Fascinating Piece on Reviews and Diversity

[davidgillon]

Malinda Lo, one of the major voices behind We Need Diverse Books, has produced an essay looking at how US trade reviews (i.e. meant for booksellers, librarians etc rather than the general book-buying public) react to diversity. The examples are YA, as that's her field, but I suspect things are probably even worse in other genres. Some of the examples will definitely make you wince, and the suggestion of a 'diversity ceiling' - that major parts of the industry don't believe a book dealing with more than one minority is viable - is particularly disturbing. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in diversity, intersectionality and/or publishing.

Perceptions of Diversity in Book Reviews 

Comments

[spaceoperadiva]

In middle school, I had a teacher who believed that fictional works with glossaries were not trustworthy. Her view was that glossaries were either lazy writing or at least encouraged lazy reading, and she was having none of that for her class. I suspect that she would have agreed with this deconstruction of glossaries as well.

There's probably material to write a really good paper in deconstructing glossaries in SF/F, especially considering how many series have not only glossaries but their own encyclopedias and atlases.

[davidgillon]

Good point, though we have an excuse for not being familiar for fictional worlds, which isn't so true for 'the other side of town' situations the article is taking on.

There's an interesting multi-way tension in this, from one side your writing shouldn't leave people needing a glossary, from the opposite there's the admonition against data dumps, while from a different direction there's the societal point that we shouldn't need glossaries to explain people who live the other side of town/the road/next door, vying with the reality that clearly some people do, and the other reality that not all white English speakers are completely familiar with American society.