Smuttin' It, Smuttin' It, Genre Style

Hey, all you writer types. Let's look at spicing up your genre (or even literary) stories with a little (ahem) action. How do you incorporate sexy time into your stories?

Let's say for you a publisher is open to spicy but not all-out erotica, how do you determine where to draw the line yet still keep the sexy actually, you know, sexy?

Elizabeth Donald: Sex is part of the human experience, to a greater or lesser degree according to a person’s personal drives. We don’t have to literally shine a spotlight on the penetrating moment in order for sexuality to be at the forefront of the story. A character may be consumed with deep need and powerful attraction - indeed, it might be the driving force of their actions and even the plot, without us actually following them under the sheets. It’s not censorship to construct a story about sex and sexual attraction without actually depicting the act; if you’re doing your job right with evocative language, the reader will feel all the things you want them to feel, regardless of the explicitness of your story.

L. Andrew Cooper: In the fiction I've published, at least, the sex I've described has always been horrific in some way, from attempts to conceive a child for sacrifice in Descending Lines to the relentless taboo-breaking of Alex's Escape. I guess some scenes in The Middle Reaches are steamy, but they're still weird. So mostly I don't have to worry about sexy... I have to worry about explicit description ("showing") parts and acts. I guess if I have to satisfy a prudish publisher, I describe less or cut more.

Chris Riker: Sex is a great time for internal dialogue. A writer doesn't have to re-invent the old Penthouse Forum; he just has to tell us what the sex means to the characters. 

"Then, while I was still trying to plot her trajectory, she said, “I won’t do anything on a futon, Zebulon.” The futon was in good shape, only a few beer stains on its lime green canvas, but it was a futon, so, as the French would say, ‘non humpez vous.’

I said, “There’s a big bed. The sheets are clean. And call me Zee, please.” I was hoping. Really hard. She kept me waiting a solid minute, standing there, considering her options. Then…

“Zee,” she said my name that way for the first time and put her arms around my neck. “Take me to the big bed with the clean sheets.”

Yes, I remember how her pencil skirt slid off her hips by lava lamp and the way her voice rose in primal song as she taught me to please her and the smoothness of her skin and the way my lungs drank in the scent of her hair. I remember giggling together afterwards and not being able to stop or wanting to. And when at last Jing fell asleep in my arms, I remember lying awake and feeling… real." - Zebulon Angell and the Shadow Army

Sean Taylor: I love to focus on the after or the before. I think there's a lot of magic to be covered there in the buildup or the afterglow. People get real then. Case in point, in this scene, Rick Ruby is visiting one of his, ahem, informants, a nightclub singer named Donna:

The Courageous Soul

For the next roundtable for authors, let's talk about that "Courageous Soul" Kate Chopin said an artist must possess. 

In what ways have you found you had to be courageous as you became a writer? Is it something practical like just having the guts to try to make a living at it or something more cultural by using your work to make a statement?

L. Andrew Cooper: Writing anything for publication involves the possibility of ridicule and rejection and so always requires courage, but beyond that, the amount of courage you need relates to how much of yourself you're willing to expose and what other chances you're willing to take. I believe the best writing involves risk, so it requires a lot of courage.

Ef Deal: The only "courage" I needed to summon was to keep writing although I never sold or made a cent out of it for over 25 years. My husband resented it immensely, but he was someone who'd been paid to play since he was 9 years old. He was impressed that I had a rejection from Lester DelRey, and that I chatted or hobnobbed with writers he knew, but I don't think he ever thought anything would come of my writing until it actually did a few years ago. I never considered it courage, though. I just couldn't not write.

Bobby Nash: I think you have to be pretty courageous to put anything creative out in the wild. People can be cruel.

Brian K Morris: A little of all of them. I realized early on that if I wanted to carve a portion of the market for my work, it had to sound like me. I could sound like it was from a store of knowledge I'd amassed, or a point of view. I believe ANY opportunity to expose your inner workings, especially your heart, leaves you vulnerable and should be approached with derring-do.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: While I might not care much for Kate Chopin's works, I can understand her "Courageous Soul" concept. Taking the risks of being exposed to criticism, authenticity, and integrity are all part of the creative processes for any type of artist. Any artist being defined as working in any type of medium, whether that be writing to music to paint to architecture, etc. I specify that because even your architect has some artistry in the field since science and art do go hand in hand. That being said, building up courage often relies on trusting yourself and your own belief in your creative works.

I found that courage is necessary in general to be able to be oneself. Some of it was practical in wanting to become a better communicator and being able to connect with people better. While I sometimes make a statement with some of my work, I do sometimes have other works that are to help others grow as individuals. I try to leave people better than I found them.

Sean Taylor: I think it's both, at least for me. There will always be the courage of putting myself out there as a writer and finding readers to pick up what I'm laying down (so to speak). But I also believe that, as a friend reminded me today, all art is political, and well, we live in a time when art is under attack, particularly art that doesn't fit a strict and confining definition. Anything that goes beyond a conservative, backward ideal or takes a more critical look at United State politics and culture now seems to be suspect and suspicious and likely to be censored in the days to come, so the pushback is there to only create "safe" art. But I'm not that writer. 

Do you find that courage becomes more "old hat" and just part of your personality as a writer after a while, or do you still feel the butterflies when you put it out there for public consumption and critique?

Slicing the Pie: Art. Craft. Technique. Style.

Hey, writer types! For the next (next-next, actually) roundtable, let's talk about art, craft, technique, and style. For some these four words may be synonyms. For others, they may be different ways of slicing the same pie. For still others, they may have start differences between them. If you're familiar with my basic interview questions, you'll remember this one: "Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Let's all discuss that together, shall we?

What does art, craft, technique, and style mean to you? 

Paul Landri: Writing is absolutely an art. However much like cooking, if you don't have a technique for the dish, you'll find people spitting out your food into their napkins or feeding it to the dog.

I don't think I have a particular style, but if you read my work you'll see the influence of the old Del Rey Star Wars Novels are pervasive throughout my books. I cut my teeth on those books when I was in the 7th grade and that style of writing comes out a lot even after all these years and countless other novels I've read that have influenced my writing.

I'm very conversational in tone, as I am sure you can read here. I find it allows the reader ease of access. I feel like you can be verbose but only as long as your still engaging the reader and drawing them in.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: I would rank writing as both an art and a science, rather than keeping the continuum as a straight line. It's more of a circle with each moment of writing blending both art and science together in different proportions as needed. This is from my experience in other types of writing and communications over the years in different disciplines.

Bobby Nash: Art is the part that comes out of me naturally, I think. It’s the raw, creative part. Craft is the work. I work on getting better at my craft. Technique is how I handle the craft. These are the tricks and learned odds 'n ends. Style is how I merge art, craft, and technique.

Or I could be completely wrong. This is honestly the most thought I’ve put into these definitions ever.

Ef Deal: Dead honest here: I don't really know how to address the question so far as distinctions. I will say that craft deals with structure. Art deals with the methods you use to evoke a mood: the use of language and poetic devices, for example. Style has a lot to do with your own voice as you select your words. I have no idea how to define technique in this sense. Does it mean one's approach to crafting a story? Plotter or Pantser? No clue.

The Writer As Eternal Student

For the next roundtable let's talk about how writers are eternal students (though usually on self-study courses). 

The first side of that coin is that we can only write what we know. How has that been evident in your work? Are there topics/interests/specifics that you find your work covering over and over again?

Bobby Nash: I always take the “write what you know” advice to be the beginning of the journey. I didn’t know much about FBI agents or serial killers when I wrote Evil Ways, but I knew about the relationship between two brothers so that’s the foundation for the story. If the relationship between them is solid, the rest I can build on from there. I’ve had demeaning day jobs. I can use that as a basis for a story or character, even if it's not the same job, I can extrapolate from real life to make the story feel real. If I took “write what you know” literally, my stories would be very boring.

Ef Deal: I write steampunk, which has the advantage of being set in history. There's a lot to know about history, and the information is readily available. My plots involve an element of social conflict, an historical setting including historical figures and events, scientific dvelopments of the time period (1840s), and paranormal features as they were understood at the time. Research is essential to nail down all of those elements in such a way as to find a nexus where they present a plausible plot for me to pursue. I like to get down to the personal level, so I often read journals of the time, memoirs of the historical figures, newspaper articles. These often give me significant lines of description or dialogue. When I saw Eugene Delacroix's comment about the Paris-Orleans railway being "a blessing to my rheumatic bones," for example, I knew that line had to be in the book and that the story would begin there. In researching conditions for child laborers in the coal industry, I learned of the disaster that drowned 30-some kids, and I learned their names so at least one would be immortalized.

Paul Landri: Buckle up because this is a long one! 

One of the best compliments I’ve gotten so far for the first book in the Crimson Howl series came from an up-and-coming comic book writer friend of mine named Patrick Reilly (he’s got an anthology series coming out later this year everyone should check out,) who told me that I write “white rage” very well. Now, I don’t normally talk politics but art has been and always will be political by its very nature.

I am not an angry white man in the sense that I feel my privilege is being eroded by outside influences. I am angry at the injustice I see all around me perpetuated by thoughtless and ignorant men who feel like the march of progress is somehow an affront to their identities. In Howl book 1 I wanted to channel that feeling because I grew up around this type of thinking. The Jersey Shore where I lived, Atlantic Highlands, is a pretty blue-collar area despite its status as a tourist town. Lots of fishermen and old salts who’d spend their late afternoons and evenings at the local watering hole lamenting about how the good days were behind them. These were people from an older, less tolerant generation who had no filter and didn’t care, after a few Miller Lites, who knew their opinions. Of course, this was constantly brushed off because they were “from another generation” (as if that was any excuse!) So when I came up with the character of Arnold Grant, the titular character of the Crimson Howl series, I wanted to see how a character with superpowers from a “different” generation would exist in the modern era. I came up with the idea of the Crimson Howl as a character in 2014. Two years before the MAGA movement usurped the Republican party and transformed it into something unrecognizable. I like to joke (although it’s becoming much less funny as time goes on,) that the Crimson Howl was MAGA before MAGA was MAGA.

I have a degree in history from Monmouth University. My senior thesis was on propaganda during World War 2 in America. You can read it at the Guggenheim Library in West Long Branch if you’d like. I found the subject fascinating (and got an A on it, to boot!) and wanted to incorporate as much of my WW2 knowledge and nostalgia into the book as possible. When creating the world for Return of the Crimson Howl I had to marry my love of Golden Age comic books with my fascination with World War 2. How to do that, though? Well, the answer is simple: make superheroing a part of the New Deal. I don’t seem to recall if this had been done before, but it definitely worked in my narrative. I currently work with the estate of Joe Simon, who along with Jack Kirby created Captain America. My work has a heavily anti-fascist bend that I’m very proud of.

Despite also being very anti-mafia in real life, I find mafia stories fascinating because it’s a shared part of my Italian-American heritage for better or worse. I’m a big fan of Mario Puzo and wanted to honor his style when I wrote the origin chapter of Rudyard Sinclair, our magical/mystical character named The Swami (He’s on the front cover of Return of the Crimson Howl, done up in full color by Terrific Ted Hammond). In that chapter I got to bring the knowledge of the mob I learned while living out in Nevada and bring it into the story in a fun way. It’s always great to name-drop Kefauver and the hearings that helped destroy the prestige of the Italian mafia.

Lance Stahlberg: If I only wrote what I knew, my books would be pretty boring. I do not live an exciting life. I go out of my way to make sure that not every character has all of my interests and such. Though of course there are elements of me in each of them. I know Chicago, but I've only set one of my books there.

Scars and All

(Even the Imperfections Are Part of Beautiful You)

Hey, writerly types! I just finished reading the Yours Cruelly, Elvira book by Cassandra Peterson, and she closed the book with this little tidbit that really made me think: "We all have our scars. Let them be a blessing and not a curse."

That got me thinking about the "scars" that make us who we are and how that works into our writing. 

Are you the kind of writer who has a "writer self" separate from your "normal self" -- i.e. is the writer a persona you put on, or do you use the whole of who you are both while writing and in person (at cons, signings, etc.)? Why do you think that is?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Of necessity, I view the world through a number of different lenses. My work persona is wholly separate from the rest of my identity, which contains, but is not limited to: Writer Gremlin, Cosplay Demon, Fiber Artist and 2-D Artist who live together, Mom/Grandma, Occasional Musical Genius, Cat Whisperer, Really Good Cook, and Oh Look Squirrel.

Honestly my head is pretty crowded and there’s a lot of scampering back and forth in there.

As for Why, I was raised in a very restrictive environment where I had to excise the unacceptable parts of me for public presentation. I kept them and they grew into New Me selves that I kept in my head.

Bobby Nash: I’m pretty much me. What you see if what you get. Don’t get me wrong, when I’m working as Author Bobby, I put my best foot forward and act in a professional manner. What I don’t do is pretend to be something I’m not. I have enough trouble keeping up with who I am. Trying to keep up with a false identity as well seems like a lot of work. The last thing I want to do is give myself more work. I never really put a lot of debate into it. I’m just me. This is who I am.How have both the good and bad events in your life influenced your work? Are there hardships or traumas (that you are okay to discuss in this interview) that you've found made you a better writer? What about good times or happy events that have made you a better writer?

Paul Landri: I don't see myself so much as a "writer." More like a guy who writes if that makes sense.

I don't have a persona any more than I do when I'm voice Acting or doing my day job. When I market my work I tend to take the Stan Lee approach and be a stout cheerleader for my projects to the point of annoyance. Everything is the biggest, the best, the most thrilling thing you've ever read and if you don't read it the whole world will explode! 

Lisa Barker: I'm guessing that I am the same person/persona when writing, doing writing related things, and when not. However, I do take on my characters when I am writing and they are distinct and for the most part strictly tapped into and expressed when and in writing, though I took on mannerisms of my main character from Inheritance that I noticed in real life. Why to all of that? I'm an authentic person so I am the same me that writes as the me you would meet on the street. As for the mannerisms . . . I get really involved in my work, lol.

Sam Kelley: No. My writer self and “normal” self (whatever that means ahaha) are the same person. I grew up writing. My older characters are part of me. We grew up together. I know some of them better than I know myself. There has never been a time that I was active on social media that I wasn’t talking about OCs (the same exactly ones I talk about online now, for the most part lol).

Sean Taylor: I hope I don't. I really try to be as opening "me" in my work as I am in my day-to-day life. Most people who know me for even a few minutes, I like to think. Sure, they may think there is more to me than they can learn in a few minutes of our meeting, but all the real, true, deep stuff is there. The rest is just details. I try to write like that too, dumping my beliefs and heart and deep thinking into my work, even when if that work is mainly surface-level action or adventure stories. 

How have both the good and bad events in your life influenced your work? Are there hardships or traumas (that you are okay to discuss in this interview) that you've found made you a better writer? What about good times or happy events that have made you a better writer?

Sam Kelley: My characters go through a lot. When I first started writing, I was only 11. When I started writing what later became my debut series, I was 13. I hadn’t gone through much trauma or hardship (besides growing up poor) at that point. But, as I got older, my situation changed, and some things that happened to me were eerily similar to things my characters went through. It sucks, but it definitely helped me to be a better writer (in the sense that the characters & their reactions to situations feel a lot more grounded and realistic than they were originally). Good times have influenced my writing too, but in smaller moments, so it seems less noticeable to me.

Lisa Barker: Growing up with an alcoholic mother who thought she was psychic and wanted to train me as well as control me, set me up perfectly to write my debut novel. I wrote about an adult child of alcoholics without realizing I was one or that my character was one until the editing process was complete. My relationship with my mother also made me keenly observant and I think that makes me a good writer. Bipolar disorder made me a mood writer. Before I was medicated or stable, I could write from depression or melancholy; mania drove me to write around the clock, sometimes not sleeping for days. Now, after over a decade of stability, life is good, but writing has eluded me. I don't have a well spring of the abyss to draw upon, so I have to write in the immediacy of being hurt emotionally, and that is not a likely occurrence. Writing has become more cerebral than intuitive (and that makes producing work excruciating). Unless I can find a way to connect emotionally with my characters, which is how I live and breathe as a writer, I am impotent so I am still figuring it out and journaling seems to be helping with that as well as reading other people's books. To get to the point, positive events and a general sense of positivity and well-being have been great for my life, but has had a negative impact on my writing and I am figuring it out.

Paul Landri: I lost my dad when I was 25 years old. Bad age to lose a parent when you're still trying to figure things out. He does suddenly and it was a shock. Because of this I tend to like to give my characters happy endings. It doesn't happen all the time because real life is messy but if I can pit my characters through hell, the least they can get is a little peace. 

Bobby Nash: There are real-life instances that influence my work. Absolutely. It can be little things like experiences at work, on a date, at a con, or getting a speeding ticket. All of those can translate into character moments. Real people and their attitudes, both good and bad, can be a starting point for building a character or situation. Trauma works. Lost a loved one? That gives you a point of reference for writing a character that’s lost a loved one, for example. Use those things, if you’re comfortable doing so. Sometimes, writing them down can be therapeutic. A nice bonus.

Sean Taylor: I sometimes face situation depression (as opposed to clinical), and there are still wounds that sting from time to time, such as when I was let go from the religious organization I used to work for that really defined my identity for a lot of years and left me struggling to figure out who I was afterward. However, struggling through that post-religious work "me" was something that my writing was able to help me work through -- and sharp readers will notice that in my work: questioning, doubts, identity issues, that sort of thing. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Everything is fair game. Everything. Even if I’m only observing it happen to someone else, it’s Story Fodder. This online discussion is fair game.

Have you ever thought to "hide" a part of who you are when you write? Maybe an upbringing that doesn't mesh with your current beliefs or a trauma that you'd prefer not to reveal (even subtly through your work) to readers?

Sean Taylor: Of course I do. There are still deeper parts of me that I don't reveal blatantly -- think that wouldn't go over well with my MeMe and Mom, where they still alive, and that's a part of my faith upbringing I still struggle with most likely. It's there in the work, but it's deep and incredibly subtle. However, the more of an ally to the marginalized I seek to become, even some of that is beginning to bubble to the surface. What kind of things? Well, that's for you to find in my work. 

Bobby Nash: Not really. I mean, I do write things that I never personally encountered also. I use what’s best for the story. The only way the audience knows if it’s truly a personal belief or trauma is if I tell them in interviews or in the book. I will also add that I’ve added things to stories that were very personal, but no one knows it because I have never said it aloud. We don’t have to share everything.

Ef Deal: I am so caught up with health issues right now, I can't even begin to answer except with this one example: beginning at age 15, I began to be molested by a man well respected in the community, even honored as a legend, which I supposed in many ways he was. When I told my priest, he said it was God's will and to bear the trial. When I suggested it (a friend of mine) to my mom, she said the girl probably deserved it, but men were like that. I kept my mouth shut until I was 18 and went to college to discover that no, it was not normal. Then I discovered I was not the only girl in my situation with this man, but the other girls just shrugged and said, "Forget it. It happened. He's dead now. It won't change anything. But it changed ME. Last year I was invited by Speculation Publications to contribute to their Grimm Retold anthology, and I found my perfect catharsis in reinventing Fitcher's Birds into "Fitcher's Chick." It is raw, it may be triggering for some women, but it is in essence true in every sense of the word. And I feel GREAT and grateful that I could finally breathe.

Sam Kelley: Not really, no. I have no problem exploring rather intense subjects in my work. Writing my characters navigating situations that are similar or comparable (albeit often worse) to things I’ve experienced has helped me process negative emotions. I am a bit more pragmatic or pessimistic than the stories I tend to write (as I like to give my characters a generally happy end after all of the horrors they experience).

Paul Landri: I don't hide anything in my writing because what's the fun in that? If Stephen King has the courage to write about even a fraction of the stuff he does (under the influence or sober) then why should I or anyone else hide anything they want to put out there if it means a good story? 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I’m not consciously writing myself into my work so I never considered it before, but now that you mention it, the idea is a good story prompt.

Lisa Barker: The only thing I have noted that I'd hide and not incorporate into my writing are the "current events" of my life which are the present fears and events of my life. The problem I am having when I try to write these days is that I'm not drawing from a murky pool of melancholy, writing about things I won't understand until I've done some developmental editing on myself (therapy, self-education); instead I am conscious of what these things are about and where they come from and precisely what that means. Thinking about that now, this could be really good for me as a writer, but it's as if the old way of writing was like creating my own static electricity and that was a great magic show, but now I have lightening bolts at my disposal that I can fire at will with deadly precision. What the hell do I do now?! Phenomenal Cosmic Power . . . itty bitty living space.

How much do your (use your own definitions for these words) positive and negative traits and interests influence who you are as a writer and the stories you create?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Writing is excellent catharsis. If your subconscious won’t let go of something, it’s telling you that you have things to work out, and the keyboard is a good place to start.

Lisa Barker: Now that is what I am going to find out after this year of reading and journaling. I feel like what I have to write is a "tell all". Maybe journal writing will suffice. Maybe I'll write a memoir. I'd like to believe that I can still write fiction and now have the maturity to handle that act. It will be really cool finding out.

On the positive side, a lively imagination can take you down rabbit holes no matter what you’re doing. So what if they don’t pan out? A healthy “cut file” can still spark ideas when you need them.

Bobby Nash: I try to imbue characters with the traits that help define them. No one is 100% good or bad, positive or negative. Even Doctor Doom loves his mother. As writers, we dig deep into our own emotions and experiences, but we’re also natural people watchers. I learn a lot from watching other people and finding traits that work for characters that aren’t like me. Again, both positive and negative.

Sam Kelley: The characters in my debut series all contain elements of me (my traits and thought patterns) in them. Many of those traits are dramatized or exaggerated, often pushed to extremes, and many of my characters have mental illnesses or conditions either I have or someone close to me has (anxiety, ADHD, BPD, etc). I’m careful to keep the characters grounded and complex (developing them for 15 years helps with creating a rounded character lol), but it’s an interesting way to explore both the positive and negative of the human experience and how relationships form and play out between characters with certain traits. Psychology fascinates me, which might be why I like writing stories focused on the characters themselves (rather than plot-driven by external forces).

Paul Landri: I'm a lazy bones when it comes to writing. It seems like a chore up until I sit down and get going, then I can't stop myself. I lay the foundation of the story and my coauthor fleshes out the rest. It's a good system because I do the broad strokes and he adds the finishing touches.

I love dialogue and I love dramatic narratives. When I can marry the two it really is a match made in heaven.

Sean Taylor: I work them all in, but some are more blatant than others. I often attribute my negative characteristics (or characteristics I'm trying to overcome or have overcome) to my characters who are either "villains" or "trying to be better people." I see my good qualities in a more idealized way, and try not to use those too liberally because writing them that way can make my "heroes" seem like they don't have feet of clay, and I don't believe that at all.

eSpec Books Assembles the Steampunk Monsters!

Monstrous Is a Matter of Perspective…

Classic tales throughout time pit humanity against creatures of the night, beyond mortal understanding. But what—or who—makes a monster? Folklore has its tale to tell, but might there be a different view? We present fourteen tales inspired by the masters of the macabre, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, paying tribute to their vision of gothic horror.

In conjunction with the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, An Assembly of Monsters brings you stories by:

James Chambers * Michelle D. Sonnier * Keith R.A. DeCandido * Jessica Lucci * Aaron Rosenberg * Dana Fraedrich * Doc Coleman * Danielle Ackley-McPhail * Ef Deal * John L. French * Christine Norris * Rachel Brune * David Lee Summers * Hildy Silverman * 

https://especbooks.square.site/product/an-assembly-of-monsters/155

Incorporating Multiple Religions Into Your Writing Diversity

 

Okay, let's talk about diversity this week, but not what you normally think about. Let's talk about religious diversity in your work. (In the interest of honesty, this one also was inspired by a panel I was on during Multiverse.)

Writers often err in one of two ways when it comes to writing protagonists (and antagonists) with a personal faith life -- either only writing their own because that's the only one they know well enough to write (or to be propagandistic) or they avoid religion in their stories altogether because they've been taught that it's something you don't discuss at Thanksgiving. 

I disagree. I think a character's inner POV and faith life can bring a new dimension to them. 

But let's see what our roundtable panel of writers thinks.

How does your own faith background or lack of one influence your writing?

Danielle Procter Piper: I was raised Catholic, so one of my characters has that background also. But I don't use it as an opportunity to "invite" people into that belief system. In fact, that character struggles with what he was taught and what he now knows as an adult. He's very good at encouraging his adopted daughter to find her own path...if she has spiritual inclinations at all.

Mari Hersh-Tudor: I was raised a strict Roman Catholic-mass in Latin and a narrow worldview. The more exposure to Weird Sh!t People Do When Someone Dies ™️ that I get, the more I absorb about how various cultures and religions treat adversity.

Kay Iscah: Definitely. I think a lot of fantasy has gone polytheistic, so I like centering monotheism, though not writing on earth I try to give things a distinct spin for their setting. The monotheism of Seventh Night is based on the idea of Christianity but without sacrifice or organized churches. This isn't necessarily a criticism of those elements, more of an exploration of how things might work or not work without them. I try not to be heavy-handed with those themes. In the interest of writing more universal stories, I tend to focus on ethics, but if you pay attention, it's a world where prayers are answered. Though not always in an obvious way. But I think writing and creating worlds can give us insight into the mind of God and how He operates.

Sean Taylor: I was not only raised in conservative Christian evangelical churches (Southern Baptist for the most part), but I also worked for the denomination at the national level for a few years until we had a bit of a doctrinal disagreement. So, yeah, my faith has been something that has been on my mind -- and therefore in my writing -- a lot. Both through the more devout and the current deconstruction and reconstruction period. It's difficult not to see a travelogue of my journey as your read my work and see the kind of questions that creep into my themes. 

If you do incorporate religious viewpoints into your fiction, how do you walk the line between advocating them and merely having them be a part of a character's, well, character?

Ef Deal: Having been raised Roman Catholic in the '50s and '60s (no, I did not have vicious nuns but I did get kicked out of church by the priest) and now writing a setting of 1842 France, religion is discussed in my second book, first when she overhears the King declaring homosexuality an offense against God, "Scripture is quite clear," and again when her lady's maid confesses her own lesbianism and fears for her soul. I happen to subscribe to the belief that God is love, and frankly, the King had more mistresses than he had children, and the punishment for adultery is quite clear if you want to declare Scripture as your rule instead of God's love.

It was a fun diatribe to write, given the setting of a Paris salon, where men engaged in philosophical discourse that amounted to little.

Kay Iscah: I think I try to advocate more for ethics, education, and spiritual seeking than promoting specific spiritual practices. I promote seeking truth, but I think that generally needs to happen through the story and not feel like something tacked onto it. I can get into the head of someone with a different belief system, and do so a bit in Horse Feathers. Phillip is a skeptic and atheist, but becomes interested in moral philosophy. He mostly fights it out in his head as atheism is not particularly popular in his period, but if I ever get around to writing sequels, it will cause some contention.

Sean Taylor: I don't write much fantasy, so most of the religions I write into my fiction are based on real-world faiths. I have written about fantasy-type gods once, but even then I made up my own and shied away from the established pantheons from world religions so as not to screw up details that might really matter to some readers. 

None of my characters evangelize their beliefs. That's so not my style, not even in my more devout days. And most of my believing folks (whatever the belief or the deity) they tend to be a lot more loosey-goosey about things like doctrine and rules, and tend to side more with the "Big Guy in the sky who wants us to love on each other" kind of thing. There are a few characters though, like my angel superhero, Tobit's Angel, in the Show Me A Hero collection, who is particularly exploring what it means to be an angel and in what religious direction he fits. Is he a Christian angel? A Muslim angel? A Jewish angel? A New-Age angel? All he knows is that he is most definitely an angel. Another superhero character, Fishnet Angel (not an angel), is a former Catholic who becomes possessed by an ancient deity and now must deal with the fact that his/her religion doesn't stand alone anymore. 

Danielle Procter Piper: Because I don't believe in shoving my beliefs down other people's throats (because I strongly dislike it being done to me), I don't depict religious belief as an asset but more of a curious choice. In fact, I tend to tone down major religious holidays. My sci-fi/action/thriller Venus In Heat is a Christmas story in that it takes place over the holiday, and while it's mentioned, none of the lead characters actually celebrate it in any way and they're all perfectly fine with that. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: My own fiction encompasses a wide range of religions, from theoretical to Actual Gods Interfering™️.

It’s pretty easy not to advocate toward any one religion, I made mine up anyway, and I don’t have any characters (so far) who would do so.

Just as some writers make a conscious effort to break out of their boxes by intentionally learning to write characters of a different gender or sexuality or race, how have you sought to bring in a variety of "faith" backgrounds into your fiction?

Sean Taylor: I love to study other faiths and in particular the absence of such a faith. I think some of it comes naturally by just having a wide variety of folks in my circle of friends and writer buddies, but some of it involves intentional research and study and seeking out people to talk to to get details right, particularly emotional and psychological details. 

Danielle Procter Piper: Because my world is populated with people of various beliefs, so are the worlds of my stories. In my sci-fi I have the former Catholics, pagans, and a Buddhist, and most of the characters' faiths are never even mentioned. In my Medieval fantasy I have characters from all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa...and each has their own beliefs, but the main characters simply accept each other as they are without clashes of faith. 

Kay Iscah: This may expand as my catalog of published fiction expands. I do poke at it a bit in Horse Feathers. But I tend to treat it a bit as an aspect of setting. There's an unpublished series I'm working on where I anticipate navigating some different religious views in characters, but again, I want to keep that a light touch. It should feel like an organic part of the setting and aspect of the characters not a lecture for the reader. It should come up because the characters are debating moral philosophy of situations, and not simply because I want to soapbox about something.

And even within the same religion, you have sects and interpretations and room for debates and differences of opinion. It would be an unusual faith where all the practitioners agreed on every aspect.

Now, to twist it on its ear, how much more does a character's non-religious POV get strengthened as an MC when they are surrounded by a variety of real-world characters of varying beliefs -- as opposed the non-religious MC in a world that seems to be void of any religious thought whatsoever?

Mari Hersh-Tudor: It is a great deal of fun, however, to torment narrow-minded characters by throwing them at angry gods that they don’t believe in and writing the fallout.

Kay Iscah: I don't write a lot of "real world" stories. But in a way, this described Phillip in Horse Feathers. He has a fairly scientific mind for a medieval peasant. He comes from a country with a lot of competing faiths and that feeds into his skepticism. He settles in a heavily monotheistic country and avoiding religious instruction is his small act of rebellion against a society where he feels very limited. But for the general question, I think personality and individual experiences play a huge role in how the religious setting affects the MC. You could take two different characters, run them through the same scenarios, and get two wildly different reactions.

The non-religious MC may have his views challenged more if confronted with a variety of faiths whereas the non-religious MC in an atheist or agnostic setting might never be pushed to think about them. Some people would welcome never being challenged while others would start asking certain questions because no one else is asking those questions.

The rub is that the author determines what the "truth" of that world is. Which will determine what "truth" the MC will be able to find with their questions and seeking.

I've heard of Christians who dislike The Truman Show because they think it's intended to be a metaphor for breaking out of our philosophical bubble or belief system. But as a Christian, I find The Truman show very in line with the faith as it's about seeking truth at all costs... and if you pay attention, the female protagonist does pray for Truman's release and safety. So there's an in world establishment of a God or at least belief in God, that is not the producer playing at being God.

Danielle Procter Piper: One of my sci-fi heroes, Alex, has no background in any faith, yet is surrounded by people of many faiths. A telepath, he's often revolted by the fact that most people who play at ceremony and holidays do it for the material benefits...money, gifts, food, and not out of any actual belief in something greater or a need to worship. Or, they function like robots, programmed by tradition, trying to force each other and their families into old molds forged generations ago which are often impractical today and can cause more stress than gratitude and wonder. He finds all of this extraordinarily bizarre and is amazed when he meets anyone who seems genuinely convinced that what they do serves their deity of choice and benefits more than just themselves and their personal agendas. So his extra powers of observation allow him to better understand others and even manipulate them using their own ideas of how things are and what they should be. One needn't be telepathic to figure this stuff out, but it saves time and makes him more formidable for it.

Sean Taylor: To me, a religious viewpoint is one of the things that says a lot about a character. I believe it's as important as a character's race, nationality, gender, sexual identity -- all those things. It adds a dimension to them that can provide stability (when the religious POV matches their actions and words), irony (when their religious POV reveals their hypocrisy), and depth (when their religious POV reveals questioning and struggle based on their conflicts in the story. I picked this up very early from the works of Flannery O'Connor, and I've never let go of it in my own work. 

It's just another way to create a real, solid, three-dimensional world with words, as far as I'm concerned. It's like the argument for diversity in fiction. "We're here. So don't write as though we aren't." So they exist in my fiction too. Religion also exists. It's here. So it is just another element in my world-building. 

Normalizing Marginalized People In Your Fiction

Okay writers, let's talk about diversity and slice that pie in terms of marginalized groups. 

What is the difference between including diversity in your work and using your work as a platform to encourage understanding and empathy in regard to diversity? Is one better or worse for authors?

Rachel Burda Taylor: Hmm... For me, I don't know that diversity is something I set as any type of goal.

At the same time, I live in a place that is crazy diverse where it's normal to be surrounded by and be friends with a range of people from different backgrounds, lives, etc. (Visiting the nearest mall is about like going to an international airport. My WASP kids are the minority-by-numbers at their high school.) It would be weird to not include the same diversity in my books that I have in my daily life.

Josh Nealis: In novels, not always but often, I never mention skin color of a character. Also, I try not to create a character in comics specifically to be black or female etc, the charcter idea needs to be pure. Not pandering, but purposeful.

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: The difference would lie in the intent and the knowledge and experience one has on the subject, just like any other story or character. 

Chris Riker: If the aspect/trait/feature/preference is important to the plot, SHOW DON'T TELL. If it's not important to the plot, be satisfied with representation. Don't force it. Don't preach. Don't kill the lesbian just for the hell of it. Above all, remember to tell a story. I invite you to review my work and tell me if I handle things well. (Getting to Know People at the Rainbow Connection, Itsy Bitsy).

Jesse James Fain: David Weber once said when complemented for his female characters that his success in writing a woman without being one was "That's because I wrote a person, a character, that just so happened to be female."

I try my damnedest to do this with any character of any marginalized or oppressed group. My latest sold story has a mixed native hero with complex beliefs. He venerates the great spirits and the Norse gods. He is a child of his two cultures. Two cultures I myself have ancestry in and know academically and from being involved in ritual. I give the details you need, and let you fill the rest, because this is fiction, and it's my world, and my tale, and you were kind enough to share it.

Kay Iscah: The difference is intent. Which is better? Depends. If you want to feature a culture/disability or bring awareness to it, you have a higher responsibility to get the details right, but well done, those stories can be very engaging and meaningful.

I generally write stories removed from the context of Earth, so that gives me some freedom to think it about it more in terms of creating variety. What's jarring is taking current-day issues and trying to cut and paste them into a setting where they don't fit. But as long the issue or inclusion is organic to the story, it's fine. As a general rule low tech, remote villages should be more homogenous, and high tech, urban settings are more natural to blended populations. But diversity isn't limited to skin tone (or species if you're writing sci-fi/fantasy). Diversity is personalities and perspectives, heights, talents, etc. etc. You should write different characters with distinct personalities and goals.

Brian K Morris: I've just dabbled in what I call "pulp with a social conscience." Until now, I've managed to write some really strong female characters, as opposed to "romantic interest/hostage." But I've not built up the moxie to go further until a year ago.

Building diversity is a good thing. In the introduction of ANY character, the reader should be able to UNDERSTAND them and why they do what they do.

Sean Taylor: I've actually done several posts on this blog about this, and my POV on it is constantly evolving. I still believe we can force diversity into our writing without it coming out well, forced, and without hurting the stories themselves. However, I do not feel that we can intentionally choose themes that offer us the opportunities to include a more diverse cast or create situations and settings when and where a more diverse cast makes sense without having to be forced like a triangle block into a circle hole. And I am embracing that aesthetic more and more in my writing. That way, the intentionality is there, but it still doesn't come across, at least to me, as trying to write "message fiction." But honestly, our history as writers is filled with what some folks derogatorily call message fiction nowadays. Look no further than the poetry and stories of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Kate Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Harper Lee, and Khaled Hosseini. Sadly, when most folks I hear bag on "message fiction" is not because the fiction is bad, but because they don't agree with the message. Case in point: The Narnia books are straight-up message fiction, but whether you agree with the message or not, the stories still hold up as fun adventure yarns for children and children at heart. 

What have you done up to this point in your fiction to put a focus on the marginalized and to build intentional diversity into your stories?

Rachel Burda Taylor: I do try to reflect the actual populations of the places I write about. So if a place (talking about you Gander, Newfoundland) is primarily WASPs, it's important to me to reflect that while also having the visiting protag have a more diverse friend group that reflects the population of her hometown.

TJ Keitt: You need to avoid tokenization, as well as tropes that are insulting and bigoted (e.g. the "noble savage" and "magic negro"). There are two ways to do this:

1) Tell a story that only your character from the marginalized community could lead. I think this is what made the first Black Panther movie, for example, so interesting. If you inserted any other Marvel hero into that story, it would not have made sense. It's also why I think the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies worked so well (they truly were stories about a teenager) and why I thought the first Wonder Woman missed the mark (aside from a couple of scenes, any DC hero who was overpowered and long-lived could have helmed that story). The challenge with this is you have to have a deep understanding of the character and story to pull that off, or else it becomes cringe.

2) Allow the marginalized character to exist normally in your broader world. Black, Hispanic, Gay, Trans, etc. are just ordinary people who interact with other people from different communities on a daily basis. Those interactions can include conversations about their identities, but most often, people are just interacting and discussing regular stuff. It's actually why characters like War Machine and Falcon work in the MCU: Yes, they're Black Americans, but they're also just regular (in the context of this world) people who are working through extraordinary circumstances. They don't have to be "credits" to their community; they just have to be represented as fully realized humans and not tokens or tropes.

Sean Taylor: I have also written stories with a theme, not just a plot. Those themes were ideas that were important to me at the time of the writing. My first published story was about the change in the heart of a small-town sheriff when he has to choose between letting his town give vigilante justice to a black kid accused on flimsy proof or to protect the kid until he can actually have a fair trial. I guess the story was still strong enough to make the message worth telling because it won an Award judged by the late Judith Ortiz Cofer. Even in my Pulp work, Bobby Nash and I were intentional when we set Rick Ruby, a white P.I., in an almost black world. Not only did it give up better opportunities to tell good stories with a variety of diverse characters, but it also allowed us to use even classic Pulp tropes to tell stories that mattered beyond mere punching and shooting tales. 

Jesse James Fain: I can only write what I know and understand. So I make no specific efforts to represent anyone I have not witnessed, and that I cannot flush out to be A PERSON and a Character with a role to fill.

This only applies to me, and my approach, but In fiction I am no one's champion. I am a storyteller weaving threads of human themes, themes that everyone from Vladivostok to Lisbon and Patagonia to the Arctic would understand if they read English.

Message fiction irritates me heavily. I don't want real-life politics or struggle in my fantastic escape. I champion my beliefs all day by example and debate. I don't need to thinly veil them in someone's good time. If the quiet part is noble, you will say it out loud. That goes for my own beliefs as well.

Every writer shows ideals, that's part of the human experience and thinking, but the difference between "this is how I think and it bleeds in a little." And "HEY GUYS THIS IS THE POINT, SEE! SEE! SEE ME SUPPORTING THE THING." IS normally sparkly clear, and the story normally sucks in the latter example.

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: I have done a lot. I don't know what to point out or suggest. I have mainly female characters of various racial backgrounds in my comic books. I attempt to make them pointed and have purpose instead of just being women. 

Connor Alexander: Years back, I had a Sikh character in a book I was writing (While I'm not religious, I find Sikhism fascinating). I was mostly using the internet and not feeling great about the character. Then, I was at a pizza place and realized the owner and his family were Sikhs. I asked the owner if I could buy him lunch and ask him about his faith. He agreed and we sat over lunch for hours. He was so generous with his beliefs and perspectives. Really made the character come to life.

Carl Moore: I let the geography do it naturally -- my horror novel that took place in New York City would be silly if it didn't have a diverse cast of characters.

Brian K Morris: As seen above, I've not done a lot until The Terrors from last year. I did my research on African-American communities during World War II and talked with a number of my Black friends in the hopes that I got it right.

Kay Iscah: Unfortunately my best stories for showcasing diversity aren't published yet (which frustrates me, but it's a long story). Seventh Night is vaguely medieval, so the conflict is more class diversity than racial or cultural diversity. You see a bit more of the broader world in the Before the Fairytale set, but not at a level I would brag about. I did have a subplot about the young sorceress using magic to treat someone with a harelip (cleft lip/cleft palate) and promoted Operation Smile when I first released those chapters. I have several back-burner projects that are more deliberate with racial diversity, particularly in protagonists... I don't think every story needs to hit every check box, but I do see the value in diverse stories, settings, and characters. Hoping to live long enough that my catalog of work will show a better variety. I didn't worry about Seventh Night being a bit Eurocentric because other stories I had in the works explored other cultures or more naturally diverse settings, but I honestly thought those would be out long before now.

Do you plan to ramp that up or back off or make any other changes to the way you include the marginalized in your work based on recent events?

Ef Deal: In my recent book, Aeros & Heroes, tout Paris is at the chateau, including the infamous Count Custine, an open homosexual in France, where it wasn't illegal. The king states, "It's an offense against God. Scripture is clear." Jacqueline says, "Scripture is rarely clear." She then expounds, for the sake of her 'salon' audience, on what is natural. She challenges the king to heal a guest's crippled leg, or turn water into wine, or walk across her pond. Yet we're all commanded to be imitators of the Christ, so why can't he do it? She then points out that Scripture is very clear on one point: The punishment for adultery (of which the king is notoriously guilty) is death. The king quickly shuts up.

Later, her lady's maid, a young teen, confesses that she's a lesbian, and the local priest has told her it's a sin. Jacqueline says, “I can’t tell you what sin is for you, Gaudin. If the curé says it’s a sin, I’m sure he will be happy to hear your confession. At the least, you’ll do penance. At the worst, you’ll be looked down upon by everyone except those who truly love you. If I could, I’d send you away to school to learn Greek and Hebrew properly. Then you could read the Holy Scripture for yourself, study it, and wrestle with God as Jacob did, and as I have done, to learn what God wants from you. Confess yourself to God. I’ve found God to be far more forgiving than the church.”

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: I am changing how I create these stories as I feel someone with better experience should share that voice. I will be concentrating my efforts on what I know, which is being Latino, having mental illness and being queer. I don't know that I am qualified to give a voice to other minorities. 

Jesse James Fain: I'm writing people. People who may be of any race, creed, or color, but I'm not banging on mental doors for anyone, not even my own groups. I'm telling tales about heroes and villains and badasses that come from where they come from, and I believe that's the best way to do them justice in speculative fiction.

Shay Vetter: I'm struggling with this right now. The books I have out are middle grades with a diverse cast, including LGBTQIA+ characters. The new administration wants to call those characters porn, even though there is absolutely nothing spicy in my books. Certain billionaires who own book platforms support the new administration. Do I pull them off those platforms? What about the cozy SF series I'm writing for adults?

I'm nonbinary and bisexual. What I write is reflective of who I am and the kind of world I want to see. It's not just about normalizing marginal groups but making a world where people like me can live to their fullest. I don't believe my existence takes away from someone else. If anything, I think we'll all be richer through diversity. I think the belief that I infringe on someone else just by existing is propaganda by people who need someone to blame so their followers will focus on that and not on the fact that their leaders are actual ones who want to infringe on them.

I'm pretty upset at the world right now.

Brian K Morris: When I released The Terrors, one person accused me of "race swapping" and equating it to lazy writing (which would have been to just stick with a white cast). Two minutes later, I got a 2-star rating on Amazon. While I got some amazing reviews for the book, the comments on FB were all about their disappointment in seeing someone introduce a strong, Black set of characters. (For the record, when I checked out the accounts, they were all middle-aged white guys who probably weren't even around when the characters MY cast were based on were in print). And I am petty at heart...I wanted to tweak their noses and annoy them. So I'm working on the sequel novel, along with two other novellas in the same universe. The only change I'm making is that there will be more of what upsets the bigots, and I couldn't be happier.

Klara Schmitt: I know TikTok often gets a lot of pushback for being a time-suck and/or an echo chamber, but I will credit it to really exposing me to a ton of different voices and perspectives. Anytime I wanted to learn more about what it was like being ADHD or Ace or even what experiencing seizures might feel like, I search it and watch videos exploring peoples' lived experiences and listen to their thoughts. I am also grateful to the resource https://www.tumblr.com/writingwithcolor, which has helped me tremendously.

In high school I took a course Teaching Tolerance through a homeschool co-op, which I believe has since been renamed Learning for Justice, but that course really stuck with me. I think that course was perhaps more inline with the first point "encourage understanding and empathy in regard to diversity." I think it's important to have both, to expose folks to diversity, but to also build up empathy for what it's like to live an experience other than your own.

My story actually blends a lot of cultures' folklore with elements of a lot of mainstream religions and I'm trying to do my best to keep it in grays. My main characters might have perspectives of the legitimacy of certain beliefs, but that doesn't mean they are right in their thinking, which will evolve as they continue to be exposed to more people and more context.

In addition to religion, I have two non-profits essentially brokering diversity in pursuit of peace and the right of existence, one of which is international, so I wanted that represented in the makeup of their employees. I try to include people of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, disabilities, etc., but also put them in positions of authority. Perhaps as a woman, who works a corporate job where there aren't a ton of women in leadership roles, I wanted to write what I wish was more readily prevalent. So now I have a lot of women in my book, some questing for honor, some for power, but the variance is in their motivation, not their gender.

The one lesson I learned the hard way though is to definitely find 2-3 sources on name pronunciations that originate outside my own language/country. One chick is stuck with an incorrect pronunciation because I only verified her name once before writing it down phonetically. But then I fell in love with the name and now I can't seem to change it in my head. Oops. Coincidentally, I am really glad I listened to books #2 and #3 of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series, because it allowed me to hear all the international students' names with proper pronunciation and I definitely missed out on reading book #1.

Also, writing accents is a lot harder than I thought and I've spent a lot of time on websites teaching Haitian Creole because I value authenticity. I am still hoping to find some folks who might be able to vet my dialog for the various accents before I publish, because incorporating languages that I don't speak into my writing means I'm much more likely to get it wrong. (See previous paragraph, lol.)

Kay Iscah: I have too many projects on the back burner to react to recent events through fiction.

For readers, it may seem to ramp up as I go along. For me, it was always part of the plan. Though I think of it more as variety than highlighting marginalization. Phillip is essentially a nerd stuck in the life of a medieval peasant, so he's marginalized in his society. Meanwhile, the princess is neurodivergent (on the psychopathy spectrum) but there's no language for that in a medieval setting, so I just hint at it with things like "thought more than she felt". The sorceress lives a marginal existence as the only practicing magic user in the country, and she has a magical ability that was a bit of a disability in her youth. The prince has a bizarre family situation... so there are many ways to be an outsider.

A lot of my unpublished protagonists are outsiders or marginalized in some way, but that may be more subtle with some characters than others. I do think it's important to see demographics as a trait of a character and not the whole character.

Sean Taylor: I'm ramping up. Like Kamala said, we're not backing down. The marginalized are going to face a lot of troubles in the years to come, and I like to think that as a writer, I can at least open an eye onto that world and those troubles and the ones who benefit from their hardships. 

 What authors do you recommend who are doing a commendable job of highlighting this kind of diversity in their work?

John Anthony Chihak Soltero: Sophie Campbell does an amazing job in her work on Wet Moon. She features great character development, stories and artwork, while also giving voice to Queer characters, those with disabilities and various races and body types.

Kay Iscah: My reading is all over the place, but I'm reading a lot of dead authors and older books at the moment. I think readers need to put in some of the effort and just try new authors and genres. There's so much pressure on authors to build a "brand" that individual authors may stick to one type of issue rather trying to hit all of them. I watch a lot of Asian media and have started dipping my toe into some Nollywood series. The internet has made the world far more accessible to us. Instead of expecting an Irish author to highlight African stories, I think it's better for readers to try out African authors.

Lot of my personal focus is fairytales and folklore. So I'm constantly (if slowly) trying to expand my imagination by reading the mythologies of different cultures.

Marginalization is a concept where setting is very important, and anyone tackling the issue should be very aware there's a difference between being the only one of something in the city, and a city full of people like your character. Same character, different level of marginalization because the setting changed. Both place and time. Being a witch in London in 1524 and being a witch in London in 2024 are completely different experiences.

Sean Taylor: I think if you look past the works of more old, white dudes like me and read more LGBTQIA+, POC, refuge, and international writers, you'll find all the stories you could ever find. Sure, that means you may read fewer folks like me, and that'll hurt my wallet, but I'd rather you learn to be a more diverse thinker and more active in fighting for marginal peoples. Heather Plett has a wonder article about this called Centring Marginalized Voices and De-Colonizing My Bookshelf that is well worth checking out. 

A lot of my own interest in reading marginalized voice comes from being an American Lit/Comp teacher. As I mentioned in my response to question #1, I think back to the poems of Langston Hughes writing about being Black in a White United States, Kate Chopin writing about being little more than property in a patriarchal world, and Oscar Wilde, who had to hide (though clearly not very well - 😏) his homosexuality in metaphor and symbolism in his fiction. 

Connor Alexander, who replied above, is a board creator creating amazing RPGs and board games based on marginalized groups. 

Adult Writers, Child Readers?

For our next roundtable, let's look at being child readers and how, if at all, that influenced us as writers. 

Were you read to when you were a toddler/young child? Do you remember favorites that you continued to read alone once you learned how?

Ef Deal: I wasn't read to, but I learned to read very young, three years. I read in secret by the wedge of light from the bathroom after bedtime. Then I found the town library was on my street and ripped through the children's section in six months. Got a library card before I was five. My dad was a reader -- of trash. 

Elizabeth Donald: I learned to read when I was three (or so I am told), so I don’t have strong memories of being read to, but I know I was. My earliest associated memories are of reading to my parents. In fact, I recall sitting next to my mother reading her a Berenstein Bears book and she suddenly stopped me and summoned my father. I had no idea what was going on and wondered if I’d done it wrong. 

Instead, my mother asked my father to please get the box of Nancy Drew books from the attic. They were her books from her own childhood, those older 1950s blue tweed covers with the silhouette of Nancy and her magnifying glass (which I do not recall appearing in any of the books.) Mom realized at whatever age I was -- 6, perhaps? -- that I was ready for chapter books. I dove into Nancy Drew and never looked back. 

From there I discovered Judy Blume, Black Beauty and The Black Stallion, fought beside Johnny Tremain, explored the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, climbed My Side of the Mountain and attended Sweet Valley High. Then Lois Duncan introduced me to horror, which eventually led to swiping my mother’s Stephen King hardbacks which I wasn’t supposed to read but I left the dust jackets in their places so she wouldn’t realize they were missing. When Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered I was hooked into Trek, and started devouring every tie-in novel I could find. Then it was, “Hmm, I like this Peter David guy. I think I should see what else he’s written…”

Jen Mulvihill: Yes absolutely, my mother read all the horse books to me, International Velvet, Black Beauty, Little Nick, all of them. Then she read all the Laura Ingles books to me. When I got older I started reading L. Frank Baum, I still have not read them all yet.

Scott McCullar: I don’t remember my parents reading to me as a child. Perhaps my Mama did when I was a toddler, but I just do not remember it happening in my life. Instead, she would have conversations with me and would encourage me in my love for art. I know my Mama gave me the Little Golden Books before kindergarten. I think I was more infatuated with the illustrations. 

When I was a little older in kindergarten circa 1976, my Daddy started buying me comic books as an incentive to help me learn how to read. At that point, I was this little blonde-headed kid with freckles from Tennessee living in California who still retained his thick Southern accent. The school out in Fresno wanted to put me into speech therapy classes to lose the accent. The other kids in class made fun of me constantly with my Southern drawl – especially when it was time for me to read the “I See Sam” yellow children’s books. I was so infuriated at the time at the other kids that I refused to talk in class and it impeded my reading development at that time. With that, comic books solved the problem and I became a voracious reader. By second grade, I was reading biographies of historical figures like Babe Ruth, Davy Crockett, Abe Lincoln, and others. 

John Morgan Neal: I have no memory of being read to. First reads were Batman comics. And S.E. Hintons's The Outsiders.

Gordon Dymowski: My parents instilled a love of reading from an early age - according to family legend, my father purchased a copy of ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH the day I was born. Not only was I read to, but I was encouraged to head to the local library when I was a kid. Between Chicago Public Library and my Catholic school, I read several series multiple times: Alvin Fernald, Danny Dunn, Tom Swift Jr...and eventually, Sherlock Holmes.

Bobby Nash: I don’t remember being read to as a kid. I probably was, but don’t recall. My mom did like to read so that got me interested in reading. She used to get the Reader’s Digest collections. It was there I read my first novel, The Snowbound Six. I was hooked. From there I went to Han Solo’s Revenge and comic books. Plus, The Monster at the End of this Book with Grover was a favorite.

Brian K Morris: Yes, my mother read an assortment of Golden Books to me. My father tried to read some of my comics to me, but he grew bored with the task. I don't recall any of the books from back then, aside from The Night Before Christmas (which I own several editions of), but I loved them a lot.

Sean Taylor: Absolutely. Both my Mom and my MeMe (grandma) read to me. And they were both always buying my books. I was fortunate in that all my sets of parents and grandparents (as a child of divorce and remarriage I had "bonus" grands) supported me in being a reader from an early age. When I was able to read for myself, I always went back to the ones I remembered most and best -- The Pokey Little Puppy, Never Talk to Strangers, The Sailor Dog, and How to Make Flibbers, etc. : A Book of Things to Make and Do. I still own each of them, and they are still barely holding it together after all the years of love I gave them. I hope to pass them down to my own grandkids and build memories of reading them together. 

Susan Roddey: My mother read to me every day until I learned to read. It was always my favorite part of the day. My absolute favorite book was called "There are Rocks in my Socks," Said the Ox to the Fox. I bought a copy of it for my own kids... they were not impressed.

How often did you read as a child? Where were you on the spectrum that goes from "lock me in my room with my books" to "please don't make me read"?

Bobby Nash: I loved to read. Comic books became a huge favorite. Spider-Man, G.I. Joe, Space Family Robinson, Star Trek, and the big treasury editions of Captain America, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars were constant companions. I read novels. Those small paperbacks of the 70’s were a big influence on me.

I hated being told what to read. That’s probably because I don’t like being told what to do.

Brian K Morris: I grew up in the country, so books, comics, and TV were my real friends back then. I learned to read when I was three so throwing me into my room with my reading material proved to be no punishment for me.

John Morgan Neal: All I needed was to be in my room with my comics and my toys to reenact or create new stories from the characters I loved. School introduced me to The Outsiders, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty Four, and such.

Gordon Dymowski: I read voraciously as a child, and my parents encouraged this habit. I read everything from catalogs and newspapers to books and comics. If there's a statement that describes my youthful reading, it would be "Go find a book and entertain yourself." (Keep your minds out of the gutter, people)

Susan Roddey: I started reading early, and have been a voracious reader ever since. I was the kid they punished by telling me I wasn't allowed to read.

Scott McCullar: After discovering comic books in kindergarten where I learned to read and moved on to other “real” books, I became a lifelong reader. I didn’t have to be “locked in a room”, I just instead took books with me wherever I went. To the living room on the couch. Outside under a tree. On the bus with me to school. Wherever I walked.

Jen Mulvihill: I read all the time. I would sneak books in school instead of doing my school work. I didn’t have many friends so I would almost always be reading. You could usually find me in an apple tree eating green apples and reading.

Elizabeth Donald: So I was the bookworm, the kid who had a book hidden in her lap for those long stretches of math class (and got yelled at by my third-grade teacher in front of the whole class for READING when I’d finished the math assignment. “You spend your whole day with your nose in a book!” It did not occur to me for years to question her priorities.) My parents gave up grounding me, as I didn’t watch much television and ordering me to stay inside and not go out to play? Gee darn. Being a shy bookworm with unruly hair and thick glasses, naturally I was a target for bullies (mostly male, the girls just ignored me). So hiding in the storage closet during recess (with a book) or staying inside instead of going to the park (with a book) was definitely me. Instead, if my parents needed to ground me, they grounded me from my books, which got my attention. 

Sean Taylor: I read every time I could. I would spend hours in my MeMe's front bedroom (we spent a lot of time with her) reading. The books got more complex and longer and I branched out more in non-fiction too. I would read every book I could get my hands on about sharks, snakes, spiders, or dinosaurs, and I devoured my set of Childcraft Encyclopedias too. And I went from re-reading the children's books to reading the illustration and abridged versions of classics (not to be confused with the Classics Illustrated comic book though I read those too) with an illustration every other page. I particularly enjoyed the Verne and Wells abridgments. That's also when I found my favorite book that I probably read at least 200 times between the time I was 7 and 15 -- The Adventures of Monkey by Arthur Waley. I was very much into adventure stories at the time. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: We had a big family so we got sent to the library a lot to keep us out of mom’s hair. Alone with a book was infinitely preferable to getting bullied by sibs. I was reading Asimov and Tolkien by age eight. 

Did those early experiences help to instill in you a love of stories, and how did that reading stories bug transform into a telling stories and writing stories bug?

Susan Roddey: I've always loved everything about the written word. Even before I understood how to write stories, I would pretend to be a writer. It's always been a part of me.

John Morgan Neal: Not sure instill is the most accurate word. Awoked. Revealed. Because I think it was always there.

Brian K Morris: Being in the country, the only companions I had were imaginary. That's who I read to when I was younger. And the storytelling bug is still strong in me.

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Dr. Seuss first showed me what imagination can do. My imagination always took anything I read and made whole universes out of it. And never stopped.

Scott McCullar: By fourth grade, I was writing my own stories. I won a “Young Author’s” contest at school for my first story “Mice Wars” which was loosely based on the historical story of The Alamo with a cast of characters that were all mice. I would continue to write stories here or there in my spiral notebooks, but my other interest wanting to illustrate also pushed me in the direction of wanting to be a comic book creator who handled both the writing and art chores in his own work. 

I just loved storytelling in all forms. Whether it was books, comic books, illustrations, television, film, or even audio-only sources such as radio dramas, records, or listening to someone speak in a lecture, interview, or tell a tale around a campfire, etc.

Elizabeth Donald: I have always been a storyteller, in any form. From my very early childhood I was writing, way back to early-80s Smurf fanfic. I was never going to BE a writer, mind you -- you needed Dumbo’s magic feather and to live in New York for that, or so I believed. But books were absolutely integral to my childhood, developing my imagination, and entry drug after entry drug kept me in fictional magic. I wrote my first novel in high school and it was terrible, as most first novels are. And I rewrote it a couple of times in college, and it was still terrible. I wrote plays as a theater major and they were terrible. But that’s the gig, isn’t it? The more you write, the less terrible your writing. Every word you write -- and every word you read -- makes you a better writer, in tiny increments. Those baby steps start with the Berenstein Bears and Nancy Drew and end up with your name on the cover displayed in the front window at Borders. 

Jen Mulvihill: I really think it did have an impact on me. Especially when I became a teenager and started reading Science Fiction, I could not get enough. But now I see in my writing a little bit of influence of a mix of Baum and Heinlein. As a child and teenager, I used to make up all kinds of stories in my head, sometimes I wrote them down and sometimes I didn’t. I still have an old suitcase full of old short stories, songs, and poetry.

Bobby Nash: Oh, yeah. I started thinking of ways to do my own stories. I studied the books and taught myself how to write, how to create stories and characters, etc. That urge has not diminished over the decades.

Ef Deal: I couldn't separate reading from imagining, so I began writing early, and yes, because I was an avid reader.

Gordon Dymowski: Since I grew up as an only child, I relied on my imagination and curiosity to provide entertainment. One method was drawing stories on scrap paper my mother brought home from work. I think that experience shaped my ability to tell stories since I knew I could take characters from comics and translate them into rough narratives. It wasn't until college that I started writing short stories...and developed a large collection of rejection slips.

Fortunately, the past eleven years as an author helped me realize I have a knack for this whole writing thing. It's still a learning process., but I feel more confident in my abilities now than I ever did in the past.

Sean Taylor: I don't think there's any denying how important the stories I read were to making me want to tell my own stories. I did it with everything from paper to pencil to playing with my action figures. I never played with them correctly. Luke and Leia were never Luke and Leia. Nope, Luke was a swashbuckling hero while Walrus Man wore the Jawa's cloak and became an evil wizard who captured Leia (I was a kid. I hadn't learned yet women didn't need us men to save them.) and foiled Luke's plans with his giant robot (Mazinga) while keeping hidden in my Fisher Price castle with the secret trapdoor. That play became stories that still influence me to this day, hence my love of adventurous tales of heroes and heroines in outlandish situations.