Reading the Other

Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward

Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward are professional writers of speculative fiction who jointly developed and teach the workshop "Writing the other: bridging cultural differences for successful fiction." This book contains material adapted from their workshop, as well as two essays written by Shawl, “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere,” and “Appropriate Cultural Appropriation.”

This volume is designed to be used by authors concerned about honestly, effectively and respectfully writing about people, settings and cultures that diverge from the dominant paradigm -the unmarked state. I can’t venture an opinion on how well it does this, because I am not myself a writer. But I have found it to be, whether by design or not, an excellent book for the reader who is interested in seeing more clearly how successfully the books she reads are at writing the other.

The authors give many examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts at writing culturally diverse works. While there is a strong focus on race, they also consider sex and sexual orientation, culture and religion. Oddly enough, they seem to consider social class not a major category of "Other," at least in North American writing. I would tend to disagree, but I imagine that in a workshop, one must choose topics carefully, as there is not time enough to cover everything one might want to.

I was personally most engaged by the section on cultural appropriation, because it's something that I worry about a lot in my own life. I have a very strong sense of attraction, indeed resonance, to aspects of the art, culture, philosophy and religion of a number of other peoples, and it is often an inner struggle for me to try to work out whether I'm being a cultural poacher or a respectful learner. I'm still not sure I know the answer, but this essay gave me more ways in which to think about what it is that I do.