Mioche, in response to your point -

“I think her overall statement, though focused on white writers writing intimately about other cultures, is that she thinks many authors expect (by habit) all their readers to be white, so they exclude (most often by accident) everyone else, or else write them flatly and unconvincingly, as symbols instead of people. …..Singh isn’t being literal; she’s suggesting that writers should think about that reality of diversity before they start writing, so they’re aware that a wider audience will be reading their book, and that even in civilizations where transportation is limited there is still some mobility of peoples. That is something every writer can reach for.”

Again, all true - but the writing of characters “flatly and unconvincingly” is often no more than a failure of the writing, not an act of ignorance, prejudice or outright malice (although, granted, any one or all three of those may be involved in specific instances) I KNOW that Singh isn’t being literal, but your interpretation that Singh is suggesting that (white or other) writers should “think about the reality of diversity before they start writing”, so that they’re “aware that a wider audience will be reading their book” - that’s a putting down of those writers who do that regularly but just don’t do it to a degree that some other outside third party arbiter feels is sufficient. I am acutely aware of the reality of diversity (how could I not be, having lived in seven countries and four continents before I was forty?) and I am acutely aware (or at least hopeful) that a wider audience will be reading my books. That does not mean that I can write something that meets the expectations of the entirety of that wider diverse audience, and it is more likely than not that I won’t, and that somewhere, sometime, I will step into a sensibility I had no way of knowing was there when I was writing the story in question. My choices are not to write the story at all, or to go ahead and brace myself for consequences. But where I make my mistakes I don’t do so because I am deliberately setting out to hurt, diminish, belittle or stomp on anybody or on anything anybody believes in, and I don’t think that many writers do - and you can TELL those who do, and they’re easily rewarded with a healthy dose of the worst thing that can possibly happen to a writer, total obscurity, if people ignore them in droves….

I think her overall statement, though focused on white writers writing intimately about other cultures, is that she thinks many authors expect (by habit) all their readers to be white, so they exclude (most often by accident) everyone else, or else write them flatly and unconvincingly, as symbols instead of people. This meshes with a lot of the debate around the RaceFail incident, and it seems pertinent in Wrede’s alt.sf comments as well. I see this often when I pick up a book. It’s gotten to the point where it’s making me set down books. Singh isn’t being literal; she’s suggesting that writers should think about that reality of diversity before they start writing, so they’re aware that a wider audience will be reading their book, and that even in civilizations where transportation is limited there is still some mobility of peoples. That is something every writer can reach for.

And that is something that I feel has been ignored. It’s upset me to see how many fantasy and sci-fi writers have refused to take criticism in the various raceFAIL debates. Of course criticism stings, and people rarely want to hear it, but fantasy and sci-fi are genres in many respects founded on making progress and crossing boundaries (this has not, of course, been flawless). To not listen implies that “You’re not worth listening to.”

I hope it’s clear that I’m not suggesting you’re party to that. I agree with you: “There is little one can do about this, really, other than pay attention, have respect, and, well, occasionally get it resoundingly wrong.”

I’ve read this blog for over a year, and I’m reluctant to be critical in my first comment (but I’ve obviously gone and done it anyway), especially in what has become a slightly tangential way. But while I largely agree with your thoughts on writing about “the other,” I feel like I ought to mention this perspective.