J has been the hardest letter to decide to date. I ended up with two totally worthy candidates and the only difference was their age, I went with the older writer as I figured she’d have more of a handle on the issues they were both espousing.

N. K. Jemisin, born in America, writer, psychologist and career counsellor. In other words, she counsels people who have sent out 50 resumes and not had one response. I can relate to her clients but that’s not why I chose her. She’s also very much into getting a fair go for everyone and if you go and read this article from her blog you’ll understand.

It starts off with the Hugos:

So many people have said so many good things about the Hugo Awards debacle in the past few days. I haven’t said much myself because a) I’ve got a book to write, and b) I don’t really care. I mean, I do care about the Hugos; this is a respectable award…

and continues to talk about the problem behind the Hugos and why things needs to change. So, the problem is one of race and how straight white men feel entitled to win everything just because it’s always been that way and they don’t understand that you need to win based on talent. Jemisin is eloquent and explains the situation very nicely but from an Americancentric point of view…understandable as she’s American.

I fully intend to read some of her works and to encourage you to do the same here is The Inheritance Trilogy.