Many of you know that diversity in fiction is a cause I'm really passionate about, so I make a conscious effort to introduce diversity into my own books. I have no doubt that I screw things up at times because I'm a straight, white woman who doesn't know what it's like to be an LGBTQIA+ person, or a person of color. I do know what it's like to be a woman, so while I'm comfortable with addressing sexism and misogyny, I am conscious of how I could come off as way off base or spectacularly insensitive when it comes to the issues LGBTQIA+ people or people of color face. I want to learn and understand, so I try to read, watch, and listen to as much as I can get my hands on, but if at any time any of my readers would like to point something out to me, I am very receptive to that. I want to do better, I really do.

I'm addressing this because the Wasteland trilogy features my first gay main character. This isn't the first time I've written about lesbian, bi, or gay characters. There are secondary LGBTQIA+ characters in Committed, Court of Illusion (the third Astoran Asunder book), and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sensibility. You can tell these books are a bit dated because in both Committed and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sensibility, characters comment about being unable to marry because they're lesbian or gay, something I'm very glad has changed in the intervening years.

I've heard people talk about books that depict LGBTQIA+ characters as having an "agenda". Do my books have an agenda? Well, yeah. My agenda is to write about characters who hopefully come across as human beings, to do my best to depict their struggles in a vivid way, and to put forth my best effort to create a story that draws readers in and leaves them wanting more. The Wasteland trilogy books are no exception. Alessandro is gay. It's an aspect of his character. It's not his defining aspect, but it is who he is, and I'm writing about that in the most honest way I know how. He will have a romance in books two and three, and though the romances in these books are not explicit, they do exist as part of the characters' subplots.

(Not to toot my own horn here, but if I do say so myself, Alessandro's romance is shaping up to be one of the sweetest romances I've written. Editing those passages is giving me some serious feels.)

I will be both frank and blunt here. If some readers are uncomfortable with the idea of reading about a romance between two teen boys, well, they're welcome to read other books. I'm not going to change mine. LGBTQIA+ people and people of color exist, and they deserve to have their stories told. (Preferably by own voice authors--authors who are people of color and/or LGBTQIA+, but I also firmly believe white, straight authors ought to make more of an effort to diversify their books.)

Look, as a woman who majored in French and minored in English, I spent a LOT of time reading books by dead white men. Sometimes I got other, more diverse viewpoints as part of my education, but mostly I was supposed to read, understand, and be able to sympathize with a WHOLE lot of dead white guys. Why is it that I, as a woman, or readers of color, or LGBTQIA+ readers, or neurodiverse readers, or disabled readers, are supposed to be able to see from the point of view of able-bodied, straight, white men, but the reverse isn't true? I don't buy it. There's academic evidence that reading can make us more empathetic, and the best way I can imagine to achieve that is by having people read about characters who aren't like them, as well as characters who are.

Which is why I'm going to do my best to be part of the change I want to continue to see in the world of publishing. I think publishing as a whole is taking steps toward progress, but I also think we've still got a long road ahead of us. Diverse fiction isn't a "trend", and it shouldn't be seen as one. If authors, readers, and publishers care about continuing to advance literature as an art form, we should get behind diverse fiction, because a vast, rich wealth of stories is the only way to elevate our art form.

I've said this before, but it's something some people may still not know about me: I used to write fanfic, and I also had an extremely satisfying run of writing Harry Potter filks (song parodies in which you take a popular tune and rewrite the lyrics to reflect whatever subject you're covering) for the group Harry Potter for Grownups. On the fanfic side, I dabbled in Tolkien, writing lots of wish-fulfillment fics about elves (yes, I admit it, I had a mad crush on Orlando Bloom as Legolas), and I've also written a few short Mass Effect fanfics (starring my femShep, natch), but my longest fanfic by far was a Knights of the Old Republic fic detailing the exploits of my light-side female Jedi, Brinna Warrim.

Now, I obviously didn't create Harry Potter or Mass Effect or KOTOR (*sigh* If only I had...), but, boy, how I love those worlds. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and I've never had a problem creating my own stories, but playing around with characters I loved in other people's worlds was such a pleasure for me. It got my creative juices going in a whole different way from creating my own worlds and characters, and it was excellent writing practice during times when I went through long stretches of not writing original material.

I'm not ashamed of having written fanfic, nor am I ashamed of having once been an enthusiastic member of the fanfic community, not only writing my own but also reading and commenting on others' work. It was a great community full of supportive people who genuinely enjoyed reading one another's work and sharing a dialog about it. Think about it. For someone like me, who aspired to be a writer but wasn't yet in a place where I felt ready to share my own creations, it was invaluable. I was WAAAAAY too shy and insecure to let people read my original stuff, but I was fine with sharing fanfic. That willingness helped me receive and process critiques, which in turn helped me improve my writing skills, a process that continues to this day.

Given this, I cheered my way through The Bodies of the Girls Who Made Me: Fanfic and the Modern World on the Tor blog. I was already familiar with Seanan McGuire because I fanatically love her Wayward Children series, and knowing her writing origins are much like mine is pretty awesome. Her critique of how fanfic writers are treated is spot-on, and she has some very important stuff to say about how female writers are treated versus how male writers are treated.

It's a great article and I highly recommend it because the continuing conversation about the lack of diversity in publishing is necessary and good for the industry as a whole--as is the discussion of the lack of diversity in movies, TV, video games, etc. Loving stories as much as I do, I am so eager for the inclusion of more diverse voices because I'm excited about how they'll enrich the literary/film/television/video game worlds.

This comes as no shock to anyone who has seen my author photo: I am a middle-aged white woman. I'm also a feminist and someone who believes all people are equal. Period, full stop. But the fact of the matter is, not everyone is treated equally in society.

There are many reasons why I chose to become an indie author rather than go the traditional route of looking for an agent and sending manuscripts out on submission. One huge reason was because I knew being indie meant I wouldn't have to worry about that dreaded term: marketable. Granted, I'd like to make a living from my work, but not if that meant I had to change major elements of my story to make it fit some narrow view of what marketable means. At heart, marketable is code for white, nondisabled, cisgender protagonists, and if he's a dude you're golden. Don't think that's true? Look around you. Turn on your TV, pick up a book, open a magazine to an ad, play a video game, go watch a movie. You'll notice you are awash in white dudes (unless the ad is for cleaning products, in which case you're pretty much guaranteed to see a thin, toothy, white woman promoting them--seriously, who gets that excited about housework). Of all of these mediums, television is the one that seems to be making the most progress, but even television has a long way to go.

Look, talking about these things can be uncomfortable. I get that. It's hard for me too. As a woman, I know what it's like to run up against male privilege. I have a chronic illness (Crohn's Disease, to be precise), so I can speak to that as well. But because I'm white, I can't speak to what it's like to not be white. Because I'm straight and cisgender, I can't speak to what it's like to be somewhere else on the sexuality and/or gender spectrum. Because I don't have a disability, I can't speak to what it's like to have a disability.

I get the fear of trying to create a character who's not like you. What if you mess it up? What if you offend people, despite your good intentions? But fear isn't a good excuse, especially if avoidance is how you deal with the thing you fear. When your setting is sci-fi or fantasy and you're already asking people to suspend disbelief as you tell a tale of aliens or dragons, why is it so hard to make your main character a woman, a person of color, a member of the LGBTQ community, someone struggling with an illness, or someone who has a disability? Creators of sci-fi and fantasy universes need to quit with the bullshit "but that's unrealistic because that's not the way the world works" excuse. Dragons are believable but a gay hero isn't? You can buy aliens decimating the Earth but not a woman leading the army that's determined to beat them?

When I write, I make an effort to diversify my characters. I'm not saying I get it right, and I certainly have room for improvement as the vast majority of my main characters are white. Yet even when I write a book with main characters who are most decidedly NOT white--Asleep--I can't help but notice that some readers default to a white setting. It baffles me, and it makes me realize how far we have yet to go.

This problem isn't relegated to books, of course. I'm also an avid gamer, and I could fill post after post about gaming's deplorable and inexcusable lack of diversity, to say nothing of what a hostile environment it can be for anyone who isn't a white, straight, cisgender male. Movies are still dominated by white cast members, even when the character isn't white in the book that the film has adapted.

And when I tried to find stock photos for Asleep? Finding white women and men isn't hard. Finding Indian men and Persian women was like trying to dig for diamonds in my backyard. I love my cover, but it lacks a person precisely because there was such a dearth of available stock photos. Don't even get me started on how few choices there were when looking for a non-thin woman for the cover of Phoning It In.

One of the major decisions I made while writing Phoning It In sums it up nicely. I wanted to portray the romantic and career struggles of a plus-sized female character without ever making her lose a single ounce. I've struggled with my weight and with body image issues, and I was sick to death with media bombarding women with the message that losing weight will cause their lives to magically become perfect. This is precisely what a lack of diversity does: it tells people, both explicitly and implicitly, that unless they fit a certain body type, a certain skin tone, a certain social class, a certain religious background...and on and on and on, there's something wrong with them. I reject that outright. Of all the things that are wrong in this world, the diversity that makes us who and what we are isn't one of them. But denying that diversity, ignoring large segments of the world's population, IS wrong. We live in the twenty-first century, and I know we can do better, be better than that. That is the legacy that I want to leave for my children, the knowledge that we human beings evolved enough to appreciate and celebrate our diversity.

Campaigns like #WeNeedDiverseBooks are importantly precisely because they seek to change the current paradigm. If you're reading this, I hope you're participating. If you aren't, I hope you'll change your mind and join us. Because the only way we can move forward is by taking a first step.

(This was a total coincidence as my 2-year publishing anniversary just happened to coincide with the campaign, but you can get my books for 99c today as they're all Kindle Countdown Deals. Be sure, too, to stop by my giveaways page to enter for a chance to win an Amazon gift card--it'll come in handy when filling your library with diverse books!)