Marietta author wants more women and people of color in fantasy novels

Before April Q. Russell conceived the idea to write her first novel, she was a street performer in Hollywood trying to make ends meet. The actress, entrepreneur and now author moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, to pursue a career in acting in her twenties.

Credit: Courtesy of April Q. Russell

Credit: Courtesy of April Q. Russell

Now, roughly two decades later, Russell splits her time between living in Los Angeles and Marietta. In May, she released “Blahom: A Warrior Goddess” (Caru Pictures, $13), the first book in a fantasy trilogy that features Black characters and is inspired by her time as a street performer. Russell began street performing in 2015 and embodied a character modeled after legendary actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe titled Black Hollywood Marilyn. Russell would taking pictures with pedestrians while donning Monroe’s signature short blonde hair and white dress.

Credit: Courtesy of April Q. Russell

Credit: Courtesy of April Q. Russell

“(Marilyn) was a goddess,” Russell said. “When I think about Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne, they were also goddesses, but they weren’t necessarily called goddesses, so I started to embrace the fact that Black women, we’re goddesses too. But we’ve also been these like strong women and these warrior women and we’ve had to be strong and, sometimes our softer side can’t be seen.”

That was the impetus for the title of her book. Blahom is a portmanteau of Black Hollywood Marilyn. It’s also the name of the protagonist in her book, which follows a young Black ruler and performer in the fictional world of Sirius. The book, which Russell self-published in May, explores a conflict between two rival cultures in Sirius that Blahom attempts to resolve.

She said the often unwieldy realm of street performing helped her create characters for the book. The idea initially started as a TV show, but Russell felt the story was best told in a book.

“This underground world had all these different people who were interesting and phenomenal and stars and homeless and just so much is happening there and I just started picking them out and cherry picking them and then characters would form,” Russell, who stopped street performing in 2019, said. “Then, I took inspiration from people in my life and just started writing and then at one point I took a back seat and (the characters) just start kind of writing for themselves.

Russell has already started working on the second book in the series, which she plans to release next year. A comic book, soundtrack and podcast are also a part of the rollout for the trilogy — making Russell an exciting new voice in the fantasy genre.

Credit: Courtesy of April Q. Russell

Credit: Courtesy of April Q. Russell

While esteemed Black fantasy authors like Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor have created universes where Black people are affirmed and celebrated, Russell admits there needs to be more representation for Black people in those spaces. Russell said she’d watch films like “The Lord of the Rings,” and was alarmed by the lack of Black people.

“The imagination is so powerful, so I wanted to write something that was just rich — rich in characters, rich in storyline, rich in imagination and (something) that really was thought provoking,” she said. “(Not having that representation) bothered me and I’m like, wow, there’s like, when I say none, like we’re talking 2,345 people in among tens of thousands. I was like, you know, we just have to be more intentional about writing these stories and putting ourselves in these lenses.”

“When you’re not having people of color and Black writers at these tables, right? Writing through the lens of black people and people of color, then you’re not gonna get those characters. You’re only gonna get the characters that are written through the lens of who’s doing the writing.”

Her mission to tell more diverse stories inspired her to create Revho House, an exclusive social creative studio for women and POC in Marietta. The studio officially opened last year and is an extension of Russell’s Los Angeles and Atlanta-based production company, Revolutionize Hollywood.

“Being from Chattanooga, Atlanta has always been my home and like a cousin city to me, but coming up, Atlanta was not the Atlanta it is today with all the entertainment. Being in L.A., I’ve watched Atlanta’s entertainment industry and creative class grow. And it’s been fascinating for me and I’ve always wanted to come back and be a part of it.”

Russell hopes her book and other ventures will inspire other women in Atlanta to share their stories, regardless if they don’t fit the genres where Black people are often pigeonholed. It’s that sense of community and passion that’s celebrated in “Blahom: A Warrior Goddess.”

“There’s this amazing support and nurturing and the balance of what (Black women and men) give to each other and Blahom, being a product of that and needing the support of her father, who happens to be the ruler and needing the support of her mom, but then, at the same time, kind of dismissing them both and learning that she’s her own person and she’s growing up.”