gurmika Mann - In 10th century India, a temple dancer and a seamstress sort out how best to further each other's happiness.
• "Inscribed" by V.M. Agab - In 15th century Venice, Luca apprentices to her father in disguise as a young man, but Coletta's problem is more difficult to solve unless Luca takes a daring chance.
• "One Night in Saint Martin" by Catherine Lundoff - The 17th century Carribbean is full of spies, pirates, and tangled international politics--this story has them all, as well as romance!

I'm especially happy that after I'd identified the best stories I'd received, I found I also had a broad variety of time-periods, cultures, and types of story. We have young love and love returned to late in life. We have adventure and quiet friendship. We have women who transgress gender norms and those who find love within conventional structures. We have happy endings, bittersweet ones, and stories where the eventual end is yet unknown. I'm so excited to be able to bring these stories to my podcast listeners!