Hey, I have a question, and an invitation. And I'm very interested in what black gaf has to say on this.
I'm a crappy author on gaf, and I write about characters of every colour and culture on Earth. There simply aren't enough ethnic minorities [western literature context] stories out there; and we have great stories to tell. What do you think of my telling these stories? Specifically of strong black characters. If it makes a difference, I'm an ethnic minority, but not black. And further I'm mostly about commenting on the human condition. Telling the character's truth rather than my own.
From my own perspective, I find race and culture as interesting as gender for example. I'm not a woman, but I find female characters very interesting, and also there really could be more female stories [so to speak], so I write that too.
The invitation is this. If you're an author, and haven't already come by the creative writing thread, and the writing thread OT, please do so. I know its easily missed. Right now, if you live in the UK, there is even a contest in the writing thread for ethnic minorities (by the Guardian, so a pretty major contest), which is pretty rare.