Q&A with Ian Patterson

August 11, 2026

Hello, friends!

Today we've got a short Q&A with Fruits of Our Labor author Ian Patterson. He tells us about the inspiration behind his thought-provoking near-future story about the social impact of human parthenogenesis. What does the world look like if men are no longer needed for the continuation of the species? How do gender roles shift? How does power realign? And are the sins of our fathers reconcilable in this new future?

Fruits of Our Labor is out August 25!

Q&A with Ian Patterson

Shiraki Press: Was there a particular moment that inspired you to write this story, or was it more of a general sense of the direction of the world?

Ian Patterson: There is a hyper-specific moment, actually. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner while my wife and I were discussing some horrible new thing that happened during the 2024 election cycle. I was really concerned at the further rise of sexist, misogynist rhetoric coming from the far-right and by the implications of Project 2025 that we were reading about. I still felt myself reeling from the repeal of Roe V. Wade in 2022, and with our daughter being born the year before, I felt even more afraid for her future. I like to listen to podcasts while I cook, and an episode from Unexplainable about parthenogenesis was on. As they're saying in the show: "more and more animals are found capable of parthenogenetic birth all the time", I turned to my wife with a devil's grin and said, "what if this happened to humans, and we didn't need men anymore?" I had this vision of using protest slogans to talk about bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom from a speculative fiction angle, while also writing a critique of far-right gender politics, and it just all fell into place so beautifully in my head.

SP: What impact do you hope for this story to have on your readers?

IP: Broadly, I'd love for this work to start discussions and critical review in the hope that stirring more community idea exchange pushes us to make positive, lasting change in terms of reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, and rights for women. I see myself as part of the discussion too—I hope I will continue to learn and grow from reader's responses to the book. For the men who are confronted by this book, I'd love for it to stir them to question why, and to make them self-reflect.

SP: What gives you hope for the future?

IP: It gives me some hope that as much as people in power have tried to squash resistance, the threads of it have continued through history. We are all still that one person shouting freedom and justice for all, even as the torch changes hands. That we can publish a book like this at all, something I see as protest art, that gives me hope too. I think we're in a really dark time in the world, and in the United States in particular, but if we continue working for a better future we can have one. It will just take longer than most of us would like.