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Regular
Posts: 54
| Discussion and resources for the 2014 Speculative Fiction by Authors of Color Challenge.
The Carl Brandon Society seeks "to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction." Their recommended reading lists and their awards are a good place to start if you're looking for ideas for what to read. (Though do note that while their Parallax Award is only for authors of color, winners of the Kindred Award can be of any race or ethnicity. Of the previous Kindred Award winners, Justine Larbalestier and--I believe--Susan Vaught are white.)
The Carl Brandon Society used to maintain a wiki, but sadly it's been down for several years. However, this incomplete and out-of-date version of their list of SFF writers of color is nonetheless a very useful resource.
Here's another list of SFF writers of color, including some more modern names. (Though one of them I don't think should be on the list, and another I'm not sure about. As far as I'm aware, Marge Piercy is white...specifically, of Lithuanian Jewish descent. And none of the biographical info I've seen about Raphael Carter mentions Carter's ethnicity at all. If anyone has definitive information about either of those writers' races, I'd love to know about it.)
Reading Suggestions: A More Diverse Universe includes mini-reviews of recommended books. (And another quibble: Isabel Allende's on this list, but to the best of my knowledge she's a white Chilean author. Anyone have different info on this?)
Sofia Samatar's "On Diversity: Two Sadnesses and a Refusal" was a major contributing factor in why this challenge has a minimum requirement of three books by women of color. The rest of her blog is great reading, too. In particular, she's an excellent source if you're looking for recommendations of books, many of them by authors of color, that are SFF but marketed as non-genre literary fiction.
And a few additional SFF authors of color who haven't made it onto one of the above lists include: Malorie Blackman, Mat Johnson, Yoko Ogawa, and Helen Oyeyemi. | |
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Admin
Posts: 4006
Location: Dallas, Texas | Those are some great resources, Jain!
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 306
| This is wonderful information. Thanks for compiling it. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 154
| Thanks for the resources!
Given the article in the OP, I figured I'd mention something that would've happened naturally anyway, since I don't read dude authors very frequently - I'm doing both the women author and the AoC challenge simultaneously - same list of books - to effectively do a WoC author challenge.
Thought I'd say something in case anyone else wants to do the same. | |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 306
| Nice idea! | |
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Uber User
Posts: 154
| In case anyone's running short on books to fill out this challenge -- I've added several books written by PoC's to the database, including Nnedi Okorafor, Malinda Lo, Nalo Hopkinson, Samuel Delany, Tananarive Due, and Helen Oyeyemi.
ETA: if you guys know of any PoC authors whose works lists could stand buffing up, do let me know. I only really know lady authors.
Edited by FeminineFantastique 2014-04-11 10:15 AM
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Uber User
Posts: 1057
| (cross-posted from the LGBT Challenge thread) Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi (who is of Japanese/American heritage) has a LGBT, POC protagonist and would be eligible for either the LGBT Challenge, the Women of Genre Fiction Challenge, or the 2014 Authors of Color Challenge. In addition, the main character suffers from a severely-debiliting chronic, terminal illness -- and I thought that theme was really well-handled. I quite enjoyed the book. I prefer my SFF very light on the romance (regardless of whether it's gay, straight, or other), so I thought the romantic stuff was a bit OTT. But YMMV -- and the book is fantastic, especially for a debut author. | |
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2014 Speculative Fiction by Authors of Color Challenge