Episode 275: Writing While White (or otherwise part of the historically dominant paradigm)

Everybody, no matter what box we check or refuse to check on the census, sees life most easily from our own perspective while knowing there are many, many others. How do we write books that reflect the world we live in and all the people we live among&#8212;without claiming to speak about experiences we have not and cannot have?<br/><br/>In our new summer series, The Working Bookshelf, KJ and guest host Jennie Nash pull their favorite writing books off the shelf and debate: which is better and why&#8212;until invariably, they get distracted and just start talking about the topic at hand. Funny, fresh and full of frank advice, when KJ and Jennie get going they&#8217;re hard to stop.<br/><br/>There&#8217;s no competition this week, because the books we found on this topic are all helpful, whether you&#8217;re a white writer working toward change or a writer who identifies in another way, ready to point your colleagues towards some books that will help them evolve&#8212;or a writer who fits into any category (that&#8217;s all of us) who wants to be sure her characters who don&#8217;t fit that same mold ring true. Because you can&#8217;t only write books about yourself. Or maybe you can, but those are called memoir&#8212;and you still better be able to see other POVs.<br/><br/>This week&#8217;s books:<br/><br/><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781642592672">The Anti Racist Writing Workshop</a><br/><br/><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781948226806">Craft in the Real World</a><br/><br/><a href="http://www.aqueductpress.com/books/978-1-933500-00-3.php">Writing the Other</a><br/><br/>In a new twist, you can also watch these episodes on YouTube. Find Episode 7 <a href="https://youtu.be/I9vglZXoEFI">HERE</a>.<br/><br/>And, for your looking-forward pleasure, here&#8217;s the whole series, dropping once weekly all through the summer of 2021.<br/><br/>1. <a href="https://amwriting.substack.com/p/episode-269-finding-inspiration-on">Inspiration</a>2. <a href="https://amwriting.substack.com/p/episode-270-plotting-your-