REPRESENTATION OF MARGINALIZED POPULATIONS

When writing characters from marginalized populations, writers with privilege can inadvertently perpetuate assumptions and biases. 

There’s a complexity of issues related to a person of privilege writing characters from marginalized populations whose identities the author doesn’t share. I’m queer, non-binary, and disabled, among other marginalized identities. I’m also white, a significant source of privilege. In my universe 300 years in the future, race and ethnicity have changed a lot. But we writers and readers still bring the biases underpinning our current societal conditioning. My decision to write a BIPOC-adjacent protagonist, instead of a white protagonist within an ethnically diverse universe, was an intentional one. Either way, as a white author, each was going to be problematic, for different reasons. But if I didn’t choose, I couldn’t write the book. So, I took the leap.

What’s more, a person’s identity is their own experience of that identity, and not representative of an entire community. There’s a lot to know about this subject, and I’m far from an authority on it, so consider this a call to fellow writers with privilege to keep learning. There are plenty of internet resources devoted to this. Listen and learn from the people in our lives. And read, read, read books written by marginalized authors whose characters are written from the author’s own lived experience. I’ve compiled a list below of authors to read and support. I haven’t yet read them all, but I plan to. Tell me what you think!

I’m always open to feedback on my work, both what I’m getting right, and how I can improve.

Happy reading, y’all.

*BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color

Rebecca Roanhorse

Tomi Adeyemi

N. K. Jemison

Shelley Parker-Chan

Tamsyn Muir

Rivers Solomon

Neon Yang

Ryka Aoki

Sarah Pinsker

Malka Older

Simon Jimenez

Jadzia Axelrod

Charlie Jane Anders

Micaiah Johnson

Tehlor Kay Mejia

Zoe Hana Mikuta

Aliette de Bodard

Emma Mieko Candon

Jes and Cin Wibowo

Rebecca Fraimow

Andrea Hairston

Kosoko Jackson

Makana Yamamoto

Kaliane Bradley

Amal El-Mohtar

Multiple authors - There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, a collection of short sci-fi stories from a Latine lens