Melissa Bashardoust

Girl, Serpent, Thorn takes its shape from Persian myth and the Shahnameh: a princess whose skin poisons whatever touches it, kept away from the court for everybody else's safety, and the demons who offer her a way out at a price. Bashardoust is Iranian American and grew up with those stories at home and with European fairy tales everywhere else. Her first novel was a Snow White retelling in which the stepmother is by far the more interesting woman. She studied English and women's studies in California and writes queer heroines into forms that historically left no room for them.