Cynthia Swanson
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After Denver novelist Cynthia Swanson had finished her last novel, “Anyone But Her,” she quickly got started on her next. It was going great; words were flowing, the inspiration fed the work as writers hope it does. And then came the 2024 election.
“My writing just tanked,” says Swanson. “I had several key female characters in that book that I’d written into some serious corners, and in some icky ways, and I didn’t know how to fix it. It was the political environment and American culture; everything felt awful. For a couple of months, I stuck with it, trying to write through it, but finally, in early 2025, I decided, ‘Nope, it’s just not happening right now.'”
So she put that novel on hold. Instead of being surprised, her agent was quite the opposite, she recalls, and said that many of the writers with whom she worked with had decided the same thing. So Swanson journaled (some of which she shares on her Substack), keeping her skills sharp, and in doing so, came around to the idea of writing a short story collection. “Given all that was going on, the whole theme of ‘This Isn’t New: Women’s Historical Stories’ just presented itself,” she says.
Swanson will be debuting the collection at the Tattered Cover as part of a special panel called “Topnotch Colorado Mystery/Thriller Authors Spill Their Secrets,” starting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10. Appearing along with Swanson are other local notable authors: David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Barbara Nickless, Carter Wilson, and Scott Graham, and the event is free and open to the public.
Cynthia Swanson
These are stories about issues that Swanson says have been going on in women’s lives not only historically, but continue to go on, thanks to the current administration and its policies. “Gaslighting, body image issues, challenges in terms of the workplace — all those kinds of things women continue to struggle with,” Swanson says. “It always seems like we’re making progress, and then suddenly we’re not.”
Once Swanson had decided to tackle those issues directly and narratively, she says things started coming together quickly. “I started looking back at my body of work,” she says, “and I’d had some short stories published some years back that I thought would fit nicely with some editing.” One of those stories was her story “Pieces of Everyone, Everywhere,” which was one of the many stories collected in the award-winning anthology Denver Noir.
The timing was also crucial to Swanson. “I made the conscious decision to self-publish ‘This Isn’t New’ right away, at this particular moment,” she explains. “I didn’t want to take the time to have my agent take a look at it, or to look for a small press on my own. It was important to me that the book come out before the midterm elections this November.”
It’s a hallmark of our current American era that many in our nation are looking for a way to contribute to the righting of the ship of state, says Swanson, and this is her way of doing that. “Would the 2024 election have changed if more people were paying attention? More committed? I don’t know,” she admits. “But I do know that we’re at a vital moment for our country, and we all have to do something. We can be out marching, we can make phone calls, we can do all those things, and I do them too. But this is one more thing I can accomplish toward that, and if it makes even a small difference, it’s more than worth it.”
Swanson says that “This Isn’t New” was also creatively fulfilling for her and replenished her to the point that she’s now back hard at work on that novel she’d put on hold in February 2025. “Once the collection was done and heading to print, I felt like I could go back to the novel and solve those problems that were holding me up,” she says. “And I have, which has been gratifying. It feels really good. In times like these, when our politics is so pervasive, I just don’t know how that could not be part of my work.”
Catch Cynthia Swanson talking about “This Isn’t New” at Tattered Cover’s “Topnotch Authors” panel from 6-8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10, at Tattered Cover, 2526 E. Colfax Ave. Reserve your spot here. Swanson will also be appearing at other venues throughout June and July; for a list of those events and others over the summer, see the event page on her website.
