RDDW - S2 Ep04 - Show Don’t Tell Race and Ethnicity in Writing

Doing Diversity in Writing

In this episode of Doing Diversity in Writing, we—Bethany and Mariëlle—compare two F/F romance novels to talk about how to “Show, don’t tell” race and ethnicity in your writing.

What we talked about

• Caren J. Werlinger’s She Sings of Old, Unhappy, Far-off Things
• J.J. Arias’s The Single Matchmaker
• How these two authors use different ways, including names, food, comparisons, terms of endearment, and many more, to “Show, don’t tell” their characters’ races and ethnicities

(Re)sources mentioned on the show

• Caren J. Werlinger’s She Sings of Old, Unhappy, Far-off Things: https://carenwerlinger.com/she-sings-of-old-unhappy-far-off-things/
• J.J. Arias’s The Single Matchmaker: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56422641-the-single-matchmaker
• Mariëlle’s 52 Weeks of Writing Author Journal and Planner: https://mswordsmith.nl/journal

During the episode, we also mentioned some resources we both use when picking our characters’ names:

• https://www.behindthename.com/
• http://www.thinkbabynames.com/
• https://www.etymonline.com/

This week’s episode page can be found here: https://representationmatters.art/2022/02/03/s2e4

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