Ragini Werner
Photo: Leonie Kuizenga

Hi there! I’m Ragini Werner, a lesbian author from the Netherlands

As a lesbian author, I’m devoted to writing sapphic fiction and love crafting relatable, coming-of-age stories centered on positive depictions of queer characters.

I live in a rose-clad cottage in a cozy little village in the far north of the Netherlands with my cheeky little dog Chino, short for Cappuccino (guess my favorite brew). I grew up in Aotearoa / New Zealand which is why I love living here: that grand vista beyond my garden reminds me of the wide open spaces of NZ. Although I was born Dutch, as a late arrival to NL I’ll never be as Dutch as my passport says I am.

Anyway, I’ve been writing since the year dot, stories that I’ve been lucky to have published all over the place, and for years I worked as a journalist in Amsterdam, editing the magazine Elsevier Science World. After that, I set up as a freelance English language editor for Dutch academics, writing only in my spare time, and subsequently published Revealing Philippa. Besides writing for fun, I run a Writers Club and give Short Story Workshops. And go for long walks with little Chino in the lovely Dutch landscape.

If you’re wondering how to say my name, it’s with a hard ‘g’ as in reggae, which funnily enough derives from the same source. Ragini has nothing to do with regina, Latin for queen. It means melody in Sanskrit and is the feminine of raga, the name of the music made famous by Ravi Shankar, sitar guru to George Harrison of the Beatles, and father of Norah Jones.

 

My latest book

Becoming Janice

In my latest sapphic novel, Becoming Janice, I take readers along on a a young lesbian’s journey of self-discovery set against the vibrant backdrops of 1980s London and Amsterdam. This coming-of-age tale follows Janice as she navigates the intricate maze of queer love, friendship, and personal growth.

In writing this novel, I aimed for an easy-to-read style,wanting to draw readers into Janice’s emotional world with both humor and sensitivity.

As an experienced lesbian writer, I’m offering all readers—no matter where your place is on the spectrum—a fresh perspective on the lesbian fiction genre, reframing conventional sapphic romance in relatable journeys to womanhood in a pivotal era for LGBTQIA+ rights and visibility.

My Bashful Blagger blog

CAPital pleaSURE or PUNishment?

One capital pleasure of my real life is the license my day job—English language editor for Dutch academics—gives me to goof off on Google. Or, to put it in terms the taxman will accept: the time I spend online looking up terminology is justified. For sad nerdlings...

Q&A – Lara Zielinsky on editing the pitfalls of sapphic fiction

Lara Zielinsky has been a journalist, technical writer, educator, and fiction editor for more than 30 years. A member of the LGBTQ+ community, Lara is also an award-winning author of five sapphic novels. When I chanced upon her business site, LZ Edits, I knew her...

Two rogues recommend thumping good reads

Please join me this week in giving a warm welcome to a couple of newcomers to the Rogues’ Gallery of Janice Readers. First up is Ineke Sterringa. Her snapshot shows her relaxing in her garden in the far north of the Netherlands with a somewhat caustic companion,...

Booklover Lisa Day and the BookTime Q&A

Lisa Day loves books—owning them, reading them, writing about them and talking about them. She carries at least one, maybe two or three books with her at all times and when she isn't reading, she is writing about them. Based in Toronto, Ontario, Lisa is a former...

The importance of plain language in fiction

How important is plain language in fiction? Here two frontrunners in promoting the new Plain Language Standard discuss the pros and cons blah balh My dear old Dad loved language. Besides Dutch, he was fluent in 15 other tongues, from Hindi to Hungarian. But his...

Blurb your enthusiasm

Wouldn’t you love to get a blurb for your book as nice as the one Groucho Marx bestowed on Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge, by his fellow humorist  S.J. Perelman? Short, sweet, and killer conclusion. Groucho was famous for adding unexpected, often funny endings to his...

Fiction: fake or real?

Don't get me wrong. I’m not opening this post with a clever cartoon just because I love the artwork. Nor is it because I’m bratly comparing my sapphic tales (say hi to Philippa and Janice) to a feminist classic. Nope, it’s what the famous writer is yelling—nay,...

On “chronicles” and the craft of writing

Can you remember when you discovered the word “chronicles”? For me it was when I was about ten (I think) and a weekly visitor to the Dunedin Public Library in New Zealand. There I came across Clive Staples Lewis’s classic series, The Chronicles of Narnia. An...

Abi Daruvalla teaches writers how to KISS

Would I ever have become editor of ES World, the in-house magazine of the biggest science publishers in the world, without Abi Daruvalla? No way. She was my first 'real' editor. Recently Abi and I chatted about her career as a journalist and professional trainer,...

Media for the Mass Age

Forgive me Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) for riffing on your famous line to head this post, but (true confession time) i couldn’t resist. According to Wiki, the Canadian communication theorist coined the title ‘The Medium is the Message’ for the first chapter of his...

Me, in a nutshell 

Ragini Werner
Photo: Leonie Kuizenga
  • My name: Ragini Werner
  • Job title: Lesbian author, Sapphic writer
  • Description: Ragini Werner was born in Indonesia and grew up in New Zealand before moving to the Netherlands. She writes sapphic coming-of-age novels.
  • Place of birth: Jakarta
  • Nationality: Dutch
  • Lives in: The far north of the Netherlands
  • Member of: International Welcome Center North (IWCN), located in Groningen, the Netherlands
  • Founder of: The IWCN Writer's Club and Short Story Workshops
  • Author of:
    • "Becoming Janice" (Published: , Publisher: Iguana Books, Description: A sapphic coming-of-age novel set in Amsterdam and London in the 1980s.)
    • "Revealing Philippa" (Published: , Description: A novel exploring lesbian love and friendship against the backdrop of New Zealand community theater.)