We were lucky to catch up with Amena Jamali recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amena, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Fantasy books, in my experience, follow a narrow assortment of tropes and themes. The characters they feature are usually pale and male, with any diverse characters, if present at all, given side roles. Pale and female characters are, when they do lead, somehow dependent upon a man, whom they can never exceed, female characters of color usually do not even appear, and the same is true of those who are not from European-style cultures. Furthermore, these characters adhere to a specific and rigid understanding of soft femininity and hard masculinity, whether in support of it or in defiance. This is true of even many of my all-time favorite books, and it is something I became more and more aware of since graduating college. Representation matters so much, both for shaping a young mind and in giving strength to a mature one, and I found myself unrepresented.

So, I decided to address this issue by incorporating a different understanding in my writing: my leading characters are both male and female, and each of them can be both hard and soft. All of them cry openly, speak for themselves (or learn to do so), and can fight. Moreover, they are comprised of a mix of color and paleness, and all of them are strong. As my primary hero often makes clear, his strength comes from those female and colored characters’ excellence and ability. Finally, my characters are from a culture that pays homage to my Muslim heritage, without being denominational, while also championing the American and Western values in which I so deeply believe.

My portrayal of diversity is not perfect. However, from the reactions I have begun to receive from readers, I am hopeful my story will play at least some part in changing the nature of representation in fantasy.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Amena Jamali, and, as my hobby, passion project, and business, I write and self-publish epic fantasy. My books mix faith, feminism, and magic in an emotional rollercoaster of a struggle between good and evil. As of today, I have published four books as part of my The Lord of Freedom series: Book One, The Bell Tolling; The Resonant Bell, a complement to The Bell Tolling; an Anniversary Edition of the first two; and a prequel, The Way It Would Become, which was released on February 17. This year, I additionally plan to publish Book Two, The Reverence Chosen, as well as a complementary volume (and a few more projects if I can!). As a whole… my series will probably reach a total of nineteen books! And I hope to write even more than that, should the muse be willing.

My purpose in writing these books is to write the books I have needed to read: books full of strong women, including of color, who are well aware of their worth, support each other, and are themselves accompanied by gentle, sweet men who eagerly cheer them on. At the same time, the good and the evil are real, vividly so, and through that depiction, beautiful and terrible, my faith, my heritage, and my beliefs shine through. The experience of that, the conviction to cling to hope in dark times, is what I bring to my readers and the reason I continue to write and publish.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Alongside the chance to impact the lives of my readers… I love the wonderful feeling of my stories coming to life. When I write, it is as though magic blossoms on the page, a portal to another world where good always triumphs over evil, the Light is always apparent, and justice is always visibly done. People ask me how I write so much so quickly, and the only real answer I ever have is that writing is catharsis for me. I write to cope, to understand the world, to think on my problems, to contemplate my faith, philosophy, politics, and life as a whole. The words allow me a reflection of my own soul — and, even more than that, an image of my aspirations for myself, of who I want to be as a person and the sort of change I want to be for the people around me. Through all of this my story carries me, and it is why I say that I love my characters as members of my family. Indeed, since everything I have said above comes from them, it is for them I write.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In continuing my writing and self-publishing, there are too many days that feel like a test of my resilience: I work full-time while also writing through my planned nineteen books. I struggle on an everyday basis to ensure that I fulfill the expectations of both: work all eight hours and write all one thousand words in a day, without falling short and while also engaging with my faith, taking care of myself, and volunteering. Balancing all of it without burning out… Well, I have learned to take breaks wherever my mind and my body say it is time and to be easy on myself without losing drive. There is no single story to share because I am in the midst of it. Yet, at the same time, I would not change this for anything — doing all of it affirms for myself every day that I can be more than one thing, pursue more than one passions, and live life to the extent I think is fullest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.amenajamali.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076348874735
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amena-jamali-110

Image Credits
Amena Jamali