erinlethe

[erinlethe]

Do you NEED to understand?

My mom: I don't understand you being nonbinary, and if I can't understand it I can't support it

Me: Well you don't understand Rocket Science or Electric cars, but you support Elon Musk and his... choices

[erinlethe]

Writing Indigenous characters as a white author

Hey guys! So I am an author currently writing a book series and I need some help. Making sure that that my characters and story lines are a respectfully diverse and inclusive is really important to me. Personally I am lqbtq+, I am plus sized, I am afab, I struggle with mental health, im neurodivergent, and I am not christian. These are all things I am able to write about from first hand and personal experience. However, I am white, and making sure that I have all kinds of representation for different cultures and people groups is also majorly important to me. Its also very important to me that while I include lots of representation, it never ends up being stereotypical of a charicature of what people assume people in these groups and cultures to look or act or sound like. These things are important parts of them and their background yes, but I make sure it never becomes their whole personality I am pretty well educated and researched about a lot of different cultures and already have a widely diverse cast of charactes, but I want to also include representation of native communities, especially native American because I live in America, and that's where a lot of this story takes place. In general I want to become more educated about being respectful towards the culture, about the history of what these communities have gone through, and just being aware of things that I should be aware of but I'm not. But because of how terrible the US government is and always has been towards these communities and covering their tracks in history, I am very wary about getting information from traditional sources like books and media that aren't reliable

So what I'm asking is if there is anyone out there who is or knows anyone who is native, of any nation, not just the US, who would be willing and interested in doing an interview of sorts, over text or zoon, whatever you are comfortable with, then I want to extend that invitation! Please let me know!

I just want to make sure that I am portraying native culture in the most accurate and respectful way A little but about the story for context by the way is that it follows a girl who is a witch who grew up in a home of other witches and magic users. Just like her, all of these kids had to leave their family's and homes because they became unsafe after they started showing signs of having powers. Not everyone who has powers comes from families that are like them. Some kids are born into families that don't know about magic and become abusive out of disgust or fear of the magic. The story follows this girl's journey and her friends and family

So yea, if you or anyone you know is interested please let me know! you can comment or message me here if you like, you can also reach me on instagram @ strawberry.fras or my email which is niffler9cupcake84@gmail.com

Thanks so much loves!

-Sam

P.s. if you have any better ways to get in touch with people who can help me out I would seriously appreciate it <3