Improbable Press Blog — Kaitee Yaeko Tredway

By Kaitee Yaeko Tredway It still feels surreal to see my name in a book, the title of my story in a Table of Contents. Feels surreal to know that friends and strangers alike have read my words. Feels surreal that this little exploration of identity and self-othering wrapped up in the tale of a little cryptid girl wanting to play in the weekly pickup game has a spot within an entire collection of stories, that it helps to paint the picture of “joyfully emerging.” Last week, in a conversation with some dear friends, I realized just how much the...

By Kaitee Yaeko Tredway Seeing Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov in the Netflix adaptation of Shadow & Bone was hugely important to me. I had never seen a biracial (and Asian!) main character in mainstream fantasy before. In the wake of the show, there was a lot of backlash against the microaggressions Alina experiences and the level of racism portrayed, especially among the bookstagram community. This essay was born from my need to say something, to advocate for this kind of representation. When the teaser for S&B dropped and I saw Jessie Mei Li for the first time, all...