I definitely think that all fantasy writers are, you know, would think that we’re trying to escape this world and we don’t want to think about this world, and that’s why we write fantasy. But I think we do it because we think really deeply about this current world and society that we live in because it’s really, it’s impossible to write fantasy without making some comment on this current world. Because when you’re writing fantasy, you are world building. The story is not taking place in really specific, like 2002 in Austin, Texas or whatever. You’re creating that world and so you have to decide what’s good about it and you have to decide what’s broken in that world. That’s a question I always ask myself whenever I’m writing fantasy is I’ve got this character or this group of characters and whatever they do in this story is going to end up impacting this world in some way. And hopefully since I’m writing for kids and it’s, it’s going to be a hopeful story, it’s going to have a happy ending. Ultimately it’s going to improve the world. So I have to first think about what’s broken in my world and there it’s impossible to do that without reflecting on what’s broken in our world currently. So I have never read a fantasy or even science fiction that isn’t some commentary on human society and people living together. I think it’s impossible.
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