4 ms·

I've heard her say some form of it in various interviews, but here is one I just found: https://youtu.be/82AiU5ZGXf4?t=32 https://youtu.be/82AiU5ZGXf4?t=32 > S

I've heard her say some form of it in various interviews, but here is one I just found: https://youtu.be/82AiU5ZGXf4?t=32 https://youtu.be/82AiU5ZGXf4?t=32 > She wrote about cultures the reader didn't know I'm not sure that's true, although it ended up being the case for many of her readers. She always was very explicit in saying that she wrote for Black people, without thinking of the white gaze. I think the problem is largely that people of color don't get to tell the stories in the first place. Or if they do, they end up writing about white people or have to write their ancestral traumas in order to get published. The outrage comes because some white guy got $500k for that story of a Mexican waitress, when actual Latinx people aren't getting published, not the actual "writing what you don't know". Although yes, of course, you better do your research if you're doing that. I recently read Tar Baby, one of the few of her books I hadn't gotten to, and I was never mad at her for embodying the white characters the way she did. My partner is a writer here in NYC, a woman of color, on a "major label", and it's devastating to see white editors just say things like "I didn't know how to connect to these characters" because they've literally never thought about a Bangladeshi person before. There's a lot that needs to change, but from a purely artistic point of view I find nothing wrong with writing what you don't know.

nineplay 5y ago
That's truly a pity. At the risk of sounding insufferable, whenever I read a "modern" book I feel like I immediately can tell where it's going and how it ends. It's the reason I spend most of my time with my nose in golden-age scifi. I suspect "We can't connect to Bangladeshi characters" is shorthand for "We only want plucky white women who overcome hardships". Ug.
- jfengel 5y ago
  I find that I can absolutely tell where golden-age sci-fi is going. I loved it when I was much younger, but today it feels "thin". Partly it's because they invented the tropes; after all, Hamlet is just a string of cliches. But partly it's because I know the writers, even the ones I've never read. They come from a really narrow range of social backgrounds. The great stuff is still great, but that's mostly survivorship bias, and I've long since read all the survivors. Finding good new books is still damn hard. Sturgeon's Law was, and remains, in full force. And the unpredictability is not always an advantage: the predictability of those sci-fi books is very comfortable. If I really didn't know what I was getting into I'd have to work a lot harder, and I often don't want to.
neolog 5y ago
Isn't it the writer's job to make the connection?
- jfengel 5y ago
  It requires both the writer and the reader to put in the work. No amount of effort by the writer will be able to bring around an editor who says, in effect, "This doesn't appeal to me and it won't sell to white audiences." It's a business decision to only publish books for the majority of readers. The editor isn't obligated to take books they can't sell. But that editor has to take responsibility for recognizing that they might as well put a sign on the door that says "white writers (and/or people willing to cater to the prejudices of white audiences) only". I don't mean this to just point at them and say "racist". That's too easy. It's a much more challenging situation where nobody has to be robes-and-torches racist but everything is harder for some people than others and it's never the fault of anybody you can point to. One way out of it is for editors to put down that particular shield and say, "I don't always have to connect to the characters. There are other ways to appreciate the book, and sometimes audiences like it." Shakespeare is wildly successful despite having few characters you can actually connect to. "Connection" is overrated. What's not overrated is good writing, which is harder to do and harder to pin down. We ultimately rely on editors to recognize it because they're the gatekeepers, and that puts responsibility on them.

nineplay 5y ago

That's truly a pity. At the risk of sounding insufferable, whenever I read a "modern" book I feel like I immediately can tell where it's going and how it ends. It's the reason I spend most of my time with my nose in golden-age scifi. I suspect "We can't connect to Bangladeshi characters" is shorthand for "We only want plucky white women who overcome hardships". Ug.

jfengel 5y ago
I find that I can absolutely tell where golden-age sci-fi is going. I loved it when I was much younger, but today it feels "thin". Partly it's because they invented the tropes; after all, Hamlet is just a string of cliches. But partly it's because I know the writers, even the ones I've never read. They come from a really narrow range of social backgrounds. The great stuff is still great, but that's mostly survivorship bias, and I've long since read all the survivors. Finding good new books is still damn hard. Sturgeon's Law was, and remains, in full force. And the unpredictability is not always an advantage: the predictability of those sci-fi books is very comfortable. If I really didn't know what I was getting into I'd have to work a lot harder, and I often don't want to.

neolog 5y ago

Isn't it the writer's job to make the connection?

jfengel 5y ago
It requires both the writer and the reader to put in the work. No amount of effort by the writer will be able to bring around an editor who says, in effect, "This doesn't appeal to me and it won't sell to white audiences." It's a business decision to only publish books for the majority of readers. The editor isn't obligated to take books they can't sell. But that editor has to take responsibility for recognizing that they might as well put a sign on the door that says "white writers (and/or people willing to cater to the prejudices of white audiences) only". I don't mean this to just point at them and say "racist". That's too easy. It's a much more challenging situation where nobody has to be robes-and-torches racist but everything is harder for some people than others and it's never the fault of anybody you can point to. One way out of it is for editors to put down that particular shield and say, "I don't always have to connect to the characters. There are other ways to appreciate the book, and sometimes audiences like it." Shakespeare is wildly successful despite having few characters you can actually connect to. "Connection" is overrated. What's not overrated is good writing, which is harder to do and harder to pin down. We ultimately rely on editors to recognize it because they're the gatekeepers, and that puts responsibility on them.