B.
asked
Shaun David Hutchinson:
How do you feel about the notion many writers and readers have that male writers cannot write female characters, heterosexual writers cannot write LGBT characters, white writers can't write from the POV of a PoC?
Shaun David Hutchinson
I think "can't" is the wrong word to use. I think anyone writing outside of their lane needs to think very, very carefully about why they're doing it and what impact it might have. They need to do their research if they're going to do it to make sure they're doing the story justice. I also think there's a major difference between someone writing a character outside of their lane (a straight person writing an LGBTQIA character, for example) and a writer trying to tell a marginalized group's specific story. I think an author should tread very carefully if they're going to try to tell the story of a group they don't belong to. Not that it can't be done. Becky Albertalli, I thought, did a phenomenal job writing a gay coming out story in Simon Versus the Homo Sapien's Agenda, but it was pretty clear she did her homework.
More Answered Questions
Rahaf
asked
Shaun David Hutchinson:
Okay so I was just rereading We Are The Ants and Diego and Henry go on date and watch a movie and I couldn't help but notice how similar it is to the synopsis of your new book (can't wait for it to come out by the way). So my question is did you know you wanted to write this story back when you wrote we are the ants or was it something you created juts for that book but then ended up actually wanting to write it?
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