#authenticity reader

[seedsofwinter]

Thought bouncing out from that post I reblogged about "neopastoral" trends in fandom and transformative works.

I'm a sensitivity and authenticity reader and content editor. Typically every year for the past roughly decade, I've had 3-8 assignments with traditional publishers.

American publishers this year, 2025? Nothing.

I know I'm just one person with one year of this. But 2024 was a high count year. So I do take it as a sign of the times. That I wasn't even contacted for manuscripts I had to pass on due to time crunch, or not being a good fit for the story personally, etc.

I don't think there are only cozy novels happening with no marginalized voices or special experiences that need to be asked about. I do think that the industry was never super excited to have to look for big huge red flags an author might need to take out or risk a scandal.

I'm so grateful to have worked on so many books, scripts, and comics. I hope we don't stop caring about authentic voices just bc the government here says marginalized groups don't matter any more.

I'd be curious to know how it's been this year for other freelancers who do the same.

[weneeddiversebooks]

When It Comes to Inclusivity in Publishing, Editors Also Play a Role

Authors aren’t the only ones responsible for fixing—or scrapping—a troubled book

“Among the stories that were submitted to me were two written by abled people that include disabled characters. Where my marginalization (as a woman of color) can help me identify problematic areas, my privilege (as a cishet, abled person) can easily allow me to dismiss it. This is why it’s important for me to listen to and engage with friends and voices in other communities — in this case, voices like Alice Wong who leads the #CripLit chats and the DisVisibility Project, Karrie Higgins who is vocal about disability on her blog and on social media, Vilissa Thompson’s Ramp Your Voice, Keah Brown’s essays on feminism & disability and creation of #DisabledandCute, Alaina Leary’s writing on disability representation on and off screen, the existence of @disabilityinkidlit Disability in KidLit, comedian Zach Anner’s videos on YouTube reflecting how inaccessible the world is, and Cara Gael O’Regan’s In Sickness + In Health podcast. Because of their work and the work of so many others I had sources that helped me determine something was off in these stories. I asked, “What is the reason for this (disabled) character in this piece?” As in, are they there to serve the abled protagonist? Are they someone you still don’t have a hold on yet? What gaze are you viewing them through and why? By asking this question I hoped to spark the understanding that while the story was good, these particular characters weren’t working as written. These writers are not bad writers, nor are they bad people. Mistakes get made and both sides can catch them sooner rather than later. And when we can’t catch them in time or at all, the next step is to acknowledge this and do better — and sometimes, that means cutting an incompletely thought-out character or story, rather than trying to fix it. In this case the revised stories were scrapped and we decided on other ones. Even if it meant one less story in the anthology, I had to stand by this. As editors that is our job.“