I’ll be teaching an online class about writing across difference for She Writes University. Signing up allows you to watch live, but you’ll also receive a recording of the talk the next day.

“Am I Allowed to Write That? How to be a Responsible and Conscientious Creator

Unless every character you write is exactly like you, fiction involves writing across difference. Those differences might involve identity and demographics, or they might touch upon knowledge, experience, setting, or historical era. With so much valid concern and debate around the touchy issue of appropriation, writers can find themselves crippled by fears: Do I have permission to write this? What if I get it horribly wrong? And even if I do it well, will people be upset that I wrote outside my own life experience? In this course, Rebecca Makkai tackles the subject of writing about “the other” and how to do it responsibly, and well, using her own experience with her novel, The Great Believers, which took her far outside her own lived experience and identity. This class offers strategies and techniques for researching lives unlike our own, for working with filter and sensitivity readers, and for making sure we approach our characters with the respect they deserve.”