A big Texas welcome to my Autumn Semester Basics Class!

And howdy!

As promised last night:

The most important thing I’ve read in a very long time was the Whatever entry by Mary Anne Mohanraj. I told Mary Anne I felt the need to blog about it and she encouraged me to do so, but since I haven’t had the time to address it properly yet, I will go ahead and mention it here.



 In that entry she says of writing ‘the other’ — those who are different from us in ROAARS Race/Orientation/Ability/Age/Religion/Sex [as defined by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward in Writing the Other] :

1. You get to write whatever you want, including CoC (characters of color).
2. You may worry about being criticized for your handling of race.
3. PoC don’t have an obligation to teach you how to write CoC well and avoid criticism.
4. Nonetheless, here are some suggestions on how to write CoC well.
5. You will get it wrong. This is what you should do.

Reading that list and everything Mary Anne had to say about it was a punch in the gut, a punch to my fears of offending, of getting it wrong. It is terrifying and exhilarating and liberating. I suggest you read the article, and like I did, follow up on her other reading suggestions including the short book Writing the Other, available in paperback and for Kindle. It is going on my list of suggested reading for my classes and for anyone who recognizes a need for it.

Note: To anyone interested in more about writing the other, in this case transgender folk, check this out.

[originally posted here]