Good Intentions and the Pathway to Hell, Part 2: Sensitivity Readers
By David Corbett | May 12, 2023 |
Last month’s post on book bans opened with a quote from historian Thomas Zimmer, which I’ll repeat here for reference:
There is indeed something going on in America, and it does make a lot of people…really uncomfortable. We are in the midst of a profound renegotiation of speech norms and of who gets to define them. And that can be a messy process at times. But it’s not “cancel culture.” From a democratic perspective, it is necessary, and it is progress.
I believe this is an accurate statement of where we are culturally, and that one of the most apparent arenas undergoing renegotiation is publishing. One specific example of that is the increasing role of sensitivity readers, especially in YA fiction, though the practice is extending to adult fiction, film, and TV.
The major impetus behind the implementation of sensitivity readers was publishing’s recognition of the obvious fact that it was overwhelmingly white—and that white writers, in the wake of the social justice movement that emerged in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, wanted to address that imbalance by writing across racial and ethnic lines.
The results were, shall we say, mixed. White authors were taken to task for patronizing, stereotypical, or harmful representations of minorities or for resorting to racial tropes in their work.
In September 2015, author Corinne Duyvis created the hashtag #OwnVoices as a way to recommend books on Twitter that featured authors who shared the diverse identity of their main characters. At the same time, publishers and agents began subtly (or not so subtly) discouraging white writers from “straying from their lane” in writing about protagonists or even secondary characters outside their personal realm of “lived experience.”
The sensitivity reader emerged as a possible solution to the problem of authors needing input into the lives of members of diverse communities different from their own race, ethnicity, gender identity, faith, and so on. This was done to help prevent any more representations deemed “problematic,” a euphemism that rather quickly became a new term of art.
The Term “Sensitivity” Itself is “Problematic”
In a Writer’s Digest article titled, “The Problem with Sensitivity Readers Isn’t What You Think It Is”), author Anna Hecker remarked:
“Sensitivity” … is a loaded word if there ever was one. It suggests thin skins and easily bruised emotions—a potentially dangerous combination if one perceives these readers as the gatekeepers to publication (which, it should be pointed out, they are generally not).
No wonder the censorship watchdogs are wringing their hands. The term “sensitivity reader” may be triggering to the very people who loathe the term “triggering.”
Consequently, some have chosen to use the terms “authenticity readers” or “diversity readers” instead.
There. Solved it.
If only.
For a distinctly contrarian view, we can turn to author Larry Correia, self-described “Writer, Merchant of Death (retired), Firearms Instructor, Accountant.”
A Sensitivity Reader is usually some expert on Intersectional Feminism or Cismale Gendernormative Fascism or some other made up goofiness who a publisher brings in to look for anything “problematic” in a manuscript. And since basically everything is problematic to somebody they won’t be happy until they suck all the joy out of the universe. It is basically a new con-job racket some worthless scumbags have come up with to extort money from gullible writers, because there aren’t a lot of good ways to make a living with a Gender Studies degree.
It’s pretty obvious that the problem from this perspective isn’t so much what but who. That will become a theme as we press ahead.
BTW: It isn’t just opponents of sensitivity readers who get testy when this subject comes up. Anna Hecker in her WD article makes little effort to hide her disdain for those who voice doubts about sensitivity readers, referring to them as handwringing “censorship watchdogs” (see above) and “polemicists”—the latter term being used to describe Francine Prose, a stalwart progressive who nonetheless has doubts about the role sensitivity readers play.
What’s the Issue?
Those who advance the cause of sensitivity readers think of them as little different than subject matter experts, like an arson investigator consulted to make sure the details of a deliberately set fire are accurate (which I did for my second novel, Done for a Dime). This is just part of the overall effort to “get things right,” in this case things relating to the beliefs and behavior of a person of a different culture or ethnicity.
Even Merchant of Death (Ret.) Larry Correia sees little problem with authors wanting to make sure their details are accurate (within certain bounds):
Writing advice time. If you are going to write about somebody different than you, or stuff outside your area of expertise, don’t be a lazy asshole, do your homework. And if you know people who are experts on that topic, or they come from that world, there’s nothing wrong with bouncing it off them to make sure you’ve got your ducks in a row. But I’m talking about regular people, not professional grievance mongers. [Note: again the issue is who, not what.]
At the same time that sensitivity readings became more routine, writers of color made the point that white writers depicting the lives of minority characters were taking opportunities away from authors who could write more authentically about the subject matter. Were sensitivity readers helping or hurting the cause of such writers?
For articles supporting sensitivity readers, again see the Hecker/WD piece already cited as well as:
- “What is a Sensitivity Reader? (And Why They Matter),” Hannah Lee Kidder, Self-Publishing School
- “Engaging with Sensitivity Readers: A YPG Panel,” Emma Kantor, Publishers Weekly
- “Sensitivity Readers Can Make Publishing More Accountable, If We Allow Them To,” Alaina Lavoie, Diverse Books
- “Sensitivity Readers: What Publishing’s Most Polarising Role is Really About,” Lucy Knight, The Guardian
- “Stop Moaning About Sensitivity Readers,” Juno Watson, The Guardian
Articles challenging the wisdom of sensitivity readers largely publish in conservative/libertarian outlets such as Reason, The Telegraph, and the Times of London, but as already noted the New York Review of Books published Francine Prose’s piece, which was from a decidedly liberal perspective, as was a New York Times piece by Alexandra Alter.
These challenges normally cite the dangers of censorship and the creation of a “sensitive elite” (i.e., thought police) dictating what can and can’t be said, and by whom. Once again, the issue of who decides what is “problematic” is the principle thing that’s “problematic.” These writers often tend to point out the occasions when things have gone wrong (see below), rather than when they haven’t.
Some point out that it is largely the political Left that supports such efforts, when they were opposed to them when they took the form of the Hays Code (aka the Breen Code), and the Catholic Legion of Decency’s movie ratings (which tended to condemn everything I wanted to see as a teenager). And it is routinely groups for which the Left has an affinity that require this special “sensitivity.” Citing the inimitable Merchant of Death (Ret.) Larry Correia again:
Note, these Sensitivity Readers are always the typical progressive buzzword vultures, looking for racist/sexist/homophobic microaggressions, because it’s pretty obvious to anyone who has ever read a book from mainstream publishing that they don’t give a shit about offending any other group… Or even getting their basic facts right about anybody who isn’t Team Blue.
Where are the “Sensitivity Readers” for combat vets? Where are the “Sensitivity Readers” for Christians? Or gun-nuts?
Others note that the terms “experience” and “lived experience,” which sensitivity readers are supposed to possess, are themselves “problematic.” From Francine Prose’s NYRB piece:
What’s distressing is the frequency—and the unexamined authority—with which the words “experience” and “lived experience” define who is qualified to write or even to weigh in on a book. If it’s not your “lived experience,” you’re not writing in “your own voice.” It doesn’t suggest much faith in the power of the imagination—our ability to envision what it might be like to belong to another group, another gender, to live in another historical era. To take the argument to its illogical extreme, how can one write a historical novel if one has no “lived experience” of that period?
Another criticism is that there is no criterion that establishes that one person’s “lived experience” qualifies them as an authority on the lived experience of everyone, or anyone, else of the subgroup for which they claim special knowledge. This has led to some serious missteps (see below).
A sampling of pieces that question the worth or the wisdom of sensitivity readers includes:
- “In an Era of Online Outrage, Do Sensitivity Readers Result in Better Books or Censorship,” Alexandra Alter, New York Times
- “Sensitivity Readers are the New Literary Gatekeepers,” Kate Rosenfield, Reason
- “‘Sensitivity Readers’ Are the New Thought Police, And They Threaten More Than Novelists,” Nick Gillespie, Reason
- “Is The Rise of Sensitivity Readers Progress Or Censorship,” Rosamund Urwin, Times of London
- “Publishing’s ‘Imagination Police’: Are Sensitivity Readers Ruining Literature,” Jake Kerridge, The Telegraph
Problem #1: How Does One Find a Sensitivity Reader?
Curiously, several of the websites citing the advantages of sensitivity readers provided a link for where one might find them that was inoperable. Both Penguin Random House and Reedsy referred interested parties to a Writing in the Margins Sensitivity Reader Database that is “under construction.”
Writing Diversely offers the names of 30 sensitivity readers from a wide variety of backgrounds and offers a portal for requesting one to your specifications. However, the logo for this operation is a “WD” that’s conspicuously mimics the Writers Digest logo, which I found misleading.
Dot & Dash provides sensitivity reading services, but their focus is on helping women writers.
Perhaps the best source for finding sensitivity readers was provided by Writers & Artists, “How to Find the Perfect Sensitivity Reader for You.”
Publishers often have their own in-house readers (more on that below). If anyone has a better bead on where to find reputable sensitivity readers, please provide that information in a comment.
Problem #2: Author Horror Stories
First, a caution: anecdotal examples, no matter how numerous or disturbing, are difficult to weigh against the unknown number of instances where writers have worked well with sensitivity readers to the betterment of their books. That said, these are some of the cases often cited when sensitivity reading is questioned:
Alberto Gullaba Jr. wrote a novel titled University Thugs about a black ex-convict who, after his release from prison, enrolls in a predominantly white university. His agent was thrilled with the novel, and to help with marketing asked Gullaba about his own ethnic background. Gullaba told his agent he was Filipino, and the agent’s enthusiasm promptly cooled. He requested that Gullaba submit the manuscript to one of the agent’s staff members, who was Black. One little problem: she had been born in the Caribbean and raised in the U.K. How she had any greater authority than the author to speak for a Black American male ex-convict remains unclear. In the end the agent withdrew his representation and Gullaba published the novel independently and pseudonymously.
Kosoko Jackson wrote a YA novel about two gay Black teenagers (Jackson is himself Black and gay) who fall in love against the backdrop of the Kosovo War. Prior to the publication, the book drew fierce online criticism for its portrayals of Kosovo’s Muslims—specifically, for not “centering” the story with a Muslim protagonist. Irony: Jackson was himself a sensitivity reader, and one who had been particularly vocal in his own opposition to books he found “problematic.”
Amélie Wen Zhao, an immigrant from mainland China, wrote a sci-fi novel about a fictional world where a certain subclass of humans possess special powers and are enslaved accordingly as a form of social control. She was thrilled when the manuscript went to auction and she received a three-book deal with Delacorte. Then came the online reaction, claiming she was insensitive to the descendants of African slaves. She issued a profuse apology to anyone hurt by what she’d written and pulled the book from publication. She then reread it to see if the criticisms had merit, decided they didn’t, and resubmitted the book for publication. What changed her mind about her critics? Her book wasn’t based on the experiences of African slaves at all but on current victims of indentured servitude and human trafficking in a part of the world most Americans know nothing about, something she felt particularly passionate about.
Sandra Newman‘s sci-fi novel The Men portrayed a world in which everyone with a Y chromosome one day mysteriously disappears. The online backlash centered on what was perceived as the “transphobic” implication that people with Y chromosomes are men. When asked if she hired a sensitivity reader, Newman answered yes. That unfortunately did not spare her—in fact, the invective only intensified. “That only makes it WORSE,” one commenter wrote, “because you’re claiming you KNOWINGLY did this.”
Laura Moriarty published a dystopian novel imagining a future in which Muslims are being herded into internment camps, a fact of minor importance to the novel’s white heroine, Sarah Mary, until she befriends an endangered Iranian Muslim, a professor named Sadaf. Since Moriarity is white, her publisher sent the manuscript out for sensitivity reads at various points in the editing process. The book received a starred review from Kirkus, who commissioned “an observant Muslim person of color” for the review. Despite her and Kirkus’s precautions, the first review on Goodreads included the following:
fuck your white savior narratives
fuck using marginalized characters as a plot device to teach the white mc how to be a decent person
fuck you for perpetuating the idea that marginalized people need to suffer in order to be worthy of “humanity”
fuck this book and everyone who thought it would be a good fucking idea…
to my Muslim friends, i’m sorry this book and this mindset exists
Kirkus subsequently removed the star from its review.
These accounts seem to point to the real problem, which is social media “callouts, draggings, and pile-ons.” As some of the examples make clear, not even sensitivity readers can protect an author from this kind of mob attack—worse, many of those piling on haven’t even bothered to read the book, and are just parroting the remarks of others who’ve taken offense.
Why social media has generated this kind of mass abuse is beyond the scope of this already overlong post. The point I’m trying to make here is this: Has publishing responded to this kind of behavior appropriately?
Problem #3: Problematic Publishing
Author Kat Rosenfield has called out publishers for their sacrificing authors on the altar of profit and the illusion of good intentions:
The irony is that sensitivity reading is, in itself, an exercise in exactly the kind of offensive generalizing it purports to help authors avoid—not just in the way it traffics in crude stereotypes about how people of a given race, gender, or sexual orientation move through the world, but in whose interests it ultimately serves. This is a practice driven primarily by the fears of privileged editors, agents, and publishers, and that is who it protects, too often at the expense of the diverse authors whose work they claim to champion. Writers such as Alberto Gullaba Jr. are sidelined, sandboxed, scolded away from taking creative risks, by oblivious white people whose own imaginations can only extend as far as the next cancellation.
Unfortunately, the horror stories are not limited to what has happened to writers. In an anonymous piece titled “I Was a Sensitivity Reader—Until I Realized Why I was Hired,” the anonymous author recounts how she was recruited by a senior editor because she (the author) was working class, had overcome difficulties with alcohol, and had experienced both domestic abuse and mental health issues. She was part of a team assembled due to similar backgrounds:
The sensitivity readers were all under 30—there was even someone who had started as an editorial assistant who was still in her late teens. When I met the rest of the team, I realised we had all been recruited because we had some form of trauma. Whether it be abuse, addiction, or issues around sexuality or race, we were all somehow drawing from our previous suffering. One had a history of self-harm. In hindsight, it felt like manipulation of young impressionable employees, who were being paid less than £20,000 a year to effectively reopen old wounds and safeguard the reputation of the publisher.
It’s difficult not to come away with the sense that this preoccupation with language and “sensitivity” is an escape hatch, policing speech rather than engaging in the far more difficult tasks of pursuing real diversity and opportunity for marginalized individuals, communities—and writers.
But publishers have more to answer for than even that.
Problem #4: Rewriting the Dead
A number of authors have had their works posthumously scrubbed of potentially controversial material in the wake of sensitivity readings.
In the case of Roald Dahl, the effort was conducted by the current publisher of his work, Puffin Books, which hired sensitivity readers to help rewrite “chunks of the author’s text.” Puffin justified its position with: “[W]e regularly review the language [of a book] to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.” (Emphasis mine—what book can be enjoyed “by all?”)
A piece from the Telegraph (2/24/23) titled “The (Re)writing of Roald Dahl” detailed some of the changes made:
Language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race has been cut and rewritten. Remember the Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach? They are now the Cloud-People. The Small Foxes in Fantastic Mr Fox are now female. In Matilda, a mention of Rudyard Kipling has been cut and Jane Austen added.
Dahl himself vehemently objected to any such revisions, and in the face of considerable backlash Puffin relented earlier this year and said the books would continue to be issued in their original form. (Dahl’s French and Dutch publishers also agreed to publish only the original versions.)
Ian Fleming was not quite as vehement about changes to his work; he allowed U.S. publishers to alter race-related references in Live and Let Die.
This opened the door for Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, the company that now owns the literary rights to the author’s work. They also engaged sensitivity readers to review the James Bond novels for potentially objectionable material.
Curiously, the readers’ sensitivity seemed limited to matters of race, specifically those dealing with Blacks:
Dated references to other ethnicities remain, such as Bond’s racial terms for east Asian people and the spy’s disparaging views of Oddjob, Goldfinger’s Korean henchman.
References to the “sweet tang of rape”, “blithering women” failing to do a “man’s work”, and homosexuality being a “stubborn disability” also remain.
Equally curious, some black characters were simply deleted, and even when mention of their race was by no means pejorative—for example with reference to the heroic drivers of the Red-Ball Express in World War II—it too was eliminated.
A particularly trenchant critique of these revisions was written by Dennis Crow, movies editor for Den of Geek:
[Both the attempt to] rewrite Bond for modern sensibilities…[and] doing the same to the works of Roald Dahl…represent attempts by publishers and rightsholders to maintain the steady stream of income from their classics spigot.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell’s fictional dystopian society lives in a world where “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten… History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the Party is always right.”
Such hegemonic groupthink runs the danger of downplaying the thoughts, ideas, and even sins of the past to the point where folks can simply overlook them. As if they never happened. Ironically, this isn’t too far removed from other ideological movements that would rather just not talk about slavery or Jim Crow in American high schools. Out of sight, out of mind.
I find that last paragraph particularly on-point. How are we to recognize progress if we erase the record of what it is we’ve progressed from?
That point was echoed by PenUSA CEO Suzanne Nossel:
Those who might cheer specific edits to Dahl’s work should consider how the power to rewrite books might be used in the hands of those who do not share their values and sensibilities.
Better than playing around with these texts is to offer introductory context that prepares people for what they are about to read, and helps them understand the setting in which it was written.
Finally, novelist Kat Rosenfield once again chimes in, this time in a piece for Pirate Wires. It’s not just the Fleming and Dahl situations that are concerning—some are done with no notice at all to readers or anyone—nor are all the authors affected deceased:
When R.L. Stine’s work underwent a sensitivity edit, he apparently found out via Twitter— and announced that it was done without his consent. (“I’ve never changed a word in Goosebumps,” he replied to a disgruntled fan. “Any changes were never shown to me.”
Some edits are only uncovered when a reader stumbles over a surprise alteration in a familiar text, as when Agatha Christie fans woke up to find that their digital editions of various works, including Death on the Nile, had been stripped overnight of references to race, ethnicity, and certain physical characteristics. (Christie’s estate didn’t respond to an email requesting comment, but the update appears to have been made unannounced and was only reported on after fans began posting about it online.)
When people in positions of cultural authority no longer agree on the importance of preserving art, in its original form and in keeping with the artist’s intent, what results is a wild west ruled by the whims and competing sensibilities of nameless, faceless culture cops.
Have you ever retained or worked with a sensitivity/diversity/authenticity reader? How did you find them? What was the experience like? Do you think it improved your work? If so, how? If not, why not?
How do you compare the benefits and drawbacks of sensitivity readers to book banning, which I discussed in last month’s post?
What’s your takeaway concerning the pros and cons of sensitivity readers in light of the arguments for and against described above?
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
I think as writers, generally, we can agree to the following two statements:
(1) Whatever we say in our writing, we should say it on purpose rather than on accident.
(2) Our writing should reflect our moral outlook, our view of of how the world is and should and should not be.
If your belief is that all humans are equal and all sorts of people deserve a place in the world, and you wish to convey that in your writing, sensitivity readers can help.
If you do not really care, but wish to have the appearance of it, a sensitivity reader is a convenient Band-Aid.
If you do not believe that all humans are equal and all sorts of people deserve a place in the world, and you don’t wish the social stigma of publicly admitting to it, complaining about sensitivity readers is a convenient smokescreen.
If you’re in a group that is consistently excluded from representation in broader society, there is a good chance you are traumatized, and the sum of all the above is exhausting, and only rips open the trauma more.
…and the total of that more or less explains where we’re at in the news.
I agree with your first point Linguist but not your second. Long-form art is a process of discovery that changes the artist, so at what point could we say we are making a moral stance? Inention and the reception aren’t lining up now-a-days, but that’s always been the case. Instead we should look at the incremental process of the artist over time and judge their history, and we can’t do that if we don’t give them a chance to begin.
I think this gets us to the central question, James: who gets to say what and who decides? That’s all up for grabs now. But what I noticed as I read the pieces both for and against was not only, as I point out in the post, that those opposed to sensitivity reading often express their qualms in terms of who is doing it–the “thought police” and “faceless nameless culture cops,” for example–as much if not more than what’s being done, but there is also a divide between those who see writing as a collaborative process and those who see it as an act of individual creativity. The first argument is ad hominem and too often gets expressed derisively (see Mr. Correia’s remarks in the post). The second one, collaborative vs solo, depends on who is doing the collaborating, how, and why.
Thanks for the comment, Linguist. I was agreeing with you until the paragraph beginning with “If you do not believe …”
Francine Prose isn’t complaining about sensitivity readers, she’s seeing the potential pitfalls and excesses and contradictions that can arise with their elevation to arbiters of truth. And she’s hardly someone who does “not believe that all humans are equal and all sorts of people deserve a place in the world, and [doesn’t] wish the social stigma of publicly admitting to it.” She’s not the only progressive with similar qualms. There is in fact a growing literature of liberals and progressives taking issue with online mobbing against authors, and publishers’ inadequate defense of those authors when the mob is pounding on the virtual door. And notice that two of the authors targeted were themselves writers from marginalized communities, one Filipino and one Asian.
As for the second to last paragraph, I’ll be talking about this more next month when I revisit the issue of trigger warnings, but I believe that, in trying to face trauma squarely, we have regrettably overshot the mark and become mired in past wrongs rather than a healing present or a healthy future. We have fetishized trauma to the point the word is almost meaningless, and by elevating victimhood over strength, survival, and success we’ve created a culture easily ridiculed as “woke” (a term that, like “CRT,” has been weaponized by those who care nothing about getting any of this right). The most credible research shows that it’s the AVOIDANCE of “triggering” material that’s harmful to trauma survivors, whereas meaningful engagement can point toward reconciliation, healing, health. I realize “meaningful” is doing a lot of work there–but that’s our jobs as writers, not to be cavalier about the pain humans can suffer.
So I agree with you up to Band-Aid. The rest, well, that’s why they have horse races. Thanks again for chiming in. And feel free to clap back at my response.
Actively writing to work against the representation or lack of it for disabled and chronically ill people in fiction – the trauma is continuous. We are part of humanity, however inconvenient that is for those who are currently more able.
But it has to be done subtly – because no one likes being preached to – and with art.
I’ve had the good fortune to befriend Jim Lebrecht, who overcame spina bifida to become the sound engineer for the Berkeley Rep Theater. (He wanted to be the sound man for the Grateful Dead, but that didn’t pan out.) We met at a party where he asked me to move his wheelchair up and down the porch steps because at the time the whole idea of ramps was, at best, new. One of the most joyful, brilliant, indefatigable human beings I have ever met, JIm became one of the central figures in the disability rights movement along with Larry Allison, Judith Heumann, Denise Sherer Jacobson, and Stephen Hofmann. Jim recently co-wrote, co-directed, and co-produced the documentary CRIP CAMP about how the leaders of the disability rights movement all met at Camp Jened in the Catskills in the early 1970s. It was the first time and place where they were not the weird ones, and the bonds forged there remained strong throughout the decades thereafter. It’s a beautiful film, full of strength and joy and courage and love, and I highly recommend it.
May I gently ask if 20% of your friends and 20% of your reading involves people/characters/authors with disabilities? Because that’s the percentage in the population at large, and it is a very elusive target.
I think people would fear disability less if it weren’t so vigorously hidden – a continuing effort is necessary.
I agree with (1). But, I’m afraid, not with (2).
Rather, I believe our writing should reflect the moral outlook and world view of our characters–even, or especially, if their morals, ideologies, and deeply held beliefs, etc., are entirely different from our own. And perhaps unpopular. This, to me, is where truth and honesty are found in fiction. The author gets the heck out of the way and allows the characters be who they are and who they need to become, regardless of their creator’s personal outlook.
I read every word, David. I have added characters to my novel to make it more inclusive. Now I ask myself, even though I did the work, the research, did I do it right. Will I be criticized or will my book be turned away by editors because of these attempts? I believe in inclusivity, honesty. But we might always find ourselves on trembling ground, despite our attempts to be honest, open and inclusive. Thanks for your post.
We do indeed find ourselves on trembling ground, Elizabeth. Great way to put it. Things are changing, and I agree with Zimmer that the goal is a more inclusive, egalitarian, multicultural society. What we’re having to address in the meantime is the “messiness.” Nothing absolves us from questioning our own place in the culture or making sure our representations of others are accurate and made in good faith. My major concerns are not sensitivity readers per se–I agree that they are in essence little different than subject matter consultants. And their input can be invaluable. But as some of the horror stories point out, they’re not foolproof, and in some ways, as Kat Rosenfield points out, they reflect the very ethnic/cultural over-generalization they claim to want to cure. I also think agents and publishers at time use them as a way to protect themselves from criticism rather than doing the much harder work of determining the merit of the criticism and standing by their authors. The Gullaba, Zhao, and Moriarty accounts are particularly informative on this latter point.
This was really interesting David—you really did your research. I can’t speak to much of this as I haven’t used a sensitivity reader, but as a writer and consumer, this current trend makes me fear for the future of the arts. The name of the new Peter Pan movie for example, “Peter Pan and Wendy,” already screams “Don’t worry, you typically sidelined women, we don’t think the guy who won’t grow up is the only hero here!” It isn’t a creative re-imagining, using the original as a jumping-off point (or a plank, as it were), so much as revisionist. It came across as if someone typed in the request, “Update Peter Pan for political correctness,” and then AI generated it along every obvious parameter. What’s next up: a reimagining of Fight Club without the exclusionary nature of a club? Oh, and maybe without all that violent fighting?
Maybe this is all part of the transition needed to get beyond historical transgressions—let’s face it, Tiger Lily did need work, and I would have happily watched a reimagining in which she was the hero. In this new effort, even Hook’s villainy is explained away. The result was to squash the story flat. It all just feels so… obvious. Which makes me wonder: in the attempt to avoid insensitivity, will the powers-that-be leave behind nothing we can discuss with our children, or in book clubs? Will nothing remain that can make us feel the rage of injustice? I hope that once this great rebalancing in publishing succeeds in its current goal of bringing more under-represented voices forward, that we can let everyone’s imaginations rip in whatever way best suits the efficacy of their story’s conflict.
Thanks, Kathryn. Speaking for the crime genre, with which I’m most familiar, writers of color aren’t just having an impact, they’re driving the bus. S.A Cosby, Kellye Garrett, Naomi Hirahara, Alex Segura, Steph Cha, Gigi Pandian, Rachel Howzell Hall, Gabino Iglesias, the organization Crime Writers of Color. The question is: will publishing stick with them. In past iterations this opening of the cultural door has been conducted in fits and starts (at best). Something about this moment feels different, and I hope I’m right about that.
But as Juno Watson says in her piece, “Stop Moaning About Sensitivity Readers,” they are an attempt to address the overwhelmingly white middle-class state of publishing. And that’s a good thing, especially since white writers seldom have to navigate minority communities in the same way minorities must navigate white culture–it’s everywhere. (Rachel Howzell Hall uses the example of “nude” pantyhose–whose shade of “nude” are they aiming for?) Checking your work for misguided assumptions and depictions is part of writing, period. This one just seems to have hit a nerve.
None of that, however, addresses the fact that a lot of the online mobbing and shaming of authors on the grounds of insensitivity and harm is done with a lack of good faith–or outright hatefulness–along with a healthy dose of moral superiority and self-congratulation.
What I found particularly interesting in your comment was the idea that good stories always give us something to chew over, discuss, argue about. The quest to remove what’s “problematic” in fiction may in fact serve to undermine the entire purpose of the endeavor.
I hired a sensitivity reader in 2020 for my first cozy mystery, which I self-published. I live and work in a small town in Georgia which has a diverse population with white Black, Latinx and Asian-American people. I wanted my setting and characters to reflect the people who are my neighbors and clients.
I am white and my MC is white, but her side-kick BFF is Black, so I hired a Black sensitivity reader. She gave me a couple of notes and I made a few changes because of them. I found the process interesting and enlightening for a few reasons.
One reason was the question the sensitivity reader had about a scene where the side-kick’s niece cooks a meal for the MC. I had her serve a roasted chicken. The main reason I used that recipe is because it’s one I do often and it’s easy. Also, I used to be a vegetarian and never went back to eating beef or pork, so I don’t cook those things. (Lack of imagination on the writer’s part?) The sensitivity reader wanted to know if I mentioned chicken because of the stereotype that Black people love to eat chicken. I found the comment both incredibly picky and instructive. Who knew that there were people that found the mention of a chicken dinner problematic? Not me.
The other thing she mentioned was that the side-kick had no agency. She just turned up in the narrative when it was convenient for the MC. I found this really curious, because isn’t that part of what a side-kick does, show up when needed? My side kick is one of the humorous, quirky character found in cozy mysteries. And she did have a romantic sub-plot, so I found the comment a bit confusing and confounding. I found myself explaining the story arc for the side-kick which I had in mind for next book. On the upside, I always think of this sensitivity reader when I am facing issues of agency in a ms. Who has it and why?
Interestingly, the side-kick is the character about whom I get the most comment from readers. Some ask if I will ever write a series with her as a MC. My answer is always, no. It’s because I wouldn’t feel comfortable writing a POV of character from another race. Maybe in another time I would have said yes.
Thanks for sharing this, Liz. I think that your experience is what we’re striving for in having sensitivity readers. You want honest, helpful feedback, and it sounds like that’s what you got
I have to admit, agency in a sidekick is something I might have remarked upon as well, if your sidekick merely “showed up when it was convenient for the MC.” It’s always important to remember that secondary characters have goals of their own, and for narrative unity that have to connect with or in some other way reflect the MC’s ambitions. A conscience figure, for example, is invested in challenging the moral propriety of the MC’s actions or intentions; an expert who trains the MC in some special skill is invested in making sure the MC learns the lesson (or should be). The fact so many readers responded positively to your sidekick suggests to me you didn’t turn her into a kind of Tinkerbell, summoned by the magic jingling of the audience’s (or the MC’s) keys.
Would love to know, did you change the chicken?? To me, that sounds like one of those forehead-slapping moments of clarity that good sensitivity readers can provide. Yes, it’s a little “picky” in a sense, I guess… but more importantly, “holy crap I didn’t mean it that way at all.”
Thank your lucky stars that you featured a roast chicken instead of fried catfish or chittlins.
Hello David. It’s hard to imagine a more balanced and thorough treatment of the topic. I’m especially happy to see one of our moment’s most popular waffle words treated with the skepticism it deserves—problematic.
All I have to add is to apply a new use for another current buzzword. I take my cue from the revelation described by a young person quoted in your post. The person was hired with others by a publisher to suss out unacceptable elements in manuscripts: “When we met the rest of the team, I realized we had all been recruited because we had some form of trauma.”
The word I want to apply in a new way is “grooming.” We know its current use, but in this instance, each of the people hired by the publisher was a specialist in some form of suffering, of trauma. The group’s job was to groom manuscripts and writers, and of course readers to see the world in those terms.
The message for me is that current publishing isn’t just sanitizing manuscripts to please long-neglected “constituencies.” It seeks out work that gives emphasis to grievance, to the micro-managing of victimization. We see it in how the news and feature stories are reported and commented on, in how TV programming approaches drama, how charities and non-profits approach fund-raising. In other words, we are being groomed to accept or reject on the basis of categories that, by their nature, give emphasis to emotional agony and torment. Given a steady diet of this, readers and viewers are more likely to see both life and art in terms of grievance and victimhood. Very problematic, if you ask me.
Well, first, thanks for the attaboy, Barry. It’s a complicated subject and I wanted to understand it from as many perspectives as possible before sticking my foot in my mouth.
I’m going to respond to the rest of your comment by referring you to my response to Linguist’s comment above, and what I consider the overemphasis on past harm instead of present healing and future health. I think we agree on that point.
As does Cuban-American writer Alex Perez, (“The Iowa Pariah”) who tweeted the following:
“I’m looking through the longlists for literary awards as I work on a piece about publishing. Nearly every book is about sad POC with the occasional sad white woman sprinkled in. I’d love to listen in as the judges choose the books. “He’s the saddest poc of all!”
“This stuff is just funny at this point. The judges know their role and won’t dare deviate. It must be very touchy to nominate a white woman though. She must be very, very sad to take a spot from a sad poc.”
Brilliant LOL
I resonate with so much of what’s been said, so I won’t restate any of it. Rather, I’d like to bring in another aspect—again, not to contradict any of the points above, but to (perhaps) place our conversation in a wider context.
Before I turned to fiction, I taught clinical social work to graduate students, and one of the things we always talked about was how to engage authentically and usefully with clients who came from very different backgrounds than one’s own. Race, culture, class, age, etc. Could I as a middle-aged, middle-class, white Jewish female therapist really understand the life and struggle and social-emotional reality of a person with whom I shared none of these identifiers?
If the answer was NO, then there was only one conclusion: I could only work with people who were just like me. Attempts to “help” anyone else would just be posturing, patronizing, projecting—to make myself feel better, not them.
Obviously, the answer couldn’t be a simple NO. No more than it could be a simple YES. Diversity training, respectful learning about the other person’s culture, etc. etc. All good. But limited. No matter how many hours of homework I put in, I would still be unable to walk in that person’s shoes. Fact.
Instead, what I often suggested was to go in the opposite direction. More universal, rather than more culture- or class-specific. To the core emotions—fear, shame, conflict—that we share as human beings. That’s a point of entrance, of connection, that’s available across our differences.
I think it’s much the same in writing fiction. I create characters whose lives are nothing like mine, but I imbue them with the human feelings and concerns that I understand, because I’m human too. To do that, I have to be vulnerable. however. I can’t sit back on the safe little perch of writer or therapist or “professional” something. And nope, I can’t hire someone to assure me that I’ve been authentic …
Just another aspect. As I always say: it depends. Sometimes a “sensitivity reader” is really needed. It’s the anxious overdoing that tends to be the problem, as with so many things in life! My two cents.
I was really hoping you’d chime in, Barbara. And I can’t add anything meaningful to your comment, which is incredibly insightful, except to say that the kind of vulnerability you rightfully place at the center of all this is exactly why the online mobbing and shaming is so reprehensible. Who’s going to try to open themselves up to something new and different if the reaction is likely to get hammered by strangers who are more invested in their own righteousness than whatever it was you were hoping to express?
The quote that always comes back to me on this issue is from John Coltrane: “When there is something you do not understand, you must go humbly to it.” As you point out, not even that is a guarantee. But it’s a start. I just look forward to a day when acts of good faith and humility are more widely appreciated for what they attempt, and less frequently and ruthlessly attacked for how they fall short.
Thanks for your exhaustive research, David. If I need help to make sure I’m not introducing any errors in my nonfiction, I turn to experts in the field, and they’ve always been gracious with their time and information. For fiction, I’ve done the same when I need help with particulars (ex. burn survivors). I’ve also been tapped to read manuscripts for ‘Indianness’ but there are as many types of Indians so there’s no such thing as one size fits all. Besides, if people did their homework, they’d know that even amongst Indians I’m a minority, having been raised as a Christian (only 2% of the population of India). Still, I’m happy to help with details that lend authenticity. That said, all this ought to be voluntary.
I don’t participate in any social media so I’m often perplexed when I read stories of publishers cancelling books or revising them based on outrage on those platforms. I have some old books in my collection and the language is indeed offensive to some minorities, but I’m grateful to have them in their original versions. We’ve come a long way. However, I’m afraid that things will get a lot worse before they’ll get better. We live in strange times; it feels much like Orwell’s 1984. Thank goodness that writers have more options now than ever before. And thank goodness for WU.
Thanks, Vijaya. You put your finger on one of the problems in rectifying the “problematic:” who among us can claim anything but limited expertise on even our own cultural background? See my previous response to Barbara about humility. It’s not such a bad trait to have.
David, I am the flat-out worst at making time to offer my thoughts on posts I find impactful in considered and thorough comments (thank goodness the WU community readily picks up that slack with theirs), but I at least wanted to take time to tell you how well conceived and thought out this one is, and how much food for thought you offer. Please know that internally I am teeming with thoughts and reactions with much more depth, thanks to you, even if I’m too harried to share them all here. :) But I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate this post, and that I’ll be sharing it.
Why thank you, Tiffany. I’m blushing.
According to Alex Perez, sensitivity reading is but one symptom of the sorry current state of the publishing business: https://meghandaum.substack.com/p/who-killed-creative-writing?sd=pf
Oh yeah. He’s got A LOT TO SAY on the subject. (Thanks for the link.)
As a fellow WU contributor, I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this article! (I find inserting links to be especially tedious, and you’ve added a lot). So many good points here. Thanks.
Thanks, Liza. I just thought it wouldn’t be fair or totally honest to make the points I was trying to make without citing the sources that influenced my thinking.
Tremendous post, David, and your research is impressive. Yesterday I was with a small group of writers who meet weekly, share what we’ve been working on, read and comment on each other’s work, and do some timed writings if we can. I read two poems I’d written on Hamilton, the Broadway musical, and because not everyone was familiar with it, I explained what it was, including Lin-Manuel Miranda’s non-traditional casting. After I’d read, one person commented not on the poems, but only on the non-traditional casting and why having an African American actor portraying George Washington was falsifying history. I made the mistake of trying to give more context for why it made sense – a mistake because I was never changing the person’s mind – and didn’t realize until later that I could simply have asked if there were any comments on my writing. It was all very polite, and also very uncomfortable because of the underlying tension. I guess it never occurred to me that anyone would have a problem with Hamilton until they did. It’s not exactly to your point(s), but your post reminded me of that.
Hi Doc:
What is the line between “falsifying” history and re-imagining it. (Thought experiment: What did this individual think of white actors playing Native Americans in the old westerns?)
Hamilton does what all fiction does — it asks, “What if?” And it allows us to see history through a completely different prism.
Someone did point out white people playing people of color in films, as well as other things. And yes, Lin was playing what-if and it made history come alive for many. And we hear what we want to hear, so one person heard none of it…
Thank you, David, and the entire WU community, for contributing to an insightful, reasoned discussion (if only the US Congress behaved so). Of all the salient points made, I think yours is the most positive: getting more traditionally underrepresented voices published and in publishing would go a long way in helping ensure their stories are told.
Interesting post. I have found myself hesitating about characters in a way I didn’t when I first started writing. Sometimes it feels as if no matter what you do, you’ll get criticized. Include diversity and you’re appropriating or doing it wrong; don’t and you’re racist or ignoring “real” life. No matter what, you’ll never be able to please everybody.
Very true, Sylvie.
So I write to please myself. And readers can accept or reject as _they_ please.
No matter if it’s sensitivity training/reading, cancel culture, book banning, library closing, don’t say gay, be woke, whatever, it all comes from a similar moralizing mindset: no matter your morals/culture/social philosophy, mine is superior and yours is irrelevant. Frankly, I think it’s time for everyone from the Magats to the Rainbow Coalition who have chosen to wrap their lives in grievance culture to step back, take a few deep breaths and get over themselves. To paraphrase the inimitable Dean Martin:
Everyone offends somebody sometime,
All those feelings bruised bright black and blue,
Everyone defends their petty grievance,
That grievance is you…
Not a published writer here, so take this comment with a grain of salt.
Since I began writing, I’ve gotten one consistent question: why don’t I describe the characters?
I mean, yes, I use pronouns so readers knows the gender of the character (or, at least, what the speaker (and reader) thinks is the gender), but that’s it.
The point was — and is — that the physical appearance of the characters isn’t relevant. I might compare two individuals (more or less muscular, taller or shorter, etc.) but I seldom describe much else.
The idea is to write about emotions and thoughts that could apply to anyone and are recognizable to anyone. Emotions and thoughts we’ve all experienced.
There’s an argument to be made about how specific experiences produce emotions and thoughts of greater (or lesser) intensity, or even vastly different and incomprehensible to all but those who shared those experiences. . . but it’s all relative (dare I say elitist?), and I don’t believe in a lack of a common ground and limit to empathy.
I’ve seen individuals equally suffer in what I considered vastly different situations. It’s not my place to say one can’t possibly be suffering as much as another . . . but that’s where we apparently sit these days.
The environment seems to be a minefield; authors with even the best intentions can step on a hidden trigger and have their world blow up.
In this environment, I don’t see how sensitivity readers can be of any help precisely because we face hidden triggers. Some rear orifice somewhere in the Internet sees a chance to score points, and they twist even the most banal of passages into a crap-storm of outrage.
I’ve given up even considering submitting anything, mostly because I don’t want to put in the effort, but also because I don’t like the game . . . and because what I read (some of it mentioned in the above article) tells me no one is interested in my writing.
I’m fine with it, but it points to a peripheral problem: I currently can’t find stuff I enjoy reading.
Perhaps I’m just old, but it’s been a number of years since I’ve bought a fiction book. Heck, Amazon Prime offers a free selection every month, a feature I loved and regularly availed myself of . . . but it’s been over two years (24+ months, over 100 books) since anything sparked any interest even with zero cost to me. I have the Unlimited plan and I now read mostly non-fiction.
For fiction (escapism is my goal when reading fiction), I’m re-reading things from 5+ years ago, and, of course, my own stuff since that’s one of the reasons I write; so that I’ll never run out of stuff to read.
It turns out I’m the sensitivity reader when it comes to my fiction, and — amazingly — I never run into any issues!
I’m an Australian writer and editor, and in my freelance business and my government work with the National Archives of Australia, I have also seen the rise of awareness and understanding of indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP). There is now a far more clear and assertive movement by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to have their ICIP recognised and controlled, that is, that no one may create works (including novels, poetry and non-fiction) without their involvement (sometimes to the point of oversight, so that a mere sensitivity reader is not enough), and where making money from that ICIP is involved, for that to be negotiated with the relevant ICIP owner. The arguments about going back and ‘fixing’ creative works written in another time is also related in my view to the decolonization of museums, galleries and archives, where historical records and artefacts must be re-examined and almost always reframed to acknowledge the indigenous rights and viewpoints, and in more and more cases for those artefacts to be repatriated (we’ve all seen the memes about how the British Museum got so good, right?). At the National Archives of Australia, the artefacts that are staying are not themselves being changed (like, say, the attempt on Roald Dahl’s books), but the conversations, exhibitions and presentations based on those artefacts ARE being changed to reflect that we have a different viewpoint and understanding now. I don’t think we should whitewash the past – we NEED to learn from our mistakes. As a great woman of colour said, ‘when you know better, do better.’