I won a thing!

When I was doing research for my PhD, I got into a conversation with a researcher from Guatemala, who told me about the impact of Spanish colonisation on local food consumption. In particular, she told me how the invaders had tried (and in some cases, succeeded) to eradicate the use of amaranth from the local diet, because it was perceived as a threat to Catholicism and the Spanish hegemony. I became very interested in this, and read as much as I could about this colonial intrusion – the pain it caused, the impact it had on the indigenous population, the legacy it has left. It’s a fascinating and appalling example of power enacted through food.

If I am awarded this grant, I would travel to Central America, specifically to Tewa Women United, to talk to some of the people who are working on reviving the use of amaranth and participate in some of their farming practices. I would weave some of those narratives, rooted in personal and ancestral experiences, into a spec fic novel that wraps around food as both culture and control. It would not be a one-to-one parallel, because that would be theft, and not my lane, but the ideas of predatory capitalism, driven by ideology and delivered through aggression, would bleed upwards into the story. I think ground-based research would give a richness and depth to the story that might otherwise feel a little manufactured.

The story itself will be steampunk fantasy, with an overarching narrative about power imbalance between nations. It will be divided into three parts, each focusing on a single character, experiencing the same series of events, but from different perspectives. The world-building, food systems, magic, and technology are already outlined. This trip would help to solidify the stories themselves.

Much of my work has to do with food, so this exercise would be well within my wheelhouse. However, I have started and stopped the writing of this novel a number of times already, because it is a story I want to do justice to. This grant would help me to both prioritise its writing, and to concretise the core story I want to tell.