Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward

From the site: During the 1992 Clarion West Writers Workshop attended by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, one of the students expressed the opinion that it is a mistake to write about people of ethnic backgrounds different from your own because you might get it wrong, horribly, offensively wrong, and so it is better not even to try. This opinion, commonplace among published as well as aspiring writers, struck Nisi as taking the easy way out and spurred her to write an essay addressing the problem of how to write about characters marked by racial and ethnic differences. In the course of writing the essay, however, she realized that similar problems arise when writers try to create characters whose gender, sexual preference, and age differ significantly from their own. Nisi and Cynthia collaborated to develop a workshop that addresses these problems with the aim of both increasing writers’ skill and sensitivity in portraying difference in their fiction as well as allaying their anxieties about “getting it wrong.” Writing the Other: A Practical Approach is the manual that grew out of their workshop. It discusses basic aspects of characterization and offers elementary techniques, practical exercises, and examples for helping writers create richer and more accurate characters with “differences.”

I plan to assign this book along with others in my future creative writing classes because I think it is incredible.

I don't suppose I can assign it to fandom.

Nor can I assign the book that says "white people who think they get to explain their personal history and family history in great depth and detail to explain to people of color exactly why they are not at all racist and never had any intention of being racist and omg that counts, and, oh, yes, watch your tone" is total FAIL.