I didn’t mean to like this post. It was a mistake. Here’s why. You say intellectuals mostly don’t qualify because their struggle is against the church, the man’s world or such. You say it’s not interesting to draw. You just disneyfied your project.

Oh no, I hope it didn't come off as that! I certainly have nothing against intellectual woman-vs-institution entries: Hypatia, Ida B Wells, and Naziq al-Abid all fit that bill, and I've got several more I've done for the book. It's not that they don't qualify. What I'm saying is they are more difficult to do, because they require a lot more research -- and in some cases, that research doesn't have a guaranteed payoff.

Take, for example, "Amazing" Grace Hopper, one of the first computer programmers. She died in 1992, so I likely won't do a full-on entry on her anyway (as a general rule, I don't do people who've been alive in recent memory, although I do highlight them as Modern Worthies).

Grace was an amazing human being with a truly staggering list of accomplishments. But looking through the Wikipedia overview of her life (as I often do when deciding whether to plunge deeper into research), the only speedbump that jumps out is that people didn't believe her that computers could run compiled code. 

An entry on her would have to dig deep and figure out who, exactly, said that. Why did they say it? What was the context and the world in which this happened? Was this an ad-hominem thing? Was she dismissed because she was a woman? Was it an honest mistake? Were there other obstacles that weren't mentioned in articles about her?

All of these are unknowns to me at this point. I'd have to *hope* a biography on her would cover those questions in a reliable fashion. If not, I'd have to find a lot more info in a lot more places to answer said questions. And the entry could shift a lot at that point. Maybe it turns out to be systematic of a larger conflict I can write about - not what I expected, but cool! Maybe it's chalked up to "navy culture," which I don't know much about and certainly wouldn't want to make sweeping statements on. Maybe there ends up being no conflict at all. I don't know.

Would it be a bad entry if I couldn't find any conflict to write about? Not necessarily, but a biography without conflict runs the risk of coming across as a resume. It's far from impossible to craft a compelling article from that, but it is usually difficult, and takes more time. Making these entries compelling is hugely important to me - half the reason I'm using a pop culture aesthetic and write like I'm telling a story at a house party is to make history more fun and accessible. 

So when I say that intellectual-versus-institution entries are tricky, that's what I mean. They take more time, craft, and thought than other entries. I do one of these entries every 2-3 days (including weekends), just to keep up with both book and web. I'm far from an expert draftsman (I redraw a lot), so it takes me between 10-20 hours to draw one of these images, before factoring in research time. I love brainy ladies (just had a half hour conversation with a friend about Ada Lovelace earlier today), but I have to be realistic about my workload: taking on difficult entries can really throw a spanner into the plans.

I hope that didn't come across as defensive or bullheaded. I'm really just trying to explain where my head's at. The direction of this project has changed a fair bit from its inception, and it'll only get more honed and refined as time goes on. Where my head is at will change too. I appreciate y'all keeping with me, writing in when you have something to say, and keeping me on my toes. Now that RP has a website separate from this Tumblr, I can have more of a dialog going, and I look forward to that.

Okay, it's midnight, back to work.

This is definitely an area of the world that I’ve struggled to find good candidates for. As of this writing, out of the 917 potential women on my master list, only 8 are from Australia or New Zealand - and one of those is dingo-flinging cannibalistic sun goddess Bila, who I’m just gonna admit at this point is never getting an entry.

So, what criteria do I go by? It’s loose, it’s evolved over time, and it continues to change, but generally I look for three things:

Agency. (do they do what they want?)

Conflict. (do they have trouble doing what they want?)

Personality. (do they approach their goals with character?) 

This is more difficult to find than you might think.

Ancient poets and queens definitely had agency, but it’s often hard to find personality or conflict.

Historical headstrong women had conflict and personality, but often not much agency. This makes for a lot of tragic endings, which aren’t much fun to write (or read) about.

Many intellectuals had agency, but usually, due to being born into privilege (thus being able to become an intellectual), didn’t have much conflict. The conflict I find regularly is institutional (woman vs church, woman vs man’s world, etc) - which is both tricky to illustrate (draw her shaking a fist at a building, I guess?) and difficult to write about in an interesting, upbeat way.

This is one reason why I tend towards warrior women in the entries — they usually fit all three criteria, and, as a bonus, often come out as victorious. But obviously, none of this is set in stone. Neither Etain or Corn Maiden, for example, had much agency. I’ve written on plenty of women with tragic endings. Bottom line, interesting stories trump everything.

On top of that (and various language/access difficulties in research), I’m trying to save the best entries for the book, so the print edition has wide-ranging representation. So when I do find someone super-awesome for a hitherto-unrepresented part of the world, I often squirrel them away.

Anyway. Just a general FYI of where my head’s at. :) Believe me, I look at the blank spots on the map too, and think about what I can do to fill them in.

NEW WEBSITE!

For this week's entry, I'm giving you all a brand new website. I put a ton of work into it (its mobile-ready, it should be pretty accessible to those with disabilities, and you can browse all the entries via Google Map!), so go check it out. Many thanks to my brother, who tested the damn thing backward, forwards, and upside down. This means a couple things for how I handle the RP tumblr. I'm going to continue posting like regular, but probably more frequently. Basically, I'll be able to talk to you all more easily (publicly reply to asks!) without gunking up the site and making it hard to navigate. I can also post other interesting stuff on here, like all the Modern Worthy stuff I've been posting to my personal tumblr and to Facebook.

Lastly: since it's the day before American Thanksgiving, I thought I would take a moment to directly thank you all.

When I left my job at DreamWorks back in April, I had a half dozen projects on my docket — a novel, two screenplays, some comics, and this. This was just a little side project, mostly for my own amusement, and to better my illustration skills. Some of the entries were basically just dark jokes without much substance. Some were more art experiments than anything. Some were just weird.

But the response was enormous, and immediate, and life-changing.

I left DreamWorks because I didn’t feel like I was growing anymore. I’d lost the fire for my job, and no number of giant dragon-related explosions was bringing it back. I wanted to set out on my own tell stories that I loved, even if nobody else did. I wanted to be the carpenter instead of the tool. I wanted to really push myself.

Fast-forward six months. I’m working 16 hour days, 7 days a week. I read a new book every 2-3 days, and I regularly draw until I fall asleep. My every waking moment, I am stalked by the book schedule, and the twin fears of falling behind and releasing something that sucks.

But I’m growing. And learning. And I couldn’t be happier.

And it’s all thanks to you. So thank you.

A 15-20 minute stop-motion animated film about Grace O'Malley, the 16th century Irish pirate queen.

Whoa. This is a Kickstarter for a stop-motion Grace O'Malley movie. You know, the pirate queen who terrorized Irish coasts for years, culminating with meeting Elizabeth I (and dissing her to her face)? I KNOW you guys love your Grace O'Malley, so I just had to tell you.

AMAZON WEEK IS COMING - AND YOU CAN BE A PART OF IT.

In case you missed it - next week we're doing something a little different. Meaning you and me. In honor of this awesome news story about archaeologists uncovering actual Amazons' names (including "Battle-Cry", "Worthy of Armor", and, uh, "Hot Flanks"), I'm opening it up to submissions from all of you to accompany the piece I make for next week.

So come up with your own Amazon name! Be it "Ball Collector," "Dances Like Cow," "Spanks Too Hard", or whatever you come up with. Let's see your personal Amazon. Make it one of your Inktober drawings.

No restrictions. Do whatever art style you want. Genderbend. I don’t care if your personal Amazon is a pony or a piece of bread or a 7th-dimensional math equation.

The rules:

Submissions are due to [email protected] by the end of the day next Tuesday.

Make sure to include the name you’d like to be credited under, and a link. (post it on your own website/tumblr if you’d like!)

If you post about it, please use the hashtag #nameanamazon (on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, wherever).

Since I anticipate a ton of entries and will likely be grouping them into 10-picture photo galleries, maybe include a watermark or signature on your image, so everyone knows whose work was done by whom.

I lay claim to absolutely none of this (aside from the one I draw) and none of it’s going in the book. Your work is your own. This is for fun. :) Also to provide some relief to me so I can work on book-only entries.

Let me know what you think of this when you email [email protected]! It’s an experiment.

Dearly Rejected,

There is going to be a Rejected Princesses book.

It's being published by Dey Street, an imprint of Harper Collins. It's going to be out in 2016. There will be around a hundred entries. And I'm totally freaking out about it.

This would not be possible without the kindness and support that you have all shown. When I left my job back in April, I did so thinking I wouldn't find any success for the first 2-3 years. Instead, this little side project with the silly doodles and trivia-babble took off.  Every time I think about the number of people who've enjoyed the project, the enthusiasm and excitement displayed for my wayward scribbles... it overwhelms me. So thank you.

Now, here's where we're at: I'm gonna fill this book with rad stories until it's about ready to explode. But many are going to have to be exclusive to the book, so it's worth everyone's while - meaning you may have to wait a while to see some of your favorites. I ask for your patience, and in return the Dey Street team and I are gonna make this book the best it can be. Speaking of favorites, I'm sure you have an opinion (perhaps two!) on who should be in the book. Perhaps you'd even like to voice said opinions! Turns out you can, through this form right here. Ah, the magic of technology. It's gonna be a buttload of work to hit the deadline. I'm still working out how to balance the web entries with the book-only ones, and that's going to be a learning process, so please bear with me. When pre-orders become available, I'll post about it again, but it won't be for a while.

By the way, if you see people saying this is "old news" or yelling "first" in the comments - I actually announced this yesterday on the mailing list. Which you can sign up for, if you want to. Or not! You can do anything. I believe in you.

Thank you again. This is gonna be awesome.

-Jason