Malindo Lo: On Self-Rejection
Here's a valuable post from Malinda Lo in response to writings by Rose Lemberg and Nisi Shawl on the topic of self-rejection: definitely worth reading here at the start of a new year, when all of our writing and reading promises (or at least *my* writing and reading promises) are still shiny new from the holidays.
"We live in a world chock full of stories - on TV, in books, advertising, movies, online, everywhere you look people are telling stories. However, the vast majority of those stories are about a certain kind of person: generally white, usually middle class or upper class, typically male, almost always abled, 99% of the time straight. If you live in that world and are not male, middle class, white, abled, and/or straight, you hardly ever see anyone like yourself in any media. As a writer, it can be incredibly hard to imagine telling a story that is fundamentally different than pretty much everything else you’ve read."
http://www.malindalo.com/2015/01/on-self-rejection-and-writing-from-a-marginalized-perspective/
"We live in a world chock full of stories - on TV, in books, advertising, movies, online, everywhere you look people are telling stories. However, the vast majority of those stories are about a certain kind of person: generally white, usually middle class or upper class, typically male, almost always abled, 99% of the time straight. If you live in that world and are not male, middle class, white, abled, and/or straight, you hardly ever see anyone like yourself in any media. As a writer, it can be incredibly hard to imagine telling a story that is fundamentally different than pretty much everything else you’ve read."
http://www.malindalo.com/2015/01/on-self-rejection-and-writing-from-a-marginalized-perspective/