It’s still November for several more hours! And here we are with November’s installment of Present Writers. For more context on this series, see the first post, Marta Randall, or subsequent posts about Dorothy Heydt, Barbara Hambly, Jane Yolen, and Suzy McKee Charnas. Today we’re talking about the work of fabulous fabulist Sherwood Smith! (Disclaimer: Sherwood is a personal friend.)
I think one of the patterns that’s beginning to emerge is that many of the authors I want to write appreciations of for this series are writers who have left narrow pigeonholes and written in several different fields or sub-fields. Sherwood is no exception, with books ranging from secondary world fantasy to space opera, stopping off at various portals along the way. Sherwood has collaborated fruitfully with Rachel Manija Brown and with Dave Trowbridge in very different series. She was also a Nebula nominee for one of her (many, lovely) short stories. Also, she’s currently the Royal Historian of Oz! How cool is that.
While I’m really fond of several of Sherwood’s books, I think my favorite is the Inda quartet. The complexity of human relationships represented in it is beautiful and just what I want to see in fantasy. I remember there being a moment 40 or 50 pages in where everything just clicked for me, all the fantasy names and nicknames and social systems just…fell into place and I was immersed completely in this world that felt simultaneously very familiar and very alien.
One of the things that makes Sherwood such a gift to all the rest of us writers in this present time is her focus on learning. She teaches others both formally and informally, laying things out with no pretension or fuss, helping people to see their own and others’ work from different angles that make the lightbulbs go on over their heads. And she talks freely and cheerfully about her own learning process, not just as a thing that happened in the past but as an ongoing process, every year of her life. That’s something we can all aspire to. Whether you start with Wren to the Rescue or Inda or Stranger, Sherwood always has so much to teach us–and usually in the most fun, swashbuckling way.