Megan Giddings is an assistant professor at Michigan State University and affiliate faculty at Antioch University's low-residency MFA. Her first novel, Lakewood, was one of New York Magazine's top ten books of 2020, an NPR Best Book of 2020, a Michigan Notable book for 2021, a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards, and was a finalist for an LA Times Book Prize in the Ray Bradbury Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative category. Megan's writing has received funding and support from the Barbara Deming Foundation and Hedgebrook. She lives in the Midwest.
For fans of Margaret Atwood * Elle Magazine * Megan Giddings's prose is brimming with wonder. The Women Could Fly is a candid appraisal of grief, inheritance, and the merits of unruliness. * Raven Leilani, Bestselling author of Luster * Thoughtful novel, written in a wry, magical realist tone reminiscent of Kelly Linkand Carmen Maria Machado * Guardian * It can be tempting to read The Women Could Fly, which comes in the shadow of the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and call the book timely. But the relationship at the heart of this novel - between Jo and her mercurial mother - is much closer to timeless. * The New York Times * Profound, daring, wondrous, and utterly original. A feminist dystopian epic about a world where women's life choices are policed and female power and autonomy are the most dangerous forces of all, Megan Giddings' The Women Could Fly offers a hypnotic blend of enchantment and outrage. I could not love this novel more. * Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers * The Women Could Fly is one of the most exhilarating and fulfilling books I've read in years. It's wildly imaginative, funny, deep, radical, and full of suspense. I read it in one giant gulp of pleasure. Megan Giddings is truly a remarkable writer. * Jamie Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins * The Women Could Fly lifts the veil of this world to show, amid the old grief and injustice, a glimmer of necessary magic. This is a gem of a book about womanhood, lineage, and defiance. * C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold * The Women Could Fly drew me in immediately with its balance of humour and pain, magic and familiarity, and the unforgettable characters who are the novel's beating heart. Reading this book is like putting on an old winter coat and discovering a magical talisman in the pocket: it's full of warmth, comfort, and a whole new world of possibility. Megan Giddings is an exquisite novelist, and a writer to watch. * Adrienne Celt, author of End of the World House * Born of a radical imagination and executed with piercing elegance and skill, The Women Could Fly recalls legendary works of dystopian fiction but casts a spell all its own. Giddings is a rare and utterly original voice bridging the speculative and the all-too-real. * Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun * equal parts magic and revelatory. * LitHub on The Women Could Fly in LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2022 * Megan Giddings has a knack for taking her readers on a wild, suspenseful and thrilling ride. With descriptive setting and peculiar character development, I'm sure this novel is about to give us Dune meets The Salem Witch Trials realness. * Buzzfeed on The Women Could Fly * A book with echoes of Octavia Butler and Shirley Jackson. * Electric Lit on The Women Could Fly * Megan Giddings is a young writer to watch. * Kirkus Reviews * A dynamite story of a Black woman's resistance in an oppressive dystopia . . . Giddings ingeniously blends her harrowing parable of an all-powerful patriarchy with insights into racial imbalances . . . This is brilliant. * Publishers Weekly * In Megan Giddings' tightly wound supernatural dystopia . . . a book about witches, The Women Could Fly feels pretty gritty and grounded, and has plenty to say about the regular old dystopia we're stuck in. * The Philadelphia Inqirer *