DEI Archives

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year, but the vastly different takes on the quality of the halftime show by Kendrick Lamar made me start thinking about how race and various viewpoints on other topics influence how people consume and even understand creative works. Another big factor is exposure. Lots of people are not exposed to books and art by authors/artists of color or other diverse comm…

As writers we always hear, “Write what you know.” In light of that truth, it is important that any person writing about Native Americans know the people and the culture they are writing about. It is important to know the current situation of the Native American people one is choosing to write about. It is also important to recognize that some things cannot, or should not, be written about given…

In January 2020, the novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins hit bookstores after months of positive reviews and being selected to Oprah’s Book Club. Then Latinx critics called out the book detailing a Mexican bookseller crossing the U.S. border to escape a drug cartel as perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Cummins is not Mexican, although claims Puerto Rican heritage, and critics repeated what th…

It only takes a cursory perusal of today’s news coverage to happen upon a fight about book banning. It seems to be increasing in frequency, which is concerning to those of us who write books and believe in the freedom of expression. Like most aspects of human progression over time, book banning goes in cycles. And we repeatedly have to push back against it. The beginning of book banning Chinese…

In 2013, a big-name editor at a major sf/f publishing house lost his job after multiple reported incidents of sexual harassment. Among the reports and stories shared around this time was an author who reported that after she signed with this publisher, other writers had quietly warned her about this editor. She’d signed with them in 2002. In other words, this editor’s harassment wasn’t a one-ti…

Like many children, I (Nikoo) was a voracious reader growing up, and my favorite books were those in which I could see myself. I was born in Iran. My parents were Muslim, but we also had family members who practiced Judaism, Christianity, and Bahá’í, and we had our share of atheists. We respected and embraced all beliefs. My initial awareness of a lack of representation in literature happened w…