In 2007, my first novel XIII (13) was published. At the time, I was at a different mindset than I am today. I believed then, that there weren’t many African-American readers that would be interested in a paranormal thriller novel. With that belief instead of making my protagonist (Avery Hudson) Black, I wrote him as a Caucasian character.
It is my pleasure to be contributing to Alicia’s wonderful blog on the subject of multicultural speculative fiction. Or, as I sometimes call it, fantastic fiction.
Hello everyone. First off, I have to say thank you to Alicia for having me here and second thank you to everyone that stopped by to read it. When Alicia asked me to talk about my book on her blog, she asked that I keep one topic in mind, diversity in fiction. And so when I began to write this post, it dawned on me that I needed to define what diversity in fiction meant to me.
October is Black Speculative Fiction Month! I’m excited to host four guest authors this month. Each one has agreed to giveaway a book! Over the month, if you tweet #bsfm, share, sign-up for my newsletter, or comment here on their posts, you can sign-up on my #bsfm Rafflecopter to win ! Rafflecopter closes on October […]
Whether we all know it, diverse books are all around us. Many of us have been saying it for years. Some have only started to notice. There are authors and/or books who’ve been present for decades, and there are books and authors who make waves for themselves in our present.
Join me and my writing sisters as we discuss #wereaddiversebooks at the Decatur Book Festival. We’ll be at the GRW Writer’s Pavillion. Here are the dates and times of my panels at Decatur Book Festival: Saturday, August 301:45-2:30 #WeReadDiverseBooks: African-American Popular Fiction GRW Pavilion Alicia McCalla, Seressia Glass, Piper Huguley, Vanessa Riley, Lauren Kelly3:00-3:45 Beautiful and Sultry […]
Last November, I participated in Nanowrimo during the month of November. It was an amazing experience. I was able to complete the first draft of my Soul Eater novel. What I figured out, though, was that this was more than one short novel. After much thought, gnashing, and trepidation, I came to the conclusion that what I was really writing ended up being a 3-part serial or episodic novel.
Join me on Friday, May 30, 2014 at 9pm. I’m a guest on Genesis Science Fiction Radio with William Hayashi and the Black Science Fiction Society. Don’t forget to call in or chat via TalkShoe. I’d love to hear from you! Here’s the direct link to the show. Click here.
Why did you decide to use the theme of intergenerational poverty?
As an attorney representing low-income tenants living in public housing, intergenerational poverty is something that I witness daily in both my work and my community, and something I have had personal experiences with. It felt both natural and necessary to weave those topics into my stories, which are speculative re-tellings of real life experiences. Outside of the context of politics and policy, where they are spun and distorted, these complicated tales of intergenerational poverty are rarely heard and rarely analyzed. .
Have you ever been dying to tell a story, yet at the same time afraid to tell it? I don’t mean just any around-the-way tale, but a true story that happened to you and no one else knows. I’m talking about every time you think to open your mouth to tell it, your heart starts pounding, your tongue becomes the Sahara Desert and the fear of saying it out loud makes you change your mind.
