Get ready to learn more about the book A Circle Outside in this discussion with sapphic author Linda Rosewood.
Join us for an exclusive peek behind the scenes as we quiz Linda Rosewood about A Circle Outside, writing, reading, and more.
This book is part of the California category in the 2026 IHS Reading Challenge.
Why did you write A Circle Outside?
Even though this story takes place forty years ago, the drama of the story has relevance for now. The cultural references are entertaining; you don’t have to recognize them to enjoy the story.
In the 1980s, it was the first time in history that women were able to live together, to own property, and to control their reproduction outside of male supervision and control. At the same time, a feminist movement and a gay rights movement came together in the lesbian feminists. The world had never seen anything like lesbian feminists before. For the first time lesbian women had the civil right to invent their own social, economic, artistic networks. I wanted to write a story about what that was like. I came of age at this time, when lesbian culture was thriving.
Nowadays, most straight people have lesbian friends and co-workers and neighbors. Everyone says that lesbians are just like anyone else, except that they partner with other women. But this isn’t entirely true. Lesbians, whether they are in a relationship or not, are not like straight women. One of the things that distinguishes lesbian women from other women is that we say “no” to men in a significant way. There really is nothing more dangerous than a woman saying “no” to a man. When lesbians are in public life, that’s proof that it is possible to say “no” to men and survive it. Not all lesbians see themselves as having this relationship to power, but I always have.
Who is your favorite character in the book?
I honestly say that I don’t have a favorite character. I wrote drafts of the scenes from every character’s point of view so I could know her desires and struggles. All of the characters are based on people I know as well as myself—even Gloria, who is sometimes awful to be around. And Robin, who is so cool and wonderful, is also the source of much of the conflict.
What inspired the idea for A Circle Outside?
The story grew from three elements. The conflict, the world, and each character’s inner struggle.
I have always loved reading feminist women-only utopia novels. Many of these stories begin great, but halfway through, the main conflict is always the arrival of men who disturb the perfect world created by women.
I wanted to write a women’s utopia novel where the conflict comes from the women themselves. I wanted a story where women argued, and had by necessity developed techniques to resolve their conflicts. Women are stronger together when we can argue effectively. In real life, too often an early conflict in a group breaks it apart because they have no experience resolving conflict. I wanted to show how conflicts can be either resolved, or indicate it is time for some members of the group to leave, without acrimony.
Over the years I sought out conflict resolution techniques and experienced how it can work, and deliver moments of grace after an argument. I also learned that sometimes a person is in the wrong group and needs to be somewhere else. It’s normal to be free to leave and go somewhere else if you can’t get along.
There is an element of magical realism in the book, but I wanted to tell a story about magic that is real. The only real magic is self-transformation.
Santa Cruz is a university town and good weather that attracted adherents of every weird belief for a hundred years. For instance, many people believe in past lives. They imagine that in past lives they were someone important. But if past lives were real, most of us would have been ordinary people.
I don’t believe in past lives, but I thought that an ordinary woman who said she could remember all her past ordinary lives would be a way to tell stories about women in history who had a first-hand memory of the past. But also that she would be incredibly traumatized. She also might have figured out how to hang on to her money over her lifetimes so that she wouldn’t be poor anymore.
So the story started with a supporting character, but all the characters struggle with their own trauma. What is it that we fear the most, why do we fear it, and how do we understand fear so that it doesn’t take over our decisions?
Mythologically and psychologically this fear is sometimes called The Shadow. We all have fears that shape our reactions to obstacles and trauma. Sometimes after a while you realize that there are areas in life where we are our own worst enemy.
That inner enemy has many names, but basically, most human beings need to learn that the thing you hate about yourself is your greatest strength. The protagonist of A Circle Outside needs to accept herself as an artist, and to move into real adulthood after a toxic relationship with her mother. She’s in her early twenties, and this is a common obsession of someone at that stage of life.
What part of A Circle Outside was the most fun to write?
The conversation with visiting lesbians at the While The Days Are Still Getting Longer party. I wanted to recreate a lesbian conversation, with humor and curiosity, opinions and catch phrases. It also contains a limerick I wrote. In the real world, there’s a pagan prayer that the characters would have known, but I couldn’t get permission to reprint it, so I wrote my own version, and I think it’s better. I also was able to write to Marge Piercy and get permission to reprint lines from one of her poems. That was amazing. A later book will include lyrics by Ferron.
How much research did you need to do for A Circle Outside?
I read many issues of Maize, a magazine about women’s land and Lesbian Connection of the period. These exist online, as well as many other primary sources. I did deep dives on lesbian culture of the time, even though I was there. I researched how to survive a relationship with a narcissist, the history of paganism in California, and the science of redwood trees. It had been many years since I had tripped, so I ate psilocybin mushrooms again when I was last in Santa Cruz, where it is legal. Before I wrote the book, I already knew about ritual, breath work, tarot, and cooking for a gathering of women, but did even more research and learned about things I didn’t know.
If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?
The next book starts the minute after A Circle Outside ends. The first book is about the obsessions of young women: lovers, friends, your mother. The second book is about the responsibilities of motherhood, even if you don’t have children yourself. I have a lot to understand about my experiences of lesbian motherhood, so need to write that story. And the third book is about the legacy of old women. I worked on the first book for ten years, and I hope I can finish the next two before I’m dead.
What is your writing process like?
I get satisfaction from “having written” although writing itself is very difficult. My wife was a paramedic and she taught me something she learned doing that work. “You can stand anything for fifteen minutes.” When I think of the many fifteen minutes she had to endure, I decided I could endure twenty minutes of imagining characters dealing with desires and obstacles and decisions. So when I just can’t get started writing, I set a timer for twenty minutes, and I must write until the end. Usually, if I write for twenty minutes, I can write for two hours. Getting started is the hard part.
I try to write a scene every day. If I can do that, I’m done for the day, and keep writing if I want to, or go swimming or take a bath and fill up the well again. I am a dedicated plotter because once I learned that I had enough imagination to write a book, I can write anything in all directions and end up with six stories instead of one good one.
Where do you usually write, and what do you need in your writing space to help you stay focused?
I live a long way from Santa Cruz, California where I spent most of my life. My wife and I rent a farmhouse in Donegal, Ireland, that is older than America. This means nothing to the people around here, but is cool to us. I write on my laptop in the sitting room. We live near a beautiful beach, just like we did in Santa Cruz, and there’s surfers here, and tourists in the summer clogging up the roads.
Donegal is a border county, so our neighbors have a strong tradition of getting along with people who are different from themselves. Like California, it’s a beautiful place that attracts tourists, and at the same time, rural people have lived here for a long time making a living as best they can.
We made friends early on, and no one seems to be bothered by two old married ladies from California. Don’t tell the other Americans, but Donegal is the best place in Ireland. Everyone says the weather is shite, and maybe it is, but I don’t have to commute to work or pick up the kids at school. I just sit by the fire and type away, inventing a world filled with my imaginary friends.
If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?
I would have liked to spend a day with Ursula Le Guin. We could have talked about the Californian landscape, which she recreated so lovingly in Always Coming Home, my favorite of her books. We could have talked about utopias, gender politics, the reality of sexual differences between male and female humans, and where that matters. We wouldn’t agree on everything, but we’d both be interested in each other’s stories.
What has helped or hindered you most when writing a book?
What helps: being retired with a pension. This happened because I figured out the secret to an early retirement: 1) no husband 2) no kids 3) get paid like a man. I also am married to a woman who doesn’t mind that I spend long hours by myself; she likes to do that too. She looks forward to everything I write, and tells me when it is “not great.” I can trust her judgement.
What hinders: In the middle of writing A Circle Outside, I had chemo for breast cancer. That was a huge inconvenience. I’m lucky I had good care and got through it. I’m aware now that I won’t live forever, and if I have stories to tell, I need to work on them every day.
When you’re writing an emotional or difficult scene, how do you set the mood?
Sometimes I use specific music to help me write difficult scenes. I’m not sure why, but some of A Circle Outside was written under the influence of Leonard Cohen’s last album. Some of it was written with a Spotify playlist of women’s music that I made public. Some of it was written with trance music that people use for ecstatic dance session. I don’t always use music, but if I’m having trouble really getting into the emotions, then I find the music that supports those feelings.
What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?
I taught myself how to write novels and read many books on how to do it. In my top five is Story Genius by Lisa Cron. I use her exercises for every character.
Whatever idea for the story you begin with, you find the character’s world view, and ask why she imagines the world is like that. By asking specifically why she thinks that way, you discover key moments in her life that solidified that her world view is correct, and then understand why, when the novel begins, that worldview isn’t going to work anymore. You understand what she has done in the past and why she did it. Then you can understand why external events in the story matter to her, and how her decisions will be different than before and lead to better outcomes, or the same as before and lead to suffering.
A similar technique for linking the external plot with the internal changes is found in Blueprint for a Book by Jennie Nash. Once I’ve done the Cron exercises, I let Nash force me to focus on what’s important.
What author in your genre do you most admire, and why?
Some of my favorite books about lesbian culture are the early novels of Sarah Schulman: The Sophie Horowitz Story, After Dolores, People in Trouble, Rat Bohemia, Girls Visions and Everything. Her later work is more experimental which I liked too. She keeps learning and deeply thinking and writing about important things. Everyone should read her non-fiction, it’s crucial. People in Trouble was the basis for the broadway hit Rent, but she was not credited or paid. She wrote a great book about what that loss meant to her. I admire her as a writer and a teacher as well as just enjoying her books.
What type of books do you enjoy reading the most?
I don’t read in genres anymore, although when I was younger I read lots of science fiction. I like fiction that has ethical or political themes, but also adventure with a strong female protagonist. I wish there were more female writers who could use the tragicomic vein like Charles Dickens and Tom Robbins. Sheri Tepper was one of them, and her books that satirize religion are excellent. I know it will sound odd, but I just finished a series by Naomi Novice about the Napoleonic Wars. It has tender friendships between men, strong women, complicated villains, thrilling sea voyages, and dragons. I also like folktales retold, and Novik has written several of those that I loved.
What books did you grow up reading?
Beverly Cleary, Ray Bradbury, J.R.R. Tolkien, E.L. Konigsburg, Madeleine L’Engle, Scott O’Dell, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Dr. Seuss, John Christopher, Astrid Lindgren. Looking over that list, as a girl I liked books about kids having adventures, kids surviving on their own, kids with big imaginations. I have always liked books with a strong voice and beautiful, poetic prose. These are the kind of books I would like to write.
What books have you read more than once in your life?
I read the Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, and Harry Potter series again and again. I read them to listen to the voice and for how the authors invent a world. And because these stories take their time to explore themes about friendship and ethics, I find them satisfying even though I know how they end.
Describe your favorite reading spot.
I love it that I can now read anywhere, with a thousand books in my pocket if I need to. I keep books of poetry on my phone in case of emergency. I used to bring too many magazines with me on the bus in case I finished one and was in danger of being bored.
