It’s Women’s History Month

[mmegaera]

March is Women’s History Month, I’m told.

So.  Ask me something about one of my female characters, anything you’d like, from backstory to future plans, from choices to “what’s a lefse?”

First ten questions/prompts will get answered.

The person who started this, Aldersprig over on LiveJournal, added, and I challenge all y’all who write to do the same. Write something about your women characters. Write something about women in history. Tell us about your female characters.

Hattip to Jeriendhal over on LiveJournal as well.

Also, here’s a list of my primary female characters so far:

Repeating History
Eliza Byrne
Anna Cooper
Lucy Doyle

True Gold and ‘Homesick‘
Karin Myre
Mamie Thielsen

Finding Home
Jo Bennett

Mirrored from Repeating History.

Comments

[hedda62]

I'll bite (and then will go post it myself). Tell me about Jo and how you created her character. Was she designed specifically as a counterpart to James, someone he'd grate against until… well, he did something else against, or did she spring up separately in your brain and then find her place in a story?

[mmegaera]

Thanks for asking!

Jo's kind of an odd duck. She originally showed up as a spear carrier in Repeating History, as the fry cook who served Chuck a hamburger the evening he arrived at Old Faithful, just hours before he was flung back in time.

Even then I knew I hadn't seen the last of her, even though her appearance in Repeating History can be counted in paragraphs. I'm not sure why I felt that way, but my premonition turned out to be correct. I knew long before I even started writing Finding Home (I always intended to write James's story in counterpoint to Charley's) that she was going to be a primary character in that story, and the person who helped James get over his loss. I did not, however, realize that the reason she'd be able to do that was because she'd gone through something so similar -- having her only child run away and never come back -- until I was already headlong into the story.

Jo is who she is independently of James, so, no, she wasn't created as a foil for him, nor did I need to find a story for her. She was always a part of this series. It's just that Finding Home was where most of her story was told.

An interesting question [g]. Thanks.

[nishatalitha]

I'll bite: do you have a recommended recipe for lefse? The descriptions make them sound delicious (and something to try making someday).

(Food is currently being cooked and smells delicious, which makes it hard to think of anything else.)

[mmegaera]

I don't, alas. The one time I tried making them, they came out so badly I'd be afraid to recommend the recipe (even though it was probably me and not it that caused them to turn out so badly).

We have a large Scandnavian population here in western Washington, and I did go up to Ballard (Karin's hometown, now part of Seattle) and eat them at a local restaurant, though. They were delicious [g].

[nishatalitha]

Ah, well. I shall keep an eye out for them and if I see them, I will try them!