The Farthest Frontiers: An Interview with Two Writers of Marginalized Speculative Fiction

I spoke recently with Frank Creed and Cecil Washington. As you will see from our interview, both men are on the edges of science fiction. They write for audiences that are not considered mainstream science fiction audiences.

Cecil, you are editor and Publisher of Creative Brother , a magazine that publishes and explores speculative fiction written by black men.

CW: This is not correct. It is about people who live with or around what we call Black Culture. I do not only publish black men. I'm still waiting for a futuristic story about an Eminem type of character, other than the one I wrote called "Street Mind". I have not received one yet. Does that mean that there will be no Eminems in the future? I thought that only black people and other non-white people were in danger of disappearing.

I understand what you mean by disappearing. So often when one watches science fiction – especially the old movies—one wonders what happened to the non-whites. But that has begun to change, I think. On Amazon, for instance, there are many multicultural speculative fiction books. There are also many Christian speculative fiction books . Not as many as one would like, however. So, in the future I’ll remember that Creative Brother also publishes creative sisters.

CW: Creative Brother's sci-fi magazine is about black people.

Frank, you are part of the Lost Genre Guild, a group that specializes in Christian speculative fiction and you also blog at A Frank Review, a blog that reviews Biblical speculative fiction. Some people consider Christian speculative fiction and multicultural speculative fiction to be marginalized speculative fiction. By marginalized I mean, "not in the mainstream." Tell me, why have you chosen to write in such marginalized areas?

CW: People fill up the Internet with complaints about the lack of black in speculative fiction. I decided to be someone who would stop complaining and start acting. I read Octavia Butler, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, Delaney and John Faucette. I need to get on the ball and read more of Brandon Massey. I also decided to return to writing my own stories once I stopped actively writing Hip Hop.

FC: After years of fruitless searching, I stopped looking for Biblical speculative fiction in Christian bookstores or on religious shelves. I’ve been writing since very young and eventually started to write in the genre I enjoyed reading — but with the twist of writing in a manner that is respectful of Christian values. I’ve since found that there are many fans of spec-fiction who have a difficult time finding enough novels to feed their reading habit — connecting with them is the challenge I face.

Article Author: Carole McDonnell

Carole McDonnell's short stories and essays appear online and in print, in speculative fiction, ethnic, and Christian publications. She lives in New York with her husband, two sons, and their pets. Wind Follower, published by Juno Books in June 2007, …

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