From the moment I saw a poster of a Black Dwarf lady for the new Amazon Prime series Rings of Power, I made the prediction that come late summer and into the early Fall, I’d be living off fanboy tears and lembas bread. Turns out, ain’t enough lembas bread at Costco to go with the fountain of white tears shed over Black dwarves, hobbits, mermaids and other fictional characters. It’s been a flood. And frankly, for some of you, I’m just plain embarrassed.
Continue reading
Turns out the SFF I write is pretty political? Who knew? The answer is, everybody. Everybody knew. Including me.
Art by Odera Igbokwe, from the short essay Fantasy’s Othering Fetish.
“So give us your Black elves, your Black space captains, your Black heretics standing against prophecies and insurmountable odds. Send us your Black wizards and Black gods, your Black sergeants fighting on alien planets. …Because the future of genre is now. And the future ain’t going to write itself.”- writer Justina Ireland
An anthology of historical speculative fiction? Telling the stories of children who have been marginalized throughout history? Yup, this is the SFF project you’ve been waiting to back. The Kickstarter in question, is right here.
I don’t usually do New Year Resolutions. But fellow writing colleagues Troy Wiggins & Khaalidah inspired me to create one of these lists. So even though January’s almost done, here goes.
Phenderson Djèlí Clark 