Indie Publisher Drops Author Over Twitter Dispute Regarding OwnVoices

[zodgory]

Another day of drama on book twitter though the current argument is about who can write what. It all started when writer Alisha Hillam tweeted about how white authors shouldn't write from the POV of non-white characters and should have sensitivity readers. This also goes for cis/het authors writing LGBT+ characters and abled authors writing

Comments

[the_pinkdress]

This conversation should’ve been had with one side speaking less abstractly and actually addressing the obvious concerns of POC erasure instead of just obtusely pretending you had, while the other side didn’t need to come out with that amount of snark and panic as though someone was personally coming for her and not recognizing that at the core, the issue speaks to the hurt and fear that comes from years of stigmatizing and prejudiced characterization and it shouldn’t be about HER apparent fear over her not being allowed to write something.

[sexmeupscotty]

And my characters should resonate on many levels with readers, I hope, but my black characters are not meant to resonate more so with black readers and vice versa, if that makes sense.

yeah that's kind of the issue, sweetheart

[addictedgal]

YES thank you, this is the line that stuck out to me the most which I commented on below. It's the exact issue I'm concerned about (along with bad writing with microaggressions as another user pointed out)

[potter_lover456]

I follow a bunch of romance writers and this was all my Twitter feed was for a few days. (They've now moved on to other topics

[potter_lover456]

Wow I wrote an essay.

Follow up: Did anyone read Love Her or Lose her from Tessa Bailey? I saw the cover and thought, "Really?" Because nothing about Fix Her Up gave me confidence that she could write two characters of colors well, let alone one.

[veracity]

Honestly, I've never read Tessa. I know Sarah and Jen from Fated Mates love her, but their review made me do some kinda dance of no when I listened. She's hyped up but I've never felt the need to read her based on reviews.

[potter_lover456]

Fix Her Up was hyped a lot before it came out. But I remember even in the book posts here people were not impressed once they read it. The heroine's family has awful opinions about women that were confronted, but not actually dealt with--at least not in a satisfying way to me. And I remember being uncomfortable about the sex scenes in the book because there was this slight undercurrent of the MC being sexy and good for being submissive. And not in the BDSM way, in the "women are subservient" way.

[musicnkisses]

On the topic of writing minorities poorly I read a lot of webtoons (more than books). I’ve seen some bad faith minority led stories out there. The two that stand out are a manga called Silver Gendered (this shit was so wild that its LGBT representation wrapped back around to being homophobic lmfaooo) and a Webtoon called Let’s Play (she cannot write minorities like a human being. Most of them outside of the male lead are props for a white woman. The male lead says shit no minority would ever say). The latter case needs a sensitivity reader for sure but at the same time, she suffers from not utilizing her minority characters in a coherent way. Because we rarely get their POV they tend to be flat stereotypes. She fails at giving them a voice yet manages to be racist with what we’re given. But she’s a poor writer in general cuz even her white Welsh character leans heavily on stereotypes. It’s too bad that’s one of the most popular works on the app cuz her reading is wretched.

[vvitchbaby]

Finally, someone else who does not like Let's Play. Just yes to this whole critique. I also hate the story line of Sam/Charles; it really creeps me out. And there's no variety in the body types, they're either skinny/buff or overweight (of which the two overweight ppl are POC and one is a black woman).

[musicnkisses]

I liked it until the one episode where Marshall called Abe a Nubian God and was talking about Vicky’s freaky Japanese horror movie powers. Like?? You really want to write your minorities like that? Including the minority lead saying shit like that?

And Sam and Charles are weird. Sam is weird in general. The way EVERYONE in the story bends over to coddle her is incredible. But Charles is trying to 50 shades her and it’s odd cuz in this case sis is technically his boss (her dad owns the company). All that energy for an adult baby, just cuz she got some big titties.

Monica’s the only decent character lol.

[imnotasquirrel]

I think it depends on what sort of story is being told. Like, idk if I'd trust a white author to write a story revolving around a POC character's racial identity, but if the character's race is incidental to the story, whatever. Which is not the same thing as writing from a "colorblind" perspective, ftr! e.g. imo Emily Skrutskie did a good job with The Abyss Surrounds Us/The Edge of the Abyss.