DeepSummary
B.A. Parker and Karen Grigsby Bates discuss their experiences at the National Book Festival, where Parker moderated a panel with black fantasy authors Leslie Penelope and Tochi Onyebuchi. They talk about the inspiration behind Penelope's novel 'The Monsters We Defy' set in a fantastical 1920s Washington D.C., and Onyebuchi's novel 'Goliath' set in a future, climate-ravaged New Haven.
The authors discuss their approaches to creating fictional worlds that still reflect aspects of black reality and the weight of issues like racism and colonialism. They explore the challenges and importance of imagining worlds without those constraints, as well as representing diverse black characters and experiences within the fantasy genre.
Karen reflects on the historical marginalization of black authors in publishing, the recent increased visibility enabled by self-publishing, and the possibilities for future black fantasy fiction to expand beyond typical post-apocalyptic narratives. They discuss the desire for more fantastical stories rooted in thriving black communities.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The fantasy genre provides opportunities for black authors to explore societal issues and diverse experiences through new lenses.
- Creating fictional worlds still grounded in aspects of real-world black experiences adds meaningful depth.
- There is a lack of published fantastical fiction centered on thriving non-white communities.
- Black authors have historically faced marginalization in the publishing industry.
- Self-publishing enabled many black authors to build audiences before gaining mainstream visibility.
- Increasing diversity among authors writing science fiction and fantasy is an important breakthrough.
- There are still gaps in imagining worlds entirely free from colonialism, racism and oppression.
- Fantasy stories rooted in diverse communities have significant untapped potential.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “I do believe that on some level, you need some kind of conflict. And because fantasy and speculative fiction in general is a good mirror to hold up to our world, you know, I love it because you can reflect some of the problems that we have in different ways without the baggage that we carry and hopefully get people to look at them in a different way and maybe see them through a different lens.“ by Leslie Penelope
- “Like, I think one of the biggest sort of breakthroughs in, particularly in science fiction and fantasy over the past, I don't know, I guess you could say, like 20 years, 1520 years, is less now the subject matter and more the people who are writing. That seems to be the biggest thing where now we have more people of different genders, we have non binary authors writing and publishing more in traditional outlets in science fiction and fantasy, more people of east asian backgrounds, south asian backgrounds, african backgrounds, et cetera.“ by Tochi Onyebuchi
- “If you have a station 11th, that great future fiction novel by Emily St. John Mendel, then why can't you have future fiction set in Watts or in Houston's third ward or in east St. Louis, Illinois, or any other neighborhood that is largely non white and has a thriving life of its own that we want to know about?“ by Karen Grigsby Bates
- “So it's funny, I was actually in 2013, I was in Ramolla in the West bank working with a prisoner's rights organization. And at the time, I had this idea for this mosaic novel of these people set on a space colony. And it was going to be very literary. It was like mad Men in space, right? But I was looking at it, and, like, all the characters in there on the space colony were white or white coated. And I was like, wait a second, there are no black people on this space colony. Where did they go?“ by Tochi Onyebuchi
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10/12/22
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