The other day I came across this article in The Independent: Is this the death of the male novelist? The lonely life of a man writing fiction in 2025.

It reminded me of something I'd been thinking of for a while, especially every time I picked up a book in a genre like science fiction/fantasy written by a man, to find he'd written yet another book with mostly female protagonists (sometimes with laughable results, where the protagonist is dressed up as a woman but behaves like a stereotypical male rogue. Yes, Jack McDevitt, I'm looking at you!).

Don't get me wrong, I love books with female protagonists, especially since as a woman it's easier to identify with the characters. But I like more variety than that.

Up until around 2000, I felt I was reading fiction written by both men and women, in all genres. Some writers completely transcended their sex, but others provided either a male or female gaze with which their protagonists viewed their world, and I thoroughly enjoyed being exposed to both. As a woman, it's also interesting to get a peek into the mind of male protagonists, when created by a strong male writer.

Now, it's hard to find any novels by men, including in genres like science fiction/fantasy, which just a few decades ago, they dominated.

Because it seems, men have stopped reading fiction, while women today are the prime readers of it. Most of us who have men in our lives have heard them say they prefer non-fiction, but even so, if they're from earlier generations, they got encouraged to read when students, with a wide range of books to choose from, many written by men, if they needed to identify with their own sex. In my youth, I knew men who were as excited by fiction as I, and even had their own ambitions to be writers. A long long time ago...

And now, without a market, unless they are able to or want to create strong female-driven narratives, a lot of men just aren't bothering to write anymore either.

While I've thoroughly appreciated the representation of my sex across the literary landscape, with strong independent female characters and all that, I find I'm really missing the male gaze in fiction.

I wonder, if any women are reading this, do you feel the same way?

We all know that the best-laid plans can go awry. However, when it happens to us, we marvel at how it happened.

Getting swept up in the euphoria of finally ticking a checkbox off the list of things one wants to achieve in life is easy. Likewise, one can be quick to make promises to others and to oneself, and to plan a multitude of projects. Sometimes, those projects get done promptly and with the same fervor as the previous, fueled by the momentum. Other times, one gets lost in the sea of ideas, overwhelmed by the possibilities, and distracted by the mundane.

I was a victim of the latter. Ideas swirled in my head for new stories, but they never flew off the page as quickly as before. New projects at work worried my brain and took up way too much space. Preoccupation with real-life events took me away from the imagined worlds that live in my mind.

The result is pieces of a literary tapestry that is yet to be woven. Small bits and pieces of stories that I'm slowly knitting together.

But here is my promise to you and to myself. Two new short stories will see the light of day by Fall 2025. Stay tuned here and on social media for more information. I'm taking my time, but I'll eventually get to where I want to be. Isn't it all about the journey?

With this, I leave you with a track from Montreal artist KevinMxDermott intitled Take Your Time.