Monique Poirier
Author of To Shape a Dragon's Breath
About the Author
Image credit: Photo by Angelina Rose Photography. Originally uploaded by user Verkruissen. Apparently sourced from publisher's website. Re-uploaded to remove improper promotional/biographical material.
Series
Works by Monique Poirier
Goose Boy 1 copy
Associated Works
Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms (2025) — Contributor — 32 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1983-08-05
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- phlebotomist
- Organizations
- Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe
- Awards and honors
- Astounding Award for Best New Writer (2025)
- Short biography
- Moniquill/Monique - yes the same one from anywhere else you've seen that name (gaia, LJ, AIM, etc) since around 2001. Time traveller from the year 1983. She/her. Bi. NDN. Enrolled member of the seaconke wampanoag tribe. Phlebotomist.Monique Poirier is an enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe and a lineal descendant of Ousamequin Massasoit. She is an avid costumer, and active member of the steampunk community. Her work in steampunk has been featured at Beyond Victoriana, Silver Goggles, and in the books Anatomy of Steampunk: The Fashion of Victorian Futurism, Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution, Speculative Imperialisms: Monstrosity and Masquerade in Postracial Times, and Steaming Into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthology. She has blogged, essayed, and discussed extensively across many platforms the depictions of NDN and NDN-coded characters in sci-fi and fantasy, and would like to help other authors better understand how to produce respectful and well thought out indigenous characters and what the common pitfalls are in doing so.
- Nationality
- Wampanoag
- Map Location
- USA
Members
Reviews
This is an engaging, highly original steampunk-tinged young adult book. After fifteen-year-old Anequs finds and is bonded with a dragon hatchling, the first dragon her people have encountered in some two hundred years, she is forced to attend a school run by white colonialist rulers that trains up other young people bonded with dragons. In this alt history setting, the rulers are both English and Nordic, and Christianity is not the dominant religion. Language is quiet different as well, but show more there are often hints to help readers identity place names parallel to our world or to give context to vastly different traditions; sometimes, though, I felt a bit adrift, even as I admired the incredible research that must have gone into the world-building.
This book doesn't follow the usual plot progression of the boarding school trope. The focus isn't on the usual bullies and classroom anxieties. I welcome this fresh take. Without delving into spoilers, this book addresses vast political consequences. Anequs is a stone vast into an ocean, causing incredible ripples. show less
This book doesn't follow the usual plot progression of the boarding school trope. The focus isn't on the usual bullies and classroom anxieties. I welcome this fresh take. Without delving into spoilers, this book addresses vast political consequences. Anequs is a stone vast into an ocean, causing incredible ripples. show less
There is Fantasy to escape and there is Fantasy to step outside to better look back upon ourselves. TO SHAPE A DRAGON’S BREATH takes a serious approach within the young adult fantasy genre to reflect the failures of our world. A thinly veiled but richly imagined alternative history of earth with enough sign posts to keep you on track—an indigenous culture clashes with a European white culture. Dragons happen to be the sticking point here but as with all such clashes, the dominant culture show more will always find something. I quickly became engrossed in the characters and indigenous cultures are my soft spot so the 500 pages immersed and swept me away. This avoids the nonsensical romantic fawning prevalent in young adult lit—instead tenderly sketched relationships mesh together people who care about each other. The world will not end if hearts are broken—the stakes are indeed much higher than that. For which I am immensely grateful. Would love this tale of a non-white non-superhero young girl taking on the world so far with only her wit and guile to gain more traction. Appreciate that a series spotlighting dragons dared to have an entire first book with a dragon too young to fly. That is confidence in your story telling—when you don’t have to rely on something flashy to bail you out. You may be surprised how little happens over 500 pages but more surprised by how much you don’t mind. Waiting for the next. (I should also mention that it is LGBTQ friendly in fantastic and non-patronizing ways) show less
One of the things I love about genre fiction is that sense of dialogue, the idea that later books are in conversation with earlier books. I don't know what author Moniquill Blackgoose was actually thinking, but it very much seemed to me that this book was in dialogue with Temeraire and Harry Potter, among others. The main character is a native American woman who finds a dragon egg, in a world where dragons are fairly common, but native dragons largely died out from a plague when European show more settlers came to America. Temeraire shows us dragons all around the world, of course, but from Laurence's perspective; here, we get a sense of how native culture would deal with them differently. The protagonist must enroll in a white dragon school in order to be allowed to keep her dragon, and here the book feels like a very interesting take on Harry Potter and its ilk, with Blackgoose exploring the dynamics of class and race that underlie privilege, but which authors like Rowling do not meaningfully engage with. It's a slow burn, no big action sequences or anything, but that's exactly what I wanted out of this. I often say (borrowing from, I think, Jo Walton) that sf stories are mystery stories where the world itself is the mystery, and I loved that aspect of this book, as we slowly figure out how this alternate world functions the exploring our protagonist's place in it. Exactly what I want out of my YA fantasy, and I would gladly read the sequel whenever it is published; I had to stop myself from evangelizing about this book to everyone I interacted with. show less
Anequs is fifteen and lives with her family on Masquapaug Island. Because the island is remote and doesn't have resources like coal to attract notice, the Anglish conquerors have left them pretty much alone. But when Anequs finds a dragon egg, and the dragon chooses her - and while being Nampeshiweisit to a dragon is revered by her people, no one has seen one in 200 years - she determines that the best way to learn what she needs to help her people is to go to the Anglish school to learn show more dragoneering and how to shape the breath of a dragon.
This steampunk-y fantasy by enrolled Seaconke Wampanoag member Moniquill Blackgoose should have wide appeal. Anequs is a great character, I loved her narration and no-nonsense approach to life even as she struggles to understand the often nonsensical rules of Anglish life and "civility". There is depth in the history of the world, which is not quite like our own but has certain parallels. You can tell the author knows the tropes of fantasy and also what she wants to do with them - going to a school is common but subversively going to the conquerors' school, not so much. I also loved the clear importance of story in multiple cultures and how it's used to create both what we would call mythology and history in Anequs's world. There's also a satisfying, cliff-hanger free ending, but you can bet I'll be looking up the next book as soon as it comes out. show less
This steampunk-y fantasy by enrolled Seaconke Wampanoag member Moniquill Blackgoose should have wide appeal. Anequs is a great character, I loved her narration and no-nonsense approach to life even as she struggles to understand the often nonsensical rules of Anglish life and "civility". There is depth in the history of the world, which is not quite like our own but has certain parallels. You can tell the author knows the tropes of fantasy and also what she wants to do with them - going to a school is common but subversively going to the conquerors' school, not so much. I also loved the clear importance of story in multiple cultures and how it's used to create both what we would call mythology and history in Anequs's world. There's also a satisfying, cliff-hanger free ending, but you can bet I'll be looking up the next book as soon as it comes out. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 4
- Also by
- 10
- Members
- 955
- Popularity
- #26,972
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 29
- ISBNs
- 9
- Favorited
- 1