Tomi Adeyemi – L. Ryan Storms

One of the biggest rules in writing stories of any length is “write what you know.” That’s not to say I know anything about real magic, or talismans, or chaos. I mean, really, who really does? (Well, okay, I know a *little* about chaos these days.)

But the bigger takeaway from this rule is generally that you shouldn’t write from an identity that isn’t yours. White folks shouldn’t try to write from a Black point of view in their novel. Or a Maori warrior. Or an Egyptian prince. Or a Native American. Or…

Okay, you get my point.

Wait! What? But there are so many amazing and diverse stories out there to be told! Why wouldn’t we write them?

Because there are also so many amazing and diverse writers of all different identities who can (and should) tell them, and they won’t get that chance if someone else dominates the narrative.

So what happens when you’re a third/fourth generation American immigrant whose family has been in the country for a hundred years and whose ethnicity looks like this?

Who are you? And what stories do you write?

This is something I’ve been pondering a lot lately as I read books from authors with cultural ties around the world. What I find as I read them, though, is that even though the authors are American, many times they have direct ties to the cultures they write about; they’re typically first or second generation immigrants whose very lives are influenced daily by the part of the world they (or their parents) came from.

Take, for example, Lauren Blackwood’s Within These Wicked Walls, an Ethiopian-inspired fantasy by a Jamaican-American author; Children of Blood & Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, a Nigerian-inspired fantasy written by a Nigerian-American; An Ember in the Ashes by Pakistani-American author Sabaa Tahir; or Forest of a Thousand Lanterns, an East-Asian-inspired fantasy by Julie C. Dao, a Vietnamese-American.

These books are positively amazing, their storytelling lush, their settings fresh and rich with detail, the history unknown to me, the folklore like nothing I’ve read before. I fall into these stories with reckless abandon, a constant thirst for more, more, more.

But it also leaves me wondering…

What kind of fantasies should I be writing…if, that is, I should be writing fantasies at all?

My ethnicity is over 60% Italian, but my ancestors came to America in the immigration boom of the 1910s and 1920s, so beyond my grandmother’s recipe for pasta sauce (ahem, gravy), I have virtually no claim on my Italian ancestry. I wouldn’t feel remotely qualified to write an Italian-inspired fantasy. In fact, I would think only someone from Italy (or maybe a first generation Italian-American) could do justice to an Italian-inspired fantasy.

And if I can’t write Italian-inspired fantasies, then I’m *certainly* not qualified to write from any other part of my ancestry (even if I’ve often been tempted to lean into my Croatian heritage).

So what does that leave?

American fantasies?

I’m plagued suddenly by images of fantasies featuring the Wild West, a time period which I neither understand nor romanticize about. No, but really? How can there be an American-inspired fantasy? Our country was founded on land stolen from entire murdered civilizations, then established further as a “cultural melting pot” (Isn’t that the term they used in third grade?) with no one, single culture comprising our identity as Americans.

All this to say, as ethnically-mixed Americans who’ve been in this country long enough to no longer have strong cultural ties to our roots, but not nearly long enough to rival true Native Americans, what defines us? What makes us eligible to tell, or not tell, certain stories? And how do we know which ones are ours to tell?

I don’t have the answers.

I’m genuinely asking.

I read. I read a lot. Even when the weather (finally) changes and a warm breeze replaces the arctic winds of winter, I’m no less likely to be found lounging on a couch, a book in hand. The only difference is that I probably have the windows open.

I like to read a little bit of everything, but of all the genres and all the age categories, I find Young Adult Fantasy to be my favorite. Why? (TL:DR? Scroll to the bottom of the page.)

Oh, let me count the ways.

YA Fantasy worlds & world-building: I am an enormous geek when it comes to the natural world around us. Biology is magic and the sheer diversity of it is staggering. Someone I follow on Twitter recently tweeted about David Attenborough and it reminded me of how much he once inspired my love of the natural world. (As did many of my college professors, but they don’t narrate specials on Animal Planet or National Geographic, so…) For me, YA Fantasy has taken my love of nature one step further. A good YA Fantasy draws you into a new and unfamiliar alien landscape, yet makes it seem as familiar as our own Earth.

World-building in any genre is important, but in YA Fantasy, it’s a crucial element in order to create a new land that’s both foreign and familiar at the same time. It’s a skill good fantasy authors master early. I don’t just want to read about the birds singing in the trees. I want to know which birds in which trees. Paint their feathers for me and make the fronds of the trees filter the alien sunlight onto a dirt floor that’s littered with forest debris. Where do the birds nest? What’s their song like? Do the birds eat nuts and berries or do they steal the eggs of others’ young right from their nests? Are there myths surrounding the birds? What kind of stories have people told about them? I want to breathe it all in as though I’m really there, and that’s one of the reasons YA Fantasy is my favorite. The lush world-building just can’t be beat and there is literally no limit to the number of fantastical settings and creatures that can be created.

YA Fantasy protagonists: When I was a teen, I was quiet, soft-spoken in crowds, and always pictured myself as a real-life sidekick, certainly not a kickass dragon-riding protagonist who could master the forces of magic and shape the future of an alien world. As a teen, reading YA Fantasy allowed me to escape into a world where not only was I a main character (or following along in the life of one), but I was a confident one, even when faced with danger. It was exhilarating. It’s a way to open teen minds without feeling the pressure of the very real dangers of today’s world.

Plus, let’s not forget how much fun being a teenager really is. In real life? Pimples, exams, puberty, peer pressure, driver’s license test, college choices (“What do you want to do? What do you want to be? Decide now. Now, now!”)… The list goes on and on, but YA Fantasy pushes all that aside and focuses on giving teens choices that maybe aren’t so mundane. Instead of asking teens to face the world as it stands around them, YA Fantasy asks teens to face a new world where they can safely explore life and death choices and empathize with characters who face decisions that are much more terrifying than their own real-life ones!

YA Fantasy protagonists are a mix of grit and insecurity (much like real-life teens) and what makes them worth following is how they grow as characters. Character arcs in YA Fantasy are beyond fun to watch! Good luck trying to get a 25-year-old protagonist to make the kind of progress you can make with a 16-year-old in half the time.

YA Fantasy Influence: Perhaps the best reason of all to read YA Fantasy? To see how it has shaped teenagers in today’s world. The kids from Parkland, FL took everyone by storm when they refused to let a culture of gun violence remain the norm. But why were they so quick to speak out? What made their experience different from so many other incidents that had come before? These kids were raised on a steady diet of book and movie series like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. They’ve seen teens who look and act just like them as protagonists in their own lives. They’ve seen characters make a difference, defeat ‘evil,’ and come out better on the other side. YA Fantasy is so much more than teens saving their worlds. It gives today’s real world teens a voice and the hope that they, too, might change their world for good. I can’t think of a more noble reason to jump into the next YA Fantasy…

TL:DR

YA Fantasy is a genre everyone should read and it’s not just for tweens and teens to enjoy. Ready to delve in? Need a place to start? Try these:

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Forgetting by Sharon Cameron

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Frostblood by Elly Blake