Wicked Women: The Podcast

A witch, a princess, a wife, and a mother. Tahmineh has been remembered through her relationships with the men in her life, but what do we know about the woman herself?

Today I’m joined by Tanaz Bhathena, author of Witch Daughter, to explore a woman from Persian mythology whose choices help shape a famous story, yet whose own life remains largely in the background. Tahmineh appears in the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, the great Persian epic. There, she is the princess who approaches the warrior Rostam and becomes the mother of his son, Sohrab. She makes a bold entrance into the narrative, but we are given only glimpses of her world. Those glimpses became the starting point for Tanaz’s novel. In Witch Daughter, she imagines the experiences, relationships, and desires that might lie behind Tahmineh’s decisions, bringing her into a world shaped by court expectations, family loyalties, and rumours of witchcraft.

For this episode, we’re considering how a woman’s story changes when she is given the opportunity to tell it herself. What happens to the labels attached to her? How do we judge her choices once we understand more of what led to them? And can we sympathise with her without agreeing with everything she does? I came to Witch Daughter unfamiliar with the legend, and I found myself caught up in Tahmineh’s story from the beginning. I’m delighted to welcome Tanaz to discuss the woman behind the novel and the process of bringing her to the life.
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When we think of fairy tales, we tend to think of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen and, of course, Walt Disney. But what if some of the most important names in fairy-tale history have been missing from the story?

In seventeenth-century France, a remarkable group of women gathered in literary salons to write, debate, and reinvent stories filled with clever heroines, powerful fairies, dangerous marriages, and women determined to make their own choices. Their tales were enormously popular. They were published, performed, and read across Europe. They even helped establish the literary genre we now call the fairy tale. And then, over generations, many of their names disappeared from the story.

Today on Wicked Women, I’m joined by author Jane Harrington to discuss the women who helped shape the fairy-tale tradition, the extraordinary lives behind their stories, and how literary history came to remember the men while forgetting so many of the women. We’ll talk about rebellious princesses, seventeenth-century literary salons, censorship, scandal, and the painstaking detective work involved in recovering women whose stories have been scattered across archives for centuries.

Because sometimes the most fascinating part of a familiar story is discovering who was written out of it.
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Myths and legends are filled with women who have been reduced to a single label: the beautiful one, the unfaithful wife, the dangerous temptress, or simply the woman standing beside a celebrated hero. But behind those labels are far more complicated stories.

Today, I’m joined by Phoenicia Rogerson, author of Herc, Aphrodite, and her latest novel, Isolde. Together, we explore how she takes figures we think we know and uncovers the quieter, stranger, and deeply human moments that traditional legends often leave behind.

We discuss the many conflicting versions of Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isolde, the tension between fate and free will, and how Isolde navigates her competing identities as a princess, healer, daughter, queen, and woman in love. But this conversation is also about how these stories are created. Phoenicia takes us inside her writing process, from following research rabbit holes and drawing details from different traditions to plotting scenes with Post-it notes across her dining-room table. She shares how writing unpublished “secret chapters” helps her understand characters such as Merlin and Hera, why historical context matters when judging morally complicated choices, and how she balances an accessible contemporary voice with the unfamiliar worlds of myth and legend.

Why do these ancient stories continue to captivate us? Perhaps it is because every generation, and every writer, can uncover something new within them. Today, Phoenicia Rogerson invites us to look beyond the legend of Isolde and discover the complicated woman at its heart.
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Mary Boleyn has long existed in the shadow of her more famous sister.

When she is remembered at all, she is often reduced to a mistress, a scandal, or “the other Boleyn girl.” Her reputation has been shaped by centuries of gossip, speculation, and sexual judgment but very little attention has been paid to the woman herself.

Yet Mary’s story did not end with Henry VIII. She walked away from the Tudor court, defied her powerful family to marry for love, and became the mother of Catherine Carey.

Possibly fathered by Henry VIII and raised in the aftermath of Anne Boleyn’s execution, Catherine returned to the Tudor court and formed a close, enduring relationship with Elizabeth I. She witnessed some of the most dangerous years of the Tudor dynasty, yet her own role has remained largely hidden.

Today, I’m joined by Wendy J. Dunn, a multi-award-winning Australian author whose work gives voice to the women of Tudor history. Wendy is the author of several works of historical fiction, as well as the nonfiction book Henry VIII’s True Daughter: Catherine Carey. Her latest novel, Shades of Yellow, connects the life of a modern woman with that of Amy Dudley, the often-overlooked wife of Robert Dudley.

Together, we explore Mary Boleyn’s contested reputation, Catherine Carey’s possible royal parentage, the powerful women surrounding Elizabeth I, and how historical fiction can bring us closer to the women who lived behind the closed doors of the Tudor court.
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Bianca Capello led a life of mystery, danger, and love. Born into wealth and surrounded by a family tradition of medicine, she defied convention to rise to the very top of Renaissance Florentine society.

Famously beautiful, Bianca is perhaps best remembered as the mistress and eventual wife of Francesco de’ Medici. But her life and legacy extend far beyond her relationship with one of Florence’s most powerful men.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Gigi Berardi, author of Bianca’s Cure, to uncover the woman behind the legend. Together, we explore Bianca’s remarkable life, the hidden histories woven into the streets and buildings of Florence, and the women whose contributions to medicine, science, and intellectual life have too often been left out of the historical record.

Music Credit: Renaissance by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
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