Teenagers with Superpowers & The Magic of Otherness: Rosie Garland on Rebellion, Transformation, and Writing Without Labels

From crafting hybrid stories to celebrating the everyday extraordinary, Garland dives into her latest short story collection and reveals why the liminal spaces and misfits hold the real magic

A very happy Friday Scribblers,

The longer daylight hours are bringing me joy; I hope you’re finding small comforts through the winter season. I’m told that Monday 20th is BLUE MONDAY, said to be the most depressing day of the year, so we’ve decided to set you up with a charming blue book cover, with a heart full of hope to give you something to look forward to - coupon code BLUEMONDAY will give you 5% off pre-orders for ‘The Wager and the Bear’ by John Ironmonger, and we’ll throw in something edible too! It will be our first book with painted edges, and I’m quite proud of this one, can’t wait for copies to arrive from the printer!! You may not be able to see here, but the long edge has the boats on the side, and a starry night on the other edges…

In a haze of jetlag from my Indian fellowship (so close now!!) I’ll be hosting the below Manchester events, which we’d love you to come and natter at, all in celebration of northern short story writers. On Thu 6th of December, we’re conjuring magic and celebrating difference at Waterstones Deansgate with Rosie Garland; on Wed 12th of December we’ll be spinning tales of the North with SJ Bradley and FOTW poet turned novelist, Rachel Bower at Blackwell’s Manchester.

Today we have the joy of celebrating the launch of the queer, folklorish short story collection ‘Your Sons and Your Daughters are Beyond’! We spoke to Rosie to explore her inspirations and get you a sneak peek into some of the stories…

1. Let's delve into the collection's themes of transformation, rebellion, and otherness. The title story features teenagers transforming with supernatural abilities. What inspired you to use this metaphor for exploring adolescent change and parental powerlessness?

I’m fascinated by the choice of the word ‘supernatural’… When creating these teenagers I didn’t see their abilities as supernatural at all! I think it has something to do with the fact I was raised on stories where the magic just happened; fairy stories for example. Magical events were an integral, even unremarkable part of a world, rather than strange or uncanny. This feature isn’t limited to fairy tales. Take Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, where the hero, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning to discover he is a giant insect. One of the (many) things I love is how the change is never explained away. It just… happens. Samsa doesn’t react with horror or disbelief. His concern is how to get out of bed and make it to work on time.

Yes, the young people in my story go through a dramatic change. My focus is how the people around them deal – or rather, don’t deal – with those changes. And the reason for the title? It riffs off the famous Bob Dylan song ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’. In particular this verse:

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the way
If you can't lend a hand

It’s as relevant today as when written in 1962. I find it both ironic and intensely frustrating that folk who sang along to those lyrics and raised their fists in solidarity are the same people who complain about ‘kids these days’ and (yes, you guessed it) criticise things they make no effort to understand (trans issues are a prime example).

My story is not so much ‘parental powerlessness’ as whether or not a parent is willing to listen. One parent supports her children through their changes. The other is so consumed by personal dogma he can neither see nor hear.

2. Your work spans poetry, novels, and performance art. How did this cross-genre background influence the hybrid nature of these stories?

I’ve been this way for as long as I remember: poetry, fiction, songs, lyric essays and things that fall between and outside. Different aspects of myself respond to different situations, resulting in different expressions: a novel for one, flash fiction for another. Rather like having multiple tabs open in the browser of the imagination. What matters is that I want to enter the world of the story and spend time with the characters.

I find beauty and excitement in writing from different perspectives and in different forms. Rather than exerting rigid control and forcing creativity to behave sensibly, I let go and write. With the help of a notebook beside the bed, or recording voice notes while walking, I venture into possibilities, and relish the fluidity. Being ‘in the flow’, if you will.

The categorisation comes after. Everything sorts itself neatly into boxes labelled short story, poem, novel, lyric. Except when it doesn’t. My writing has a tendency to inhabit in-between states – often termed hybrid – where I allow it to possess the fluid capacity to be different things at the same time, without the need to come down on one side. I’ve had poems published as flash fiction, and vice versa. I feel there’s an indefinable connection between the two. I can’t help thinking of Fitzgerald’s words: ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.’

3. You describe writing "through fragmentation & difficulty towards light." How does this philosophy manifest in stories like "Burning Girl" where your protagonist literally embodies light but faces pressure to extinguish it?

I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who’s been told to ‘take it down a notch’. As a kid I was labelled a show-off, a put-down reserved for girls who dare to take up space. When I persevered, I was called stubborn rather than determined.