Diversity in the Expanded Universe is a topic that seems to be coming up with a lot more frequency of late, and perhaps for good reason. Notable TFN Lit commenter Mike Cooper went to the Star Wars Books Facebook page to pose some of the harder hitting questions to the Del Rey Staff:

Hello Del Rey/LucasBooks (and fellow SW fans) – on behalf of a conversation we’ve been having over at the Jedi Council Forums over the last few years, I was hoping to hear some official opinions on the subject of diversity in Star Wars publishing. The conversation itself is the most important thing, so anyone with thoughts is welcome to chime in. Some general areas I’m curious about:

– Does editorial ever take steps to actively encourage greater diversity among novel casts, or is that left up to individual authors’ discretion? How often, if at all, does a book’s demography come up during the editorial process?

– Is there a general consensus among the Star Wars staff that the books are doing a satisfactory job of representing human diversity, or do people feel that there’s room for improvement? I’m visualizing the main casts of LotF and FotJ in particular when I ask this.

– On a related note, does Sword of the Jedi presage a greater focus on Jaina’s (and Ben’s) generation going forward? Many of us feel that there’s a great deal of room to continue expanding the younger cast of major characters in the “flagship” novels, and that could be an ideal area to boost both human and alien diversity without seeming to shoehorn new characters in where they aren’t needed.

– Lastly, as publishing professionals, what do you take away from incidents like the Hunger Games film release, where a number of fans expressed not only unhappiness, but shock, when characters who were specifically described in the book as dark-skinned appeared that way in the movie? Do SFF publishers see controversies like that as a warning sign, or a challenge?

Luckily for us all, Lucasfilm’s Jen Heddle spotted the questions and sat down to respond.

Hey Mike — sorry to be chiming in so late on this. Missed your last message to me about this being up. I’ll preface by saying I’m speaking for me here, in my role at Lucasfilm, just because I don’t want to be speaking on behalf of my Random House colleagues without checking with them first. Let’s see. Sword of the Jedi presaging a greater focus on younger generation: in that “flagship” series, yes. The Big Three will still be around but there’s a reason we’re giving them a big rousing adventure in CRUCIBLE, b/c they will then fade into the background a bit to let the younger generation come into their own.

Re: The Hunger Games. I believe, or maybe have to believe, that the people who expressed that outrage were a noisy minority. My assumption is vast majority of viewers had no issues with it. (And how anyone could have any issues with the INCREDIBLY ADORABLE actress who played Rue is beyond me. LOL.) Personally I don’t see it as a warning sign OR a challenge, just as a fact that there are always going to be racists in this world and they shouldn’t affect the creative process.

Re: diversity in casts, I think there’s always room for improvement, everywhere. …can’t even think what to add to that. Maybe not on Shonda Rhimes shows b/c she’s got it covered. Heh.

The first question is the toughest for me to answer since there aren’t many books to date for which I’ve been in the beginning stages of the editorial process. I can’t speak to anything that happened before me. I think easiest way to sum up is basically what Shelly Shapiro and I said at CVI — we are aware of it but don’t want to do anything that feels forced, either. But yes, it has come up/will come up, on the editorial/licensor side.

Heddle’s last point is an important one. Yes, the authors, editors, and licensors are keenly aware of these diversity questions and issues. That said, you can’t force diversity to happen. Clumsily handling these issues would be as much of a disservice as ignoring them outright. It’s an incredibly tricky thing for everyone involved to handle, which is something authors have pointed out in previous panels at conventions this year.

If I had to wager a guess, I think we might be seeing characters appearing within the Expanded Universe soon that would address some of the major diversity issues fans have brought up. In fact, the process may already be started. Take a look at Mercy Kill’s Dramatis Personae.