This was so encouraging, also a bit of a call to arms. Black Speculative Fiction writers -- especially those of us in the US-- often mix Christianity in our writings. The specfic world, at large, is used to seeing certain kinds of spirituality. Most popular is probably the wiccan/druidic spirituality. Runes are everywhere. Then there's the Mormonism type of spirituality. One sees that in stuff like Battlestar Gallactica etc... where people attain to godhead or become as gods. That's pretty common. Humans from back in the day -- and many religions such as Shintoism and Buddhism-- deal with that.
But when Christianity pops up in specfic --- if it's seen as a good thing, it's either linked to white Christianity (C S Lewis and Lord of the Rings or stuff like Left Behind.) But more often than not it's seen as an encrouching evil, something dark and patriarchal that takes away man's freedom and destroys societies. Not that Western Christianity hasn't done that. But Christians are not only from the western world and aside from Christians as a persecuting majority, or a persecuted minority, there is the basic story of the gospel.
The gospel is a wonderful myth which I believe, and which many minorities believe. We minorities, first world people, have had to really walk that balance of seeing the imperialistic evil of Western Christianity and their belief. Because of this a book written by us to a world where readers are used to paganism and wiccan spirituality might seem to have marketability issues. Anyway, here it is up at Specusphere
I really liked this section:
Yet there is probably a niche market for books like this one, and it is, I would venture, among Christians who are not fundamentalists and who are willing to consider that perhaps parables can be spoken in the language of fantasy as well as that of religion. A tall order, perhaps, but I hope McDonnell finds this readership.An author who can produce a work such as Wind Follower deserves to have an extensive circulation.
and then this:
Mc Donnell is a fine writer, and Wind Follower leads us to expect even better things from her in the future.
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