HRM's Audacious Women: An Anthology is now released to readers and the public, and we are pleased to share some illuminating thoughts from our contributors about how they view "audacious women," their contributions to the anthology, and what they are working on now.
Today's featured author is Marisca Pichette, who wrote two poems featured in the anthology that explore female agency and voice.
How do you personally define an "audacious woman" and what role do you feel audacious women play in the world? What role have they played for you personally? Tell us an anecdote, a brief fact, or a true story.
To be oneself is to be audacious. Loudly existing, embracing all our loves and fears and turning them into an aura of femininity that's not necessarily feminine, or at least, not the feminine society wants us to be. Queer folks--femme and masc, binary and non-binary--are my audacious icons. I look at them and I feel just a little more free, just a fraction more me.
What are your work's favorite themes when working with female characters/subjects?
I love found family, female rage/vengeance, and WLW. Writing is my safe space, an opportunity to open all the wounds and fill them with wild growth.
Who is your favorite female character in art or literature and why?
Artemisia Gentileschi's "Judith Beheading Holofernes." Seeing this painting in person, I could feel the radiant defiance of women across time. We will never break.
Can you speak to your piece/s in the anthology and what inspired it/them?
"WRITE THIS DOWN" was directly inspired by a fragmented interview in Tyehimba Jess' Olio. I was captivated by the anger and confrontation in that piece, and felt compelled to continue the conversation. "bitches" was motivated by my own consideration of how we use language to uplift as well as bring down, and the ongoing effort to reclaim slurs and stereotypes.
What are you working on right now that lights you up? Who are you reading that does the same?
I'm currently working on a sapphic witch novel set in an alternative present-day New England, with themes of queer liberation and anti-capitalist academia. I just finished reading The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green, which is a scientific journey exploring how we understand different intelligences, both on Earth and in distant unexplored space. Green blends science fiction with fact, highlighting humanity's many innovations as well as our expansive imagination--and our enduring faults.
Marisca Pichette is a queer author based in Massachusetts, on Pocumtuck and Abenaki land. Her work has appeared in Room Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, Necessary Fiction, and Plenitude Magazine, among others. She is the winner of the 2022 F(r)iction Spring Literary Contest and has been nominated for the Best of the Net, Pushcart, Utopia, and Dwarf Stars awards. Their debut poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, is out now from Android Press. Find them on Twitter as @MariscaPichette, Instagram as @marisca_write, and BlueSky as @marisca.bsky.social.
To read work from this awesome contributor in the Audacious Women: An Anthology--and more exciting work that explores the complexity of women in life and literature, get your copy now! Every purchased copy keeps the lights on for small presses doing great things! Thanks for reading!