Writer's Digest: Mindy McGinnis on Rape Culture, Universal Emotions and Strong Female Protagonists
A prolific Edgar Award–winner, Mindy McGinnis’ stories cross subgenres of young adult fiction, from fantasy to dystopian to contemporary. Her novel confronting rape culture, The Female of the Species, was named to an impressive roster of “Best Of” lists in both 2016 and 2017, including those from School Library Journal, Bustle, Mashable and Seventeen.Her short story “Do Not Go Gently,” about a teenage mother struggling to finish high school while working nights as a nurse’s assistant, won the 2017 Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Literature. A fixture at book festivals across the Midwest, she runs the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog and podcast for aspiring authors.
Your novel The Female of the Species has been celebrated for the way it addresses rape culture from the perspectives of female and male characters alike. I know most writers are driven by plot questions or characters more than themes, but I also know you have a lot of experience working with teens as an educator and librarian. How much did the message you hoped the story might send drive its creation, and did that message change at all from the story’s inception to its publication?
When it comes to message in books for teens, an author has to be careful. Teens know when they’re being condescended to, and they don’t like it any more than an adult does. For me it was less of a message and more of a story about rape culture and sexual assault—one that many, many teenage girls can relate to. So often we relive our own situations and stories over and over in our minds, trying to think of what we could have done differently, or—sadly—in an attempt to determine how much of the blame is our own. Rage takes hold—against attackers, and against ourselves. So much of The Female of the Species is about anger—at our world, and the people in it. Anger is a universal emotion, and even though the novel focuses on female anger specifically, the emotion itself is one that all readers can relate to.
What has been the most meaningful reader response to The Female of the Species?
There have been so many. I think the most impactful email I received came from a woman in her 40s, who said that if she’d had a novel like Species when she was in her teens, she would have not been silent about her assault.
Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market 2018
You’ve always written strong female protagonists—something agent wish lists noticeably call for with increasing frequency. Have you observed a shift in how those characters are received in the years since you began publishing?
The “strong female character” has now become something of a trope herself. What I like to do is explore the different ways in which a woman can be strong, so that we’re not viewing strength as a one-note trait. [Being] physically strong is only one aspect. Having the strength of your convictions, of self-worth in general, are necessary as well in order to present a well-rounded individual.
I like to tell people about a woman in my family tree I discovered who had 15 children. She buried 13 of them—giving birth to one and subsequently losing the infant as well as two older children in the same week—and lived into her 80s. She was a German housewife in the 1500s, undoubtedly tied to home and hearth, perhaps could not even read or write. Yet no one could say she wasn’t a strong female. Women have always been strong. We’re just talking about it now.
I’ve seen panel discussions debating a double standard in young people’s literature in which books with a girl on the cover are often seen as “for girls” whereas books featuring a strong male lead are more often marketed as “for everyone.” How much truth do you think there is to that, and have you noticed any shifts that make you hopeful this will improve?
I absolutely stand by the idea that there are no boy books and no girl books. What does exist is marketing, and the cover reflects who marketing thinks is the target audience for a particular book. My own team has done a great job of making my covers gender-neutral. Even though they have female main characters, a boy can carry any of my books around without having to feel self-conscious. That’s important to me, as many of my readers are male.
In your years working as a library aide, what are some books you’ve taken joy in recommending to teenage girls especially?
It always depends on the girl, and their interests. I can say the one thing I would love to see more of is sports books for girls. I only have a handful of titles that I can go to for female athletes as main characters, whereas for male athletic stories there are lots of choices.
Writing Fun
The Pink Moose: Interview with Mindy McGinnis →
I recently read The Female of the Species and was absolutely stunned. I gathered up my courage and reached out to Mindy McGinnis, who graciously agreed to an interview. I learned about her, and her process, and hope you enjoy it too.
TPM: Your website says you have nine cats and two dogs. As a person with two cats and six dogs, I’d like to know a bit more about your pets. Can we get names/breeds/genders?
MM: CATS
All my cats are boring, silly American shorthairs. They’re also all strays and dumps. I have a beacon buried somewhere inside my body that brings them to me. Six of the nine cats were bottle-fed (which also includes rubbing their bums to make them go to the bathroom, or else they’ll die of sepsis). Once you’ve made that kind of connection with something, you can’t “find a good home” for them.
Alicia – gray/white, often absentee. She’s my old lady, coming in at about 10 years old. She will disappear for sometimes months at a time, and come home and tell us ALL ABOUT IT.
Samuel Wilderness – possibly a MaineCoon, discovered by former students in the woods, who immediately thought I was the person to take him to. Also a bottle fed. Somewhat internet famous. #SamuelWilderness
Samhain – long-haired, pure black, difficult to photograph. Dropped in my lap by a co-worker who heard I liked black cats.
“The Kittens”
Panda – oddly-spotted killing machine, polydactyl. The hero of the abandoned kitten group who flagged down my father at the farm and looked so pathetic it sent a 6’4″ man into a panic. I was called in.
Gilly – overweight, somewhat cross-eyed, escape artist. We think she climbed out of the box and hit her head too many times as a kitten.
Norton – gray tabby, overly handsome, broken vertebra at tip of tail. He doesn’t give a shit if you like him or not.
Ginger – orange tabby, perma-freckle on nose, drools when happy. Thinks my boobs are her bedding.
Minnow – calico runt, utterly spoiled, polydactyl. Either believes that she is a human or that my boyfriend is a cat. Either way, she’s pretty sure he’s her spouse.
DOGS:
Dana “Scully” – 17-year old Australian shepherd. I was recently shaving her for the summer and found a growth on the side of her face bigger than her face (it had been hidden by her beard). Took her to the vet. They removed it. Said her heart is great, her lungs are great, her blood work is great. She came home and frolicked like a puppy. I believe she may be a horcrux.
Brutus – 8 y/o German Shepherd / Greyhound mix (seriously, you should see this guy). Adopted from pound. Boyfriend believes he’s incredibly stupid. I believe the opposite – he’s smart enough to have convinced the b/f he’s stupid, so that he doesn’t have to obey him.
If you want to learn more about ALL my animals follow me on Instagram, or better yet, support me on Patreon, where all my tiers are named after cats, and each month’s reward includes kitty pics!
TPM: You’ve written across multiple genres (which I’ll ask more about later), what is your favorite genre to read? As a teen librarian do you typically read Young Adult exclusively, or do you jump around a bit?
MM: I am constantly jumping around on what I read, both in age and genre range, as well as non-fiction. Honestly, if it’s well-written, I’ll read it. You can keep up with what I’m reading by friending me on Goodreads, or following this Pinterestpage.
TPM: You have a blog, Writer Writer Pants on Fire, which some people may not know about, but I’ve poked around. What is your favorite feature? Do you consider the blog another job, or is it a labor of love?
MM: I love my blog! Thank you for asking! Yes, I started Writer, Writer, Pants on Fireback in 2010, when I secured an agent. My original intent was to provide answers to all of the questions I had when I was an aspiring writer, and wished I had published authors I could reach out to. I started a series of interviews for that purpose, featured every Tuesday.
I do Mindy-centric posts on Mondays, typically with writing advice or announcements for my readers. On Fridays I do ARC Giveaways, and Saturdays bring the Saturday Slash, where I provide feedback on queries to followers for free.
In less-hectic times I also do Word Origin Wednesdays (etymology based) and Thursday Thoughts, which tend to be… interesting.
My newest – at the moment, favorite – feature is a podcast! I decided to move forward with this recently and have begun the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire podcast, which features one author guest per show, talking about writing, their journey from aspiring to published, and their books.
Both of these things are entirely labors of love. I’m actually losing money on the podcast right now, but I’m dedicated to doing it for a year and re-assessing goals at the end of that time.
TPM: Between writing, your blog, your pets, and your time at the library, when do you have time for yourself? How do you spend downtime that you have? Do you have any hobbies you wouldn’t mind your fans knowing about?
MM: I’m actually working full time as an author right now, having left the high school library a year ago. I volunteer once a week, though. I have TONS of hobbies. Too many, really. I do genealogy (obsessively), I also knit and garden and I work out three times a week. I did kickboxing for a few years, but I recently started circuit training so we’ll see if it kills me.
TPM: When writing do you prefer silence or background noise? If you like having background noise, is it music or just noise in general? What is your writing anthem? How do you stay focused during your process?
MM: No music. White noise. I’m positive that all my writing is just subliminal messages buried in static.
TPM: I’ve read Not A Drop to Drink and The Female of the Species. You’ve crossed from post-apocalyptic to contemporary with what seems like great ease. Is it challenging to move from one sub-genre to another? What are the most challenging aspects of going from one sub-genre to another?
MM: I’ve written in quite a few genres, from post-apoc with Not A Drop to Drink and it’s sequel, In A Handful of Dust, and then to A Madness So Discreet, which is a Gothic historical set in an insane asylum (it won the Edgar Award in2015, *cough*), then to contemporary with The Female of the Species and most recently, high fantasy with Given to the Sea. My upcoming release, This Darkness Mine is another contemporary thriller, and I have the sequel to Given to the Sea (Given to the Earth) releasing in April of 2018. After that I will have a survival tale coming from Harper Collins in the Fall of 2018. It’s untitled as of yet, but my working title for it is Drunk Hatchet With A Girl.
It’s not challenging to switch genres as much as it is to be working in multiple ones at the same time. For example, I was doing copy edits on a historical, while doing structural edits on a contemporary, while drafting a fantasy. That was definitely not easy, but you learn to compartmentalize.
TPM: The Female of the Species is written from three different points of view, Alex, Peekay, and Jack. Was it different to move between their perspectives? What about the change from male to female?
MM: I only wrote one section per day, so that voice got to take over entirely. Then I’d palate cleanse and come back the next day to whoever was up to bat. Peekay was the easiest to write because she used humor as a coping mechanism, and she’s as refreshing for readers as she was for me as a writer.
Jack is actually the first male POV I’d ever written. It was important to me to have a very real, flawed boy in this book, but to also have him be a good person. It’s a feminist book, but feminism isn’t anti-male. It’s anti-harming-women. Plenty of men fall into that category, and Jack needed to be one of them. I had multiple male beta readers go through it with me, and would send texts to male friends asking about things like locker room talk and masturbation, and they’re all cool enough to just answer me, which is awesome.
TPM: How do you mentally prepare yourself to write a book with such a dark premise? Where did the inspiration for Alex come from?
MM: I’m basically always thinking worst-case scenario. People ask me all the time how I put myself in the right frame of mind to write such dark fiction, and I’m like, “Dude, I always think like this. I walked into this room and ascertained the best place for me to sit in case there’s a fire. That’s how I operate.”
I was in college when I ran into the inspiration for SPECIES. I never had cable television growing up, so my freshman year in a dorm I was suddenly mainlining all kinds of things, but especially true crime. I watched a mini-doc about a girl who had been raped and murdered in a small town, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict. Even so, everyone knew who did it. I was watching this becoming more incensed, and realized, that if I were capable of it, I could easily find this town, find that mine, and take care of things myself. Then I thought it was probably time to turn off the TV.
TPM: When I read books like this, it effects my mood as well as my internal psyche and I have to take breaks to remember to look on the bright side of things. Does writing such a storyline have the same kind of effect on you?
MM: Actually, writing A Madness So Discreet was more difficult for me, mostly because I wrote it in three weeks. It was a deep, dark dive into the world of insane asylums and I couldn’t come up for air if I wanted to hit my deadline. SPECIES I wrote a chapter a day, and always had Peekay to look forward to as a brightener. Honestly it wasn’t that bad.
TPM: While Alex is the main character, I felt like I saw a lot more of Peekay, and I feel like she has the most growth throughout the book. Was there ever a struggle to tell the story from Alex’s point of view? Was Alex or Peekay’s point of view easier to write?
MM: Alex wasn’t easy to write. She didn’t want to be written and didn’t want poking and prying. Peekay was so easy. She just had a lot to say. So yeah, I did have to struggle to MAKE Alex open up, and Peekay was a breeze.
TPM: I feel like there is a lot to be said about Alex, with her dark tendencies, working at an animal shelter and being so loving could seem out of place. Only Peekay really got to see this side of her. Is there a reason that you let the reader see this bright side of Alex? Were you worried that Alex would be seen as a villain instead of the hero?
MM: I wasn’t worried about how people see her, other than I didn’t want anyone thinking she’s a psychopath. A true psychopath has a complete lack of empathy for other humans. Alex has the opposite problem – she feels too much for others, leading to a protective nature that escalates into violence. The tenderness for animals definitely exists for that reason, to show that she has empathy and compassion.
TPM: Branley as the “popular hot chick” seems to meet most high school stereotypes. By the same manner, Jack, as the all around jock, does as well. It seems most people want to move away from stereotypical characters, but you seem to have embraced them. Was this planned from the beginning, or did they develop this way on their own?
MM: That’s exactly the point – those stereotypes exist, so write them. Then make them people. Sure, you hate Branley in the beginning, but does anyone, really, by the end? Jack, of course, was planned to be who he is. But Branley surprised me, much in the same way she surprised Peekay when she showed up at her house and she found out she had a St. Bernard… because honestly only really patient people own Saints.
TPM: There’s a lot of talk about sexual assault in the book. From Anna’s death, to the police officer that comes to school, we kind of see a theme building from the beginning. When Peekay’s assaulted, after the police officer had been at the school, why didn’t she report it? Was this a statement about the reluctance of victims to speak up? Do you think the book would have ended differently if Peekay reported the incident?
MM: Impossible to say, because that’s not the book I wrote – make sense? Her friend Sara exists as a voice to say, “Hey, you need to speak up… but we also need to talk about Alex.” The reader needs to draw their own conclusions about what would have, could have, should have happened.
TPM: In the book, Peekay tells Jack that Branley is a Golden Retriever and Alex is an Irish Wolfhound. With all the possible breeds out there, why would you choose to describe Alex this way?
MM: Because everyone loves a Golden Retriever. Look at advertising. They’re the All American Dog. An Irish Wolfhound is odd, out of place, awkward… but beautiful and different and unique.
TPM: Was the end of the book the ending you expected? I don’t want to spoil anything, just want to know if every one’s fates were planned before you finished writing, or if it developed this way.
MM: I never know how my books are going to end. I write them from beginning to end without knowing what will happen next. I was definitely wondering, as things escalated, what I was going to do. When it happened I definitely sat back and said, “Well, that makes sense.”
Lil' Booklovers Summer of Authors Launch: Mindy McGinnis
1. Why do you love writing? When did you first have a love for writing, and how was it formed?
Honestly I think most authors will tell you we don’t necessarily love writing. It’s work, sometimes almost impossible work. We put it off, and find other things to do instead as often as possible. I wouldn’t say I love it – I’d say that I can’t not do it. I’ve always had stories in my head, but I didn’t write my first novel until I was in my 20s.
2. What are your favorite books, genres, and authors? Which ones have impacted you and you writing style the most?
I don’t really have favorites. I read widely and write widely. If its good, I’ll read it. I don’t really know who has influenced me either, as I do read SO much, it would be hard to pin any one thing down.
3. What do you do when you’re not writing? Is writing a part-time or full-time job?
Writing is the full time job! I was working full time AND writing full time up until about a year ago.
4. Your latest novel GIVEN TO THE SEA just released in April, and it takes place in the fantastic Kingdom of Stille. What was your process of world-building for this book? How was trying to create the Kingdom different from creating the fictional worlds in your other books?
The unique challenge in fantasy is that your reader can assume nothing. If I’m writing a contemporary and I tell you that my main character goes to a private school, drives a Mercedes, and only wears Prada, you can draw about 20 assumptions about her, her environment, and probably her past pretty easily. I don’t have to fill in the blanks.
In fantasy, if I tell you that one of my characters is the last surviving female of the Indiri… you know pretty much nothing. You can’t infer from that that she’s the only person in this world with magic, as only the females of the tribe carry that gift. You don’t know what her life is like – are in the Indiri a reigning class living in a castle with servants, or are they a wild, feral people? Are these royals? Are they cannibals? What is expected of this character in her class and situation?
You don’t know. And so I have to tell you. And I have to do it in a way that is not a bullet point list, boring to read and onerous to write. I have to give you seventeen years of backstory while also illustrating the present, seamlessly giving you the entire picture of her life while making it, you know, interesting.
Not easy. And that’s just one character. GIVEN TO THE SEA has four POV’s and as many highly unique and different cultures. Delivering all four – along with the land, the layout, the animals, the legend and history of this fictitious place – er… yeah.
Writing fantasy was the hardest genre I’ve tackled yet.
5. Let’s say you were a character inside GIVEN TO THE SEA. Who would be your best friend/closest ally, and who would be your archnemesis?
Oh I don’t know. I’m terrible at any of those kind of questions. The only thing I’m good at making crap up about is my novels.
6. I have read THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES a few months ago, and it was amazing! Since the book explores the theme of rape culture, what do you want the reader, regardless of gender, to take from it?
How it feels to be the opposite gender!
8. You set many of your novels, such as A MADNESS SO DISCREET and your upcoming THIS DARKNESS MINE, in your home state of Ohio. What are some of your favorite things about Ohio? Why did you choose to use your home state as the setting?
It’s best to write what you know, and I know Ohio – thoroughly. I live in the middle of absolute nowhere, and my favorite thing is the isolation. Adore.
9. How is it like using your blog Writer, Writer Pants on Fire to help aspiring writers with the drafting, editing, publishing, and marketing processes? How did you come up with those hilarious acronyms for your interviews?
Honestly, I’m just full of shit is the best answer I have for that. I had a lot of authors who were agented, and even published, help me out when I first started on the bottom rung of the ladder, so I’m all about paying it forward.
10. I am so glad I got to see you at the Southeastern Young Adult Book Festival in Murfreesboro, TN! What do you like most about being an author at book festivals? How was your experience at SE-YA?
SEYA was probably one of the best festivals I have ever done! I love doing festivals and meeting readers, panels, Q&A’s, you name it. Since I write full time I don’t honestly get out much anymore so anytime I’m social that’s a good thing.
11. You’re planning to release THIS DARKNESS MINE, a YA psychological thriller, this October. What is it about? Would you like to give us any secrets about your next book?
I find the best way to plug anything is to use a mashup, so THIS DARKNESS MINE would be Fight Club in the Band Room and the novel I just finished is Drunk Hatchet With A Girl.
12. Do you have any tips or advice you would like to give to any aspiring authors or writers?
You have to do the hard work and research in order to succeed. There is no such thing as an overnight success. I queried for 10 years before I got an agent. Among traditionally published authors the average is roughly 7 years. So, be ready for that. Grow thick skin.
How to Be Female: Mindy McGinnis & Amber Keyser
HOW TO BE FEMALE
A conversation between Mindy McGinnis, author of THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, and Amber J. Keyser, author of POINTE, CLAW.
Amber: Let’s talk about Alex first. She’s a character that I can’t stop thinking about. She is about as far from the stereotype of what a girl should be as you can get, and yet she is driven by an experience that is all too common–the victimization of girls by men. Tell us about her.
Mindy: She’s angry, that’s the simple answer. Female rage is something that goes largely unexplored except in a sexualized manner, yet women get pissed – maybe even more so than men. There is nothing more violent in nature than a mother protecting its young. Animals know that – we’ve been socialized away from it.
Mindy: You deal with anger and protective feelings for fellow females as well in POINTE, CLAW, and – like me – chose to couch it in terms of an animalistic nature. What made you decide to take that route?
Amber: I’m trained as an evolutionary biologist and much of my research was on animals. We observe a behavior and then ask questions. What are the evolutionary pressures that would result in that behavior? How does that behavior enhance survival or reproduction? How are multiple behavioral strategies maintained in a population? I brought that perspective to the story. At the same time, I was growing more and more convinced that maintaining highly-social mammals like whales, primates, and elephants, in captivity is immoral. That led me to pose other questions.
What is the survival strategy when you have been caged? In an essay I read long ago Alice Walker proposed that if women could not express their true selves then they either go mad or die. All of that came together in POINTE, CLAW. I’m not sure I can even put it into coherent sentences. I had hoped that understanding animals would help me understand humans.
Amber: I’m interested in the contrast of Alex’s underlying violence and her gentleness and competence with animals. It strikes me that both of us have more sympathy for animal nature than human nature. It’s a direct contrast to the Judeo-Christian world, which has so elevated “humanity.” Is there a difference in your mind between human, female, and animal?
Mindy: Not necessarily. For me the inclusion of Alex’s compassion for animals was to show that she is not a sociopath. Killing in defense of others is a choice that she makes, and while she tells herself she doesn’t feel bad about it, the guilt does weigh on her in the end. The difference for her is that animals don’t KNOW better. Animals don’t live in a moral world; humans do.
Mindy: How about you? How did you weigh the more animal nature of one character against the other?
Amber: This idea of a moral world is bouncing around inside my skull. Humans lay such claim to the moral high ground. Or maybe I should be more precise: many men claim a moral high ground, from which they tell girls and women what to do. So much of POINTE, CLAW is about the barriers girls and women face when trying to express their true selves. When they embrace the more animal side of their nature–the lust, the anger, power–society slaps them down. There’s a quote by John Steinbeck on the inside cover of my book: We are no better than the animals; in fact, in a lot of ways we aren’t as good. This guided my writing as I explored the ways humans fail to act morally toward animals and toward each other.
Amber: In an earlier post, Elana and I talked about “unlikeable” female characters. I have a feeling Alex would fall in that category. (I can’t help it… I like her.) The other two female characters in THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, Branley and Peekay are, at least at the beginning, fit a more “typical” girl stereotype. Can you describe them for us? Both Peekay and Branley push, in different ways against the boxes they are shoved into. Can you talk about that?
Mindy: The vast majority of reaction to Alex from both male and female readers is that they love her. I think she says and does a lot of the things that they *want* to, but are prohibited from doing. Peekay definitely has violent fantasies about things she wishes she could do, but isn’t the kind of person who can – or even should. Branley we don’t see from an internal POV, but the blonde sex-bomb patina chips away and we see her as a real person by the end.
Mindy: This is an interesting dynamic at work in POINTE, CLAW as well. You have an attractive female who is filling a stereotypical role, paired with a girl who is anything but. What do those two have in common?
Amber: Ballet is such a weird thing. You get all these little girls who love their tutus and pink tights and want to grow up to be famous dancers. Often their mothers fuel these dreams, but the dream is impossible. Only a very select few succeed. They’re the ones whose bodies grow in exactly the right way so that the proportion of femur to tibia is perfect, their feet have the right shape, and the length of the Achilles tendon allows the right kind of movement. You can work hard and have great talent but if your body isn’t exactly perfect you will fail to achieve the dream. What a set-up for disaster!
In the book, we have Jessie. She is almost perfect, and it’s still not enough to get her to where she wants to be. Dawn is very far from the societal ideal of a “perfect woman.” She’s stocky and queer and butch and completely unconcerned with social niceties. But here’s the deal. Dawn might be 1000 miles away from perfect woman and Jessie is an inch from it, but neither one can hit the mark. That tells me that the whole concept of perfect woman is a complete and utter waste of time. Be “woman” whatever that means to you.
Amber: But let me throw that question right back at you. What do Alex, Peekay, and Branley have in common?
Mindy: They’re all three definitely sexual creatures. Branley has learned how to use her attractiveness and sexual drive – which she definitely has and celebrates, and hooray for her – in a way that gains her power. She’s conventionally beautiful, and has all the elements of sexualization working for her. Jack makes a comment at one point that he misses the girl who rolled her pants up and walked in the creek with him, the girl that was his friend before she figured out that she was cute as hell. I thought it was interesting to throw out there that Branley has figured out her power over men, and she believes it’s her greatest strength because that’s what society has taught her.
Peekay is budding into someone who is more secure in herself physically and wants to explore more sexually, partially in rebellion to her “preacher’s kid” label, but also because she is a sexual being and she wants to have sex. However, because of her upbringing she wants that to be with someone she loves and and trusts, and is planning on losing her virginity to her long-time boyfriend when Branley “steals” him.
Finally, with Alex it was important to me to show that Alex is by no means frigid, or frightened of her sexuality. What happened to her sister is horrific, but she hasn’t allowed it to internalize into an “all men” statement. She trusts Jack – maybe even loves him – and because of this is able to be with him physically in ways he wasn’t necessarily expected, with her having had such trauma in her past. Alex is very much a creature of instinct – and the sexual instinct is strong. She’ll follow that, for sure.
Mindy: You made a bold choice by including female desire in the form of masturbation in your book. Sadly, I can think of very few books that portray female masturbation – and even less in a positive light. What made you decide to include this facet in the narrative?
Amber: Like anger, which you wrote about above, female desire, especially when separate from romantic love, is an underexplored topic. When I was working on THE V-WORD, a nonfiction anthology of personal essays by women about first-time sex, I interviewed author and teen librarian Kelly Jensen about depictions of young women and sex in YA. One of the things she mentioned was how rarely female masturbation is depicted in fiction, especially compared to the frequency of male masturbation. I took that as a personal challenge to work into my next book! But in the context of POINTE, CLAW, the scene where Jessie masturbates and the other short glimpses of both girls touching themselves are absolutely organic.
The entire book is about various forms of desire: sexual, creative, a yearning for self-expression, the need to be truly seen, and of course, the desire for freedom. It would be completely weird to explore those things without acknowledging that young women also have sexual desires and can satisfy them in various ways.
Amber: There’s a lot of consensual sex in THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES and also rape and attempted rape. One of the biggest and thorniest issues of growing up “girl” in today’s world is the intersection of sex and violence that even the most feminist of men don’t seem to grasp. Can you talk about how Alex, Peekay, Branley, and Peekay’s gay friend Sara navigate this territory? What does Jack’s perspective add or reveal?
Mindy: Branley as the “hot one” deals with a lot of sexual humor that is aimed at her, like penises drawn on her locker, even rape jokes during a school assembly. Her answer is to ignore, which is always an option, but I wanted the reader to be able to see the anger that percolated in her during these occasions, even if it remained unspoken.
Peekay is drugged and nearly gang-raped, which she reacts to as I think a lot of people do – with disgust, and self-blame. She’s sickened about what nearly happened to her, and can’t help but analyze what role her own actions played in the events.
With Sara – who is a lesbian – I wanted to be clear that she is not eliminated as a possible target for rape because of that. Peekay’s father says as much to her in a family-meeting style sit down.
Without putting it too heavily into the text, rape is more about power than it is about sex. Rapists can and do go after young or old, attractive or unattractive, fat or thin, gay or straight. Victims can include pregnant, physically or mentally disabled individuals, even the very elderly. Your own orientation or physical appearance rarely has anything to do with the targeting – rape is a crime of power and opportunity.
For Jack, it was important to me to show a man who is at heart, a great person. There are plenty of expectations on young boys as well as women, and Jack falls into that. He’s supposed to be okay with having casual sex with Branley. He’s supposed to be okay with killing animals in a slaughterhouse for a living. These are masculine traits that he, as an all-American boy, should revel in.
But he doesn’t. Jack questions his actions with Branley and looks for ways to distract himself while at work so he doesn’t have to think too hard about what he’s doing. He wants more out of his life than what is being asked of him. It was also important to me to show Jack and another male step up – out of outrage – when they see what was about to happen to Peekay at a party. They are not okay with that, and make it clear… it’s just that Alex beat them to it
Amber: One of the things that all the female characters in our books have in common (and maybe I’m going out on a limb here but I’m going to say that all women share it) is the ever-present threat of sexual assault. After the Trump pussy-grabbing video came out pre-election, I read an article about how many hetero couples were talking about this issue for the very first time. Even the most feminist of men were shocked at how often the women in their lives experienced sexual assault or lived with the apprehension of sexual assault. Margaret Atwood wrote about how sexual assault has always been a weapon of war and tool of oppression.
I wonder what it would be like to live and write in a world where we didn’t have to live under this threat of violence. Honestly, I hate that I am even writing that sentence, but both of our books make the claim that women are fundamentally not safe in this world and that fact shapes how we live our lives, how we interact with each other, and how we inhabit our own bodies.
Audrey's Book Blog: Interview with Mindy McGinnis
1. What inspired the story of The Female of the Species?
I was in college when I ran into the inspiration for SPECIES. I never had cable television growing up, so my freshman year in a dorm I was suddenly mainlining all kinds of things, but especially true crime. I watched a mini-doc about a girl who had been raped and murdered in a small town, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict. Even so, everyone knew who did it. I was watching this becoming more incensed, and realized, that if I were capable of it, I could easily find this town, find that mine, and take care of things myself. Then I thought it was probably time to turn off the TV.
2. How did you get the idea for Alex Craft?
She came about organically once I had the plot. My characters grow into real people alongside the story if I give the them the space to do it.
3. How do you write a book? Is there a certain writing process that you go through?
My process is a definitely lack of process. I start at the beginning and I write until I'm at the end of the story. There's very little planing. I usually don't know how the book is going to end.
4. What aspect of writing do you find the hardest and how do you overcome it?
Just starting is hard. I don't write every day because I'm not always on a project. I get into the habit of NOT writing (which is very easy) so when I do have a new project on deck it's hard to jump start again.
5. From the books you've written, who is your favorite character and who can you relate to the most?
My favorite character is easily Stebbs from NOT A DROP TO DRINK. He's a good person in a horrible world, and he was just so easy to write. The character I can relate to the most is Lynn, from the same book.
6. What YA book would you recommend to anybody?
I just started THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas. It's stunning.
7. Can you give advice to aspiring writers about literary agents, query letters and etc?
My biggest advice on that is to do you homework. It took me 10 years to get an agent, mostly because I didn't want to go through all the work I needed to do in order to succeed. I didn't want to learn the industry, the market, the agents and agencies... all the necessary things in order to make it. I wanted to just be a writer, and send off my book and have someone love it. It doesn't work that way. It also didn't help that my first book was shit.
8. What upcoming works can we expect from you in the future?
I have the first in a fantasy series releasing April 11, GIVEN TO THE SEA, and a contemporary thriller THIS DARKNESS MINE coming in the fall!
Castle Maguire Book Blog: Interview with Mindy McGinnis (2016)
I’m delighted to be sharing my fourth (count them – four!!) interview with YA author extraordinaire, Mindy McGinnis, on her FOURTH novel today. She’s one of the most exciting and eclectic YA writers out there, and she also loves cats! When I asked her about her recently released YA novel, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, here’s what she had to say ...
KC: THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is a very different book for you, although your novels to date have been somewhat eclectic in terms of genre (dystopian, historical fiction/horror, and now teen vigilante justice). In your author notes you say that you'd actually written a draft of this book 15 years ago and decided to dust it off now. What was the original inspiration for the book, what prompted you to dust it off now, and what were the main things that changed between the original version and the final published version?
MM: I was in college when I ran into the inspiration for SPECIES. I never had cable television growing up, so my freshman year in a dorm I was suddenly mainlining all kinds of things, but especially true crime. I watched a mini-doc about a girl who had been raped and murdered in a small town, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict. Even so, everyone knew who did it. I was watching this becoming more incensed, and realized, that if I were capable of it, I could easily find this town, find that mine, and take care of things myself. Then I thought it was probably time to turn off the TV.
KC: If I'm remembering correctly, this is the first book you've written from multiple/alternating points of view. Did you find writing the alternating characters' viewpoints challenging or freeing, or a little of both?
MM: It was my first time for alternating POV's, although I was also drafting a fantasy (GIVEN TO THE SEA) at the same time, which has four alternating POV's, two male and two female. Even so, SPECIES came first, and more importantly than being my first POV dive, it was my first time writing a male MC, first person. So that was something I wanted to make sure I got right. I had various male readers and critique partners, so that I would know I was in the head of a teen boy, both for the good and the bad.
KC: This is also your first contemporary YA - your previous books have been set respectively in the future and the past. How did you find the worldbuilding aspects of creating a contemporary township for this book versus a dystopia (in your NOT A DROP TO DRINK duology) and a historically accurate past (in A MADNESS SO DISCREET)?
MM: Ha - this one was a breeze in that respect! I've worked in a high school for 15 years, so I know the voice, I know the small town environment, and I know the narrators. Once when I was writing MADNESS I had to stop and do 15 minutes of research just to figure out what policemen were called in 1890 Boston. Here... so much easier!
KC: One thing that has stayed with me very viscerally since reading the book is your depiction of the scene where the cop speaks at the high school assembly about drug and alcohol abuse and does so in a very different way to what the students (and probably readers) were expecting. What was the inspiration for Officer Nolan's character and how did you come up with his approach to educating teens about alcohol and drugs?
MM: We had a task force come into the school to educate the staff about different drugs, their uses / effects and paraphernalia. The guy was amazing, because he made everything personal. But he also talked to us like adults (which we were), and I couldn't help but think, Geez, I wish he could come in and talk to the kids like that. Whenever there's an assembly that is about safety - drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever - it's typically condescending and very antiseptic. They kids are bored and it has no impact. So I wrote what I thought would actually work.
KC: Do you have a plan for your next book that you can share with us?
MM: I do! My first fantasy, titled GIVEN TO THE SEA will be releasing from Penguin/Putnam on April 11, 2017. It is the first in a duology. I also have another contemporary coming from Harper in the Fall of 2017, titled THIS DARKNESS MINE.
This Book Will Change How You Think About Rape
#RealTalk: The Female Of The Species by Mindy McGinnis, is changing the way we talk about rape culture. . . one page at a time.
Everyone who has read The Female of the Species can agree that this is one of the most powerful and important YA books of all time. Mindy McGinnis’s The Female Of The Species is making waves this fall as it sparks thought-provoking conversations and challenges the way our society thinks about women, feminism and rape culture.
Why I Wrote The Female of the Species
I’ve been asked a few times how you write a book about rape without it being too upsetting. To which I say, it should be upsetting. Deeply disturbing, in fact.
I just checked the news before turning off all my connectivity to write this. The top two stories from my local NBC affiliate dealt with rape. The ages of the victims were 10 and 15. The ten year old did not survive. On CNN there was an article about a high school athlete who sexually assaulted two girls while they were unconscious. He received two years probation.
Meanwhile, a man who shot a police dog while robbing a gas station received 45 years in prison.
I know it’s not easy to talk about, read about, hear about. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a reality for many, many girls – and boys too, don’t forget. In the US, one in four girls will be sexually abused before they turn eighteen.
I’m betting you know more than four girls under the age of 18.
When I wrote A MADNESS SO DISCREET I had many people ask me why I would include a subplot about the main character being sexually abused by her father, in a book written for teens. My answer was – and is for THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES as well – because it happens to them.
It happens to them and they need to see themselves reflected in fiction, so that they may process the enormity of their experience in a safe place, free of judgment.
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is about a lot of things. Rape, vengeance, assault, but also friendship, community, and teens with aspirations beyond their small town. It won’t be an easy read, a beach read, or a feel-good read.
But it’s an important read.
On Gaining the Experience to Properly Execute A Story
Mindy, what was your inspiration for writing THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES?
SPECIES is actually the first novel I wrote, over 15 years ago. I was a freshman in college and cable was a new experience for me. I was watching some sort of true crime show about a murder that had occurred in a small town. It was a situation where it was fairly obvious who the killer was, but there wasn't enough proof for the courts. The documentary named the small town, and I thought, "Man, if someone watched this and was convinced of that guy's guilt, they could just go kill him." And then I thought.... huh. Interesting story.
I had always known I wanted to write a novel, but I hadn't done it yet. The idea of vigilante justice stuck with me, and with all the freshman warning talks about parties and date rape and self-defense classes, the story came together for me. As I said, it was my very first novel, and I didn't execute it well at all. It was honestly, quite terrible. I worked on that book for years. Revised. Scrapped. Revisited. Scrapped. After hundreds of rejections I decided it was unpublishable and moved on.
When I was throwing possible ideas for future projects at my agent Adriann Ranta, I happened to mention the concept behind SPECIES. It was originally an adult novel, but I knew it could very easily be adapted to YA. Adriann was excited about it, so I re-read my original novel. It was terrible. Actually unreadable, to be honest.
I started from scratch, using only the concept and character's first names. It's a complex story with a killer for main character so I needed to be able to build empathy for someone who is morally questionable... not easy to do. I don't think I was a good enough writer to execute that the first time I tried. Fifteen years later, I had more experience.
Is there a scene you particularly love?
My favorite scene happens at a party where Alex's violent tendencies come out for everyone to see. She saves a girl from being gang raped, but all anyone can talk about is the fact that... well I won't say what Alex does to the guy in question but, it's memorable.
How long or hard was your road to publication? How many books did you write before this one, and how many never got published?
Very. Hard. As I said, SPECIES was my first completed novel, but my debut NOT A DROP TO DRINK was my fifth finished novel. I had four failed manuscripts, ten years, and hundreds of rejections under my belt before I acquired an agent.
What are you working on now?
Lots of things, actually! I have a fantasy, GIVEN TO THE SEA being released in April of 2017 from Putnam, and PHANTOM HEART is my Fall 2017 release from Katherine Tegen. Beyond that I have the sequel to GIVEN TO THE SEA (drafting that one right now) and another contemporary that will be releasing in Fall of 2018 from Katherine Tegen. So... yeah. Busy!
HCC Frenzy Mindy McGinnis Interview
We’re BIG fans of Mindy McGinnis here at Frenzy. We’ve read and loved each of her previous books, so her latest, The Female of the Species, was easily one of our most anticipated books of the year. It follows a young girl named Alex whose older sister was murdered three years ago. When the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence.
The Female of the Species is an intense, unforgettable read that we just can’t stop thinking about. We asked Mindy a few questions about the book (and more!) because we need to know more.
FRENZY: What inspired you to write this book?
MINDY: I was in college in the early 2000’s and had cable for the first time. I was watching a true crime show about a murder in a small town. It was a situation where everyone more or less knew who the killer was, but there wasn’t enough physical evidence to convict. They named the small town, and the supposed perpetrator in the show. I thought to myself, “Man, if someone was really convinced he was the killer, they could just go there and dispense justice themselves.” Then I thought, “Huh. That’s a novel.”
FRENZY: What was your favourite book as a teenager?
MINDY: I don’t know that I had a favorite book during that age range, but one of my all time favorites is THE STAND by Stephen King.
FRENZY: If you could have coffee with any author, who would it be?
MINDY: Stephen King, for sure. I’ve been reading his stuff since I was thirteen.
FRENZY: What’s your favourite way to waste time?
MINDY: I’m really good at wasting time so I have many answers. Twitter, petting my cat, talking to my dog, napping. But in the end I’m building relationships with people or animals, and napping is good stuff… so is it really a waste?
FRENZY: What’s the best writing advice you’ve received?
MINDY: You don’t have to write every day to be a “real” writer.
FRENZY: Describe your book in four words.
MINDY: Rape Revenge Vigilante Justice
Rural Poverty and The Female of The Species by Mindy McGinnis
Sometimes, it is indeed a small world after all. Shortly after moving to Texas, I learned that author Mindy McGinnis lived just 10 minutes from the very library I had spent the last 10 years working at in the state of Ohio. This town was my home, the place where my children were born. It was also, at the time, the county with the highest poverty rate in all of Ohio.
So while there were many aspects about Mindy McGinnis’ THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES that stood out to me, one that stood out most vividly is the depiction of rural poverty. THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is set in a small, Midwestern town that is ravished by poverty and in my mind’s eye I could picture the very places around this small town that I thought Mindy might be talking about.
And while all poverty is bad, each type of poverty has its unique challenges. For example, one of the greatest challenges in rural poverty is transportation. Rural communities are often spread out and don’t have public transportation systems, which makes things like going to a grocery story or doctor’s appointment quite challenging. There are usually fewer options in rural communities, and less options means less competition and less price choices.
Although I currently live in Texas, I work in a public library in another rural Ohio community that is also fighting high poverty. Many of my patrons don’t have the money to buy current technology, and even if they did have the money the truth is, there are still parts of my community that have no providers offering wireless or DSL Internet. Like many other places experiences high rural poverty rates, drug use and drug related deaths are reaching epidemic proportions. So as I mentioned, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES resonated with me in ways that I can not even begin to describe.
Today, I am honored to host author Mindy McGinni who talks about rural poverty and the part it plays in her newest release, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES.
The Female of the Species addresses many issues within its pages; rape culture and vigilante justice being the most prevalent. A quieter issue raises it’s head though, one that is easy to overlook, shadowed as it is by the more controversial topics.
Rural poverty.Much of the time poverty is associated with urban life and that is certainly a truth that cannot go ignored. However, there is another face to poverty, one that looks picturesque. Farms with collapsed barns. Homes where no one lives anymore.
I was born and raised in a rurally impoverished area and now I live and work in one. For fourteen years I have been employed as a library aide at a local school where nearly forty percent of our student body receive free and reduced lunch.
During deer hunting season our attendance list shows double digits of our students are excused for the day to participate… and in most cases it’s not a leisure activity for them. They’re putting much-needed food on the family table.
Food pantry lines are long, faces are pinched, and during the summer months many of our students go without lunch because they depended on the school to provide it. Because it is a sprawling, rural community, people who have to weigh the cost of gas for the drive to the pantry against the food they will get there.
None of the characters in my book suffer the indignity of hunger, because I feel it’s an issue that deserves more space than there was room for within this particular story. But hunger breeds a specific type of desperation that calls for an escape, and this can open the door to darker things.
Upper and middle classes know the need for a vacation. We all feel the cycle of our daily lives triggering stress, causing irritation and anger, and even pushing us towards exhaustion. So we take a “mental health day,” call off work for little or no reason, or we cash in those vacation days and just “get away from it all.”
We have that luxury.
Many of the jobs available to the working poor pay by the hour, and to take a day off means to take a pay cut – one that the budget doesn’t allow for. Vacation time may be possible, but the idea of affording to actually leave is laughable. Escapes from reality are sometimes sought not in a getaway, but in drug use.
There is a major heroin epidemic in my area. We have lost students in my small school district to it. One Twitter user already thanked me for mentioning the epidemic in The Female of the Species, saying that she hopes it may draw more attention to the issue. If it doesn’t, this should; last weekend alone multiple people OD’d, two of them in a mini-van with a four year old.
It’s easy to point fingers, lay blame, criticize and judge. What kind of people do this?
The desperate. The addicted. The hopeless.
Such descriptions aren’t solely the realm of the poor, but there are correlations that can’t be denied.
On my worst days – and we all have bad ones, no matter who we are – I can get upset, feel like giving up or just ducking out of reality for awhile. Stress is present in all our lives, no matter our socioeconomic standing.
But on these days I remind myself that I have food. I have clothes. I have a working car that I can drive to my next school visit, library appearance, or book club talk. I can fill the gas tank and go to work without having to worry about paying for that stop.
The small luxuries of our lives are something that most of us take for granted until they are taken away from us – a cracked phone that doesn’t work, the car being in this shop for a few days, the heat and electric always being on.
When you do have one of those days, think about those who can’t afford a phone at all, and are literally holding their cars together with duct tape. In the past I’ve had students that heat their home with the kitchen stove, and the children sleep with the pets to share body heat.
Spare a thought for them on your bad days, and if you can spare more than that, please do.
On Rape Culture
In preparing to do a guest post about rape culture, I wondered what I had to say that could add to the conversation. The subject has been covered, and well, by others. So I told myself to wait for a couple of days, and something would come up.
I didn't mean for my thoughts to be taken literally.
Last week was our county fair. It's been hot and dry here. Thousands of cars and pairs of feet had stirred up a dust cloud, and as I was leaving the grounds I saw a minivan coated in a fine film of dirt that someone had decided to treat as a canvas. The ubiquitous dick and balls drawing was everywhere, along with FUCK ME scrawled multiple times.
I watched people walk past it, some pointing and laughing, some shaking their heads. Parents covered their children's eyes and rolled their own. But nobody did the one thing that made the most sense.
Nobody erased it.
There we were in a public place with multiple erect, demanding penises in clear view of anyone who walked past, along with a directive to perform a sexual act on it. And no one was willing to make it go away with a swipe of their forearm. Sure, it can be argued that they didn't want to touch someone else's personal property, but I wonder if such passivity sends the message that the dicks had a right to be there, or in the least, are an acceptable background in our culture, one deserving only of an eye roll and a quicker step to put it behind you.
Do I think people are being actively harmed by dicks drawn on dirty cars? I don't know. As for the FUCK ME, I can't argue against bad language without painting myself a hypocrite, as I have a sailor's mouth. It's the passivity that bothers me, the acceptance of a situation that young girls will see a dick as soon as they are old enough to open their eyes in public - and will never stop seeing them.
I did the only thing I thought I could do. I tucked my hand in my shirt sleeve and wiped the van free, uncovering a sticker family on the back, two little girls bringing up the rear.
So that's two that didn't have to see a dick.
It's a start.
