Next-Level Issues on Diversity in Publishing - My Interivew on The Good Story Podcast!

First things first: you need to check out The Good Story Podcast. It’s new(ish) but great-already source for rich discussions about meaty topics in authoring. It is also the brainchild of Mary Kole. She is the founder of The Good Story Company, a multidimensional career and craft blog and resource center for authors; she is a master developmental editor; she is a craft expert at writing Kidlit. After meeting her virtually, we quickly realized we had much to discuss about diversity in publishing.

Our discussion came hot on the heels of (yet another) big uproar about publishing being too white. You know…the #publishingpaidme trend. It is the latest among half a dozen that have blown up this past year: #RitassoWhite, #IStandWithCourtney, #WritingWhileBlack and the ever-present #weneeddiversebooks have all stormed through my feeds.

Mary and I covered a lot of topics, a few of them about me and why I write what I write, but most of them about things much bigger. I loved having a chance to talk about what it means to me to write feminist romance, and about what I mean when I say that I write Romance for the 21st century. I talked about how I can’t not write social justice themes and why pervasive injustice is exactly why we need diverse perspectives.

Mostly, I was grateful for the chance to talk about nuanced issues related to diversity in all fiction and diversity in Romance. Raising these issues in a space so preoccupied with giving marginalized authors the bare minimum—a foot in the door—has not yet reached a point at which it is ready to discuss some of the next-level issues.

Yet, there are next-level issues—lots of them. For one, the dangerous oversimplification of #OwnVoices, the role that publishers play in propping up just a small handful of diverse authors who they make into their stars. We have yet to discuss what flash movements calling for diversity in fiction do for 99% of marginalized authors, and we don’t do nearly enough to deconstruct the implications of the elite 1% who dominate their small slice of the pie, now.

Even for me, who thinks about this a LOT, this is a tough topic to discuss. There are so many interdependencies and dimensions. I’m thankful for the opportunity to have raised some of these issues in this forum.

fighting within marginalized communities