JollytheGeek
asked
Shannon Messenger:
Are you going to add any more African Americans to any of your book series?
Shannon Messenger
This is a tricky question to answer because technically in both of my series I don't have any characters that are "african" or "asian" or "american" or "european" or any other racial/cultural term, because those are human delineations and I'm not writing about human characters. In the KEEPER series, their race and culture is "elf." And in the Sky Fall series, their race and culture is "sylph."
But I'm assuming what you're really asking is whether I will have characters that look like the different races. And the answer is yes, my goal is always to write in a way that reflects the beautiful diversity in our world. And there actually are quite a few diverse characters in the KEEPER series. I'll refrain from listing them because somehow that feels like reducing them to token characters. But it was always my goal to have a cast that reflected the same variety of physical appearances as we see in our world. And several of them have been growing into the larger roles I'd always planned for them (certain plot threads couldn't happen until the villains were ready to up their game), so you'll be seeing them more and more in the later books.
And of course as I write new things, I always strive to write with diversity in mind. Not to say I'm perfect in this regard--I'm sure I can always find ways to grow and improve. But it's always my goal to make sure that my books reflect the world as it is.
But I'm assuming what you're really asking is whether I will have characters that look like the different races. And the answer is yes, my goal is always to write in a way that reflects the beautiful diversity in our world. And there actually are quite a few diverse characters in the KEEPER series. I'll refrain from listing them because somehow that feels like reducing them to token characters. But it was always my goal to have a cast that reflected the same variety of physical appearances as we see in our world. And several of them have been growing into the larger roles I'd always planned for them (certain plot threads couldn't happen until the villains were ready to up their game), so you'll be seeing them more and more in the later books.
And of course as I write new things, I always strive to write with diversity in mind. Not to say I'm perfect in this regard--I'm sure I can always find ways to grow and improve. But it's always my goal to make sure that my books reflect the world as it is.
More Answered Questions
Jack
asked
Shannon Messenger:
Hello! I am a big fan of your books. Recently, our teacher assigned us a homework project. We were supposed to make a report on our favorite author. So I chose you. We have a list of question we need to answer. But their is one I can't find, and that is when were you Born? Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A Goodreads user
asked
Shannon Messenger:
Hi (again) I know you have done fan art of a Moonlark and Sophie and Iggy, but I was wondering, have you done any other fan art?
A Goodreads user
asked
Shannon Messenger:
Did you want to be an author when you were younger? If you did, when did you start writing? If you didn't, when did you figure out that was what you wanted to do?
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