Queentide: A Feminist Novel Making Waves

Sydney, Australia – 30 June 2021 - 'I began writing Queentide a few years ago,' author Donna Fisher explains. 'I was reading so many articles about domestic violence, the gender pay gap, women still facing discrimination at work...it was relentless. I wondered what it would take to make it stop, and I realised it would need the army of angry women Gloria Steinem talked about.'

The army Donna imagined was a group of women in a not-to-distant Australia, taking down a government that has attacked women’s rights.  A few months after finishing the dystopian novel,  thousands of women, including Donna, were marching across Australia and the UK.  'It felt like the book was coming to life. It was an actual feminist revolution. March4Justice and Reclaim These Streets showed what can happen when women decide enough is enough and refuse to be silenced.’

Despite this, literary agents told Donna that the time wasn’t right time for a story about angry women. ‘That just made me angry! Especially as at the time, women were literally taking to the streets to be heard, so I made the snap decision to publish it myself.’

She didn’t look back. Queentide has found an enthusiastic audience, with the book receiving an ‘Indie Books We Love’ award from LoveReading and glowing 4 and 5 star reviews, with some readers comparing Queentide to the ultimate in feminist dystopian fiction – The Handmaid’s Tale.

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing.  Facebook recently banned adverts for the novel.  “They told me it went against their community guidelines. At first I thought it was a mistake, they seemed to think I was a political organisation trying to incite an actual revolution! But after appealing and explaining it was a work of fiction, they still refused to run the ads. The issue appears to be the word ‘feminist’.  It was like something from the novel.’

But this setback hasn’t silenced Donna or held back Queentide. She has an online book tour scheduled in August and is in discussions to adapt the book into a screenplay. As Donna puts it, ‘you can’t silently smash the patriarchy. You have to make a lot of bloody noise.’

Queentide is available as an e-book and paperback from all good online retailers and bookshops. A percentage of proceeds from the book are donated to UN Women.