Written by Intisar Khanani, Writer-in-Residence
CHPL's 2026 Writer-in-Residence is Intisar Khanani, award-winning author of young adult fiction books. Attend her upcoming workshops and writer office hours. Listen to her as host of CHPL's "Inside the Writer's Head" podcast.
Growing up a teenager in the 90s, I fell in love with young adult fantasy – a genre and target audience combination that was only just catching on with major publishers. I admired the powerful and competent young heroines who ruled the pages of my favorite books… but I also felt strangely disconnected. After all, if what it took to save the world was to be stronger, better, or faster than the boys—if what it took to save the world was to be the best warrior or sorceress out there—well, my world was doomed. There was absolutely no way I was going to win a fight (or do a pull up) on my own.
But surely there were other ways to win the day? Ways that involved leaning into your own strengths, even if they weren’t based in physical or magical or economic power? Instead of beating the boys at their own game, what about changing the focus altogether? What about returning to strengths that have been historically dismissed as feminine—kindness, compassion, empathy, persistence? Could women who were guided by compassion and were deeply true to themselves still take down systems of oppression without any magical talent? What would that look like?
(Don’t get me wrong: I still love the stories of kick-butt heroines, and I think they’re needed—I just also think we need more and varied role models to choose from!)
As I navigated these questions, I also happened to take a class on the Hero’s Journey (of Joseph Campbell’s design). I had my answer as to why so many of the stories I was reading had the chosen hero who faced impossible odds and was shaped into the single weapon that could destroy the villain; this was an archetypal story. But I still didn’t believe it was the only archetypal story.
So, I set about writing my own mighty girls—young women who also faced desperate odds. But instead of being honed into weapons, they developed allies and worked together with those around them, functioning from an ethic of radical kindness and unwavering compassion. They started from a place of love, and they kept going no matter what, and their victories came through the community and care they brought to everything they did. They were, in a sense, always building and bringing people together, rather than going out to fight and destroy.
I didn’t invent anything new, though. In a sense, this is the same essential basis as a vast number of romances and chick lit stories. Which is to say, the archetypal story that I was unconsciously channeling was a women’s story, and had thus been historically ignored by academia, including Joseph Campbell and his ilk.
There are a number of responses to Campbell from women writers and academics, giving varying examples of a heroine’s journey. Reading Gail Carriger’s The Heroine’s Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture, I finally had a concrete example and detailed analysis of the kind of archetypal story I had set out to write over a decade before—stories that dated back to the myth of Demeter and Persephone, crossing cultures and languages.
It’s really important to note that while I’m using binary language, there is nothing actually gendered about these stories. For example, Carriger argues that both Samwise Gamgee (Lord of the Rings) and Harry Potter were both on the heroine’s journey. And so many of those early heroines I read in the 90s were on the hero’s journey. Rather, the binary language comes from how patriarchal society has historically valued different stories and strengths. But anyone can go on either of these archetypal journeys—and I am absolutely convinced that there are more journeys we have yet to define that continue to be reflected in the stories told across cultures and geographies.
If you’d like to hear more about the heroine’s journey, please check out my upcoming workshop this fall on Saturday, Sept. 19 from 1-2:30 p.m. at the Cheviot Branch Library.
Intisar Khanani is currently reading "Half a Soul" by Olivia Atwater.
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