Fantasy in the New America
It's been about a month since the election and I think I can finally talk about it in a public forum. I've generally stayed away from politics on my public accounts, but I do believe that artists have a duty to society to speak out, to ask questions, and to build hope.
I've been thinking a lot about the place of books such as my own in our current culture and political climate and had several long talks with some of the my other writer friends about how they're feeling. The first topic that tends to come up is escapism. We all hope that our readers can fall into our books and forget about their troubles for a while and I think that's valid. We all need to take a break from life now and then. But I also think there's more to this conversation than that. As a writer of fantasy, it is part of my work to think about society and how people relate to one another. To think about class, gender, sexuality, race, religion, nationality, and the countless other things that come together to make us who were are. To build the fantasy worlds that I do, I have to spend a lot of time thinking about the world that we all live in and that's where I think simple escapism becomes not enough.
If you're reading a fantasy novel to take a break from life, that's fine. But if you're writing them for no other reason than that, I think you need to give your job a good, hard think. It is our duty as writers of fantastical fiction - and I extend this to writers of sci-fi as well - to be very conscious about the worlds and societies we create. We must examine social norms before we use them. Is there a reason your fictional society is patriarchal or is it just because that's what you're used to? Why do the aliens or the elves have a binary gender system; is it because that's how we've been raised to think? We must strive to write fiction that asks our readers to examine the world around them and think about how it could be better. Our written worlds may be fictional, but the ideals they can hold don't have to be.
My promise to you as we move forward into these uncertain times is to try to be more conscientious about my worlds. I've learned a lot in the past couple of months about gender and racial theory and the intersections of marginalities and it is my hope to incorporate these ideas into my work going forward. I was to continue to offer my readers escape from the fear and stress of the coming months and years, but I also want to offer them hope for a better future.
