Writing Urban Fantasy as a Black Woman: Owning the Page, the Power, and the Genre

When I started writing Harper Rayne, I didn’t set out to make a statement. I set out to write a woman who felt real to me, someone layered, flawed, brave, funny, angry at times, soft at others, and capable of carrying an entire world on her back.

But as she grew on the page, so did something else:the realization of how rare it still is to see Black women centered in urban fantasy as the hero, the heart, and the storm.

That mattered to me. It still does.

What Harper Represents

Harper is powerful in all the ways I wanted growing up:

• Smart

• Tactical

• Beautiful in her own grounded way

• Fierce when she needs to be

• Vulnerable when she feels safe enough

• Capable of both love and destruction

She isn’t a sidekick.She isn’t comic relief.She isn’t the “mature older friend” with no storyline of her own.

She is the story.

And writing her this way has been one of the greatest joys of my creative life.

It’s About Inclusion

Urban fantasy has no shortage of incredible heroines. I’ve devoured those books, loved those worlds, and learned from them. But I also grew up noticing how few of those leading women looked like me, or came from cultures like mine, or carried the kinds of histories Black women often hold quietly.

Harper fills that space in a way that expands what this genre can look like.

Her Identity is a Foundation

Harper’s Creole roots, her Louisiana lineage, her grandmother’s wisdom, and the ancestral power flowing through her are all part of her magic. They give her story depth, connection, and purpose.

Not as a stereotype.Not as trauma bait.But as inheritance.

A crown she didn’t ask for but will learn to wear.

Strength Isn’t Just Physical

What makes Harper compelling to me isn’t her weapons or her abilities. It’s her resilience. Her humor. Her stubbornness. Her refusal to fold even when the world tries to push her to her knees.

Her battles echo real ones Black women face every day:

• being underestimated

• being questioned

• being held to impossible standards

• carrying responsibility while carrying pain

• showing up again and again

Harper doesn’t rise because she’s magical. She rises because she chooses to.

The magic is just the spark that brings the truth forward.

Creating the Rayneverse for Readers Like Me

I wrote Harper for Black women to see themselves in a genre that hasn’t always seen us.

But I also wrote her for every reader who loves a heroine with depth, grit, and heart.

Her story is universal. Her identity is specific. Both can be true at the same time.

What It Means to Write Her

It means honoring the women who raised me.The women who survived before me. The women who taught me strength without saying a word.

It means creating a world where a Black woman stands at the center of the supernatural storm, not as decoration, not as support, but as the one who holds the line when everything else is falling apart.

It means joy.

It means power.

It means representation rooted in love, not obligation.

Harper Rayne isn’t perfect. She isn’t polished. She isn’t defined by her pain.

She’s human, extraordinary, and unstoppable.

And writing her is truly the privilege of my life.