Today's A-spec April guest is Jasmine Gower, author of Moonshine and A Study of Fiber and Demons. I am so excited to have Jasmine here to talk about these books and the a-spec representation in them!
You can read more about Jasmine's books on Goodreads
You can read more about Jasmine's books on Goodreads
Jasmine Gower, author of Moonshine and other queer fantasy works, hails from Portland, Oregon. Jasmine received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Portland State University and is currently enrolled in Portland State University’s Book Publishing graduate program as a member of Ooligan Press.
Inspired to write by a childhood filled with fantasy novels, 90s video games, and the curious experience of growing up in the rural Willamette Valley, Jasmine has a passion for exploring themes of gender, sexuality, and disability through the conventions of speculative fiction, mythology, and fantasy world-building.
Inspired to write by a childhood filled with fantasy novels, 90s video games, and the curious experience of growing up in the rural Willamette Valley, Jasmine has a passion for exploring themes of gender, sexuality, and disability through the conventions of speculative fiction, mythology, and fantasy world-building.
1. Thank you so much for joining me for A-spec April! Can you tell us a little bit about the a-spec representation in your books?
Thanks for having me! I have two books out now--my fantasy novel Moonshine and my fantasy romance novella A Study of Fiber and Demons--that feature aspec characters. In Moonshine, my secondary protagonist Andre Swarz is a bisexual aromantic man, and there are a few other characters who allude to being asexual and/or aromantic. In A Study of Fiber and Demons, one of Alim’s academic rivals is Sylvestra, an asexual woman.
Thanks for having me! I have two books out now--my fantasy novel Moonshine and my fantasy romance novella A Study of Fiber and Demons--that feature aspec characters. In Moonshine, my secondary protagonist Andre Swarz is a bisexual aromantic man, and there are a few other characters who allude to being asexual and/or aromantic. In A Study of Fiber and Demons, one of Alim’s academic rivals is Sylvestra, an asexual woman.
2. At what point in the planning and writing of your novels did you realize you were going to write ace and aro characters? What influenced this decision?
I’ve been writing a lot longer than I’ve had access to aro and ace terminology (in some cases, longer than that terminology has existed), and I grew up in a very conservative and heteronormative environment, so some of my characters have sort of grown into their ace and aro identities as I’ve learned more about how to put their experiences into words. For one book that I’ve been working on for more years that I care to think about, I have a character who I kept trying to give love interests to, only to find that I couldn’t write compelling chemistry between the character and his love interests to save my life. As I kept cycling through LIs, trying to create a good match for him, I eventually learned about asexual and aromantic identities. This was obviously useful to me personally, but shortly after learning more about aspec identities it finally dawned on me why this character wasn’t meshing with any LI I tossed his way. Since then, most of my ace or aro characters are more deliberately written that way.
I’ve been writing a lot longer than I’ve had access to aro and ace terminology (in some cases, longer than that terminology has existed), and I grew up in a very conservative and heteronormative environment, so some of my characters have sort of grown into their ace and aro identities as I’ve learned more about how to put their experiences into words. For one book that I’ve been working on for more years that I care to think about, I have a character who I kept trying to give love interests to, only to find that I couldn’t write compelling chemistry between the character and his love interests to save my life. As I kept cycling through LIs, trying to create a good match for him, I eventually learned about asexual and aromantic identities. This was obviously useful to me personally, but shortly after learning more about aspec identities it finally dawned on me why this character wasn’t meshing with any LI I tossed his way. Since then, most of my ace or aro characters are more deliberately written that way.
3. What did you find most challenging and most rewarding about writing asexual and aromantic characters?
The biggest challenge for me is establishing a character’s asexuality or aromanticism explicitly without having to grind the whole story to a standstill to do so. For one, I write secondary-world fantasy and tend to avoid queer terminology that has a real-world history as pathologizing terms, because I prefer my fantasy worlds to not have that history toward queer people, but that limits how direct I can be in talking about my characters’ orientations. The other issue is contending against the heteronormativity and allonormativity of my readers, knowing that no matter how hamfisted I am about a characters’ aspec identity, many readers will still assume that they are allosexual or alloromantic (this happens frequently with Andre Swarz in Moonshine, despite the text confirming four or five times that he doesn’t feel romantic attraction). So overall, it’s tricky to find the right balance of being clear about the character’s identity without wasting too much time trying to establish that only to have their identity ignored by some readers, anyway.
I do generally find ace and aro characters easier to sympathize with, though, merely because their orientations reflect my own experiences. I find that having an easier time getting into their mindset like that also makes it easier for me to explore the nuances of their character more so than I can do with allosexual or alloromantic characters, where I have to put in just a little more effort to dig as deep into their characterization.
4. How did you identify the orientation of your characters on the page? Did you use the terms “asexual” and “aromantic” in the text and how did you come to that decision?
I typically describe my aro and ace characters in terms that confirm that they don’t experience sexual or romantic attraction without using modern real-world labels. As I mentioned, queer terminology that has any sort of medical history rubs me the wrong way in my fantasy worlds, because I’ve written these worlds to not have that particular history. I’m also very much of the mind that the nature of queerness is to be nebulous and free of the rigidity of hetero- and cisnormativity, so while labels are certainly useful, they aren’t as important in fiction as portraying queer experiences (“show, don’t tell”, if you will). One example of how I take that approach is in my novella For All the Gold in the Vault, where neither Arturo nor Ezekiel are necessarily aromantic, but their relationship is written with an aromantic sensibility. Either of the characters could be read as either aromantic or alloromantic, but the important thing to me with that story was that their relationship resonated with aromantic readers.
That said, while none of my currently published works use the terms “asexual” or “aromantic”, I do sometimes use “aromantic” to describe my characters in-text since it’s far enough removed from that real-world medical history, and I do have some conlang phrases that describe asexuality and aromanticism, as well. I also use real-world terminology to describe my characters outside of the text all the time, because sometimes it really is just more helpful to be concise and unambiguous.
5. In writing a-spec characters, did you do research and consult sensitivity readers or did you rely on your own knowledge or experience?
Many of my characters are written from my lived knowledge of asexuality and aromanticism, but of course I’m not the ultimate example of the aroace experience, and I do plenty of reading of other ace and aro people’s lives and experiences. I don’t necessarily think of it as research so much as just being involved in my communities, but having that fundamental understanding of the range of ace and aro people’s experiences--especially when it comes to things far outside my experience, like intersectionality for APOC or trauma-informed aspec identities--helps me create characters that represent a broader spectrum of aspec identities that I couldn’t base off my own identities and experiences alone.
6. What was your first experience with seeing asexual or aromantic characters in fiction and media?
I can’t remember what the first specific example was. I went so long growing up without ever seeing characters like me explicitly portrayed in fiction--though I encountered a few characters strongly implied to be aroace, like Terra Branford in Final Fantasy VI--and it’s only been in recent years that I’ve started seeing canonically aromantic and asexual characters. For the most part, independent queer romance books were the first place I realized I could find asexual and even aromantic characters, and in the years since I made that discovery I’ve been seeing representation improve across other books and even TV shows. Pickings are still slim, though, and I still find that indie queer romance is the most reliable source for finding asexual and aromantic representation.
7. What is your favorite book (or books) with asexual or aromantic characters?
My friend AM Valenza’s Alexey Dyed in Red and Breakfire’s Glass have some of the most delightful asexual representation I’ve ever encountered. In Breakfire’s Glass especially, there is a lovely conversation between two asexual characters talking about how their orientations and attitudes toward sex differ from each other, which is such a refreshing thing to read. It’s the sort of conversation I have all the time in real life without ever seeing reflected in fiction, and it’s nice to finally see that on the page.
8. Do you know what you are going to be working on next and do you think we see more a-spec characters in your future stories?
I’m currently working on a dark fantasy novel that has an aroace main character, as well as a secondary character who is an ace lesbian. And that book that I’ve been working on for a very long time with the character who rejected all of the love interests I tried to give him? I’m still working on that, too, and the “aroace all along” character is still in it, along with several other ace and/or aro characters in the main cast. While it’s certainly not impossible that I might write something with no aspec characters at all, I’m very partial to writing them, so I expect that anything else I write in the future will include at least a few
My friend AM Valenza’s Alexey Dyed in Red and Breakfire’s Glass have some of the most delightful asexual representation I’ve ever encountered. In Breakfire’s Glass especially, there is a lovely conversation between two asexual characters talking about how their orientations and attitudes toward sex differ from each other, which is such a refreshing thing to read. It’s the sort of conversation I have all the time in real life without ever seeing reflected in fiction, and it’s nice to finally see that on the page.
8. Do you know what you are going to be working on next and do you think we see more a-spec characters in your future stories?
I’m currently working on a dark fantasy novel that has an aroace main character, as well as a secondary character who is an ace lesbian. And that book that I’ve been working on for a very long time with the character who rejected all of the love interests I tried to give him? I’m still working on that, too, and the “aroace all along” character is still in it, along with several other ace and/or aro characters in the main cast. While it’s certainly not impossible that I might write something with no aspec characters at all, I’m very partial to writing them, so I expect that anything else I write in the future will include at least a few
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A huge thank you to Jasmine for joining me today! Check out these books if you're looking for more ace and aro characters in your fantasy as well as some truly gorgeous book covers.
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