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Before I dig into the chapter in which Sara meets Ram Dass, I'd like to talk a bit about one curious inconsistency regarding him.

I presume that the character of Ram Dass in A Little Princess was named after one of the significant early figures in the development of the Sikh religion in the 16th century, Guru Ram Dass. I have no idea whether it is a typical Sikh practice to name children after significant founding figures. It's interesting that the book never identifies him as a Sikh specifically, but rather as a "lascar", which is neither an ethnic nor religious label, but more in the line of a job description. Per Wikipedia, the term lascar applied originally to sailors from India or south-east Asia generally who took service on European ships. But it also came to be used to indicate an Indian servant, especially those employed by British military officers. It is in this latter sense that Ram Dass is identified as a lascar, although the nautical sense is used early in the book as well. Ram Dass is desribed as wearing a turban, which is strongly consistent with identifying him as a Sikh. We may easily presume that he entered Mr. Carrisford's employ in India at some time well previous to the disaster around the diamond mines, and traveled with him to England.

One of the first things we learn about Ram Dass is that he speaks Hindi. (WIkipedia indicates that the primary language associated with the Sikh community is Punjabi, but that Hindi is also spoken.) In fact, later in the book, in the context of his interactions with the Carmichael children, it is noted, "[Ram Dass] could have told any number of stories [about India] if he had been able to speak anything but Hindustani." And when Sara first meets him and speaks to him in Hindi, "[Sara] thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than the dark face expressed when she spoke in the familiar tongue."

So. In that case, when Ram Dass is describing his interaction with Sara to Mr. Carrisford, how does it never come up that the little girl who lives in the attic next door speaks Hindi? Now, it's possible that Ram Dass never mentions this point, and that he describes Sara's circumstances without ever mentioning that they'd had a conversation. But the subject is touched on again when Ram Dass and Mr. Carrisford's secretary are surveying Sara's attic in preparation for redecorating it as a surprise. Ram Dass mentions that he spies on Sara sometimes at night and has heard her describe to her friends her "pretends" about how the attic could be made over into something more comfortable. Presumably Sara wan't speaking Hindi to the other girls!

We can squeak through on plausibility if we make two allowances. First: that Ram Dass--as most multilingual people--has a passive linguistic competency that's larger than his speaking competency. So it's plausible that he could follow what Sara was describing in English but that he wasn't comfortable telling stories in English to the Carmichael children. Secondly: we may presume that Mr. Carrisford's secretary is fluent in Hindi and this is the language in which they are discussing the redecoration of the attic.

But that still leaves us with the puzzle that Ram Dass knows that his employer is searching for a little girl who was born and raised in India, and he knows that the little girl in the attic next door speaks Hindi, and he never thinks to mention this matter. It is, of course, an essential plot element. But this goes beyond Donald Carmichael's observation that if he'd just asked Sara's name when he gave her his Christmas sixpence, then he could have told Mr. Carrisford exactly where Sara Crewe was, the first time Carrisford mentioned who he was searching for. After all, one doesn't typically ask the names of beggar girls. But conversely, running into a servant girl in London who speaks fluent Hindi would seem to be a matter worth mentioning.

Of course, the other option is that I'm looking for logical consistency in an idiot-plot motif.

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Obviously, my usual weekly schedule got hijacked yesterday in favor of the Storybundle announcement. For the next three weeks, you're going to get regular reminders about the Historic Fantasy StoryBundle that Daughter of Mystery is included in. I'll be running some guest-posts on that topic periodically. If you want a sampler of a variety of great stories by fabulous authors (and especially if you like your history a bit on the queer side), check it out!

There's a lively conversation online these days about representation of non-default characters, the intersection of identities, and the importance of representation that comes from authors' "own voices" (Twitter hashtag #ownvoices). That is, understanding the distinction between authors who are writing from within their own cultures, their own histories, their own identities, and authors who are writing those things as an outsider but who may have more access to publishing and publicity support, and who thus may become the "face" of those identities in preference to #ownvoices authors.

When writing historical or SFF fiction, there are additional complexities to the concept of #ownvoices. Who best represents the voice of a historic culture? Anyone descended from the people of that culture? People living in the same geographic area? What does it mean to write a marginalized culture in a secondary world? Are invented marginalized cultures a way of respecting real-world marginalizations by not appropriating them, or a lazy dodge to avoid having to engage with how readers are identifying with the characters?

When I...realized? decided?...that Serafina Talarico in the Alpennia series had an Ethiopian heritage, I knew I was going to have to do serious work to place her in the context of this conversation about representation. It would be entirely too lazy to say, "Well, I don't really represent any of the various intersectional identities in the Alpennia books--not really even their sexuality, because 19th century understandings of sexuality are very different from modern ones. So there's nothing special about Serafina in that respect." There is something special, because where the world is full of historic fiction and historic fantasy about early 19th century white Europeans, and it is definitely not full of fiction about early 19th century Ethiopians (fantasy setting or no). So I have to accept that there will be readers for whom Serafina may be their most memorable representative of that set.

Given that, what is my responsibility? Firstly, to write a complex, three-dimensional character who is true to her cultural and historic setting to the best of my ability. Secondly, to not promote her as an authentic representative of that culture. This may seem contradictory, but consider: if I were writing a generic heterosexual Regency romance full of improbably young and handsome single Earls and clever but impoverished gentlewomen, would they be "authentic representatives" of early 19th century England? No, absolutely not. And anyone who gave five seconds' thought to the question would know that. That's the sense in which I mean "not an authentic representative".

My third responsibility is still under construction because it involves research and fact-checking: to identify and promote books that share Serafina's characteristics that are #ownvoices stories with regard to culture and ethnicity. I doubt I'm going to find any #ownvoices books about an early 19th century bisexual Ethiopian immigrant to Europe, never mind the fantasy setting. But I can find some of those intersections. And thanks to the wonders of Goodreads thematic lists, I have a list of titles to look into further. (I've also identified some websites and blogs that may be useful for vetting the results of my initial lists, if they are willing to help.)

The message I want to send my potential readers is: don't read Mother of Souls instead of #ownvoices books, read it instead of the books I chose not to write that didn't include marginalized identities at all. That was the choice it was within my power to make.

And with that, here's the next teaser for Mother of Souls: a bit of Serafina reminiscing about her childhood in Rome.

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It hadn’t felt like this when she was a girl. Visions had been a joy, a gift, a promise. A tiny white-walled room, with the blazing Roman sun slanting through the shutter slats to form stripes on the carpet. She sat cross-legged on a cushion, practicing her letters on a slate. Her mother sang as her dark hands lifted up another sheet of injera from the griddle. Serafina knew it was a charm-song, even without understanding the words, by the way the light danced in harmony. In memory, the visions mixed with the aroma of the spices and the sharp scent of clove and sandalwood in the oil Mama used to dress her hair. The magic seemed to dance in time with the swaying of her gauzy white shawl that somehow never slipped from her shoulders or fell into her work.

And when the dancing sun-stripes slanted just so, Papa would come through the door, looking all important in his dark suit just like the Roman men in the world outside, with her brother Michele trailing after him, carrying his books and writing case. Papa and Mama would say the prayers together in the tongue she’d never learned, and she and Michele would repeat the Pater in Latin and the everyday prayers in Romanesco—there was no Coptic church here and she and Michele had been baptized by the Catholic priests. Then there would be the sharp sour taste of injera and the rich spiciness of the stew wrapped within it. Papa would sigh and say he could almost think himself back in Mekelle at their wedding feast. He and Mama would be sad together for a time, remembering, but it was their sadness, not hers.

In time, the magic faded from her mother’s work. She stopped singing the old songs. Serafina hadn’t noticed, for the visions still came in church. They would stand together in the back and Mama would say her own prayers quietly, but Serafina would drink in the way the lights of the candles and the colored windows rose up in a great symphony of movement, answering the priests as they celebrated the Mass, or flowing throughout the crowd of worshippers during the special holidays. When she gasped and exclaimed at the sight, Mama would grasp her hand and murmur, “My little angel!” and Papa would smile with pride and say, “You will become a learned woman!”

It isn't often that I see a recommendation floating by on Twitter that makes me think, "Yes, I need to add an entirely new media platform to my devices so that I can have access to this thing." But someone mentioned the graphic series Heathen [and do you know how hard that is for me to type correctly the first time?], and one look at the art on the website splash page had me hitting the app store to buy Comixology.

The premise is a heroic young woman in a setting that blends the historic Viking era and the mythic world of the sagas and eddas. Having been cast out of her village for kissing girls (well, actually, they think her father has executed her for it--fortunately for the story he was too tender-hearted for that) she decides the obvious next step is to rescue the Valkyrie Brunhildr from her enchanted sleep in the ring of fires. And then the unexpected stuff starts happening.

I absolutely love the art in this series. This isn't your usual run-of-the-mill comics art, but a sophisticated, bold, impressionistic style that often overlays several artistic flavors in a single sequence. It's simultaneously spare and detailed, and the artist has a solid grasp of anatomy and action that bowled me over.

Taking a semi-mythic approach allows some latitude toward handling themes of queer sexuality, but the author hasn't gone down the path of setting up an unhistoric utopia. Neither the protagonist's heathen culture, nor the rising Christian culture it is coming in conflict with are accepting of her desire for women (or of the other queer characters who pass through), although the gods themselves are rather more open-minded, allowing for some delightfully sensual scenes. Aydis, the protagonist, is a brave, earnest, idealistic hero, who has the good fortune to be befriended by some immortal beings. I look forward to seeing her future adventures.

If I have only one complaint, it's one that attaches to the medium itself and not this specific story. I find graphic novels frustrating to consume due to the relatively small amount of story present in each volume. It's one of the reasons I drifted away from comics back in my college days, after being an enthusiastic fan of several series. (Well, that and the annoying prevalence of "let's find excuses to make people fight" in my favorite superhero comics.) This first volume of Heathen [see, I got it right the first time this time] is barely an appetizer of a story. And too often I lose track before the next installment comes, or I only stumble across a series too late to be able to track down the whole run. I guess Comixology will remind me when there's more to read.

(A reminder that I'm running an e-book give-away this week of Through the Hourglass, a (now) Goldie-winning anthology of lesbian historical romance, that includes my story "Where My Heart Goes". Comment on any blog entry between now and next Monday, July 18, to be entered to win.)

I don't really think on Concord as "my" little town, in the hometown sense. I don't have a hometown--haven't really had anything like that since I left San Diego to go to college, back 40 years ago. When I picked Concord to house-hunt in, it wasn't for any specific association with the location (other than the fact that I had a clump of friends living here already).

But, having chosen this particular town, there are some "small town" experiences that I've really come to enjoy. Things like the fact that the place has an actual "town center" with a park and cafes, and with the movie theater just one block over. They hold a lot of little festivals, craft fairs, etc. in that center. And all through the summer, on Thursdays from afternoon through evening, there's a farmer's market and concerts in the park.

I don't usually hang around for the concerts--just swing by on my bike from the BART station to pick up some produce. But tonight the show was an Eagles tribute band and I decided to grab some butter chicken & naan from one of the food stalls, augmented by a basket of fresh strawberries, and found a spot on the grass to hang out and listen for a while. It's within the realm of possibility that I might bump into someone I know there. Not that I've gotten to know that many new people here (although the Starbucks baristas know my name and favorite drink) but with a central atraction like that, someone might turn up.

I like living in a town where I can hop on my bike and be at the movie theater, or the coffee shop, or the Half-Price Books (or--let us be honest--the Frys' Electronics) in ten minutes. I like living in a town where I could follow local politics, if I had a mind to. But I also like living in a town where I can hop on my bike and take the train to Berkeley or San Franciso on a whim. Not entirely a bedroom community, but with no sense of stifling isolation. I don't know if Concord is the sort of place one might be nostaltic for if one grew up here and then left. I understand that a big chunk of that "friendly city center" feel has been a relatively recent planned project, reclaiming what had become a somewhat blighted area a couple decades ago. The only places I've felt nostalgia for are places that never existed--or at least, ones that never existed for me.

But I like it here.