Breaking The Glass Slipper: Women In Science Fiction, Fantasy, And Horror

Well, it’s that time again: 80s family film funtime! Today we are looking at 1988’s Willow, starring Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer, directed by Ron Howard with a story by George Lucas. But first, let’s set the scene. It is a time of dread. Seers have foretold the birth of a child who will bring […]

Monster. Freak. Beast. These words are often thrown around, but what do we really mean when we use them? What is a monster? Why are they so central to our narratives? Like many of the issues we discuss on this podcast, the idea of monstrosity features built-in sexism. Male and female-coded monsters are often given […]

When we pick up a book, we know we’re going to be told a story. We trust the author or, in the case of first-person POV the narrator, to tell us the truth. We might be reading about vengeful ghosts or glorious dragons that take our imagination to the very limits of creativity, but we […]

Speculative fiction has always been a genre that challenges traditional views and established ways of seeing. We regularly discuss how the worlds that genre authors create are arenas in which it’s possible to tackle social narratives away from conventional models. But no genre can really be said to straddle fantasy and reality like magical realism. […]

It has long been obvious that our world’s power structures are set up to benefit men, so how does women’s power play out in our narratives? What happens when women are suddenly given a power they are usually deprived of? Menna Van Praag joins us to discuss power in its gendered form. Is there enough […]

Cosmic horror is an unhelpful term by itself. HP Lovecraft himself is quoted as saying that: The fundamental premise [of cosmic horror is] that common human laws and interest and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large.’ But Wikipedia seems to bring this down to a more personal level when it states: […]

The three of us are children of the 80s and like many of our generation, we love to revel in nostalgia. For us, this has meant revisiting some of our favourite fantasy films of that decade: Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Princess Bride… and now Ladyhawke.  Ladyhawke was released in 1985 to fairly average reviews. The […]

Here on BtGS, we regularly discuss how female characters in SFF are depicted on-screen. From the infamous bikini armour to simply being absent from male-centric narratives – women have had their fair share of problematic portrayals. But is the tide turning? Joining us to help answer this question is award-winning director Kate Madison. Texts mentioned […]

There needs to be a serious fucking cultural conversation about the storytelling desire to turn everyone into an edgy badass that thinks all problems are best solved with violence and what the overwhelming prevalence of that narrative is doing to our brains. Alex Acks We want to start that cultural conversation right here on Breaking […]

Beauty and the Beast is amongst our best-known fairytales, enduring and enchanting in equal measure. But beneath its romantic exterior lurks a darker story, one that various writers have explored over the years. For the first episode of 2020, we are joined by bestselling author, Brigid Kemmerer, whose newest book, A Heart So Fierce and […]

A bonus Christmas episode for you all! Back in December 2018, Charlotte was asked to interview RJ Barker and Micah Yongo at perhaps one of the most beautiful bookshops in Britain – the Bradford Wool Exchange branch of Waterstones. In the interview, Micah talks about Lost Gods and Pale Kings, and RJ revisits our old favourite, The Wounded Kingdom trilogy. […]

If you love a story, you love reading it over and over again. But you can also get joy out of reading someone’s reinterpretation of it. When authors decide to take old stories that we know and love and turn them into something else, it can breathe new life into characters we thought had had […]

When our favourite television series come to an end on our screens, it doesn’t always mean goodbye. Firefly was revived with Serenity and Buffy the Vampire Slayer found a second life in a celebrated comic series (and yes, this happens for more than just Joss Whedon shows!). One of Breaking the Glass Slipper’s favourite shows […]

Before you listen to this episode, you should be warned: your to be read pile will become unmanageable. If you’re anything like us, you already have a huge to-read list, but we discuss so many epic horror short stories and novels that you won’t be able to help yourself. Don’t worry, I hear books can […]

This year has been an incredibly busy one for the BtGS girls, so when it came time to do our annual live episode at FantasyCon we decided to do something a little different. We threw caution to the wind and went for a fun and silly set-up. Let us assure you: major silliness occurred. We […]

I have been thoroughly enjoying JY Yang’s Tensorate series of novellas so wanted to chat to them about blending science fiction and fantasy, non-binary representation in SFF, and using different structures and forms across a series!  Fair warning – there is a lot of giggling in this episode. But hey, it’s nice when interviewer and […]

Previously on Breaking the Glass Slipper we have covered Disney princesses. This time we thought we would turn our attention to the men. But we’re a podcast about women! So why spend an entire episode focusing on princes and other male protagonists in Disney films?  Well, the dominant narratives surrounding men – and in this instance, […]

Alternate history narratives – regardless of whether they have overt fantasy or sci-fi elements – are ultimately ‘what if’ narratives. This is the same basic principle underlying all speculative fiction, so it is no wonder they made such good bedfellows. Have you ever thought about writing an alternate history story or wondered what’s involved? Good […]

Much of W. B. Yeats’ poetry is inspired by the rich mythological fabric of Ireland. This is the land of the Sidhe, the banshee, the merrow. But the island itself has a character, an identity, in the geographical, historical and metaphysical sense. So, in homage to our host country, we’ll be talking about the place […]

From ancient mythology and religious texts to Star Trek and Harry Potter, trinities – or trios – have always been a common motif. Why is the power of three so potent and what tropes do we tend to see?  To help us delve into this subject, we have enlisted the help of an author of […]