Zetta Elliott explores the power of fantasy through a racialized lens
This interview originally aired on April 2, 2022.
Zetta Elliott writes to feel seen.
Her work centres Black characters and Black culture — which she herself didn't see enough of in the books she read as a child growing up in Ontario.
Her book The Witch's Apprentice is the latest in her popular middle-grade fantasy series Dragons in a Bag. The Witch's Apprentice continues the adventures of a young Black child named Jaxon, who is growing older and facing new challenges and secrets. He is the apprentice to a Black witch named Maya, and when a strange sleeping sickness spreads across the city, Jax and his friends have to solve a magical mystery.
The fourth book in the series, The Enchanted Bridge, is due out in January 2023.
Elliott is a Canadian American poet, playwright and author currently living in Chicago. She is also the author of poetry books including Say Her Name, inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, and A Place Inside of Me, a longform poem of affirmation that won a 2021 Caldecott Honor Book award.
Elliott was one of nine Canadian nominees for the 2022 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world's richest children's literature prize, worth $700,000.
She spoke to Shelagh Rogers about writing The Witch's Apprentice.
Writing topical fantasy
"When I write fantasy, I'm very much trying to engage with the real world. I know when I was a child reading fantasy fiction in Canada, it all came from England. It was usually a group of fairly privileged white children living in a mansion, if not a castle.
"I want my books to not necessarily be an escape, but a way to engage differently with the world. As an immigrant, I see the world around me with fresh eyes. I'm always intrigued and excited by the things that I discover about the places where I live.
Magic is really about power. So the question is, what are you going to do with the power that you have?
"I wanted to find a way to address the pandemic so that it would not trigger children. Many kids, especially Black and brown kids, have lost someone they love during the pandemic. My cousin passed away during the pandemic. I wanted a way to talk about how it can be anxiety-producing and a little scary when the grown-ups in your world don't quite know what's happening, but that also gives kids an opportunity to be the helpers.
"I always want to make sure when I'm writing about magic that kids understand it's for everyone. Magic is really about power. So the question is, what are you going to do with the power that you have? As an apprentice, Jax is learning. But the lesson he has to learn first and foremost is that you use your power to help others."
Coming of age
"I feel as though Jaxon is aging. I do tend to write about kids in that 8-to-10 age range, because that was a really pivotal moment for me. You're starting to leave behind your childhood, your innocence. You're more aware of things that are happening in the world, and yet adults often still don't want to treat you as though you are a witness, a participant.
It was important to me that I could have a child who was reaching out — he still looks to elders for guidance.
"It was important to me that I could have a child who was reaching out. He still wants guidance and he looks to elders for that guidance. But now Maya's keeping secrets from him — and he's keeping secrets from her. I wanted a chance to complicate the idea of who the villain was.
"I think that's at the heart of book three, this turning point in the series. There's so much that Jaxon hasn't been told and he begins to resent that — that he's been excluded."
Sharing the magic
"I am definitely trying to counter so many of the conventions around the representation of magic — who has it and who gets to use it. Whenever you say to a kid, 'What does a wizard look like?', it's a tall white guy with a beard or it's Harry Potter. Or, 'What does a witch look like?' She's got green skin and a broom and a pointy hat, black hair. We have such limited notions of how people use power in different cultures.
It was important to me that these witches are urban, that they reflect Brooklyn, that there are differences in how they perform their gender and that there are differences in age.
"It was important to me that these witches are urban, that they reflect Brooklyn, that there are differences in how they perform their gender and that there are differences in age. The generational difference is significant. By the time we get to book five and the War of the Witches, you can see how people are taking different sides."
Power to the people
"I was struck by the stereotypical 'witch academy' narratives — the Harry Potter type. Young people are removed from society. They're put in this castle, they're taught these spells and potions. To what end? There's nothing that they're meant to do to serve their community.
"I know people who identify as Black witches. What I heard over and over again is that to be a witch is to serve. You are there to help your communities — specifically to help your community heal. How do you help people heal if you aren't able to acknowledge and address the pains that you yourself have experienced? If you're a Black woman living in North America or pretty much in a lot of places in the West, then you know what it feels like to be excluded, to be diminished, to be underestimated.
If you're a Black woman living in North America or pretty much in a lot of places in the West, then you know what it feels like to be excluded, to be diminished, to be underestimated.
"It's significant to me that they would take their experiences that they have as Black women and use that to inform their practice — to recognize that we have these barriers to overcome that other people don't. But we aren't going to let that make us bitter. We're going to use that as fuel. We're going to use that to make us more compassionate and more committed to helping the members of our community who are also facing exclusion."
Zetta Elliott's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
