Our Rules state that members should take care and effort when writing characters outside of their own identities, especially considering matters of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, culture, disability, and religion. This thread contains a list of outside reading to support that.

Please feel welcome to submit your own using the form at the bottom of this thread.

For active writers in our community, please join our ongoing discussion, Writing PoC as a White Person.

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Writing about people of color

• https://writingtheother.com/resources/ - Website with lists of articles, links, and resources for writing characters different from you sensitively and convincingly.
• https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/ - Actively maintained, moderated collection of resources and Q&A centered on racial, ethnic, and religious diversity.
• https://indigenousfantasy.tumblr.com/ - Actively maintained blog about improving representation of Indigenous people in fantasy, fiction, and fandom.
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2SOU6wwxB0tGvaMpGCoEnS2EI8GSlf2u - "Hidden in Plain View: Meanings in American Music", a 3-year performance and lecture series at Harvard University. Includes an interpretation of the many unobserved symbols in American music.
• https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/post/111703380457/villains-of-color - Villains of Color
• https://www.reddit.com/r/whitepeoplewritingPOC/comments/qh2pgl/lets_talk_poc_villains/ - More about villains of color
• https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/who-gave-you-the-right-to-tell-that-story.html - Professional authors of multiple racial backgrounds discuss their own writing of characters of different races than their own.

General information about race and ethnicity

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race - "Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race" by Reni Eddo-Lodge
• https://www.instagram.com/p/CC9I85Dpk-U/?igshid=19xbm41hpuhrr - Instagram post explaining the concepts of race vs ethnicity.

UK-specific:

• https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/another-england/ - History of Black and Asian people in England.

Colonialism

• https://soundcloud.com/bignoseagenda - Multi-part audio series by Mercedes Acosta, an Indigenous Latinx artist and author. The series is about storytelling from a decolonial perspective.

Issues in the Harry Potter books:

• https://brigitaorel.com/published-works/racism-and-sexism-in-harry-potter/ - Thesis by a Slovenian author about racism and sexism in Harry Potter.
• https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/jirr/issue/view/70 - (Scroll to article at the bottom, downloadable as a PDF) - Thesis in the Journal of Research and Reflection about racism in Harry Potter.
• https://www.proquest.com/docview/305118396?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true - PDF of a thesis by Simone Hüls from the University of Alabama. "Disrobing the white wizard: A postcolonial examination of race and culture in Harry Potter"

Writing transgender characters

• https://thestoryanditswriter.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/the-dos-and-donts-of-writing-a-transgender-or-non-binary-character/ - A transman explains the do's and don'ts of writing transgender characters.

Writing disabled characters

• https://mimzy-writing-online.tumblr.com/post/185122795699/writing-a-blind-or-visually-impaired-character - Multi-part series by a visually-impaired author about writing blind characters. Includes links to many other resources.

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