#fantasy authors of color

[lexwritesgayshit]

I'm not gonna lie, I'm really confused by what people consider cozy fantasy. Even *if* you can set aside the rampant casual racism and ableism in the genre (which....how?), where is the cozy factor in a book described as a brutal war tale? And why are we categorizing Dianna Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle as cozy fantasy? Did we read the same book? Did we forget what actually happened to the prince, and all of the things studio ghibli wayyy toned down in the movie?

To each their own, but I think people confuse comfort stories with coziness. You can have the most fucked up books be comfort stories, but coziness has (or used to have) a certain meaning and vibe, and I think we're losing that. If you tell me a book is cozy fantasy yet the main character is racist against both her own mixed family as well as toward herself, and she's forcing her "help" on the love interest while simultaneously saying shit like "I didn't sign up to be a baby sitter", where is the cozy element? The fact that they're running errands together and eating sweets and falling in love for some reason while still treating each other poorly? I'm stressed! I'm not feeling cozy right now. WHO finds this cozy, and why????

I want to read a cozy fantasy by an author of color, preferably a disabled author of color (or an abled author of color who doesn't pump the story full of ableism) and I want to know if the whole fucking genre has these issues or if it's just the way white people write "cozy" fantasy. If anyone has recs please send them my way (and yes, I'm going to tag this cozy fantasy, not to upset people who love the genre, but because I want book recs. I need to believe that there are good things happening in this genre, too)

[jesncin]

what are your thoughts on krypton? Both how it’s been handled before and how you personally would go about it?

I like Krypton the most when it's portrayed as a socialist utopia (doomed by arrogance and pride) to better narratively contrast Earth as the flawed planet for Superman to bring hope to. I can't stand versions that portray Krypton or Kryptonians as colonizers or racists or classists. It's just lazy worldbuilding and loses sight of what Superman's immigrant allegory represents, in my opinion.

Personally! I would like to expand the definition of what "an alien utopia" would look like for Krypton. Most of the time Krypton is imagined as "earth but better" but I think a utopia would have to fundamentally change things from the ground up. No capitalism, diversity without segregation, advanced system of genders, different religious systems that co-exist in harmony unlike what organized religion typically does on Earth, etc. That's far more interesting as a concept to me than "Kryptonians are colonizers because we want Superman to be more flawed". I would stem Krypton's flaws moreso in their arrogance and perhaps cultural differences that seem off putting to humans like in Kansas Sighting.

[safirefire]

legendborn really is so perfect for every single person who reads fantasy about ancient magical systems and wonders how it’s remotely possible that every single person involved from the dawn of time is white and there’s only one system of magic practiced

[bitstitchbitch]

anyways, i'm begging y'all to read speculative fiction by queer authers, women authors, authors of color, etc. Not that you can't also enjoy the books by straight white men, but please please add a little variety every once in a while. There's so much more out there from so many interesting perspectives. Or at a bare minimum, stop looking at me like I'm crazy when I say I like fantasy even though I don't read Tolkien or Sanderson. Try Ursula K. Le Guin, Nnedi Okorafor, R. F. Kuang, Ann Leckie, N. K. Jemison, Marlon James, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, Arkady Martine, Becky Chambers, Martha Wells, Rivers Solomon, Octavia Butler, Mary Shelley, Samuel R. Delaney, Margaret Killjoy, Tamsyn Muir - I could go on and on and on. Modern authors. Classic authors. There are so so so many options.

[sarnai4]

Third and final chapter to be uploaded on Ao3! Next week (fingers crossed), the entire book will be published on Amazon for Ebook, paperback, and hardcover. Here's a look behind the scenes as I was getting to see the preview of the cover before uploading it for submission. (Told you that I wanted to use that glow effect on Medibang Paint!)

[dramallamasdraws]

MY BOYS!!!! I'm just going to mass art dump these guys cus I love them so much. Nolan (the merfolk with blonde hair) and Dorian's relationship isn't the main focus of the story, just a fun little add thing. They are adorable, and they do fall into the troupe of literally made for each other because their Goddess Agora loves drama.

Some sketches

This is a fun one in the first book they gain nicknamed for each other. Dorian's is Starfish and Nolan's is Slug Face, I also sketched the scenes where the scenes where they got them.

And here's one last scene from the first book because I love this scene

[beareadsbookz]

For those who can’t see the images

Book recommendations for hispanic/latinx heritage month:

My Chicano Heart by Daniel A Olivia’s

Lineage Of Rain by Janel Pineda

The Storyteller’s Death by Anna Dávila Cardinal

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

No Filter and Other Lies by Crystal Maldonado

We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado

[zacwuv]

My Glittering Friend (Erotica/Tentacles/MonsterxHuman/3k)

In a large and mysterious mansion resting at the edge of a nameless city, there lives a woman named Ani Berlough with rather particular tastes. The entire first floor of her home is dedicated to shelves of books, trinkets, and jars full of oddities. A large mahogany table is at the center, and there she usually sits to organize and summarize each new item or friend she has acquired.

Ani has many travelers and traders that she works with, though she would never mention them to one another. Their relationships are a pact between each other, and their trades are secrets just for them. Ani has solidified this as a fundamental promise before any work can be done, because - unfortunately - what she desires from some traders can at times be a problem for other traders to be aware of.

She’s a powerful woman with powerful needs. And now, sitting in silence at her mahogany table simply writing notes, one of those needs slowly builds and thickens at the base of her stomach. Her thighs twitch, then fold over each other.

She huffs at what’s left to be done of her work and glances across her shelves, though there’s not a soul in sight. No visitors today, no travelers, no traders...Hm. Since it’s early afternoon, she doubts any will come.

Ani knows herself well. She’s already distracted, so she may as well…yes, she may as well.

Ani places her pencil down and flips her light burgundy hair over her shoulder. The tall, admittedly ostentatious, chair she sits in scrapes against the flooring as she pushes it back to stand, and the sound echoes.

Some distance behind where she sits, there is a gaping hall between two bookshelves that reach the ceiling. The hall stays dark at all times. Only Ani can walk through. As she walks, she adjusts the belt holding her wrap-dress closed, excitement beginning to thrum down her arms all the way to her toes. The darkness grazes her skin in hello and she smiles in return.

Ani reaches a door that she habitually knows the location of. She pushes against it and closes her eyes against the bright afternoon sunlight. The door shuts silently behind her.

Her yard is a hub of her interests. She ignores all but the cave that sits at the base of a small mountain that she uses to grow particular herbs and flora. She prefers to be barefoot, so she makes sure to take the tending of her yard very seriously. The grass is soft between her toes as she walks toward the opening. Yellow flowers have been sporadically growing here in clumps, but they’re small and harmless, which is not what she can say about some other flora that attempts to grow in her gardens.

The yellow flowers rise in quantity as she crosses the caves’ threshold and walks deeper in the tunnel that the opening becomes.

Ani loves the shift from sunlight to blue luminescence that occurs when she passes a certain point of the tunnel. She breathes deeply in and feels the mint-like chill that tingles down her throat. God. She loves that feeling. Her pace picks up and the edges of her mouth can’t help but twitch upwards about her own child-like excitement.

The tunnel leads straight to an alcove that is softly glowing blue. The light emanating comes from clear-blue crystals that grow downwards from the ceiling of the space. Taking up about half of the floor below the crystals is a pond, and the soft shifting of the water creates fluctuating light of silvers and light blues against the walls of the alcove. It’s here that the yellow flowers truly take over, and they cover the rest of the free ground surrounding the pond. Ani treads across the flowers to reach the edge of the water and kneel before it. She knows they’ll grow back.

She flares out her dress around her legs, then leans her head over the water to stare down into it. Her breasts are large enough that they threaten to spill over the collar of her dress, but she pays it no mind. Her limits of indecency are incredibly contextual.

For a moment, all she can see is the blurry reflection of her face in the water. When something glimmering shifts beneath the surface, she smiles. The glimmering collects itself into a shape, almost like a silver fish swimming upwards. But what breaches the surface of the water isn’t a fish.

Something gelatin-like and almost see-through pops up in front of Ani’s face. It’s thin and rounded at the tip, but acquires girth at Its base as it extends higher from the water, and keeps rising until what you can see of its bottom is as thick as Ani’s thigh, like the tentacle of a very large octopus. The light from the crystals make it seem to have an aqua tint. Along with the sparkle-like shine that’s across Its form, when It moves, It shifts between being clear as water, then clear and blue, and glittering like a crystal all at once.

“Good afternoon, Dear,” Ani says, looking up at the tip, eyes sparkling. It wiggles up and down, like a little wave, then leans in close. She kisses the tip, and a tiny vibration ripples across Its surface. Ani giggles. “How have you been today?”

Ani doesn’t notice two other tips breaching the waters’ surface, since she’s distracted by placing kisses across the one that’s in front of her. They grow from either side of the first, and travel low and sneakily to the side of Ani’s knees. They wrap suddenly around her ankles and pull forward, effectively flipping Ani onto her back with an, “Oop!” as she lands, cushioned by the flowers and the soft dirt beneath them.

“Getting right to it, hm?” Ani laughs. The smaller ones get to work on snapping off her belt and slipping off her underwear, easily accessible since her loose wrap-dress now lies gaping open. Meanwhile, the main entity rises tall above Ani, practically looming over her, Its base now thicker than Ani’s body. But this doesn’t make Ani nervous. She only smiles wide and purrs, “Wonderful.”

Read the rest on my website here (1 8+ only!!)

[elvensemi]

Okay you've just had the worst day of your life, now to finish it off you just have to fall asleep alone with a terrifying spider man. Easy, right? 

The Demon Isles is a erotic, second-person monsterfucking romp through the dangerous Demon Isles. The second person character is referred to by  gender neutral terminology and they/them pronouns, physical appearance left ambiguous. Sex scenes have two versions with  different sets of genitalia for the main character. Tags and content warnings are available for each chapter.

[Monsterloving] [Stranded on an Island] [Humanoid Monsters] [Fantasy Australia] [Gender neutral main character]

Parts 1-3 available on Patreon now!

Hi, I'm ElvenSemi and I write webnovels online through Patreon (available monthly) and Ko-fi (available for one-time purchase)! Two updates (SFW and NSFW) every month, plus bonus and behind the scenes content, polls, and more.

Interested in what I'm hawking but no $$$? I'm also on Ao3! There are two works there set in Oceanside, the same setting as this story.

[queerbookdragon]

Can I get some book recs?

I'm looking to get back into reading after being out of the game for a loooong time, but I'm having a hard time finding books that fit what I'm looking for that are also available on Libby. I have no desire to use audible or kindle. If I really like how a book sounds I'll add it to my list, but I'm poor as hell right now, so I'd love to get suggestions for books that I can access sooner. (And yeah, my library system sucks ass and so apparently does NYC, so it's been a struggle)

I'm basically looking for adult speculative fiction by authors of color, preferably with queer characters. Open to just about anything under the speculative fiction umbrella, though I admit I do struggle with high fantasy and "hard" sci-fi, but I'm open to looking into them! Urban fantasy and paranormal are my faves. I would also love poetry book recs by authors of color. Oh, and Indie authors of color! :D

Thank you, bookfriends!

[eveangeline666]

ART DUMP!!!! desc and explanation for all pics on the bottom!

-my surrealism art final for school, don’t judge me it’s so rushed 😔😫

-eyeball and glass ball: sphere assignment for art class 👁️👁️ the eye is BAD

-the bee and the bee 🐝 , new additions to my bug series! Should I write lore? Comment and vote! ⬇️⬇️

-silly little doodle of a silly little gal 🫶🏻

-a fire elf 🔥 from my ongoing book (“Plena Vita: The Planet Twisted By Time”) I’ve been writing for years! She needs a name! (Should I post about my book?) 📖

-idk a weird bubble robot girl 💀

-a new character I designed in first period today! She’s a bunny who loves bows 🎀🐰 and she’s a nurse who specializes in potions! (📖?) Help me name her! What color should her hair be? (Little doodles of her flustered and angry included! She puffs up her cheeks and her hair gets poofy when she’s upset!)

[rrcraft-and-lore]

The Doors of Midnight (from @torbooks and @gollancz) virtual tour kicks off tomorrow!

June 27 & 28 - We've got @FantasyBookCrit dropping a Q&A and The 8 Dragonslayer Myths You Didn't Know About - Listicle

June 29 - Liver interview with @KaysHiddenShelf at 12pm ET.

July 1 - Ch. 1 Excerpt - FanFiAddict, Before We Go Blog, SFF Insiders & Fantasy Book Critic

July 10 - The Essential Hero's Toolkit - Listicle on FanFiAddict

July 11 - Tales from the Bridge Podcast

July 13 - JCM Berne live interview at 3pm ET

July 17 - Text Q&A on JamReads

July 19 - Storyline Sessions Podcast

July 20 - Page Chewing Podcast live interview at 7pm ET

July 24 - People Behind the Pages w/ Nicholas W. Fuller live interview at 9pm ET

July 25 - Text Q&A on SFF Insiders

July 26 - 5 Famous Temptresses Across Myths - Listicle on SFF Insiders

July 30 - Julianna Caro video interview

July 31 - Bald&Balding live interview at 7pm ET

August 2 - A History of Impenetrable Heroes - Essay on Grimdark Magazine

August 5 - Text Q&A on Fiction Fans Podcast Blog

August 6 - Late Night Talk with Stephen Aryan (the Age of Darkness, and the Age of Dread trilogies, The Judas Blossom)

August 7 - Under the Radar SFF Podcast

August 8 - Text Q&A on Before We Go Blog

August 9 5 Comparative Tales of Lovers Lost - Listicle on Before We Go Blog

August 11 - The Fantasy & Sci-Fi Fanatic's Podcast

August 13 - OWWR Pod and Launch Party Livestread feat. Jim Butcher and Michael Mammy on FanFiAddict (Youtube) and SFF Insiders (Twitter/X) at 7pm ET

August 19 - Lisa does Life & Not So Secret Bookaholic live interview at 2pm ET

August 21 - BellTube live interview at 9pm

Want to buy something special:

If you're in the US and would like a signed hardcovers, @Loyaltybooks is running a signed book pre order campaign!

If you're still not convinced, see what other authors have said about The First Binding and The Doors of Midnight!

[luciaherrerawriting]

Currently writing my first novel, an urban fantasy about a group of queer Mexican boys who gain Magical Girl-esque powers, fight the forces of evil, and fall in love

[dramallamasdraws]

Ruins of a Fantasy is a Mexican/mesoamerican inspired world and therefore I include a lot of my culture and favorites into the story including La llorona 😌

There’s like an endless amount of variations to her origin story but she scared the crap outta me as a kid.

In Ruins however she has a much nicer(ish) role. She is a minor goddess of Greif, and is related to the God of Death Roté.

Had to share cus I’m still in the thick of the sadness for book two. And I shall also share the line that pushed me to design her

“Grief was going to become a good friend.”

[virtuouslibertines69]

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.” ― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

[lexwritesgayshit]

Why is it so difficult to find recs or goodreads lists for adult speculative fiction by authors of color that aren't full of books that are a part of a series? Please, I just started retraining my attention span. Your book series sounds amazing but I cannot commit 8 books! Where are my beloved stand-alones?

(Throw "available on Libby" on top of everything, and I'm struggling)