This morning, Fablecroft Publishing announced the table of contents for their Cranky Ladies of History anthology, and I am delighted to say that I’ve got a story in this book! My piece is set in early medieval Iceland (surprise, surprise) and tells the story of Hallgerðr Höskuldsdóttir, a very cranky lady indeed, who caused no end of trouble in her lifetime. Before writing this story, I always thought Hallgerðr was a pretty despicable character — largely because that’s how she is depicted in one of Iceland’s most famous sagas, Njáls saga. But when I started thinking about how I would tell the story from her perspective, I saw a whole other side to her, a side that was never shown in the medieval narrative. And so now, even though I still think Hallgerðr is one of the crankiest of cranky women, I also love her.

Tehani Wessely and Tansy Rayner Roberts have come together to edit this anthology, and they received enormous support for the Pozible campaign. “Late in 2013,” Tehani explained earlier this year, “Australian writer and editor Liz Barr blogged about Tsaritsa Sophia Alekseyevna of Russia, dubbing her one of history’s great “cranky ladies”. Being the editor I am, I immediately thought of several fantastic writers I would love to see write short stories about history’s cranky ladies, those women who bucked the trends of their time and took on cultural norms to challenge society’s rules and ideas about how women should behave.”

Fast forward to now, and here’s the line-up (listed in roughly chronological order). I’m so excited to be sharing the ToC with so many excellent writers — and I’m dying to read all of these stories!