Culturally Different Characters

By: Emily Carrington

What was the first book you remember reading with characters from a different culture than your own?

This doesn’t just mean people of color, if you’re white, or disabled people if you’re nondisabled. It can include historical novels, space opera, or anything that is so unlike you that it makes you sit up and take notice.

For me, my first story I read was called “My Name Is Not Angelica,” by Scott O’Dell and this honest, terribly horrific tale of slavery has inspired many of my own novels. When I set out to create a magical world, the world of SearchLight, with equality and cooperation, I found myself instead dealing with prejudices. Female dragons ruled their male counterparts without mercy. LGBTQ werewolves were treated as second=class citizens despite their often powerful psychic abilities. I drew on the strength exhibited by the first-person account in “My Name Is Not Angelica” and I have slowly fought against the inequalities in my universe.

The werewolves are given a chance at equality in the A Pack of His Own series, which can be found here: https://www.changelingpress.com/search-results.php?keywords=A+Pack+of+His+Own

 In Consortium of Dragons and its completion, Conventions of Dragons, the dragons start on their own path of unity without prejudice: https://www.changelingpress.com/search-results.php?keywords=Dragon+Lost