Hi everyone, I have a question, apologies if this has been asked before! How many Star Trek novels have been written by authors of color? This being Black History month, I thought I'd start to read all the Star Trek novels by authors of color, but I've only found 3: Far Beyond the Stars (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) by Stephen Barnes [read] Do Comets Dream? (Star Trek: Next Generation) by S.P. Somtow [ordered] Sword of Damocles (Star Trek: Titan) by Geoffrey Throne [read] With over 400 Star Trek novels about a future where we all work and live together, I know there must be more than 3 Trek novels written by persons of color –– that would be less than 1%. I'm hoping the knowledgeable Trekbbs Trekverse can help me find the other Star Trek novels out there by people of color! Thanks!
^ It really is. About four years ago, Dayton Ward and I suggested to the folks at CBS and S&S that we should create an outreach/mentorship program designed to recruit promising young writers of color (and, we hoped, LGBTQIA authors who would be intersectional with that group), pair them with established Star Trek authors, and cultivate a new generation of more diverse voices for Star Trek literature. So far, however, that has not come to pass. But I think it's clearly an idea we need to revisit.
There's somewhat more diversity in the short stories--the 11volumes of Strange New Worlds had slightly better representation. I've managed to get some good diversity in the Star Trek Adventures RPG writers' pool as well, but always looking to deepen it.
And though it's not for the novels, Brandon Easton ( aka @comicbookwriter ) is a member of the "writers room" currently slaying it for IDW with the Star Trek: Year Five ongoing comic. In addition to this and other comics work, he's also gotten his feet wet (up to his knees, actually) in the realm of television writing.
Damn straight it's embarrassingly short. Why do I find myself thinking of Colson Whitehead? His The Underground Railroad had some science fiction elements to it (for those who haven't read it, it's a Pulitzer-prize-winning, Arthur-C.-Clarke-Award-winning novel that answers the question, "What if the Underground Railroad [of the early-to-mid 19th century U.S.] had been an actual railroad, that actually ran underground?"). Then again, it may be difficult to get such an illustrious writer to do ST.
I hadn't realized there were few Trek writers of color, it's a little shocking to see that from a franchise where diversity is such a big deal.
Yeah, sometimes I see myself sitting on these Shore Leave Trek Lit panels that are all middle-aged white guys, and I feel like kind of a fraud. We could definitely stand to do better.
Can someone explain to me why representation is so important? Writers should be recruited on the basis of their writing skill and creativity, not based on the colour of their skin or their sexual preferences. Lots of people seem to think that minorities can only enjoy a story if it has a member of their own group in it as a character, or if it's written by a member of their group. It's just not true. I have Aspergers Syndrome, but I have no interest in seeing a person with my condition in a story. I just want a good story.
Yes, the only thing that matters should be a writer's skill in storytelling. That would be the ideal situation. But historically it hasn't been the case, because institutionalised racism, sexism and homophobia in society at large has stopped writers who aren't straight white males from even being considered. No-one can tell how good a writer you are if you aren't even given a chance to present your writing to be judged. We have come some distance from the days when Dorothy Fontana had to use the stage name of DC Fontana so that people wouldn't even realise she was a woman. ST Picard was co-created by a woman, and the first ep was directed by a woman of colour. But the fact that those facts are still worth commenting upon is an issue in itself – it should be neutral unremarkable information, but it isn't. Representation is important so that people who aren't straight white males can see themselves having a place at the table, especially in a franchise that values and preaches diversity and the idea that everyone has something to contribute equally. Otherwise it's a vicious circle – if a writer of colour, or a woman writer, or an LGBT writer looks at that roster of authors and sees that it is all straight white males, they'll assume their contribution is not welcome, their input is not valued, and they won't even bother applying because they assume they'll get rejected based on the evidence at hand, and thus the line-up remains all straight white males. Diversity isn't just something that happens of its own accord, it's something that has to be actively worked for because of those institutionalised biases in society. As for being creative, people who have led different lives, because they are different (note that different does not mean unequal), will have different experiences to relate and which they can infuse into their work. That will mean that the available stories will contain a wider range of perspectives, which will simply make them more interesting (the same kind of stories written by the same kind of people will inevitably get tired after a while), and might teach something to those people who don't have those perspectives and didn't live those lives, which will in turn help those other people broaden their own perspectives and reduce the institutionalised racism that led to the problem in the first place. And finally, you may not care whether you see neuro-diverse characters like yourself in the stories you read or not, but that doesn't mean other people don't. Being a good story and containing a diverse set of characters are not mutually exclusive, in fact I'd say they are substantially interdependent. .
Because everyone deserves an equal chance to get a job. This isn't just about the content of the stories from the readers' perspective, it's about hiring fairness from the writers' perspective. A fair industry is one where everybody gets an equal chance to participate. But it is important from a story perspective too, because people with different backgrounds and life experiences can bring different ideas and types of storytelling to the page. It's not just because they can depict the experiences of people like themselves more authentically, although that's certainly important. It's just because a wider range of perspectives and influences makes the fiction richer. Especially something like Star Trek that's heavily driven by interaction between different cultures and points of view. But you're not the only reader. There's an entire diverse audience out there, just as there's a diverse pool of writers out there. They all have as much right to be considered as you do. To me, this was always a given. As a kid, I'd see all these TV shows like Star Trek and Barney Miller where there was an ethnically or gender-diverse supporting cast but the lead character was always a white male like me, and I kept thinking that wasn't fair -- that people who weren't like me deserved the same opportunity to see people like themselves in the lead role instead of always relegated to subordinate roles. It only seemed fair to let everyone have a turn. Asking "Why do things need to be made more diverse?" is defining the question backward. Diversity is the natural, default state of humanity, certainly in the modern U.S. or U.K. population. In a truly fair process, it would happen automatically. If it isn't happening, then there are artificial filters and biases in place that are creating an unnatural absence of diversity, an unfair selection process. The goal is simply to remove those filters and let a more natural diversity emerge. We're already seeing that process underway to a greater or lesser extent in fields like TV writing and directing, movie writing and directing, comics, prose, and the like. That's the very ideal that Star Trek has always promoted, so it's ironic that Trek Lit is behind the curve. Yes, exactly. It is always good to be exposed to a range of different perspectives, both as a reader and as a writer. Because as a writer, you want to be able to portray a wide range of characters authentically. I try to be inclusive and authentic in my portrayal of cultures and groups other than my own, but I know my own ability to capture their viewpoints is limited, and what I'm able to do in that regard comes entirely from listening to people who belong to those groups, reading the fiction they write and the reviews and articles they write, listening to female or nonwhite friends and getting their perspectives, etc. I'm only able to do what I can in that regard by following their lead, and I surely can't do it as authentically as they can. Their voices are needed in the cultural conversation, and we can all benefit from letting them in. Because it's not a zero-sum choice between Us and Them. That's not how the world works. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. It's the blending of diverse perspectives that makes everyone stronger, that makes everyone's lives richer.
As a honkie (and if you must refer to me by my ethnicity, call me a honkie, or a blue-eyed devil, not a "white guy"; a goy, not a gentile; a gringo, not an anglo) I cannot know what it is to live the life of somebody of another ethnicity. Even John Griffin (and I strongly believe Black Like Me should be required reading in school) could only experience a few weeks of life as a black man, and while he gained a great deal of insight, and indeed, gained unique insight into the problems of a society where ethnicity dictates one's place in social hierarchy, it was by its nature a limited insight.
I'd like to see Derek Tyler Attico write for Sisko again. I really liked "The Dreamer and the Dream" in SNW 2016.
I tend to agree that Star Trek could use better representation among minorities in its writing pool. I am a bit torn because I want the best stories by the best writers no matter what there background is. But at the same time I have to believe there are minorities out there that can write a good story as well. It saddens me to think as well, what if there just aren't many minority writers interested in writing Star Trek stories? That could be a bigger issues Star Trek as a whole might need to come to grips with. Does it reach across various minority groups. It's not even about just having minorities in the shows. That's not enough by itself. It's great they have a black actress as the star of one of their shows. But is it reaching black audiences. Are they identifying with it? Honestly, I don't know. I'm a white guy. Maybe Discovery does. But if not, if Star Trek is not relatable to minorities that they want to watch it, then it may be hard finding good minority writers who even want to write Star Trek books. Star Trek does a good job showing humanity as a unified species, where our various racial, religious, sexual backgrounds, place of origin no longer matters. We don't see each other as black, white, Jewish, Arab, Christian, hetero-, homosexual, etc. That it seems to do right. But is that enough? And it's a difficult question for writers because you want to show that kind of unity in humanity, but still be relatable to minorities at the same time. It's a bit of a dichotomy. How do you relate to various minority groups and yet show humanity as a unified whole at the same time? That's why the writers get paid the big bucks I guess. Nah, you're not a fraud. Recognizing Star Trek can do better makes you not a fraud. And what we all want to do is add to those panels. We don't want to get rid of the middle-aged white guys, you're all good guys ---we want to add people of other backgrounds to those panels.
Derek is a friend of mine, and I have recommended him to the Star Trek editors a couple of times. I will continue trying to put him on their radar for future opportunities.
That's not a "but." If you really believe in "the best no matter their background," that automatically means they won't all have the same background. People who use "no matter their background" as an excuse for "don't bother diversifying" are twisting it hypocritically, and are implicitly saying that they expect the best stories to come from white males. Look -- there is no way that I'm the best person to write about women, or about people from non-Western cultures, or about the LGBT experience. I certainly do my best to learn from them and listen to them and portray them respectfully, but I take it as a given that they could bring insights to such stories that I never could. There is no way that "no matter their background" ends up meaning "all the same background as me." That doesn't even make sense. The broader the conversation is, the more different kinds of people are contributing and listening to each other and trading ideas, the more it improves all our work. Again, it's IDIC. Not diversity in isolation, but in combination. It's the energy of different ideas and perspectives intermingling that breeds the most innovation, the most creativity, the most growth and dynamism. That's complete bull. First off, in the first generation of Trek fanfiction and pro fiction, the overwhelming majority of Trek authors were female. There have always been female writers who loved Trek -- look how many are on Discovery's and Picard's staffs, or how many were in Strange New Worlds. Plenty of nonwhite writers too. As mentioned above, a number of them broke in through SNW, like Geoffrey Thorne and Derek Tyler Attico. There obviously is an interest, which only makes sense given ST's history of inspiring people of color by showing them a future they could participate in. Plenty of interest from LGBT writers too, from David Gerrold to Andy Mangels. I think the current situation is the result of Pocket tending to stick with known, established writers on a regular basis, rather than seeking to recruit new talent as was done in the past with things like SNW and S.C.E. At least that group of proven veterans included Kirsten Beyer, so it wasn't all-male, but Kirsten's gotten kinda busy with other stuff lately. I don't think it does really do that right, because it basically just effaces cultural diversity in favor of having everyone act like mainstream (i.e. mostly white) America. Equality doesn't mean that our differences are erased or ignored, it means they're welcomed and celebrated. That was what Roddenberry believed, at least nominally, though he fell short in practice. Fortunately we have occasionally seen some of that, like Uhura speaking Swahili and Sisko's fondness for African art. But Asian characters tend to be totally Westernized (even Hoshi Sato, who was supposedly from Japan), Dr. Bashir was totally English without any connection to Arab or Islamic culture, etc. I'm glad we're seeing some improvement on that front in the new shows -- Burnham's father told her an African folk tale, Owosekun has a Nigerian accent, Cristobal Rios is bilingual, etc. They're doing a better job of it now than they did in the homogenized TNG era or the well-intentioned but culturally naive TOS era. I just answered that. "Unified" does not mean "uniform." Diversity is not division. That's the very essence of IDIC, of the core philosophy of this franchise going back to the beginning. A unified humanity is one where all those different cultures and heritages and worldviews are treated as equal in worth, equally "normal."
I did kind of say that, though perhaps clumsily. That is, I do believe there are people of all backgrounds that can write a good story. Sorry if that didn't come across all that well. Well, you guys would no more about that than I. I was just speculating as to what if there was a lack of interest among good minority writers in writing for Star Trek? That would tell me that maybe Star Trek has a bigger problem with reaching minorities. But I do admit, I don't have information one way or the other about that. Ok, granted. I tend to focus on the positive attributes of Star Trek because it is my favorite show. Perhaps I was glossing over a weakness. I like that in the future of Star Trek we are all a united people, where we have learned we are more alike than unalike. But I can see your point that celebrating our diversity does not mean we are not equal. We can celebrate what makes us unique and what brings us together at the same time---and Star Trek can be lacking in that area. I think, in general their heart is in the right place, but that doesn't mean they can't do better. Perhaps they get so hung up on wanting to show that humanity has moved past our biases that they miss the boat on diversity in their writing. I don't think it's on purpose.
I'm a bit disappointed we never got any more novels from Geoffrey Thorne, I loved Titan: Sword of Damocles. At least he does seem to be doing pretty well as a screenwriter these days.