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Daniel José Older

Daniel José Older is the author of Shadowshaper, which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and one of Publishers Weekly's Best YA Books of 2015. He also writes the Bone Street Rumba Urban Fantasy series and co-edited Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History. He's on the web at ghoststar.net.

January 2016

  • This book cover image released by Scholastic shows, “A Birthday Cake for George Washington,” by Ramin Ganeshram with illustrations by Vanessa Brantley-Newtown. (Scholastic via AP)

    The real censorship in children's books: smiling slaves is just the half of it

    Why aren’t free speech organizations as concerned with the exclusion of writers of colour from the publishing marketplace as they are about the censorship of one racist children’s book?

December 2015

  • star wars rey finn

    Star Wars (and 2015) showed us worlds of possibilities. May the force be with us

    Daniel José Older
    Maybe new heroes, new alliances and female leadership can guide us beyond the wreckage of the past and into new, unexplored territory outside of theatres

November 2015

  • Mother Reading To Children

    Do black children's lives matter if nobody writes about them?

    Daniel José Older
    Besides teaching us who we are, books are where we learn who is important enough to read about – and only 5% of kid’s books had black characters last year

July 2015

  • Sonia Manzano performs at the daytime Emmy awards in Los Angeles.

    Sesame Street's Maria showed Latinos who we were – but it didn't stop there

    Sonia Manzano’s semi-autobiographical character, which she played for 44 years, brought diversity, truth and warmth to the children’s show

January 2015

  • Jane the Virgin

    Jane the Virgin and Romeo Santos: unapologetically Latin

    Both hugely popular, the bachata star and the TV show speak directly to the 54 million Latinos in the US without condescension or pandering

December 2014

  • Octavia Butler

    Move over HP Lovecraft, fantasy writers of colour are coming through

    Non-white readers and writers are falling in love with speculative fiction in increasing numbers – which is why we need to remove its racist figurehead
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