The gracious Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese, authors of Starling, just released, were nice enough to run this guest post about some things I’ve been thinking about lately. Thank you!
Today we have a guest post from Laurie Boris, an indie author who has just published Playing Charlie Cool, book 3 in the Trager Family Secrets series.
Laurie tackles a pretty controversial subject who can, and should, write what when it comes to marginalized identities. It’s something Erin and I don’t have a manifesto on, in part because our feelings about it change a lot, and in part because we both often encounter assumptions about who we are (and what that entitles us to write) that just aren’t accurate to our lived identities.
What matters, in the end, of course, is doing your research, telling a story, honoring your characters and realizing, especially when you write identities that aren’t your own, that your words can and do have real life impacts on people.
This is Laurie’s approach:
I Can’t Write What?
I really love when readers contact me. Aside…
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Laurie Boris 
Here’s the comment I just left on that post.
It’s a great response, Laurie. As you know, we’ve had some discussion on this issue before so you are aware of my reservations. Having personally encountered the anger that can result when someone attempts to “speak for” members of a marginalized community they do not belong to I shy away from doing so. That said, I love Charlie and agree that he is a character and not a “minority” all by himself. So much of who we are as humans is universal, and you captured “love” and “romance” beautifully. I think the problems arise mostly when it becomes more political than human.
Well written response, Laurie. I commented on the full post. Have a great day. 🙂