Alex Penland – författare

When 16-year-old Kallis goes to see Aristophanes' latest play, she's inspired to sneak into the Assembly and try to make her name as an orator. It's not legal, of course. Even if she had been born a man, she is too young. After overthrowing Athens and changing the course of the city's future, her father raised her at his side. Even though the men around him treat her like a wild animal, Niko's always been proud of her outspoken intelligence. Kallis has no reason to suspect he'll be anything but supportive. She's spent her whole life immersed in politics. Is it so unthinkable that she wants to follow in her father's footsteps? Andrion is a feminist and queer novella, centred upon the relationship between father and daughter: he who risked everything to give her a better life, and she who's willing to risk it all again for the sake of a more equitable future. Against the backdrop of steampunk antiquity - an Ancient Athens where automatons line the city walls - Kallis sets out to incite a revolution. She's going to create a world where no one is forced to be someone they're not: a world where women can be artificers and orators, where one's future isn't determined by the track set out by their parents.