Kendal Amos 
What I personally find so intriguing and beautiful about literature is the unique “flip sides” that consuming it can provide people. On one hand, there’s escapism, getting blissfully lost in a world that’s nothing like our own, faced with unfamiliar situations we’ve never had to personally deal with. Fighting dragons and uncovering dark plots can become therapeutic.
And then on the other side, there’s the mirror that literature can create, reflecting back onto the reader’s relatable struggles, wants, and experiences that might have seemed impossible to be represented anywhere. Seeing yourself in a story can be just as therapeutic as reading a story and becoming someone else somewhere else.
Recently True Star got a chance to talk one-on-one with Terry J. Benton-Walker, a newly published author, who is striving to show both sides of that literature coin.
Benton-Walker’s debut novel, Blood Debts (out April 4th), is a contemporary fantasy featuring what is described on Benton-Walker’s Goodreads profile as “Powerful magical families intergenerational curses, and deadly drama in New Orleans. Thirty years ago, a young woman was murdered, a family was lynched, and New Orleans saw the greatest magical massacre in its history.”
In Blood Debts, readers will get to experience not only that escapism by way of a magical fantastical setting, but also the mirror by way of representation for Black and queer.
“So, I was super big into ‘Game of Thrones’ when like the original series came out a couple of years ago, and for me, that was a really, really cool time because I’ve always been a fantasy nerd ever since I was a kid; like I loved reading stories about magic and dragons and things,” said Benton-Walker when asked about the inspiration behind his debut. “But what was really cool about ‘Game of Thrones’ was the audience that it reached, and for the first time I was able to talk to friends about things like queens and dragons and fantasy stuff that I didn’t get to talk about with those friends before, and to me that was really cool. But the only thing that sucked about that experience was that we had to experience it by way of people who didn’t look like us and I was like man, as great as this experience was, I would like for us to have something that’s just for us, where we can really dig in and feel like it was something that was created for us, and for our culture. So that’s why I created Blood Debts.”
We went on to talk more about Blood Debts, its colorful cast of characters, and even got a little sneak peek into the pages themselves by way of one of Benton-Walker’s favorite quotes.
“It’s from Ursula (Dupart), she is one of Clem’s and Chris’s aunts who is very prevalent in the story. And in one of the later scenes, she’s talking to another integral character in the story who you’ll meet about a quarter of the way through. She tells him, ‘Be careful meddling between worlds or else you might come back with more darkness than you left with.’”
As a reader and writer myself, and more than that, a queer writer of color, listening to Benton-Walker talk so passionately about his characters, world, representation and the representation that they’ll provide so many people with, made me think about how much I would have benefited from a story like Blood Debts when I was younger. And though that ship has sailed for me, Benton-Walker is not letting that be the case with other youth.
Besides Blood Debts, Benton-Walker mentioned another novel that we’ll see coming in 2023. Alex Wise vs the End of the World (debuting September 26th) is a middle-grade book rather than a young-adult novel like Blood Debts. It follows the adventure of a young gay Black boy fighting to save the world and find himself.
Chatting it up with Benton-Walker was such a privilege, a joy, and a learning experience. He truly inspired me, and it’s obvious that he will continue to inspire by fighting the good fight for representation for all of us queer Black kids out there who have desperately needed somebody like him for years.
Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Blood Debts now wherever books are sold.
By Kendal Amos, Senior, Chi-Arts
Instagram: Kendal.amos
True Star Media’s content is made possible thanks to donors like you. To support the voice and perspective of youth, donate at elevate.truestarfoundation.org.
