There are few African-Americans or women in the Social Science Fiction, Occult Fiction, Fantasy, and Dark Comedy genres. However, they have been a passion of DaKarai Noshell Yuko's forever. She has an affinity for writing multicultural stories with flawed characters and strong female leads, as well as progressive poetry.
D. K. N. Yuko put together The Dakaverse, a dark-yet-hilarious compilation of many of her stories and projects. The Dakaverse is a rich, fully-connected universe filled with eccentric and exciting characters, whose stories overlap. The stories take place in four fictional cities: Plumesworthe, Ponderer's Point, Pensburg, and Tellurium Ridge. Each area has its inherently distinct social climate, which affects the story and the characters from that city. Many of the titles are available in graphic novel form. Yuko also incorporates Veclage Art in many of her graphic novels and book covers. Veclage Art is an expressive art form created by using layered and textured collages of vector clip art.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in Atlanta, Ga--or more particularly, the Bankhead area. It influenced my writing a bit, mainly my character creation methods a lot. You see a somewhat wide variety of people there, ranging from junkies and whores to people working hard to escape. And for the missing varieties, it became easy to fill in the blanks. It was pretty hard growing up in such an area, given my eclectic tastes and interests. But, dealing with the constant bullying and rejection made me a stronger person, I feel.
When did you first start writing?
I have officially been writing since I was around 10. My mother was a writer, and I admired her ability to write about issues she felt close to, as opposed to what was expected of her. Come to think of it, one of my first stories, that I still have at least, was Hollywood Horrible around age 12. I was a really old kid...
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