Of Sadie the Goat and Gallus Mag
Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 6:58 amSomeone make a movie about these women. Please.
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/Chronicle/excerpt/0811832376-e1.html
The above is an extract from Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas by Sara Lorimer. I’ve been trying to write a story for sumission to Jeff VanderMeer’s pirate anthology, and have been doing a little research into pirate women. I always knew there were a few, but it seems there have been a hell of a lot of women pirates over the centuries. Mary Read and Anne Bonny are fairly well known, but how about Rachel Wall, who “Traded her devout Presbyterian upbringing for lewd and wicked company” (see, there’s hope for all you Presbyterians out there), Cheng I Sao, who led a fleet of 2000 ships in the early 19th century, or Grace O’Malley, in the Elizabethan period, still a pirate in her seventies?
Here is quite an extensive list of female pirates and a few privateers.
On another tangent, my main character is a woman called the Captain, who has been in my mind for a few years. When I was very young, I used to imagine I was a girl living on a tropical island, and I think the Captain grew out of that other self. She’s a pirate and an adventuress, and she’s wholly resistant to regular narrative representation. She has a white dog with no eyes, though he doesn’t feature in this story. I had started associating her with the Hawaiian goddess Pele, and just yesterday I read that Pele has a white dog, or can take the shape of one - though it doesn’t seem to be eyeless.
March 4th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Arrr, pirates! Your pirate sounds very awesome indeed.
I wrote a pirate story, but opted to send it to Shimmer magazine’s pirate issue instead of VanderMeer’s antho, considering that competition for the latter would be way steeper and I might stand more of a chance with Shimmer. Am still waiting for a response. :S
My pirate has coins in his hair, which bring him dubious luck. (They’re meant to bring him good luck, but I don’t think they really do.)
March 5th, 2007 at 4:02 am
I do so love pirates. A friend of mine has an Anne Bonny story he dreams of making a comic out of some day.
March 5th, 2007 at 8:23 am
She is awesome, but so far I seem to suck at writing about her, lol. Good luck with with your pirate story - I hope it finds a port. Love the idea of the dubious lucky coins!
March 5th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Laurie - weird, your comments ended up in the spam
An Anne Bonny comic would rock - pirates definitely lend themselves to visual media.
March 5th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Oh noes! Your spam filter has figured me out! :O
March 5th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
……Damn monkeys, I’ll get you someday. D:
March 6th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I couldn’t stop them. I have failed. Orz.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
I have to admit, I’m officially tired of pirates. I suppose that makes me teh suck, especially considering their current vogue status in the halls of spec-fic writerdom, but I mean. Arrr? Seriously.
Then again, I was raised presbyterian. It explains my fondness for drafty stone chapels and steady rain.
March 7th, 2007 at 10:03 am
According to my understanding of Presbyterianism, if you are fond of something it must be bad for you. So no more stone chapels and steady rain for you. But you may have a pirate. One that goes “arrr”, just like I do in English pronunciation lessons.