Moniquill Blackgoose

Fan
Name:	Moniquill Blackgoose
Alias(es):	Monique Poirier
Type:	fan, author
Fandoms:	science fiction, fantasy, costumer, blogging, steampunk
Communities:	steampunk, cosplay
Other:	Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe
URL:	Moniquill
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Moniquill Blackgoose is the author of "To Shape a Dragon’s Breath", which has won both the Nebula and Lodestar Awards. She began writing science fiction and fantasy when she was twelve.

She is an enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe and a lineal descendant of Ousamequin Massasoit. She is an avid costumer and an active member of the steampunk community. She has blogged, essayed, and discussed extensively across many platforms the depictions of Indigenous and Indigenous-coded characters in sci-fi and fantasy.

I was born into a nerdy family. I attended renfaires while still in diapers, and got The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia as bedtime stories. I read Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet, and Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series, and Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown. I adored The Last Unicorn and The Neverending Story and Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal and Willow.

There were no indigenous people in these fantasy worlds, though.

She grew up observing representation of indigenous cultures primarily in Peter Pan, Pocahontas and Orson Scott Card’s book series, Tales of Alvin Maker. Of these representations, she states: "There are... problems..."

She subsequently began to write stories that excluded the same people:

I was a young Seaconke Wampanoag woman. None of my characters ever, EVER, were. Because people like me didn’t exist in stories like that. My artistic vision and my creative process were hugely affected by the stories I’d been told my entire life... Indigenous North American people simply didn’t exist at all.

When I wrote terrible Star Trek fan fiction, I could have indigenous people in the future, because Star Trek had done that. The future is di­verse. But fantasy was not for me. The most diverse fantasy I saw was Earthsea – it’s got brown people in it.

As she matured, her reading and writing interests expanded into other directions:

The fact is, most of the books that I adore and that have shaped me as a writer are not parts of series, or are not fantasy, or are not even fiction. When writing To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, I spent a lot of time reading Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and actual Victorian-era etiquette and fashion guides.

Ultimately, she began to express herself in more authentic ways:

I want better representation for young indigenous readers than what I got.

I want to help tell those stories.

Fan Response to Dragon's Breath

I love a magic school book, and I love a dragon book, and I especially love a dragon school book. To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose was such a great entry to the genre. I couldn’t put it down, and I keep thinking about its innovative world-building. Anequs is the protagonist I didn’t know I’ve been looking for: whip-smart, calm in the face of whatever comes her way, and able to tell what is worth picking a fight over. If you are looking for some dragons to fill up your winter reading list, look no further, because I could not put this book down... ... To Shape a Dragon’s Breath is amazing, compelling, queer, Indigenous fantasy, and it should absolutely be on any fantasy fan’s to-read list. I couldn’t put it down, and I cannot wait for further books in the series.