Black American Fantasy Writers

Are not treated well in this country.

Which is a shame, because despite what's advertised, there have been numerous amounts of Black American readers of Fantasy for decades. Although we're constantly told that our people don't read or write the genre (therefore explaining why there are no characters who look like us, or share any cultural elements), this is simply not true.

I tried - many, many times - to find a compilation or a list that had information on the few writers out there. I failed - many, many times. Until I finally thought of Amazon's Listmania search service. And ta-da!

We have entire lists of well known and barely known Black American writers of fantasy - a vast majority of which make a point to write about characters of color.

I can't speak for other readers of color, but I know the lack of physical and cultural similarities became a big deal for me. I know that's not the case for all Black readers of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Some have no problem reading about, or relating to the white characters that pretty much define the typical fantasy book. I respect that, believe it or not. But the very fact that people of color who enjoy fantasy mostly don't have an actual choice about what kind of characters they read about, is what motivates me to do what I do.

Being Black in this country always comes down to being isolated from whats "regular American," or mainstream in other words. That's unacceptable, because the very definition of Black American means that your ancestors were here before this country was even a country. To be Black in this country means that the very economy that allowed this nation to become great was stabilized on the backs of brown people brought here to be slaves.

I think we, as a country, should be LONG past the point where we are separating out "African American Fiction" in the book stores. We should be long past the point where people of color are uncomfortable admitting they love to read and/or write stories about magic and mythology. Its 2013, and that shit is, quite frankly, getting old as hell.

So that's my aim for this blog - to provide the information that is so lacking in the fantasy lover's network. Black writers, their backgrounds, the characters and stories they create, as well as different perspectives on diversity in speculative fiction and the necessity of it.