I have thought about my response to these a lot over the last couple days, it was interesting to think about. I am not a writer of fiction, so I come with a different lens. I am specifically addressing the idea of writing about another group of people in order to work through your own feelings about them and how cultural appropriation applies.
I have always been taught, "Nothing about us, without us." Meaning, do not speak for, teach about, write about a group of people with a very different lived experience than yourself, without including a representative of that group or getting feedback on your material from someone with lived experience. So in writing, that could look like getting feedback and critique from someone who is actually a member of the group you are writing about. Again, I don't create fiction, but I would imagine that principle could still apply. But then, this assumes that the author feels (a) a responsibility to authentically represent the culture and psychology of their characters and (b) a responsibility to not do harm to the real-world community that they are writing about. The goal of "write about the world to understand it better" seems a bit more self-focused, and does not necessarily include a social responsibility to the audience I suppose. But I would argue that if you are writing for an audience, it SHOULD include a social responsibility.
I also think that writing about a culture or identity different than ones own is very different than say, writing about being a scuba diver when you have never scuba dived. You could perhaps do a lot of research to learn about scuba diving and accurately reflect that on the page. And yet, I bet many authors would still interview scuba divers in that case! But in that scenario, I think the social responsibility is low. When writing about trans people especially, you are representing a vulnerable group. In the US at least, trans people are disproportionally at risk for murder and suicide. The government actively works to enact harmful and discriminatory policies. So in that case, misrepresenting trans people on the page risks further adding to misunderstanding, fear, and hate for this group of people. The risk of harm is high.
As a reader, I also crave authenticity. I think about times I (as a cis-gendered, heterosexual woman) have read sex scenes in which a male author is writing the perspective of a female character and does it...poorly. It really takes me out of the story when I am rolling my eyes at the dialogue.
In regard to appropriation, when I hear that term I think more about reaping the rewards of borrowing the beloved aspects of a culture, without properly crediting that culture AND without having lived experience that includes discrimination that accompanies that identity. I think that is relevant here in that, I am willing to bet that trans authors face discrimination in getting their work published (although this is not an area I'm very familiar with, so correct me if I'm wrong).
I just happened to notice that their is a recent episode on the podcast Write-Minded called "Social Responsibility in Fiction, featuring Naomi Kanakia." I have not listened to the episode but it sounds relevant so I thought I would share for anyone wanting to explore the topic further (as I will as well).
Thanks for writing Amber, these are all really interesting thoughts. I agree personally with regards to social responsibility, I have written many books for and about under-represented communities, as a ghost I have written for black women, for brown women, for a blind and deaf woman and, most famously, for someone living with dementia. I wrote three books with her. So, yes, personally I do think that when writing about these groups which face challenges and discriminations, then it is important to represent them responsibly. However, I think I disagree that it is the responsibility of every writer, I think each writer needs to choose whether that is a priority for them. The writer’s job is to write, the writer’s job is to do that well, if they do, then they will find an audience. One person from a marginalised community might feel that the writer has done their community justice, another might not. You will never find an entire community in agreement about this because we are all human and we all come to books with our own thoughts, opinions and life experience. A writer cannot take all those various thoughts, opinions and life experience on board, it is a) impossible and b) stifling to their work, which is to write. The reader's feelings are their own responsibility. Offence is, of course, subjective, and they have a choice as to finish reading of course, or abandon the book.
Should wanting to explore another life in the pursuit of understanding it better be described as self-focused? And if it is, is that a bad thing? We are asked by marginalised communities to spend time trying to understand them better, I think telling their stories and helping others to understand them better is a good thing.
And, in the case of my own book (if it ever reaches publication), how could a reader possibly know who I have consulted and whose stories I have included and which I have made up? It would be impossible to know. And, well, as I said, you can’t please everyone, and that is also not the job is a writer.
I totally agree that we should be allowed to write about places and cultures and experiences that aren't ours. Otherwise our writing is severely restricted and there is no room for imagination. I wonder if the problem is when the voices of imagined experiences overpower or overshadow the voices of lived experience? Where the doors into publishing or self publishing are more open to the privileged. It would be great to see more collaborations - authors who are imagining and exploring and authors who are telling their lived experience.
There is so much to consider in this, Anna, as a fellow writer of memoir and fiction. What prompts the decision to write in one form over another, especially when we perhaps start with a real-life scenario? And is fiction in some ways more exposing? I was on a retreat where the novelist Amanda Smyth was one of the tutors. She grew up in Trinidad and sets her books there, yet has recently come under some scrutiny for what she worried was possibly a similar sort of appropriation as a white, middle class woman writer who writes characters of all colours in order to portray the places and stories of those places and people that she wants to tell... It's a biggie. And I have no answers but thanks for starting what I'm sure will be a fertile discussion.x
That’s interesting, I wonder if Monique Roffey has faced the same as a white writer from Trinidad. I haven’t heard of anything. Of course if we only allow one group to write about their own experiences, then that would also be quite limiting to them. It works both ways. What we are actually exploring is being human, so why are we reducing ourselves to colour and sexes? Although some might argue as a white woman I would say that… interesting topic. X
Dear Anna, I loved this letter as it takes me into territory I have thought a lot about at various points in my career. And my first thought is that if you write what you know in fiction as well as memoir, why differentiate between the two? (of course I know the answer to this question is both simple and complicated)... but you are right: the fear of appropriation in some quarters is off the scale. I will ponder more on this today and tomorrow before I post my reply.
Glad it’s given you some thoughts and ideas, there were so many parts of your letter to reply to but this is something I could relate to my own fiction.
I heard someone say you should write a non fiction book in order to answer a burning question you have. I found this really liberating as I wrote my book on Inclusive PE. There was much I didn't know and it was fascinating to research, explore and find out some answers. Instead of having everything planned out in advance my book adapted and grew as I wrote towards the answers. This sounds like what you mentioned Anna in writing towards what you don't know!?
I’m not sure if I understood correctly, so if I may just clarify: are you saying you don’t get trans people so you decided to write fiction about us to figure us out? I know you put it much more eloquently than that, and maybe my interpretation of your eloquent words is incorrect, so please correct me if I’ve misunderstood.
Thoroughly enjoyed letter #13 and looking forward to hearing what Lily has to say in #14. Funny though, for the last few days, ‘write what you know’ has been on my mind. I think you’re brave with your Bodrum storyline and writing what you don’t know. I can see the appeal. Research even, is part of the appeal if you’re a research lover. For me, I think I have to write what I know for a while until this toe-testing into fiction I’m doing with your help right now comes to fruition. We can dare to put ourselves out of our comfort zone when we write the unknown and how exciting is that? An unexpected journey with no certain ending. Perhaps the combination of the familiarity of Bodrum for you - combined with a new subject matter strikes a perfect equilibrium. Hope it does anyway. x
Yes, I think there are always going to be things we do know, for example, like you say, the town itself, and also (and as i have written previously) in inserted my fictional characters among a group of characters who had lived. That gave me a bit of a touchstone, a safety net as I think I wrote in letter#9, but in terms of the storyline of the protagonist that was new territory and a challenge for me... but it also comes down to what these characters want you to know about them, and what they want to reveal to you. I don't know if i have mentioned before that i hadn't written the 1960 timeline and didn't even know what it was going to be able until i got to the end of the contemporary timeline, and i was getting worried – how could i be writing this story of these two young boys and know nothing about them? but then i saw them as old people and instantly could picture them as young boys, and so it arrived at the page from there. If writing what you know feels safe for now, keep doing it.x
Anna, this is such an interesting debate, and one I talk over with myself frequently! Some of my favourite ever books have been historical fiction - I remember the impact of 'Memoirs of a Geisha' when I was a young women, and being so shocked when I realised it was written by a man, but I was actually just so impressed and interested in this, I never thought: 'he shouldn't have written it'. I feel that it is so important to free this imagination, but it really is such a delicate line. Elif Shafak writes from the perspective of a tree, Joanne Harris a wine bottle, but clearly these are not items subject to misinterpretation. I read 'Yellowface' recently which I thought opened up this debate brilliantly, but as an author I also find the whole thing mildly terrifying!! I write very ethnographically, and my second book which centres on tea has interviews with people around the world, however it's very difficult to talk about 'tea' without talking about colonialism and British rule and that's a whole other can of worms for me as I am not an expert in that area (even though my own family are Irish immigrants into Britain and there are many analogies!). It's so delicate and complex, and clearly care must be taken but I think it would be devastating if the freedoms of imagination were suppressed. I do agree that we hold a 'social responsibility' as Amber says below, it is a strange power we hold with the pen. These are interesting times to be a writer...
I have thought about my response to these a lot over the last couple days, it was interesting to think about. I am not a writer of fiction, so I come with a different lens. I am specifically addressing the idea of writing about another group of people in order to work through your own feelings about them and how cultural appropriation applies.
I have always been taught, "Nothing about us, without us." Meaning, do not speak for, teach about, write about a group of people with a very different lived experience than yourself, without including a representative of that group or getting feedback on your material from someone with lived experience. So in writing, that could look like getting feedback and critique from someone who is actually a member of the group you are writing about. Again, I don't create fiction, but I would imagine that principle could still apply. But then, this assumes that the author feels (a) a responsibility to authentically represent the culture and psychology of their characters and (b) a responsibility to not do harm to the real-world community that they are writing about. The goal of "write about the world to understand it better" seems a bit more self-focused, and does not necessarily include a social responsibility to the audience I suppose. But I would argue that if you are writing for an audience, it SHOULD include a social responsibility.
I also think that writing about a culture or identity different than ones own is very different than say, writing about being a scuba diver when you have never scuba dived. You could perhaps do a lot of research to learn about scuba diving and accurately reflect that on the page. And yet, I bet many authors would still interview scuba divers in that case! But in that scenario, I think the social responsibility is low. When writing about trans people especially, you are representing a vulnerable group. In the US at least, trans people are disproportionally at risk for murder and suicide. The government actively works to enact harmful and discriminatory policies. So in that case, misrepresenting trans people on the page risks further adding to misunderstanding, fear, and hate for this group of people. The risk of harm is high.
As a reader, I also crave authenticity. I think about times I (as a cis-gendered, heterosexual woman) have read sex scenes in which a male author is writing the perspective of a female character and does it...poorly. It really takes me out of the story when I am rolling my eyes at the dialogue.
In regard to appropriation, when I hear that term I think more about reaping the rewards of borrowing the beloved aspects of a culture, without properly crediting that culture AND without having lived experience that includes discrimination that accompanies that identity. I think that is relevant here in that, I am willing to bet that trans authors face discrimination in getting their work published (although this is not an area I'm very familiar with, so correct me if I'm wrong).
I just happened to notice that their is a recent episode on the podcast Write-Minded called "Social Responsibility in Fiction, featuring Naomi Kanakia." I have not listened to the episode but it sounds relevant so I thought I would share for anyone wanting to explore the topic further (as I will as well).
Thanks for writing Amber, these are all really interesting thoughts. I agree personally with regards to social responsibility, I have written many books for and about under-represented communities, as a ghost I have written for black women, for brown women, for a blind and deaf woman and, most famously, for someone living with dementia. I wrote three books with her. So, yes, personally I do think that when writing about these groups which face challenges and discriminations, then it is important to represent them responsibly. However, I think I disagree that it is the responsibility of every writer, I think each writer needs to choose whether that is a priority for them. The writer’s job is to write, the writer’s job is to do that well, if they do, then they will find an audience. One person from a marginalised community might feel that the writer has done their community justice, another might not. You will never find an entire community in agreement about this because we are all human and we all come to books with our own thoughts, opinions and life experience. A writer cannot take all those various thoughts, opinions and life experience on board, it is a) impossible and b) stifling to their work, which is to write. The reader's feelings are their own responsibility. Offence is, of course, subjective, and they have a choice as to finish reading of course, or abandon the book.
Should wanting to explore another life in the pursuit of understanding it better be described as self-focused? And if it is, is that a bad thing? We are asked by marginalised communities to spend time trying to understand them better, I think telling their stories and helping others to understand them better is a good thing.
And, in the case of my own book (if it ever reaches publication), how could a reader possibly know who I have consulted and whose stories I have included and which I have made up? It would be impossible to know. And, well, as I said, you can’t please everyone, and that is also not the job is a writer.
I totally agree that we should be allowed to write about places and cultures and experiences that aren't ours. Otherwise our writing is severely restricted and there is no room for imagination. I wonder if the problem is when the voices of imagined experiences overpower or overshadow the voices of lived experience? Where the doors into publishing or self publishing are more open to the privileged. It would be great to see more collaborations - authors who are imagining and exploring and authors who are telling their lived experience.
There is so much to consider in this, Anna, as a fellow writer of memoir and fiction. What prompts the decision to write in one form over another, especially when we perhaps start with a real-life scenario? And is fiction in some ways more exposing? I was on a retreat where the novelist Amanda Smyth was one of the tutors. She grew up in Trinidad and sets her books there, yet has recently come under some scrutiny for what she worried was possibly a similar sort of appropriation as a white, middle class woman writer who writes characters of all colours in order to portray the places and stories of those places and people that she wants to tell... It's a biggie. And I have no answers but thanks for starting what I'm sure will be a fertile discussion.x
That’s interesting, I wonder if Monique Roffey has faced the same as a white writer from Trinidad. I haven’t heard of anything. Of course if we only allow one group to write about their own experiences, then that would also be quite limiting to them. It works both ways. What we are actually exploring is being human, so why are we reducing ourselves to colour and sexes? Although some might argue as a white woman I would say that… interesting topic. X
Dear Anna, I loved this letter as it takes me into territory I have thought a lot about at various points in my career. And my first thought is that if you write what you know in fiction as well as memoir, why differentiate between the two? (of course I know the answer to this question is both simple and complicated)... but you are right: the fear of appropriation in some quarters is off the scale. I will ponder more on this today and tomorrow before I post my reply.
Glad it’s given you some thoughts and ideas, there were so many parts of your letter to reply to but this is something I could relate to my own fiction.
I heard someone say you should write a non fiction book in order to answer a burning question you have. I found this really liberating as I wrote my book on Inclusive PE. There was much I didn't know and it was fascinating to research, explore and find out some answers. Instead of having everything planned out in advance my book adapted and grew as I wrote towards the answers. This sounds like what you mentioned Anna in writing towards what you don't know!?
I’m not sure if I understood correctly, so if I may just clarify: are you saying you don’t get trans people so you decided to write fiction about us to figure us out? I know you put it much more eloquently than that, and maybe my interpretation of your eloquent words is incorrect, so please correct me if I’ve misunderstood.
That’s right Jude, I think we right fiction to understand the world better, and i think we write memoir to understand ourselves better.
*write 🤦🏻♀️
Thoroughly enjoyed letter #13 and looking forward to hearing what Lily has to say in #14. Funny though, for the last few days, ‘write what you know’ has been on my mind. I think you’re brave with your Bodrum storyline and writing what you don’t know. I can see the appeal. Research even, is part of the appeal if you’re a research lover. For me, I think I have to write what I know for a while until this toe-testing into fiction I’m doing with your help right now comes to fruition. We can dare to put ourselves out of our comfort zone when we write the unknown and how exciting is that? An unexpected journey with no certain ending. Perhaps the combination of the familiarity of Bodrum for you - combined with a new subject matter strikes a perfect equilibrium. Hope it does anyway. x
Yes, I think there are always going to be things we do know, for example, like you say, the town itself, and also (and as i have written previously) in inserted my fictional characters among a group of characters who had lived. That gave me a bit of a touchstone, a safety net as I think I wrote in letter#9, but in terms of the storyline of the protagonist that was new territory and a challenge for me... but it also comes down to what these characters want you to know about them, and what they want to reveal to you. I don't know if i have mentioned before that i hadn't written the 1960 timeline and didn't even know what it was going to be able until i got to the end of the contemporary timeline, and i was getting worried – how could i be writing this story of these two young boys and know nothing about them? but then i saw them as old people and instantly could picture them as young boys, and so it arrived at the page from there. If writing what you know feels safe for now, keep doing it.x
Anna, this is such an interesting debate, and one I talk over with myself frequently! Some of my favourite ever books have been historical fiction - I remember the impact of 'Memoirs of a Geisha' when I was a young women, and being so shocked when I realised it was written by a man, but I was actually just so impressed and interested in this, I never thought: 'he shouldn't have written it'. I feel that it is so important to free this imagination, but it really is such a delicate line. Elif Shafak writes from the perspective of a tree, Joanne Harris a wine bottle, but clearly these are not items subject to misinterpretation. I read 'Yellowface' recently which I thought opened up this debate brilliantly, but as an author I also find the whole thing mildly terrifying!! I write very ethnographically, and my second book which centres on tea has interviews with people around the world, however it's very difficult to talk about 'tea' without talking about colonialism and British rule and that's a whole other can of worms for me as I am not an expert in that area (even though my own family are Irish immigrants into Britain and there are many analogies!). It's so delicate and complex, and clearly care must be taken but I think it would be devastating if the freedoms of imagination were suppressed. I do agree that we hold a 'social responsibility' as Amber says below, it is a strange power we hold with the pen. These are interesting times to be a writer...