Why I write

People often ask me, “Why do you write dark fantasy?” And the honest answer is: Because the real world isn’t always kind. But stories? Stories fight back.

I write because growing up, the monsters didn’t wait for nightfall. They looked like silence when you needed comfort. Like shame handed down in polite conversation. Like systems that made some of us feel invisible unless we became something louder, brighter, or broken enough to be noticed.

So, I created my own monsters. But I also gave them heart, humour, history. And I made sure my girls didn’t die in the first chapter.

I write because folklore raised me.

I come from the shadows of Seattle’s grey skies and the storytelling bones of southern Africa— where spirits don’t just haunt, they teach. Where ancestors whisper in wind, and danger doesn’t always come with fangs — sometimes it comes wearing love, or tradition, or your own name.

So when I sat down to write Tokoloshe, I didn’t want a villain. I wanted a mirror. What happens when something feared for generations is just… misunderstood?What happens when power lives inside the very girl told she was ordinary?

I write because I know what it means to feel alone.

Fantasy gave me a place to put my grief, my rage, my hope. It gave me the freedom to ask dangerous questions and let magic answer in ways the world couldn’t. It let me imagine homes I’d never seen and create families I’d always been curious about.

The characters in my stories? They’re flawed. Messy. Sometimes cruel. Often hilarious. But always fighting — for love, for truth, for something better than what they were handed. And that’s who I write for: the ones who’ve had to become their own heroes.

I write because we need new myths.

Myths that come from us — not just borrowed and translated from someone else’s world. Worlds where sangomas battle memory loss. Where lion bloodlines hold political power. Where women fall in love with dangerous men and still choose themselves in the end. Where magic doesn’t save you — it tests you.

So why do I write? Because I have to. Because the stories won’t leave me alone. Because if even one reader finds themselves in the pages — messy, powerful, grieving, laughing — then it’s worth it.

Thanks for being part of this world with me.

With ink-stained love,

LN Bokete