Happy release day to Rob Thurman!
When I was a punk-ass kid growing up in the country, we had one library and not one new book there. All the books were donated from at least twenty years before I was born. In those books, with rare exceptions, the characters were pasty white people (like me.) But being a pasty white kid didn’t stop me from being outraged. I wanted people of color, I wanted people of different religious backgrounds, different sexualities, different capabilities.
Publishing made that all more a determination for me. The diversity was coming, but it was slow and often considered a different genre all its own--apparently a lot of people in the bookstores weren’t listening to the Supreme Court. I wrote novels where diversity was the norm, as it is in everyday life. It wasn’t focused on, but it wasn’t ignored either. It simply reflected life. I have two characters who are Rom, an Asian werewolf, two Hispanic vampires, one werewolf who had albinism, one werewolf that was a set of conjoined twins. I had a little person, a bisexual Greek myth come to life (who doesn’t love puck/Pan and all his incarnations?), a biracial female protagonist, an American Indian, and that’s probably not the end of it. They were integrated into the stories so well that many readers didn’t even realize until they were told. They were far more interested in the inside of the character, which, in a way, is a triumph. Diversity is beautiful and it should be the norm. And what do you actually not notice that often? The norm.
We are one.
Except…
I thought about it the other day and of my ten main characters in my two urban fantasy series, only one is human. Now I find myself on the other side…the side I’d scorned. I’m a bigot-I promote prejudice against humans.
Sure, they can’t suck blood or fly (without proper ID) on feathered wings. They can’t tear holes in reality to step through. They don’t live to be over a hundred thousand years old. They can’t go to hell to escape the NYC winter and warm up (well…maybe they can, but it might be more permanent than they planned.) They can’t slip into the wolf fur (once you go furry, you never have to worry), piss on a fire hydrant or hump a leg and have it passed off as the fun-loving antics of a really, really big dog. They aren’t demi-gods who can try to destroy the entire planet on a bad day and have it brushed off-forgive and forget because ‘gods will be gods.’
This trend has to stop. We need more humans. Ordinary humans without any paranormal powers, personal demons, Satan on speed-dial, magical this, cursed that. We need simple and plain Slushie operators out there fighting the good fight as well.
Remember: humans are people too.
_____________
For more on Rob's books, including excerpts and extras, you can follow along here:
Website
Twitter
Livejournal
Publishing made that all more a determination for me. The diversity was coming, but it was slow and often considered a different genre all its own--apparently a lot of people in the bookstores weren’t listening to the Supreme Court. I wrote novels where diversity was the norm, as it is in everyday life. It wasn’t focused on, but it wasn’t ignored either. It simply reflected life. I have two characters who are Rom, an Asian werewolf, two Hispanic vampires, one werewolf who had albinism, one werewolf that was a set of conjoined twins. I had a little person, a bisexual Greek myth come to life (who doesn’t love puck/Pan and all his incarnations?), a biracial female protagonist, an American Indian, and that’s probably not the end of it. They were integrated into the stories so well that many readers didn’t even realize until they were told. They were far more interested in the inside of the character, which, in a way, is a triumph. Diversity is beautiful and it should be the norm. And what do you actually not notice that often? The norm.
We are one.
Except…
I thought about it the other day and of my ten main characters in my two urban fantasy series, only one is human. Now I find myself on the other side…the side I’d scorned. I’m a bigot-I promote prejudice against humans.
Sure, they can’t suck blood or fly (without proper ID) on feathered wings. They can’t tear holes in reality to step through. They don’t live to be over a hundred thousand years old. They can’t go to hell to escape the NYC winter and warm up (well…maybe they can, but it might be more permanent than they planned.) They can’t slip into the wolf fur (once you go furry, you never have to worry), piss on a fire hydrant or hump a leg and have it passed off as the fun-loving antics of a really, really big dog. They aren’t demi-gods who can try to destroy the entire planet on a bad day and have it brushed off-forgive and forget because ‘gods will be gods.’
This trend has to stop. We need more humans. Ordinary humans without any paranormal powers, personal demons, Satan on speed-dial, magical this, cursed that. We need simple and plain Slushie operators out there fighting the good fight as well.
Remember: humans are people too.
_____________
For more on Rob's books, including excerpts and extras, you can follow along here:
Website
Livejournal