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The Wholesome Love Affair Between Black Women And YA Fantasy Literature

There is a long-held, not unfounded, suspicion that to get published as a black writer, you need to be writing about Black Pain/Trauma™. The question came up just the other night at a Black Ballad writer’s workshop: “Is the publishing world only interested in Black pain?”

If you were to judge by the books by black authors that have sped through the publication process in the last year, you might say yes. But the recent Black Issue of The Bookseller revealed 12 pages of books from black authors covering every genre you could think of, including a number of fantastical and magical-themed stories for adults and younger readers.

The love affair between black women/girls and fantasy should be as unsurprising as the one between black women/girls and K-pop. But, of course, if you let the industry tell it, YA (young adult) fantasy fiction is the sole preserve of white women/girls.