Interview with Bethany Tucker

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Today’s episode of turning readers into writers is an extended edition. I have a fascinating conversation with why a writer Bethany Tucker, all about diversity, diversity and writing. Diversity isn’t just about race, but it’s about gender, sexuality, disability, neuro divergence, and all the other ways that human beings differ from one another. It’s about acknowledging that we each come from individual backgrounds and life experiences. Bethany talks about her own history and experiences coming from a diverse family as she does. Bethany gives us a framework for what diverse actually is. And we delve into what personal bias is, and how to recognise it, and what we can do about it. This really is an episode worth listening to jam packed full of practical suggestions, ideas on how to find sensitivity readers, and encouragement to look out with our own cultural norms, and see the other as human as well. So please do join me in Bethany today, as we chat about all things writing, and diversity. Welcome to the turning readers into writers Podcast, where we teach beginner writers how to find the time and the confidence to write their first novel. I’m your host, Emma Desi. And I’m very excited that you’re here. Thank you for joining me today. Because if you’ve been longing to write your novel for forever, then this is the place to be Think of this as your weekly dose of encouragement of hand holding and general cheerleading, as you figure out how you’re going to write your first novel. Trust me, as a mom of three young kids, I know how tricky it can be to tuck some time aside for yourself on a regular basis. And even when you do find that spare five minutes, you can feel so overwhelmed that no writing gets done. Trust me, I have been there. But this podcast is going to help you in practical ways. Because once a week, I’ll be delivering an episode that gives you steps to building a writing routine, encouragement to build your confidence and cheerleading until you reach the end. Okay, let’s start. Well, welcome, Bethany, I’m so glad to have you back on the show again, but we’re going to be talking about quite a different subject today.

Bethany Tucker  02:37

Very different. I’m really excited. Thank you for having me back.

Emma Dhesi  02:40

A pleasure, a pleasure. So we’re gonna be talking about diversity today, particularly diversity and writing. And we were chatting OFF AIR just before and we were commenting on the fact that there’s not a lot of information out there about how writers can be more inclusive than their writing. So I know that you’re kind of looking to step into that space and help people like me be more aware. Yeah,

Bethany Tucker  03:06

I think I think I’ve been given this incredible privilege to kind of stand there and talk about it. It’s, it’s a scary topic, I find a lot of people are very afraid to talk about it. And I can’t avoid talking about it. My husband is black. And my family and I went through this whole transition of just talking about race and having to integrate in that because I grew up incredibly white. I lived in entirely white communities. And then I went to university. And I was homeschooled. So they put me into this. I was considered an at risk student. So they put me into this at risk pre orientation. You showed up a week before everyone else and they gave me more help. Well, I walked into the room the first evening when they have the the opening ceremonies, invite everyone in for this pre orientation. And I’m one of like two white people in the room. Later, I found out there were like three others. But I looked around and I went from I didn’t see anyone who looked like me. And that week just opened my eyes and I also met my husband that week.

Emma Dhesi  04:20

And so so question for you would be how when you walked into that room, and you didn’t see anyone else like you Do you remember how you felt in that moment,

Bethany Tucker  04:29

incredibly intimidated, incredibly intimidated. I am a very short woman. And everyone looked like I mean to me at the time everyone looked like I’d walked into like a basketball team and everyone was taller than me and louder than me. And they seem to know each other and I didn’t know them. And I was I also had that very natural like, I gotten the messaging that these are people at risk. These are people who might not do well in a college campus. And my university had literally targeted everyone who was not white as at risk, which should tell you something about the US and how we deal with race and how, how the access to higher education at this elite. Because I was fortunate I got a huge scholarship, I was able to go to this elite, private liberal arts college. So, yeah, that’s, that’s the group I went in with. And they absolutely had my back. It was amazing. we bonded over that week. But it was it was intimidating. It was uncomfortable. We talked about race, we talked about prejudice. We talked about the the barriers just for these other kids with me to get to university. And the fact that the other students in the school didn’t really expect them to be there. Oh, like there was there’s, there was a divide, like we stayed grouped together as we went through. And I got very comfortable with them, they became my people. But obviously, married, we’re still together or what, like 16 years later. But I had to get comfortable listening to the tears, I had to get comfortable listening to the anger. I had to get comfortable watching that. This is a space where we’re going to talk about the difficult things. You don’t talk about the weather. You talk about what’s real. 

Emma Dhesi  06:32

Okay. Okay. So yeah, I can imagine that was quite a culture shock. I’ve only had one experience like that. And we went to India. And we were there with the Mumbai bombings. And a few days later, we were out shopping. And then there was the thought that everybody kind of thought that there was another bomb going off. So everybody kind of hit in different shops. And, and so we ducked into a shop, and we were the only white faces in the shop. And there was that feeling of, you know, as white rich tourists, you’re the reason we’re being attacked. And so we just kind of felt everybody’s eyes on us. And, and it’s the closest I felt to being that feeling intimidated in that way because of the colour of my skin. Yeah.

Bethany Tucker  07:21

And that should have been one of your stories, didn’t it?

Emma Dhesi  07:25

That’s right, yeah, my short story. That’s funny. Um, so let’s then let’s get down to the nuts and bolts, then diversity is such a hot topic. And, and as we record this, it’s coming up to November. So it’s in 2020. So it’s coming up to the US election. And I know that race relations are a very hot topic in the States right now. But diversity is not just the colour of your skin, there’s a whole range of other things that are included within diversity. So what, what is considered diverse?

Bethany Tucker  08:04

Okay, so your audience is wonderfully global. And I love that. So I’m going to speak to that. I’m an American. I’ve lived abroad. I’ve lived abroad in China, Japan, Korea, and I’ve managed to visit Canada, so many more places to go. And I’m going to acknowledge there’s privilege in the fact that I can say I’ve been to all those places, so many people don’t have a passport to let them go there, let alone an education or skill set. So but coming from that perspective, diversity is whatever is not considered the the norm. And norm for English literature has historically been a white man, maybe a white woman. I’m going to roughly give an age range as well. Between the ages of like 15, and 4040 is a little high. I mean, there are many famous stories outside of that range. But a lot of genre fiction, especially nowadays, is in that heroic age, that people like go and do things. So diversity is anything outside of that. But if you’re writing and say China, each diversity would actually be someone who’s not maybe Han Chinese, so a different minority group. And I don’t read a lot of Chinese literature. I’m not actually versed enough in Chinese to read it, but it would be outside of like whatever is considered standard for your culture. So hot button topic for China would be writing a positive story about someone from Shin Jang who’s Muslim, that would be explosive. Probably from what I read it their news that go to BBC See news, you can read up on that it’s very contentious right now in a very heartbreaking way. So think about where you’re at, think about what you see in your language in your literature all the time. And then diverse for you is going to be anything outside of that.

Emma Dhesi  10:19

Okay. Okay. So we’re, it’s not just male, female, it’s not just white, black, but it could be a disability of some sort. It could be a stutter…

Bethany Tucker  10:30

I wrote out bullet points on this. I mean, it diversity happens. And like the biggest categories would be religion. So anything that’s not like Protestant, or in England, maybe Anglican. Until recently, in the US, even being Catholic would be a more diverse religion. neuro diverse neuro divergence. So neuro divergence can cover people who are extraordinarily gifted, or people who are on the autism spectrum, or anyone who has like a mental disability, or even neuro divergence can cover people who have like, like depression, or bipolar, schizophrenia, these are all things that I’m excited to see showing up more and more in literature, but they’re still not as common in literature as they actually are in our world.

Emma Dhesi  11:24

Mm hmm. So like, the people you see writing, and the stories that do contain these characters, do they tend to be written for what you’ve seen to be tend to be written by younger, a younger writer than a older writer?

Bethany Tucker  11:42

I see older writers branching into it, having the clout to do it. Okay. And I see younger writers needing to write their own story. So I would say it’s a spectrum of answers. 

Emma Dhesi  11:54

Well, that’s good, that it’s from all different ages as well. Yeah. And so Okay, so that’s great. So now we kind of have an idea of what diverse characters are and essentially anything out with what we in our as individuals considered to be normal, in inverted commas. Something else that sort of I struggle with a bit, a bit quite a lot, trying to recognise this as the idea of personal bias. So we each of us, as individuals have personal bias. And but there’s, it’s so intrinsic within us all parts of us that it’s hard to recognise it. And I wonder if you could speak to that a little bit, either, how we show personal bias and things that we might kind of be looking out for when we want to investigate ourselves?

Bethany Tucker  12:48

get uncomfortable, you need to get uncomfortable? That’s the easy answer. The more the more useful answer, to be honest, is you have to create a structure of awareness of yourself. And this is going to sound like I’m moving a little bit away from writing. But essentially, writing comes from within. And this is personal development. Doing this well will mean that you have to internalise concepts, and it’s going to affect more than just your writing life. But if you’re asking these questions, you probably want that. So you, it happens on a day to day basis, because when we sit down the board at the keyboard, and we’re like going into the writing, like we just go and you you’re working with the characters, you’re not thinking, Oh, I’m going to be a socially aware person today and create balanced characters, like we might intend to, but when you’re like, Okay, so Susan’s going to go to this place, and she needs to do this. So she finds this clue. It gets messy really fast. And all of those subconscious biases and things are just going to show up and you’re not aware of them because you’re trying to write. So this happens in layers. It happens before we write. It doesn’t always happen exactly why we’re writing that first draft or the first beat. And then it happens while we edit. It can happen while we’re editing the outline. It can happen at any point after we write that first draft, we have enough perspective to look at it. I mean, it’s really hard to even catch our comma problems when we’re writing, let alone like a race problem. So you have to pay attention to what you just trust and pay attention to what you don’t trust and ask yourself why. If you’re walking into a store, and you’re trying to build this awareness for yourself of your own biases, they are invisible to us and walk into a store and say who here and my clutching my purse when they get too close to me. And who here would I leave my purse with even though I don’t know them? those answers will show you really quickly. What you might have going on the insight that you like or don’t like, or you might even come back and be like, Bethany, I’ve got really good reasons not to trust this person, you’re crazy. And that’s okay. We all have lived experiences that tell us who’s safe and who’s not we have, we have biases, because they are part of what we have evolved to protect ourselves. There’s too much information coming in. And our brains create these shortcuts, we socially create shortcuts, so that we can just get through life, like who do I talk to? Who do I don’t in group out group behaviours. Otherwise, we would be dealing with everyone out here in front of us making too many decisions at once. So give yourself some grace. And start with really simple questions. And I will start with the question Who do you trust and who do not trust, I have personal biases against Korean businessmen. And I am very painfully and embarrassingly aware of this. However, I got them through very painful experiences, I worked in Korea, I had some very not good experiences with Korean men around work. And then I came back to the US and I worked with another Korean company, who were frankly doing very unsafe business practices, and they put me and my husband at risk. So now when a Korean company approaches me, I have this I have this bias, I don’t start from a place of trust, because I’ve learned not to. And this can, this could have, I could have done this with, say, a Mexican business. I could have done this with anybody else. It just happened to me this way. So when I come up against this, a man from Korea, I checked myself, I enter that point of I’m going to watch my more my actions around this more closely. I can’t drop that protective behaviour, but I can drop the decisions I make and watch them before I finalise them. 

Emma Dhesi  17:00

Right? Okay. I like that idea of, you know, just when you’re in a show, but supermarket or something and having a look around you and thinking, yeah, that’s such an easy exercise to do. And I imagine it’s I’ve never done it. But I imagine it’s very, very telling. And so if you discover that you do have some if one has a form of bias, what’s the kind of next step about that? Is that just as a div analyse why you might have that bias? And then once you’ve established why you might have that bias, what do you do, about it. 

Bethany Tucker  17:37

So there, there’s actually quite a lot you can do about it. One of the reasons that we distrust people, is we have these myths and stories in our culture, they come from our religion, they come from our history, they come from our families. I have during the process of doing all this and covered a lot of them that came from my family. And once you hear these stories, they feel really comforting. They’re like normal, they’re just inside of us. And we need to get uncomfortable with being comfortable with those stories. So it’s, it’s the story of the other Do you understand ingroup outgroup behaviours? No. Okay, so Ingrid about group behaviours, some people might call it tribal, but it’s really about these are the people in our circle, these are safe. And the everyone outside that circle is other. And so othering someone puts them outside the circle, people will, in we’ve evolved to do this and we still do this, you can see on the playground, will change themselves, so they don’t become the other, like the child will change themselves to stay with their their group and so be acceptable. And then if you’re outside that will you look different, you sound different, you’re weird. And then you can other than, and you don’t have to deal with them. So once people look for your others, the person’s you don’t trust the people outside your, your innate circle, and then go get familiar with the other because the other is the unfamiliar most of the time. Once you become familiar with something, they’re no longer so distant, and they’re not so easy to write off, they become humans. So when you become familiar with someone’s story, you You know what, like somebody hopes and dreams are what they want to do, where they want to go to college, what foods they like to eat. You have started humanising this caricature that you had because even though someone’s in front of you in that store, and you’re clutching your purse, they’re a caricature. They’re not a full human. In your experience, you’re just getting some impressions from their looks the way they’re walking, get to know them and and sometimes we can’t start by Walking up and saying hello, which is what I did with my husband, I walked up and said, but read a book, go, go look for a book with someone like that looks like this other that you’ve identified it, read about them, read a blog about them. Watch a movie with people that look like this, start putting stories in your subconscious that makes this other human. So you can’t push them beyond that circle. Because as much as a lot of us will say, and we have the best intentions. I love everybody. Well, a buddy has to be a person to us. It’s easy to say, well, will they just do this? And like I, I took a class in college that focused on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab Spring and all that. It was taught by a god guy from Iran. And it was an absolutely amazing class. But I watched my classmates othering these Egyptian Muslims, in the videos, we were watching and stuff. And because they looked so different, they acted so different. For me, it was an extremely uncomfortable experience because I grew up in a Christian cult. And as I’m watching these videos, I didn’t see other I saw myself as a child. So I’m sitting there watching people other what I found familiar because we had two different background experiences. Um, they didn’t see these people’s hopes and dreams. They couldn’t fully humanise them because they had no context. It wasn’t that my fellow students were bad people. They just hadn’t experienced humanising the other.

Emma Dhesi  21:48

So say it just explained to me again, so because you have the upbringing that you’d had you didn’t feel that they were other is that because you both you’ve both grown up or lived in very, very religious very, what one might describe as extreme? And yeah, ringing so even though they believed in different things, they both had that same intensity and that same devoutments, is that what you mean

Bethany Tucker  22:13

partially, and some other things it’s it’s misunderstood exactly what ultra conservative Christians believe in ultra conservative Muslims believe there’s a lot of overlap. They both come from similar backgrounds. They are both people have a book, they both come from the Judeo the the Old Testament, and they built on it, Allah is just a different language for God, we worship the same God, I say we I’m no longer part of the Christian religion. But I’m culturally still part of it. As you can tell, the artefacts are left in my language. So they are worshipping the same God in different ways. And they have the Quran, we have the New Testament, so we both have additional books. But the cult that I grew up in the women, almost all of them covered their hair. So they had head coverings, and we wore dresses to the ground. And women were subservient to men. The they our outline on the TV screen looked familiar to me. Okay, and they’re the words and language. So yes, we, and that’s something you can explore yourself is what in here? Can I find myself? use that as a thread to get closer? There’s a mother in here, yes, maybe Her skin is black, but she’s worried about, you know, daycare for her child. I have a connection with that now. So, use those strings to find ways that they are not different from you.

Emma Dhesi  23:47

Okay. Okay. So we have this lovely exercise where we can examine ourselves in the shop, for example, just looking at how we respond to the different people. And we examine that and we, we just start to question it, I guess, you know, just having Think about it, having a question, wondering why it might scare us or intimidate us and then start to investigate it, as you suggest, possibly as simply as saying hello to somebody, or maybe watching some media or a film or reading a blog. And do you think that, um, is that enough? Or, as writers particularly kind of bring this back to the world of writing is and is not enough for us to check our bias. Is that enough for us to write about? Somebody? I’m going to use inverted commas? No, but you know, diverse, it. That is not enough for us to do as you know, I’m, I am mixed race, but I look white, and I’ve had a very Western sort of upbringing. And so is that enough For me to write about somebody who comes from Ghana, perhaps, you know.

Bethany Tucker  25:05

I think the answer depends on who you choose to write about. To a certain extent, um, the answers I’m going to give are contentious because this is a conversation that’s going around. We had a book here in the US published recently called Mexican dirt. And it’s created a lot of negative press. I haven’t read the book myself full disclosure, but it was written by a woman. I think she’s at least part white. I think she has some other background, but she’s not Hispanic, she’s not Mexican. And in the book is about a woman from Mexico who owns a bookshop, and then, in some fashion makes it to the US. I think she probably comes here illegally, from what I’ve heard. So a lot of people came out and said, Well, why would a white woman write this book? And she was like, well, I did my research, and I love this people group. And I feel they’ve contributed a lot. And I just, I wanted to do this. And people came back and said, Well, you know, a Mexican woman would have never thought this or done this. And I’m not Mexican. I’m not going to make a judgement call on that. But I would say that getting sensitivity readers, once you’ve written it is really important. I’m sure we’ll talk about that more later. I think digging in trying to become familiar. It also depends on what level you’re writing, like, is this a secondary character that shows up for a couple pages? Or is this your main protagonist, and the level of detail and understanding will depend on how much this character is on on screen on the page, okay. So I would say, if this is something you’re really struggling with, put in a minor character, work with it a little bit, build up your comfort level, build up the build up ways that you can check what you’ve produced, and let it happen a little bit organically. You if you are writing a full protagonist from another country, you need to educate yourself, frankly, you got to treat it like historical fiction, and really dig into it. If this is a if this is a community or something you’ve grown up inside, still do your research. But think about also the perspective of the character you’re writing. Are they inside this culture you don’t know anything about? Or are they living next to it, maybe you’ve lived next to a Hasidic Jewish community, and your character lives next to a historic Jewish community. And then you have some Hasidic Jew characters show up, you’re going to be able to use your perspective, because you live next one. But if you have a character from that Jewish community, become more part of your story, then you need to get into their experience a little bit more and say you’ve lived find out what they how they view you if it becomes important to the story. So perspective, your POV is going to matter so much.

Emma Dhesi  28:14

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a great way to approach as you say, kind of like as if you’re doing historical research or, or a genre that involves in depth research, and you have to have a good a good knowledge of it. 

Bethany Tucker  28:30

Yeah, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any of this is easy or quick. That’s not.

Emma Dhesi  28:36

No, it’s not it is difficult. And it’s such a hot potato right now. It’s, um, and I think because of that, it’s it’s scary. And I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people opt to not do it, because there’s such fear around it. But do you think that um, yeah, do you think it’s important that majority writers, white writers are because we’re, you know, we’re in the West talking about, and North America, Western Europe? Do you think it’s important that white writers do include diverse characters in their stories? And if they are scared to write about those characters? How could we? How would How would you suggest encouraging them not to be so scared and turn to try it?

Bethany Tucker  29:31

Um, I’m not sure I can encourage anyone not to be scared. I was frankly nervous and scared to do this podcast just because it’s such a hot button topic, and I live with this every day. But I can say that it’s worth walking through the fear. You’re not going to get rid of the fear. But it’s absolutely worth going through it. So backing up to the first part of the question, and I’ll come back around to the fear because there are ways to work with it. I promise. Is it important for majority writers? So in this case, we’re in English, so mostly white, to write minority characters, especially racial, diverse characters. And I would say, yes, and here’s why. We, as writers, are carriers of our own culture, and particularly as, because we’re speaking in English carriers of our culture, in this language, we dominated. So in a way, what we write and I actually studied political propaganda in university, which has been amazing. We craft a vision, I’m not sure if you’ve heard the term imagined communities. No, but it’s this idea that we create in our head, we collectively have this imagination of what our community is. And part of the way that’s created is through art, music, and literature. And in literature, story creates this imagined community, and in what shape who shows up in our stories is who we imagine we are aligned with who is in our sphere, who is in our society. So historically, we have left out most of these characters, or we have regulated them to roles of servants or villains, etc. We have imagined this community in where these people play these roles for us. And we are not going to be able to get away from the effects of that imagination, because it’s baked into our classics, is baked into the myth of those who speak English natively. So the only thing we can do going forward is to choose to not continue to make that myth, because that’s the only way we’re going to move past the racial violence that’s happening in my country. Now, the tensions that are happening in other places, our children need to imagine a country and societies, an English speaking society that spans the world that doesn’t have these things. And that’s only going to happen if what we bring into ourselves starts to change that. Does that make sense? 

Emma Dhesi  32:23

I think so. I think what I’m understanding is that as English native English speaking writers, it’s important for us to reflect that our English speaking countries are broader now than just a European Caucasian. And that needs to be reflected in all stories. As our society changes.

Bethany Tucker  32:46

Yeah, I’m going to give some real world examples, because I got very much collegiate there for a minute. So this is not a sob story. I’m not looking for pity. My husband and I came back from China, we’ve been working there we returned to to make a change in his job. We moved to Chicago, which is a heavily segregated city. And he started looking for work in cybersecurity, but mostly technology. That’s what his degree is in, he’s certified in the field. Our myth solidary, in this country, steers towards having black people in places of support. He would, he sounds, he has very international English, he does not sound black. He does not have intercity language tones or syntax. He would have these phone interviews. And then he would show up, and they would offer him a job. Like 30 $40,000. Under the job he applied for in the support department. He would apply for the network engineer, and they’d offer him a help desk position, once they saw him. And this happened over and over and over again. And not just in Chicago, it happened in other cities in this country as well. And that’s because if anybody you talked to who interviewed my husband would say, Oh, no, that’s just what he he was qualified for. But people who were less qualified than my husband applied for the same jobs and got them. Right, because we have this subliminal bias. And it’s in our culture, you can say I’m not racist. Well, you’re part of it, because it’s in your mind. You see someone and you assume what they are. Mm hmm. So so what we have to do is, you you need to change that. And that happens by happening it show up like, literature is an amazing vehicle for social change. We spend time with it, we get emotionally invested in it. It’s not like hitting people over the head saying, you know, you have to be kind to everybody and everyone is equal, rah rah rah hitting the streets, yelling at people is good for creating noise and attention, but doesn’t get inside our hearts and souls, and then subconsciously change our actions. Mm hmm. Stories, one of the most powerful vehicles that exist in the world, we writers have this amazing, amazing position that we’re in.

Emma Dhesi  35:26

Yes. Yes. Yeah, that’s so true. But what what you say about once it gets in, into our hearts as well, and we can relate to somebody, whether it be a fictional character, or a real one, we can relate to them in some way, then it doesn’t matter what colour of skin, what disability what sexual preference they have, there’s a connection there. And then when you have a connection, you have some solidarity and some empathy and and it builds from there doesn’t it?

Bethany Tucker  35:55

So going back to like, how do you check your personal bias, build empathy, we don’t want to admit we don’t have empathy, but we don’t have empathy for what we can’t relate to. So we have to build that we have to create it. So I would say as majority writers, we carry this knot, this burden, this responsibility, this privilege, of helping craft this conversation. And if we care enough to admit that there’s a problem, then yes, we should be doing it. Is it scary? Yes, it is absolutely scary. Um, but it’s worth it. Because we, I know I want my children, the children I don’t have yet or the children I will adopt, I want them to live in a world where, where they don’t, if they marry a black man, they don’t have to plan on getting into a fight at the border, to get their husband back home, that’s happened to me. I want them to live in a world where they don’t have to worry about getting shot. Because if I have children, there’ll be black. And that is a really real possibility. So if you care about that, and go go beyond just race go beyond just like I’m talking about black people a lot, because that’s my family. But, um, you have a lot of races, racial diversity in the UK. So I’m sure you have your own different challenges.

Emma Dhesi  37:31

Oh, yes, definitely. I you know, I don’t think, yeah, we are, we are not perfect over here, either. We get a lot of things wrong as well. And, and I think what’s happening in the States has had a ripple effect over here, not just in the UK, actually, but also in other European countries as well. So it’s, it’s them. It’s, some of it’s been positive, or some of it is having a positive impact globally, not just not just in the US in North America, in the States. But yeah. But I’m glad you made that point, though, that it’s not just about race, it’s also about gender, it’s also about disability and the other things that we consider to be to be other. Gender is another thing, I don’t know if you’re happy to talk about that. But gender is also another hot potato. And I can say it’s, it is a subject or it is a character I would at the moment, as we’re having this conversation, it’s certainly a character would not want to include. And that’s because I’m, it feels to me, like it’s changing every day, the language changes from month to month, that the the spectrum of genders and sexuality changes from week to week. And it feels like you know, you would write a story and by the time it’s published, it’s completely out of date. And you’d be getting everything wrong and you know, you’d be getting slandered for it. I don’t know if you’ve got thoughts on that. Or if there’s anything you could sort of talk to about that.

Bethany Tucker  39:09

Yeah, so I completely sympathise with that. I’m queer by myself I’m bisexual. And the range of gender identity and sexual orientation which are two different things out there, it can be even intimidating me. Um, I don’t identifies bisexual because I’m attracted to men and women, as as men and women. I have a very definite pull towards a feminine and a male and I incorporate both my sister identifies as pan.

Emma Dhesi  39:50

Which I’ve never heard of.

Bethany Tucker  39:52

So she did tell us that the pansexual she she doesn’t really care if you even look or code. Like a man or a woman, she’s she’s open to people who don’t necessarily code masculine or code feminine no matter so you can be born male, but gender present female, but not be trans. That’s, that’s totally possible.

 

 

Emma Dhesi  40:19

See that’s just blown my brain. 

Bethany Tucker  40:23

Well, side note very quick gender presentation is a social construct. It’s not something we are necessarily born having to do. So what a woman does or woman looks like is time and place culture dependent. Does that make sense?

Emma Dhesi  40:45

Gender wise. Yes. Yeah.

Bethany Tucker  40:51

Yeah. So, I have very strong attractions towards social constructs of male and female, I find them both attracted, my sister is not as attracted towards social contracts and male and female, she does not care where you fall in the spectrum. So she and I have different romantic identifiers, as smart as were our attraction. And it’s been fun to talk to her about it, because I didn’t know much about pansexuality even though I was literally bisexual myself, and you think I’d be on top of all of this. We aren’t we people who are queer, and LGBTQ plus, we don’t spend all day thinking about it. And that’s practically what we would have to do. So if you’re a writer trying to figure it out, I sympathise with you. So what you really do is pick, pick the one that you’re doing, and research just that identity, if you can. Pick up a book by someone who identifies as that. Try. There’s support groups out there, there’s professors who teach queer and Gender Studies reach out to these people who are literally there to educate. And you’ll be surprised how much these people want to communicate, we’re, we’re usually, if we have set ourselves into a space where we’re publicly accessible, means we pretty much do want to talk about it. So don’t try to figure out the whole thing. Don’t it’s too big, it’s too much. Pick, pick one. Try to figure out that one. But it also realise you talk about the scariness of it changing. Um, I don’t change that much. That what the language, the identifiers, they change, but, um, some people even argue that like bisexuality is its term we shouldn’t use anymore. It’s a dichotomy term, and we shouldn’t have this dichotomy. Well, I’m attached to it, it’s my identity. So there’s always going to be people who are like, no, the old term works for me. And there are people out there and be like, Well, no, this term, you know, I find this term offensive, well, you find it offensive, I find it useful. Am I going to use it on you know, I’m going to keep it in my own space, I’m going to try and to not trigger you in any way. But, um, it’s my turn. For now, no one’s given me a good reason not to use it. So when you’re when when you’re facing that overwhelm, pick one grounded in time, and then try to be competent in your decision and then go forward. We have to do that all the time. And you don’t know. And if someone comes back to you, and it’s like, Hey, how about this, then you can be that person who’s always learning. I, I published a book, I published three books, it’s an ongoing series about a girl who doesn’t realise that she is bisexual or pansexual. And she doesn’t really have a strong identifier of male or female, she’s had to pretend to be male in her life. And she’s ended up in this grey area in the middle. And I had a beta reader literally, like yell at me over it and tell me that I was damaging trans youth. Well, the fact of the matter is, one this beta reader wasn’t trans. And, I hadn’t written a trans character. I’d written a gender queer character, a character that didn’t have strong identity one way or the other. So someone might yell at you. And they might not be right.

Emma Dhesi  44:47

Yes, good point.

Bethany Tucker  44:49

Think about where they’re coming from. Think about why they’re yelling at you. And give yourself the grace to say no, this is the story. I told this is how my reader identifies because my character goes back and forth. She’s not sure. And if you ask her what pronouns are she set in a fantasy world, she’s like pronouns. Like, that’s not a thing when she’s pretending to be a man, she’s not pretending she’s just in that masculine identity occurs, then everyone uses male pronouns on her. And, but she was born female, and her closest people were introduced to her in that manner. So she might think of herself as both, but her closest associates might use female on her butt as she grows, that changes, because she gets close associates to only think of her as a man. And she lives in this very messy space in the middle. So I totally had even though I’m by I totally had a mental health counsellor read the book, who, who deals with sex and sexuality? And we had some really deep topics on Okay, so this is how the character is, how do I make sure I communicate this and non damaging way? Mm hmm. So it’s, it’s probably good to have someone who can look at it and be like, Alright, I spewed this story on the page, I did my best, but it gets someone else to look at it. Because even if you are an expert on it, you’re not on the outside looking into your work. And your work takes on a life of its own when viewed through someone else’s eyes. 

Emma Dhesi  46:27

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And we do you want that we do want people to our readers to formulate this this world in their head and to picture it and become a 3d place for them. But we you’ve mentioned it before, and you alluded to it there just now as well, that it’s important to have sensitivity readers. And where might one go about? You know, where we find find a sensitivity there? It’s not a you know, I don’t know what maybe there are Facebook groups that that for that. So there seems to be a Facebook group for everything these days. Maybe there is that thing? Where might you start? So when you actually when you think you have used sensitivity readers before? Where did you go to find yours?

Bethany Tucker  47:10

I’m, I’m blessed with a very diverse friends and family group. So I went to them. Yeah, and so I would say, start looking around if you you know, start in your community or your community online or your community elsewhere, like your group actually has a fairly diverse range of writers. And so for some things, your audience might be able to talk to each other. And then I would say there’s a place I just found them. I read one of their part of one of their handbooks, I haven’t managed to get through all of it, because I’ve been writing. Let me make sure I have it salt and sage, saltandsagebooks.com. They have the most impressive lineup of sensitivity readers that I have been able to find

Emma Dhesi  48:08

I’ll link to that on the show notes.

Bethany Tucker  48:10

Yeah, they are also putting out a series of books. They seem to be available wide. I found them on Amazon first. But I think they’re available wide. That are like let me get the title. Exactly right. The first one I saw was writing while black. And it’s Yeah, how to No. Come on up, please. Yeah, how to write black characters and incomplete guide by salt and sage books. And they’re putting out more of these handbooks. So that would be a good place. for drilling down no one book is going to cover everything. But their their prices seem to be pretty reasonable. This is emotional and mental labour. So in pretty much all cases I would expect to pay for this consider it a service. One it can be taxing on your sensitivity reader to delve into topics that are potentially painful for them. In even if you don’t intend to write something, there may be something in there that is hard for them to process and then they have to formulate it and find a way to tell you about it. Okay, so it takes time and money. Well, time they could be spending and a lot of people who are sensitivity readers, they may not be very high in the social economic sphere, at least in the US. Sometimes I think what people call poor in the UK is different than what we call for come see us. We have issues anyway. So I would start with salt sage, we’d see is usually pricier but They are a good place to start. They have deep professional resources. And then I would start with your local Reddit groups like who I would just ask, I would I would put up a post in your local writers groups. Be prepared. There is contention out there on whether or not we should use sensitivity readers. Oh, really? Yeah, it’s a it’s a been a drawn out fight. There’s one side saying we absolutely should do it. And the other side saying it’s censorship, and we should write our stories the way we see them. And that’s it. I fall pretty much in the middle, I think we should pay attention to sensitivity readers. And we should weigh what their feedback is. And if their feedback is this character would never do this. And they can give me a reason that I need to sit there and talk about it, I need to think about that I, I probably need to enter into dialogue and explain to the sensitivity reader what I’m trying to accomplish, and get feedback on whether or not that’s possible, because they’re likely to come back and say, Well, you could get it done this way. And it would be true to the culture or true to the identity. And then your story has gotten even better. So I don’t think it’s a black and white question. The opposite end of the scale is censorship. If you feel you are being censored, I would take a moment and try to be honest about yourself or whether or not what you’re trying to write is good to put into the world. That that’s hard to say, but you might be writing a story and you’re like, well, this is the way the world is. and black people are lazy bums and contribute to crime. And your sensitivity reader comes back and like this character is really triggering for me. And this seems really negative. And you’re like, Well, yeah, that’s what I saw. Well think about it, could you if that’s really the character you saw, and I’m not going to say all black people are Paragons of, you know, goodness, my husband would get on here and to me out and talk about everything needs to be improved. But the fact of the matter is that all these groups are complex. And so if you have a true negative, if you if you do say you have a criminal, and their skin happens to be dark. Well, can you add anything else into the story? Can you balance it out? And can you work with someone to help you get to that balance? 

Emma Dhesi  52:33

Because that kind of leads into my next question, which was going to be you know, and should waiters always adhered to the views of their sensitivity to other b2b there. Besides, like, you know that there’s a lot of this, I guess, like storytelling, telling, in general, there’s an element of it, which comes back to your intuition and what you feel to be right, and having to think about what does your gut tell you? Is that the right thing to do? Or the wrong thing to do? And is it true to the character that you’re writing about? Or have you just thrown it in to the mix of sake of it?

Bethany Tucker  53:04

Yeah, I think there is a danger of say, writing a white character who has black skin. Or, or writing a Hindi character, that pretty much is Christian, but say they’re Hindi, but you never like see Hindi practices in Hindi thoughts? Mm hmm. So in that case, I would say, writing true to the character, think about whether your characters really what you’re saying your characters. That goes back to literally the bias we talked about at the beginning of this call is like, you know, who do you trust, but then then you’re taking it to the next level. And it’s a dialogue. That’s what I would always come back to. It’s a dialogue. It’s a dialogue between you and the character. It’s a dialogue between you, and your own culture and biases and experiences. And it’s a dialogue between you and then your sensitivity readers, and anyone who’s giving you feedback. Mm hmm. I had one more comment about reaching out to our circles. It is okay, to protect yourself while you’re doing this. I have been kicked out of a writers group over discussions of race and literature. But again, look at who’s doing the screaming look at who’s doing the contention and the fighting. It’s okay not to belong to every group. It’s okay if people disagree with you. If you’re the one working towards diversity, if you’re the one trying to open things up, if you’re trying to learn if you’re in that open space, you’re going to be threatening to some people. So when you put that post out, I’m looking for sensitivity readers. Just allow yourself to pull back allow yourself not to engage in the comments if they turn negative. If you’re on Facebook, just just hit that turn off comments. button. And know that that’s not the safe place to do it, if you can only do it online and not in person, I mean, most of us are online with our lives these days. But going forward, this is a podcast that will be around for a while. It’s okay to protect yourself and approach degrees. And don’t feel guilty about it. It’s okay.

Emma Dhesi  55:22

That’s kind of a nice reassuring notes to finish on. Because there’s so much for us to think about when we do want to write about diverse characters, it can be daunting. So it’s nice to have that little bit of reassurance from you there that, you know, we don’t have to feel like we’ve got to fit in with everybody that’s going to be impossible, and that we can walk away. And if it all gets too much, and then approach it small steps at a time. 

Bethany Tucker  55:48

Yeah, take take time, if you need to peruse and private and read those books, one of the reasons I said media, like if you’re overwhelmed, like some people get into this, and they’re like, Oh, my gosh, my culture has hurt this other culture so much. You’re not a bad person, if you need to take a deep breath. Being able to walk away is a privilege. But it’s okay. If you need to take a deep breath and come back tomorrow, as long as you come back. But don’t feel like you need to take all of this on, there is so much going on. You’re one human, you don’t have to take on the global experience all at once. Nobody can do that. There are days that I turn off Facebook, I walk away. I don’t choose to read everything that crosses my, my thing. There are days I’m like, I can’t read this book. It’s okay. Just stay with it.

Emma Dhesi  56:42

Now I’m going to shift us on a little bit shift tack a little bit and then talk about you and your upcoming podcast. You have a new podcast coming out in the new year. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about it.

Bethany Tucker  56:57

Okay, so this really, it’s the same topic, we’ve been talking about writing and diversity. It’s so big, Marielle Smith and I – I think she’s been on your podcast before.

Emma Dhesi  57:12

She has she came in last August and did an Author Accelerator. She is a tarot reader Tarot expert as well. So she talked to us about that.

Bethany Tucker  57:21

Yeah, she’s also a really good editor. And she’s, she’s, um, beta reading one of my books right now, actually. And she is a writer herself. So she’s also taught the lead gender in colonial studies at the university level in the Netherlands. So we got to talking and she had this project going, she asked me to come on, and then it grew. And so we were like, okay, we’re going to be podcasting. This because it’s going to take too long to get the book out. And this is a conversation we need to be having now. So the, the nothing is finalised yet as far as names and titles, but the subject will be reading diversity and how to do it. And we’re going to be breaking it down a lot more. So each podcast, we will focus on a much smaller segment, like like one particular group, or one particular way of doing it, and how to work with our biases, etc. If you want to find out more about that, just go to the art and science of words, and hit the contact on the left hand side is at the bottom menu, hit contact and shoot me an email saying that you want to be on the list. And I will let you know, as that develops should be out around January first we should start publishing those. 

Emma Dhesi  58:37

Yeah, it’s not long, it’s gonna fly. And that’s such exciting news. And I think a podcast that’s really, really needed because in preparation for our conversation today, I did look around podcast looking to understand more about the subjects that we’ve been talking about. But I didn’t find I don’t think I found anything. I don’t think I found one episode even that refers to diversity and writing. A lot of it was about business and, and human resources. So I think it’s, it’s needed and it would be, it would be great for a lot a lot of people I think.

Bethany Tucker  59:14

It’s why I got so excited when you propose this topic. I was like, Yes. Because you propose this topic to me, as Marielle and I were starting to talk before we decided to do anything. And then it was like, oh, I’ve already Yeah, this is perfect.

Emma Dhesi  59:29

serendipity is all been coming together for you. Right? So that’s really interesting, too, is you’re gonna have the podcast and then later next year, you’ll have a book as well. So that could be a backup resource for anybody who needs it.

Bethany Tucker  59:42

Yeah, and we really want the podcast to be a conversation. So if if anyone listening has more questions, like please send them in. We’d love to like be relevant and helping people as they go. 

Emma Dhesi  59:54

Fantastic. Now I feel it would be remiss of me to not mention your own fiction, you are a fiction writer yourself. And you write under the name of Mustang rabbits. And you’ve been got your Adelaide series. So how’s that going? And we’re we’re in the series are you right now?

Bethany Tucker  1:00:14

Three out of five are out. And the next two should be out next year. So I’ve reviewed the been good. It’s been exciting. I’m looking forward to getting the series finished. And then, then we’ll see what happens. I’m also releasing under Sierra Darren, that’s dark epic fantasy.

Emma Dhesi  1:00:35

Oh, gosh, you are busy. Oh, my goodness.

Bethany Tucker  1:00:37

Yes, I’m very busy. I’m a little crazy.

Emma Dhesi  1:00:42

Well, where can readers find your Adelaide series? Where are those available?

Bethany Tucker  1:00:47

They are available wide. So if you can’t find them in a bookstore, let me know they should be out. They are on Kobo Barnes and Nobles, Amazon. I know they are in the major Australian store, which is escaping me right now.

Emma Dhesi  1:01:03

Dymocks? Angus and Robertson.

Bethany Tucker  1:01:08

Yes, they are there. I know. They’re in the big stores in the UK as well. So you should be able to find the Adelaide series wherever ebooks are sold. If not tell me I will try to fix it.

Emma Dhesi  1:01:19

Great. Well, I should link to those as well. Well, Bethany, as always, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you. You are a mine of information not just about this, but I always enjoy talking to you about craft and editing as well. So thanks for joining me.

Bethany Tucker  1:01:34

Thank you for having me, it’s so much fun to talk to you.

Emma Dhesi  1:01:39

Before you go, I want to tell you about my Patreon page, whenever anyone supports the show, it expresses just how much you’re enjoying the content and how much you wanted to continue your support helps maintain the podcast and keeps it going. It means I can create better resources for you. When you’re listening to the podcast or checking out the webpage, it means I can focus on getting a higher reach of audience. And when we get a higher reach of audience, we can get more guests, guests that are really going to help you and then who knows where it’ll go from there as a new podcaster and someone who’s starting out and finding their feet in the podcasting world. Just as I’m helping you find your feet in the writing world. I can’t do it alone. I always need help. So I’d love it. If you would support the show by signing up. There’s just one to $3 a month. And for that I’ll make sure that each week I’m delivering the best podcast I can for you and as a way of saying thanks. I’ll give you a personal shoutouts on the show. So check out the page@patreon.com forward slash Mr. Desi that’s pa t ar e o n.com. forward slash Emma Dhesi See you next time.

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Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.