Author in Residence Interview: Ashe Thurman

Rasta
Hello cinnabar moths or any kind of moth you’d like to be welcome to the Writer’s Triangle, cinnabar moth’s podcast for all things publishing and books. Today we’re here with Ashe Thurman, our writer in residence for cinnabar moth literary collections. Ashe, how’re you doing today?

A
I’m good. I’m great. I’m fantastic.

Rasta
Awesome, lovely to hear. So today we’re going to be talking about diversity and writing. Now, I was wondering, when did you first learn about the concept of diversity? And what does it mean to you?

A
So I, as a synthesis, a non visual mean, I’m white. I’m very, very European. Let’s just, that’s how white I am. I just wanted to very clear, like, yeah, anyway, um, but I was very, very, I think lucky, personally, to grow up. And, you know, I have no problem talking about this. In Texas, Central Texas. And in my specific area that I lived in, I was the only white kid, I was surrounded by a lot of kids who are Hispanic, who were first generation immigrants from Mexico and South America. And so I was exposed really, really, really early to something that was other than white. I, I, I had this very first hand exposure to this secondary culture, that was not my primary culture. And so once you have that, it makes it really easy to jump to like the next thing because like, I had friends, I had friends across all religions and racial backgrounds all the way through elementary, not as much of middle school because I went to a different school in middle school that wasn’t as diverse, but then in high school, as well. And so I was always around, I was very lucky to be in a setting where I was always around people of other religions, people of other races, people, the ethnic backgrounds. And so that coupled with just like this kind of ravenous curiosity about what does the rest of the world look like? I feel like I was really lucky to always live in a place, a mental place and a physical place where I understood Hey, there are other people out there that are not like me, that are that are that come from different backgrounds. And that makes it really easy to just be like, Yay, diversity, because we’re all different because I can literally see it physically in my day to day life. Even though I was I wasn’t like in a big so it wasn’t like New York or LA or anything that would be even more, you know, present. But I still was able to see that in my day to day life, which makes it really easy to internalize

Rasta
Okay, so for for you, diversity has just been something that you’ve lived with kind of your entire life the first day.

A
Yeah, and I was I was always I always had access to information about other places. I was that kid giant nerd. So I was like kid who was watching like the Discovery Channel back when it was still like educational Discovery Channel and TLC. And like, I would be watching these No, the the more anthropological shows like oh, the culture of Popo, New Guinea, and like, all this kind of good stuff. And like I was I was living in like, my parents were really cool about being like, you need to know things about this kind of like, let me go off and like, so between the day to day life of just seeing people that were different around me, and then being allowed to, like just go full force into learning about everyone to learn, and then learn about other people in the process. Yeah, it just made it really easy to be like, oh, yeah, the world is big and vast, and other people exist.

Rasta
Okay, so you’ve had this exposure to the concept of diversity very, very early. And what does diversity mean to you? Like, if you get back into the nitty gritty of it?

A
Yes. It’s the idea. Like, again, it’s that idea of like, it means to me, like I say, it’s that idea of there other people out there that have a different experience than you that have a different experience than your neighbor, that are living a life that is not yours. And so the idea of diversity in the sense of like immediate sense, is being able to include those other experiences, or recognize that other experiences exist and include them in fictional media and having fictional media, or media in general that appeals to people from multiple different walks of life because right right now, you know, we don’t always in the United States in particular. So the idea of of recognizing that in the forming of casts in the like a cast of a To have novel or gamer show, and in the recognition that hey, other worldviews exist. And actually like showing it that, like, that’s kind of what it means to be it’s like, it’s like, it’s being able to express that kind of rich tapestry of what the universe looks like.

Rasta
Okay, so it’s a combination of the understanding that there is this rich tapestry that you speak of, also, getting the exposure to the right alternative and various walks of life and views of life and experiences that people have had.

A
Right, exactly.

Rasta
Okay. And so if we go, you mentioned media, if we pare it down to just specifically writing, like, do you consider yourself to be part of the diversity in writing?

A
See, that’s, that’s, that’s a very tricky, like, it’s like, it’s a very tricky question. Because I feel like a lot of times, when we’re talking about things like, you know, veterans experience and like vectors of oppression in particular, there’s this kind of tendency to have like, this little like, punch card feeling like, Oh, I’m white, so I don’t get a punch for that. Haha. But I am, I am femme feminine presenting, that’s a punch card. That’s my, you know, that sort of pressure to and I think we talk about like diversity, we also have to talk about oppressed groups and that kind of thing and marginalized groups, because those are the ones that tend to suffer, so to speak, from the lack of diversity in writing, and media and that kind of stuff. So like we said, there’s this punch card effect, where it’s like, okay, well, I have this, this difference, and I have this difference, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch. And so, you know, I’m kind of left with like, Okay, I’m white. So from that vector, of a racial vector of diversity, I’m not doing anything like and another white writer who has plenty of us, as far as like the United States, particular. But I’m a feminine presenting writer. Well, I work in sci fi, and fantasy and feminine presenting people have a harder time in sci fi and fantasy. So in that regard, I would be an element of diversity. That’s against the the sort of masculine norm that you see in sci fi, and fantasy and horror. And yet, at the same time, I’m also I’m also a queer writer, and I’m a non binary writer. And so in the so in, like a general sense, yes, that is a group that is underrepresented in media as a whole. And then, then within, like, the queer writing space, because my specific combination of you know, letters, so to speak, is a little bit different than what you see in what little mainstream queer writing exists. So it’s like yes, and no, like, it feels really awkward to say like, oh, yeah, no, I’m absolutely part of like the quote, unquote, diversity, because I have all these vectors, that in my specific genres are not mainstream. So it’s like, yeah, no, I totally am. But at the same time, it’s like, if, like, it feels like, it feels a little presumptuous, because, to me, like, diversity is a good thing. It’s a it’s a, it’s a thing that we need more of. And so in my effort to constantly be uplifting voices that are even more marginalized than mine, it feels kind of presumptuous to be like, Well, I’m also diverse, but I also kind of am. It’s a very, like, I feel like I’m rambling there, but it’s a very, like, complex, nuanced. Question, when you consider the various vectors of marginalization.

Rasta
So for you, you feel kind of stuck with this question. Because, right, it feels almost like you’re ticking off boxes, rather than actually talking about diversity.

A
Ostensibly, yeah. Cuz it’s like, okay, because you have to like, because because you have, because you have to kind of like talk. Okay, what does diversity mean? In the context of like, Oh, if you’re trying to build a diverse bookshelf, okay, what does a diverse bookshelf look like? And in a theory that would be that would be pulling authors, are you pulling authors from multiple different races, pulling authors, multiple different genders, pulling authors from all different sexual orientations and ethnic backgrounds and religions? And so in a sense, we’re all part of diversity, because we’re all different. But then you also have to acknowledge that there is a mainstream trend towards certain demographics. So it’s like making the split between how far off the quote unquote, like it’s a split between having to define okay, what’s the mainstream, like, what needs to be diverted from an Are you far enough away from that, to consider yourself like a diversity? contributor?

Rasta
Right So it feel it’s, do you fulfill enough boxes to consider yourself different from the mainstream? Basically?

A
Yeah.

Rasta
Right. Yeah, that that, that is quite a difficult thing to properly measure. Because just speaking as myself, I’m, I’m black. I’m also a man.

A
Right.

Rasta
And there’s a lot more male writers and female writers.

A
Exactly. It’s those vectors. It’s a sec. Yeah, I’m white. I’m white, but I’m queer and femme presenting. So it’s like, there’s plenty of white writers. But you know, it gets weirder with queer and femme presenting writers.

Rasta
So it’s like, yeah, I do think that that is a fair thing to point out about when it comes to the conversation around diversity is the sort of feeling of are you different enough to be considered different? Yeah. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Yeah. That’s even think, you know, I wonder, how would I answer this question for myself? And I think, on an on like a knee jerk reaction, I would say, Yeah, of course, I’m part of diversity in writing. But am I?

A
Right. Like, it’s very light, because it’s like, it’s really easy for me to it’s, like, really easy for me to look at other people’s writing and be like, Oh, yes. What an absolute, or they’re like, it’s like a, it’s so collective. It’s like, it’s how do you say, like an individual writer, is, how do you say an individual writer is necessarily part of diversity? When I think it’s more like, you have to look at the collective of like a publisher, or like, oh, this magazine did this magazine poll from a diverse pool of experiences, like, so it feels more like a, you have to look at it as a collective, you can’t look at that as an individual thing. It’s like a collective. Oh, and even I think my guess is it’s like, even with like, in your own writing, you know, like, Are you considering diversity in the collective, you know, collective approach of your own writing? As opposed like, individual? Oh, is this short story diverse? I don’t know, there’s two people in it. But, you know, is are everything you’ve written, looked at, it looked at as a unit, showing a showing an attempt at creating diversity within your characters within your settings?

Rasta
Right. So for free your perspective on it, my understanding, it’s more about the body of the body of work for an author or the, the body of works for a publisher or literary magazine of who and what they’re publishing.

A
Right? Right. It’s like, okay, it’s like, Okay, have you because like, because, because, yeah, exactly. What do you have? What do you have in your bookshelf?

Rasta
Is something in a sense, where you can’t look at so individualistic camp look at more of a macro perspective of the overall? Are we seeing enough different trees?

A
Basically, basically, yeah.

Rasta
Out of trees is the right metaphor. I just think like,

A
We’re gonna go, we’re gonna go with it. I mean, yeah, that might not be the best metaphor, because the vast majority of forests would only have maybe two or three species of trees because of the ecological niches, but we’ll go for it.

Rasta
That’s fine. You know, there might be fungi in there as well. So it’s

A
the forest, the full forest ecosystem. Yeah, yeah. Let’s get your thoughts. Is your forest ecosystem healthy? Is it having an appropriate level of like, of predators versus prey versus plants for its, you know, its its its web. Its food web. There you go. That’s your metaphor.

Rasta
Wonderful. We it’s grown into something

A
We’ve cracked it, we cracked the code on diversity.

Rasta
The wonders of being writers we can invent these things we have to we have a bias for it. Right. Exactly. And so I guess, something I want to ask you that is do you feel like you have a diverse body of work?

A
I’m trying every single day like Aye Aye. Aye. I definitely grew up on a very specific because I’m a primarily sci fi and fantasy writer with a little bit of horror thrown in. So I actively try to okay, I’m developing this main character what does this main character look like was his main characters, you know, ethnic background, I write fantasy, so I can scoop I have all this kind of stuff. Like I don’t have to actually pick like, Oh, they’re from Malawi. I can just be like, they look like this. And so I actively I actually actively do try to think about what my main characters look like. What they sound like, what the side characters look like and sound like. As far as like, real life racial and ethnic comparisons like because we can we write, we write sci fi and fantasy you’re not usually drawing like, actually like you’re drawing inspiration magical countries and actual cultures and stuff but you’re not necessarily doing like one for one. One for One things. But yeah, this I try really hard to draw from it’s multiple different, like multiple different histories and backgrounds and that kind of stuff. Because you do run into this a lot in sci fi and fantasy in particular, there’s a lot of just like medieval Europe inspired fantasy is so much medieval European inspired fantasy. And you’ll I wrote a short story for a magazine that was set. And that was it was more analogous the, to the Islamic Golden Age, where I was going for more you know, Saudi Arabia in the Middle Ages kind of look and kind of feel and have characters renamed how the characters look. So it’s like, well, oh, still trying to be sensitive to the actual culture that this comes from, like, I’m not trying to be like, appropriative, or anything. So there’s definitely like a line there between like, it’s really easy in fantasy settings to make people look however you want them to look including skin color, like I can make as many people dark skinned as I want, and no one’s going to stop me. And I wouldn’t want them to. And that’s where I try to focus is being like, Okay, I’m not going to just have all my characters be white, like me, you know, white blond, hair blue, I agree. And I, that’s also a big problem you see, in fantasy, I’m going to mix it up, I’m going to have characters with Forsey, curly hair, I’m going to have I’m working on a of a serial right now, where my character is, has is wears a silk bonnet and I and like it’s putting beads in her hair for a party and like, it’s just a normal part of her existence with her with her extremely, you know, her, I think I decided on three see her. So that’s what I’m trying to I try to do is like walk that line between, like, Oh, I’m white. So I have to be aware of like my limitations on live experience for a character. But I also have the ability to research, you know what living in that kind of body would be like physically, and then apply it in a fantasy setting, or have a little more leeway with like the cultural context. And include those things in in my writing. And like, don’t just default to white because I happen to be white. That’s what I tried to do.

Rasta
So your process for making sure that you have a diverse body of work involves doing the research to make sure that you’re representing as accurately as you can, the different cultures and different ethnic backgrounds that you are using as inspiration. And even if it’s not directly one to one, but as examination for the settings and for the characters that you’re creating in your worlds. Right, exactly.

A
It’s it’s like exciting fantasy. You get a lot of listen, you get a lot of leeway. You can make stuff up like you can you have the room to make stuff up. So it’s like, Okay, I gotta make sure the thing I’m making up isn’t necessarily going to be like, problematic, I look at it down the line. And be like, oh, shoot, I didn’t realize I didn’t know this thing. It’s like, I make sure I know everything. I know everything about the subject. That way, when I’m using it as a template for this fictional setting. I’m not inadvertently messing up something somewhere.

Rasta
Like that definitely makes sense. It’s it’s a matter of, you know, being appreciative.

A
And not just, yeah, appropriative. Yeah, it’s appreciated, not appropriative. But also like being, I think also comes with being like willing to you see this a lot. So you see this a lot with some people who are just like, I don’t know, if I read a protagonist that has XY and Z, I don’t know if I could relate to them. And it’s like, I’m sorry that you don’t have the level of like empathy required to connect with someone doesn’t look like you. That’s another aspect of it. Like being able to connect with someone who doesn’t look like you being able to see the humanity deep down of literally everybody and just realize, oh, you know, there’s I can still connect with this person. Because as a writer, you have to connect with your characters as well. And it’s like I have I don’t have any problems with that, like I can, I can reckon I can connect with a character at a character level, while also keeping in mind, hey, they’re gonna have a technically different lived experience than me. I gotta make sure that’s correct. So I can separate the connecting with them at the character social character level, while still having that kind of technical aspect on top of it of like, okay, well, I also know that they’re not going to do this thing with their hair because they’re Hair looks different. You can do both. And you have to be happy. I think you I think that strengthens your ability to write as a whole as being able to do both.

Rasta
Yeah, definitely agree the ability to connect with experiences that aren’t your own and being able to. I mean, that’s kind of necessary for writing exactly yourself as a character. Right? Right, exactly. Have these completely separate entities that you could not see yourself, actually doing the things that are doing thinking the way they’re thinking even, but you can still put yourself in the mindset of, if this character were to be doing something based on what they are, who they are, this is what they do. Exactly. And having that be a real response, that’s, you know, realistic, you know, because that character is greedy, then they’re going to behave in a greedy fashion, if they find they’re going to be tired.

A
Right, and if this person, and if this person has experienced, has experienced this certain experience based on their skin color, then they’re going to react in a certain way, in a different, you know, like, it’s like, if they have this different set of experiences, they’re going to react differently than I would. And so many of our experiences are based on how we look, and how we’re perceived by society as a whole. So it’s like, you know, getting all those things to mesh together.

Rasta
It definitely makes sense. And when it comes to this type of diversity, when it comes to a body of work, obviously, there’s little work that we can do as writers on an individual level, to improve our personal bodies of work. But that’s only kind of a drop in the ocean, in a sense, right? Man right there. It’s to publishers and editors of literary magazines, who pump out and publish the collections of work of hundreds 1000s Honestly, millions of authors. So what do you think the to expand on this concept of diversity in books and bodies of work? What do you think publishers and editors of literary magazines can do to help increase this diversity in the publishing world?

A
It’s definitely got to be that acknowledgement of bias. Like you don’t even like you don’t even realize you have these biases. Of like, oh, oh, I expect my fantasy to look like this. I expect my sci fi to look like this. Or someone coming in from okay, if you expect all your fantasy to look like medieval Europe, then yeah, when someone comes in with a story that is based out of I don’t know, Japan, right. Or their culture, Japan will go to Japan, I was thinking I was thinking of something else. But yeah, if someone comes in with their cultural experiences of living in Japan, or being Japanese or being even of Japanese descent, and so their story doesn’t look like a European fantasy. And yet, the publisher is expecting their fans and look European fantasy, then yeah, there’s going to be this dissonance there. The publisher, or the editor will say, of a set up a magazine may not even necessarily realize they have, they may just be like, Oh, this feels. This feels too exotic. And it’s like, it’s not exotic. It’s Japanese, like people live in Japan. If anything, there’s probably like, you know, it’s like, oh, this is Asian inspired. Oh, that’s too exotic. There were more Asian people collectively speaking like Korea’s Jeff, Japan, China, you know, Taiwan, then there are white people. So like, sorry, that you’re like, you know, it’s just because different than what you’re familiar with, doesn’t mean that it’s exotic. It just means it’s different. And so I think having to overcome that bias of oh, if it’s different, that’s too weird. And it’s like, no, it’s not because people have to have that lived experience. You know, people have a direct experiences with these other cultural elements. It’s weird to you, but not to them. And so getting past that, and like, being able to say so getting past that and recognizing, hey, I, I have experiences I’ve, I don’t know about their experiences in the world that I am not familiar with. I need to not be afraid of those experiences. I need to be open to like, oh, okay, this is what sci fi could look like. This is what fantasy could look this is a horror look like this is what genre This is what genre fiction could look like.

A
Outside of my perception, so it’s being aware of being aware I have a bias and then also like actively seeking out. Like, it sounds silly to be like because it really sounds like a diversity quota. Those aren’t necessarily a good thing either. But at the same time, there are so many good writers out there of all backgrounds. And so if you set an actual physical quota of like, okay, so I want someone I want, I want to make sure I have writers of all these different demographics for whatever reason, you’re going to find excellent writers in those demographics. And it’s not going to be a case of, oh, they just got in because they’re black or oh, they just got in because they’ll they’re good. They’re good. Like we we need to get over that. We need to get over that. It’s some of its equitability. And some of its just like, they can be both a person can be like, a black writer, for example, can be picked for a magazine for assurance of diversity within the magazine, but also because they’re good. They’re good at what they do. Like those don’t have to be separate concepts. I think we get caught up on that. A lot. You know, the affirmative action days aren’t when I was a kid, that was like a whole big thing. Episode of er about it, it was weird. But it’s like we, you can actively seek out. Diversity for the magazine, you can you can do. It’s harder to do. I was like one of our recommendations, buildings like would be like blind making sure that there’s no names attached. But a lot of magazines already do that. Because you can tell you can tell someone’s cultural background in, in a diverse piece. If they’ve chosen to do something that’s like more connected. So that’s, that’s a diverted there. But yeah, just like actively being aware of it, being aware that, Hey, we should not just have, you know, straight white dudes in this magazine, maybe that we should be aware of exactly who we are pulling into this magazine, and looking at it and being like, yeah, you know, we have voices from all over the world. Cool. Great. Awesome.

Rasta
Okay, so it sounds to me like the two sides of it is yeah, is the pushing against the kind of Eurocentrism is very commonplace. And be like, Okay, this doesn’t feel like it matches my idea, because my idea is based off of this very Eurocentric concept of fantasy. So let me just pull back for a moment. And look at it, is it well written? Again? Is it a fantastical world, I believe?

A
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And just in being able to, to not let that bias get in the way to be able to accept, hey, there could be other reference points for a fantastical universe.

Rasta
And then the other part is just actively saying, Hey, we’re going to pursue diverse writers, we’re going to pursue things outside of the mainstream, rather than just waiting for it to come to us. Exactly.

A
Like going into the spaces where these were these writers of different backgrounds exist, and being like, hey, please submit a plot, you apply, submit, like increasing the pool. And also, I think another big part of it is also, there’s a lot of, because I think there’s, there’s another aspect of diversity, in that we don’t talk about as much. And that is like financial access to things. And that is very in the US, in particular, that’s very connected. That’s very connected to race. It just is Sollers to it, but like finding ways, but there’s also Yeah, so there’s this, so there’s this, if you’re if you have a submission fee on a magazine, and that submission fee is $20 You’re only gonna get the people who can afford that. $20. Right. Which, I mean, I guess some people $20 isn’t so some people $20 is nothing to some people $20 is half their grocery budget for the month. So are you making your magazine accessible to everyone even in that regard? Are you making submissions to your magazines or submissions to your publication, your your queering process, whatever? Are you making that accessible to as many people as possible or are you setting up unnecessary burdens? I’m not saying that like a $20 submission fee. Is it? I don’t know it would have been magazine, a magazine magazine to do both. But it’s like are you setting up unnecessary burdens to get a huge collection of people because I can tell you I can I back in back when I was, you know a younger person. There were absolutely magazines I would have loved to have submitted to you and feel like I was a good fit for but I couldn’t afford the $10 submission fee. I physically couldn’t. And so those were opportunities that slipped on by because I feel basically couldn’t afford him. So it’s like, are you so there’s other ways this could be a case like our if you’re looking for? Um, I haven’t heard anything other examples, but it’s uh, yeah. Are you making your submission process or your grading process accessible to as many people as possible?

Rasta
Yeah, I do think that making sure that the there’s a few as few barriers to entry as possible, right? Just kind of like clearing the pathway that, okay, we’re trying to make this available to people. What are the things that we can cut out that make this harder?

A
Basically? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Rasta
So here we are cinnabar. Moth, we have a focus on diversity. And we do feel that it raises all voices, the mainstream point of view is already known. And but what would you say to the people who argue against diversity and claim that it’s silencing mainstream voices or mainstream points of view?

A
It’s very much like, it’s very much like, is that that little bird meme of am mad when things are not about me? You know, or, you know, not not to necessarily reference a media franchise, it’s kind of a situation right now. But like, the whole, like, we have 36 presents this year. Why is it 37 Last year, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s the mainstream voices who are never going to not be mainstream, they’re always going to exist, you’re always going to have this this demographic of authors that aren’t going to get turned away, they’re always going to have a place because they’re the mainstream. And so there’s no silencing occurring. It’s not to come down too hard on white men, but I have to just admit it, because I have to, because I have personally experienced I have personally experienced a group a specific group of like white male writers, who are suddenly like, Oh, my God, I have to work. Oh, all this you know, all they want are people that are have this all they want are people of this race, I have to, like, work so much harder to like, get my stuff seat. And it’s like, Yeah, welcome to what it’s been like for 90% of the world this point. Like, like, Do you know how much how hard it’s been for how long for women for female and femme presenting writers to get seen in sci fi and fantasy? You know, how hard some of these non white fantasy and sci fi writers have had to work to get their stuff seen, like, a like. And it’s like, it should, it should be equally hard for everybody. It should be like this kind of equitable, everyone’s having to fight everybody. It doesn’t matter. You know what your background is. But up to this point, if you are novice or in demographic, you’ve had to work extra hard to be seen. And so now it’s just like the people who are like, oh, oh, well, now I can’t get my stuff seen as a Yeah. Welcome to the club. That we’ve all we’ve been doing this this whole time. Now you just know what it’s like, Please learn something from this.

Rasta
I think to follow up on that as well. This concept of, Oh, this one place won’t is just looking for, you know, let’s say black writers. And, and because I’m not black, I can’t submit to them. Well, how about the 25 other places that you could submit?

A
Exactly, exactly. It’s like it’s like okay, so you don’t get this one. Oh, well, you have a bajillion others, it’s fine. Like, it’s fine, you’re gonna be fine. Heaven forbid, you have to work a little harder. Maybe your writings just not very good. I I’m so me I’m very, very mean sometimes when it comes to this, because I’ve just had so many negative experiences with like, this specific mindset. And it’s, it’s these people they’re just like, they it’s there’s a there’s there’s definitely a certain subset of people who have for various demographic purposes, have basically had stuff just kind of handed to them. And those are the people that are going to be the loudest complaining about diversity. And it’s like you don’t you’ve had things handed to you your whole life, you have been presumed to be the best in your field, or the best at what you do because of your demographic. You are just now happening to be learning. You’re just now it’s like, it seems like they’re being like a mirror is being held up. And they’re suddenly realizing, hey, guess what, you’re not the best. You’re not the only thing that exists in the world, other people exist, who may be better than you at what you do, or maybe have more experience. Not better, but like have more experience in what you do. And now you have to face that oops.

Rasta
Yeah, I do think that there may be times when people are like, well, I got away with being kind of mediocre because I have exactly this set of, of pre exactly traits of being a white male, for example. Yeah, exactly the kind of get a pass on the other things, I don’t have to put in that little bit of extra quality. That’s the people who are not in the mainstream I’ve had to put in, just to be noticed.

A
Exactly, exactly. And so now they’re suddenly seeing what that looks like, and they don’t like it. And it’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty bad. And it’s in it in it pretty annoying, I guess, that we’ve all been dealing with. Cool.

Rasta
And, you know, a little bit of competition is not a bad,

A
Right. And it’s, it’s, it’s really not.

Rasta
And as far as if there’s only a couple places to submit to in the world.

A
Right. And it’s in the nature of it, because publishing has just changed so considerably. You don’t even have to go look we could have was later but like, you don’t even have to go through a publisher anymore. Right? Like, if you think if you like, Hey, you’re mad, because the magazine you’re submitting to, you know, won’t take so you’re of a certain demographic, and you’re mad that you can’t seem to find a magazine, they’ll take you because because they want diversity, they want other people they want these is affirmative action, blah, blah, well, then you can get your butt onto Amazon Kindle, and you can market your own book, because if it’s good, if it’s genuinely good, then you should be able to market it on the fact that it’s good. So don’t it’s like you have the we all of us have the power now to do that kind of thing. So you don’t have to rely on things like magazines and publishing houses anymore if you don’t want to. So if you think that your piece is good enough, but Oh, no one will take you because all they want is diversity. Well, then you get your butt on Kindle Kindle Kindle Unlimited, and prove it. If it’s good, people will find it.

Rasta
So speaking of people’s people’s work, and diverting a little bit away from the mainstream topic, and right up to a more personal topic on you, right and your writing, in your writing you you touch on pain and loss. And I wanted to ask you what kind of drives that focus was on the writing

A
It’s one of the things one pain and loss are very universal kind of concepts. I was I my life growing up, it wasn’t like the worst thing ever. Like, I’m not gonna sit here and like pretend that I had like, oh, this horrific life or something. But like, my family as a whole has gone through so much old shit over the years of like, of deaths and disease and, like, of, of just horrific things like happening to us, like collectively, that I had to learn to process grief really, really young. I get a really, really young age like a lot younger than a lot of people do. I think for me a lot I think a lot a lot earlier than a lot of people that like like mainstream do. And so that kind of just like that carries through by also flicked through just very universal experiences. That like, oh, there’s good morning, a morning a life that never got to happen or have morning. The morning the future that could have happened but didn’t and like all these like there’s just this kind of complex of like a complex is sort of like of, of trading as it.

A
It’s like, it’s this, it’s this complex of like, you have the ability to like for me personally how I see it is like, I feel like I’ve mourned situations, more than I’ve ever mourned people. I’m like, Oh, why didn’t I get to live this life? Why didn’t I get to do this thing? Why did I have to go through this? When I could not have and so and So it’s kind of like so there’s this element of that, when also, I also grew up in a family and I got this from my mom a lot. I grew up in a family, where I was one of the people that kind of wasn’t allowed not to, not to have emotions, but like, I was one of the people that I was the one that had to be like, the stronger person in the context of various indifferent family situations, like, Okay, this person’s life is falling apart, I have to even as a kid, you know, I had to be there to be like, Okay, I’m going to help I’m going to do this and like, not get to process my own emotions as much in the time. And so that kind of builds up over the years. And so a lot of it is like writing about Payless love. It’s catharsis, of like, I didn’t get to properly experience this thing as a kid. So now I’m getting to experience it as an adult, retrospectively and retroactively. And it’s like, God, that sucked. That really sucked. I never really got to experience how much it sucked to, then I’m gonna experience that now as an adult. But now that kind of builds up a lot of emotions, and you have a channel that somewhere, so

Rasta
Okay, so for you, it comes from a combination of kind of the universality of Yeah, loss and grief, but also the more personalized experience of going through the grieving process that you didn’t have the opportunity to, or an essay, the space and time to write past. And then part of the processing process for you is Neil to thence spill that onto the page.

A
So to write and like kind of, yeah, which is why a lot of my other blog, a lot of my writing, also has a lot of like, I keep having, like, see PTSD occur as a recurring theme in some of my writing, where it’s like, oh, this horrible things happened in my childhood. And now I’m experiencing the PTSD from that as an adult, and it keeps happening. And I’m not sure. I didn’t realize it. And I was like, oh, I should work through that. I should work through that. Because that theme keeps popping up. I should deal with that. Yeah, cuz you don’t even because sometimes you don’t even realize what you’re doing until you’ve done it. And then you’re like, oh, I should go to therapy.

Rasta
I’ve revealed something and learn something about myself by writing. Exactly. Yeah, I definitely do think that there is a lot of self learning. And yeah, a lot of processing that can go into writing that can be very useful tips to help us to grow, or just to kind of settle ourselves will hopefully be able to settle ourselves, even if it’s not necessarily during the writing process.

A
Right. It’s like It’s like it’s when you’re when you’re writing, it’s because funny, because lots of times you don’t notice it until you like look back on like several of your pieces. And then you look back and you go, I wrote about this particular thing a lot. Why why did I keep drawing from that as a point of inspiration? Oh, oh

Rasta
Yeah, I definitely do think that is like can happen quite a bit more than people might expect. Who from the outside looking to, you know, people who don’t necessarily write looking at writers like they just create these things. And it’s, it’s cool. There’s a lot more behind that. is speaking of surprising people and things that people might not expect from the outside looking in. Do you have anything that you think would surprise people about your personal journey to fiction author?

A
I don’t know. Like, it’s one of those things where I’m gonna guess what it could be. I guess, like the one thing that could definitely like, I think, I don’t know if it is uprising or not. But like, I was actively discouraged from pursuing writing as a professional as all my childhood. Like, it was very much a my, my family was very, very monetary wealth focused as far as like what they wanted for me. It was a Yo my mom was very much like, oh, you know, you’re gonna go off and you’re gonna have your you know, your STEM career while a while then you can write your books on the side, you can write your books on the side. And like, that didn’t happen, clearly. But yeah, there was like a lot of really kind of like active discouragement from actually pursuing any kind of writing field, or any kind of creative field professionally, which added surprise a lot of people actually, because I’m also an actor. And so I remember when I was graduating high school, a lot of people in my own theater department were really surprised like, oh, well, we’re going to college. And I was like, Oh, I’m going, I’m going to this school for this program. And they’re like you are, I was like, yeah, like, oh, you know, just assume that you were gonna go into like, an acting based field, or you’re gonna get paid. They, everyone’s everyone I knew, assumed I was gonna be going to get a BFA, or I was gonna be going into like, theater education or something. And were like, totally baffled that I was actually going hard into a STEM field. And so that’s just been kind of like a thing. It’s like a lot of people. Outside my family expected me to be going into creative field professionally within my family. That was never the expectation. It was like, No, you’re gonna go, you’re going to make a lot of money. You’re going to build my house in the lake. Then you can write in the side in your free time, and that completely did not happen. So my mom was very surprised.

Rasta
Okay, so that’s a surprise your mother? Oh, yeah.

A
Yeah. Like she she Yeah, she now she’s like, I just don’t know where you get your stories. And I was like, well, you raised me so you should be able to know where I get my stories. But, uh, yeah, so it’s, it’s, it’s funny, she’s fine with it. Now. It took her quite a while to kind of come around to like, oh, things are not the way I had hoped they would go for you. But okay, cool.

Rasta
I think it’s good though. She’s come around.

A
It helps. It helps. It helps. When I gave her her first physical copy of a book. I was in, like, sign it for her. And she was like, oh, oh, my gosh. Oh. Oh, yeah. Like it was it was very, like, it was just she’s on she’s, I love my mom did it. But she’s very strange.

Rasta
So you’ve got even published, you’ve got your body of work that’s going out that’s out there in the world. Have you found the world of policy has been welcoming to your point of view and your voice? I know, you mentioned earlier that you mostly do sci fi?

A
I do. So that’s such a difficult question. Because it’s like, so like, right now I have my stuff that’s in my medicine magazines are not published by me. But then I also have stuff that I’ve done self publishing with or having a self published cereal. And I have like a self published romance novel, because I was bored. It’s a sci fi romance novel. Very clear. It’s under a pen name, which I’ll share I don’t mind. But it’s a self publish. It’s more of like a for fun kind of thing. And at the same time, I was also querying a reason I wrote it is because I was querying a fantasy novel. And I was like, Okay, I need something else to do while I’m doing this. I’m sorry, just for fun as a writing practice, and I ended up liking it. So as I go, I’m self publishing event. And it’s like, okay, well, the romance novel has, it’s got some really good reviews, but it hasn’t really picked up a very big readership. And okay, then this novel hasn’t gotten through the querying process yet. And like, oh, this short story has been rejected, like all my short stories from a certain magazine that I’ve been applying to for like years have been rejected every single year. But at the same time, I’ve been picked up by other magazines, and I’ve, you know, I’m on other writing teams. And so it’s, it’s hard to know, that it’s hard to know, if it’s a Oh, you don’t like what I have to say. Or a just, you’re kind of weird. So you got a weird niche. So you’re gonna have a smaller audience to begin with? And then there’s marketing involving, Oh, am I marketing these self published pieces correctly? And so I have to look at it from perspective of like, it’s hard to know, like, where the where the where the sort of fault is, and all those things.

A
It’s like, oh, maybe, like, I just haven’t maybe like, Oh, I’ve submitted this magazine. And it’s like, oh, man, they actually liked my piece. And they they liked the quote, unquote, voice in the piece. But oh, they had two stories that were really similar. And so they had to just make calls somewhere, like, you never really know what’s going on in the back end. And so I kind of have to look at it from the perspective of like, okay, what’s out there and what’s successful, like, who’s reading what, what’s getting picked up and what’s getting published? And that gets really difficult that that ends up being a slightly better barometer of like, Oh, these platforms are welcoming to these concepts, these voices these views, and it’s like 5050 Like, it’s like, I definitely see. I like with tribe publishing. Like I see things on the shelves and none of it really looks like what I’m writing. But with Trad publishing, since they’re very, very it’s hard to know. Okay, is it good? because it’s chicken and egg, it’s a chicken and egg kind of thing. It’s like, Oh, if a tribe publisher took a chance on what I’m writing, would you then see more of like what I’m writing on the shelves, because oh, all of a sudden, that’s the new trend. Because like, because tribe publishing is so trend heavy, that you really can’t even use it as a good indicator of whether your stuffs good or not, or whether they want to hear from you or not, because they’re just on trend. They’ve trends that they’re going for. Oh, you didn’t read a vampire book? I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care how good it is. I’m looking for vampires right now. So that’s, that’s the kind of problem with with Trad publishing, from my perspective, is you never really know, like, Okay, why don’t you give my voice a shot, even though it’s not what you’re looking for? But it’s hard to know why they wouldn’t you know, it’s hard to know, like, Oh. Is it? Is it me personally? Or is it just not what your Trend is not what the trend is this season. So I have to again, have like a fun perspective of what’s out there. And what’s out there is is not what I want to I write what I write from, like, the perspective of my stuff that’s not published yet. I write that because I don’t see it out there. Like, it’s the stories I want to read, but they don’t seem to exist out in the world. So I’m gonna write them. And but if they don’t exist, why don’t they exist yet? Is it because people don’t want to read them? Or is because people haven’t thought to write them? Or like, what is the what’s the X factor there?

Rasta
So for you, it’s difficult to be able to answer this question with Yeah, I feel welcome or unwelcome because you don’t know what’s stopping your work necessarily being published. Right? Exactly. Doesn’t make sense. It’s a problem of a transparent lack of transparency in the process.

A
Yeah, like if I get like a like, when, like, when I was querying. My, my most recent was querying my manuscript. I wasn’t getting any feedback on why No, someone didn’t want it. None. It was just like, oh, no, I’m looking for at this time. Okay, well, why not? Like what about it was not something you were looking for. Because I don’t know that I would necessarily change it. Like I wrote what I wrote for a reason. But it lets me know, okay, this is what tried publishing is looking for right now. Cool, I’m gonna think I’m gonna think through it. I’m like, with my with my sci fi romance. I know why it’s not really getting the kind of traction that like other sci fi romance gets. And that’s because I have genetic engineering at it with like, I know, why is I know, because why, because I want a very hard sci fi route. But it’s still a romance novel, it’s just got aliens. And I know what the alien romance market looks like. And it’s not what I wrote. But I kind of don’t care. Because it’s what I wanted to read. Like, it’s the kind of story I want. If I’m gonna, like, goof off and write an alien romance novel, so that one, I’m just kind of like, I’m aware of what’s going on there. And that’s not necessarily a view and a voice thing. That’s a the alien romance market has a very specific demographic that reads it. And I’m just not quite hitting the exact same markers. Because I’m more of a traditional sci fi writer, I just happen to include romance versus a romance than a sci fi skin. So I know what’s happening there. That’s only because it’s self publishing, like self published, like, you can actually see it a lot, a lot clearer.

Rasta
Yeah, that makes sense to me. You know, if, if you write something that doesn’t appeal to the audience, the market for that, right? Or that niche within a genre even.

A
Right, like you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna get as many hits, even if it’s good, you know, so you have to accept that you have to so you have two options there either right to market, which is hard in self publishing is particular, either your right to market and just write what people want to read, even if you don’t necessarily care about it, or you just accept the fact that hey, I wrote something weird, but I don’t care because I like it.

Rasta
Good. I definitely think that that can sometimes be a difficult balance for people who are authors are trying to reach their audience, but also their stories that they want to write don’t fit necessarily with what the more the readers are looking for. Yeah, it’s like, oh, you’re writing something that you enjoy,

A
Right? I’m like, I’m I’m very antsy. I’m from the excuse me, I have a cat yelling at me. So if you hear screaming, that’s what that is. If I am I’m a very peculiar reader. I don’t read to trends. It’s like I know what I like. It’s a very specific thing. And so I’m constantly trying to find this specific thing. And it’s it’s never been on trend, literally ever. So I’m reading stuff from like, all back I remember having to go back as far as possible timewise to find the things I want to read, because it’s never been on trend. It’s never gonna be on trend. I don’t care. I love it. So I’ll just, you know, that’s, that’s the perspective I take it from, it’s like, oh, it’s not on trend, we know what someone’s gonna find it, someone’s gonna like it.

Rasta
So following up on that, with the, you know, writing not to the mainstream, right, not writing these trends. Do you have any piece of advice that you would give to your fellow authors who are not in the mainstream and are writing or wanting to write about topics or point of views that are not part of the mainstream? that aren’t part of the trend?

A
Yeah, so. So a lot of it comes down to so it’s kind of almost like a two part kind of like thing to that like, stream. It’s, it’s, it kind of comes down to what you’re thinking, considering the mainstream? Like, because if are you talking because like, if you’re talking about like, I’m, like, I died from a diversity perspective. Like a oh, I want to write characters that aren’t necessarily mainstream, that are more like diverse, that are off brand or whatever. Well, let me back up a little bit, because I feel like I feel like I’m drifting

Rasta
Yeah, like, okay, yeah. Two parts here. One. Yeah. Let’s go with the topic. We’re just talking about words like, like not to trend more niche,

A
right. It’s yeah, so in that regard, like, and that’s the thing is where I was kind of sitting anyway, is just write what you like, because I think I would much rather read something very, very weird. That is nothing like anything else. But it really feels like the author genuinely likes the subject matter. Like, if you like what you’re writing, if you if you are invested in what you’re writing that comes through the writing. And there is always going to be your, if your experiences aren’t as unique as you think they are. In the perspective of if you wrote it, that means you like it, if you wrote it, because you like it, someone else out there is going to like it, there’s going to be other there are going to be other people out there that share enough lived experience of of you, or share enough space or sort of interest with you as a person to like what you’ve written, if you like what you’ve if you like what you’ve written. Like you’re never gonna, it’s like almost impossible to write something that only you like, like, there’s gonna be somebody else out there who likes what you write. And so it’s a matter of finding that person, finding those people finding the market for finding that niche finding where you can slither in, and be like, hello, I’m here I exist. And so yeah, it’s like it’s just, it’s just like pushing forward and being like, Yo, I’m gonna write I’m gonna write because if if you write to trend and you don’t like trend it’s going to come through it’s going to come through you’re going to read it and it’s going to be boring and it’s going to be less gonna be heartless it’s going to be lacking in essential spark. And so you know, like, there’s, there’s value in something a little bit different.

Rasta
So let your creative spark ignited with the things that you enjoy.

A
Right? Because I love weird books. I love I don’t, I don’t like a lot of like, really made I am I whether this is from whether this is a remnant of my pygmy era, I don’t know. Or my not like other like other people era. If it’s if it’s really, really mainstream, I’m less inclined to actually like read it, because it’s probably going to be appealing to a very, like, broad audience, which is fine, but I’m probably going to find it boring. I’m gonna be able to like, oh, okay, that’s just this. Oh, like, I’m, like, Oh, I’m gonna be able to read into like, oh, that’s this narrative aspect that this trope that’s this character and be like blue right before the book is weird. I am way more likely to pick it up.

Rasta
I can I can definitely understand that. Because this is not quite books. But games, for example, have a thing where a lot of things are following a certain kind of formula, right? That same books, games, different media have this formula for what appeals to a large audience, right. And so I tend not to play a lot of mainstream games, although I do play quite a few games. Just because I know what’s gonna, what’s gonna happen. I know it’s coming. And I can’t really get invested because I can see it coming down the line. Yeah. Certain movies as well have that issue for me certain books as well have an issue for me. I’m like, Okay, I know exactly where this is going to go before I even pick it up.

A
What’s the point? Right? That’s me. I’m that way. Yeah, like it’s sometimes it’s fine. Sometimes it’s fun. Like sometimes you’re like, sometimes there’s love comfort, and like knowing what’s going to happen down the line. But sometimes you want to be like, challenged and you want to be like, Yeah, I want to be surprised. I want to be intrigued. I want to be I want to see new concepts. See a lot. Yeah,

Rasta
yeah. I think there’s always going to be an appeal for people who, even even if you take a trope, and you spin it just a little bit, add a little bit of yourself into it. And suddenly it’s experimental. It’s different.

A
Yeah, exactly. It’s like taking take taking chances within your own genre and that kind of thing.

Rasta
Yeah. And so I think that that’s really good advice to give people is to stay true to what keeps them interested. Because if you’re interested in your own writing, then other people will also have an interest. You’re not that unique, even your own unique person.

A
I definitely think loving your own writing is really huge. I interact with a lot of authors who will go back and talk about being like, oh my god, editing my work is such a slog, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, yeah, there’s definitely an element of slogging Enos with editing because you’re trying to figure out the best word here. But I never get tired of reading my own work ever. Like, I don’t know if that’s narcissism or something. But like, I, I always like to go back and reread things I’ve already written. Like, I am able to constantly revel in the act of creation. I never get tired of what I wrote. Like, obviously, there comes a point where like, Oh, my God read the same passage. 17 times, looking for looking for commas. And so now I’m tired of reading it. But like, yeah, that kind of like dread feeling of oh, my god, I hate reading my own work. And it’s like, I think you might need to readjust how you consider your own writing. Because if you hate what you write, Oh,

Rasta
right. Oh. You can enjoy your work. That’s that’s a concern.

A
Yeah, that’s a good Yeah, exactly. Like don’t don’t do it. Just because you feel like you have to

Rasta
add, do think there is a very sensual kind of heart that comes to stories where you can tell it, the writer enjoyed it.

A
Right? Exactly.

Rasta
So I want to talk about you, as a writer a little bit, move up of it away from advice to other writers, but more to you specifically. What is your goal as a writer, I think their goal,

A
I, I am realistic, I’m at a stage in my life, where I have one very privileged that if I write and I never make a dime with writing ever again, I’m still fine. I have my other my other jobs, my other freelance, I, you know, I’m good in that regard. So I have to confess, I have to consistently acknowledge that privilege, because so people don’t get that. So for me, it’s a matter of I, I want this is a sense range, but like I want, I also have to be realistic in the fact that the vast majority of like, writers don’t make a lot of money. So for me, it’s not about money. It’s not really about career, because career implies a level of like monetary compensation allows you to live like that would be great. Like that would be awesome. To be able to be in a place where I could sell books, I could sell stories, and make enough in a year to be at least a little self sufficient. And that’s never gonna happen. It’s very unlikely it’s going to happen. So don’t, don’t, don’t reach for that. But I would love to be able to be at a convention with a little table of books I’ve written you, no matter if it’s through whatever methodology, tried publishing, self publishing, whatever. And because I think it’s DivaCup one of the things I did use to when I was shooting for like, like a consistent traditional publishing, but in recent years, like the publishing market has shifted a lot. And so that’s kind of like off my goal list. I’m like, but basically to be able to have books that I’ve self published or through some traditional publishing mechanism, be able to sit at a convention and have a table books, and have somebody come up to me and be like, Oh, my God, I love your books. I already own a copy. I brought it for you to sign. I’m also here to buy the next one. That’s like, that’s my goal. That’s my moment of like, oh my God, I’ve connected with someone or they’ve read some thing I’ve written and they felt seen. And they’ve seen they’ve been like, oh my god, I spoke I so connect with this character, or like, Oh my God, I’ve never seen a character like this before that I can connect that that’s what I want. That’s what I want. Because what I want is I want that fan, a fan action, but not necessarily like in a famous kind of way, just like the connection with somebody else.

Rasta
For you, you want your writing to connect with somebody, and you’ll experience that connection as well on your end.

A
Right, exactly. And to know that, like, I can put a book out, and people are gonna be excited for it and be like, Oh my God, it’s their next book. Oh my god, I love the other book. I’m so excited this next one. Because that’s how I feel with some of my favorite authors, where it’s like, oh my god, I’m willing to read anything they wrote, I’m gonna like it as much as something else they wrote, but I’m willing to read it cuz I love that author so much. Because they connect with me because they get they see me. That’s, that’s what I want to do with somebody else. Like, there’s so often I’ll read an author where I’m like, Oh, my God, how are you inside my head. And I want to do it somebody else. Like, that’s what I want.

Rasta
I can remember vividly certain authors who have written books that actually moved me because I struggle personally to be moved by a lot of books, just because, you know, once you read a lot, you can kind of see where things are going. And it might be a little bit harder to connect on level where it’s moving. Whereas like, it’s good, but it’s not moving. And so I can remember very vividly certain authors where I was moved by their writing, and I remember them fondly, I I can list them off. And be like, Yeah, this moment in this book, is when I fell in love,

A
right? No, that’s exactly yeah, like so much. Sometimes it takes me like it’s not, it’s more like a sometimes it’s more of like a broad spectrum of like, Oh, these elements of the stories, really, I really liked these elements of the stories, blah, blah, blah. But ya know, they’re one of my newer one of my newer favorite authors and favorite series. Like, it’s not even a sad book, like the book itself. The books themselves are no, they’re not like sad. They’re like a fantasy adventure. But they’re really in like, the third book of the series, I want to say, there was this moment where I started crying. And I was like, Why am I crying? Nothing sad is happening. But it was just the circumstance that our main character was in was so like, and the emotions that the main character was going through were so like, similar to some of my own experiences, or like just this, this concepts that I really, really, really touched me that I was just like, I am crying over this, this fantasy adventure right now. That’s what I knew that this was that was it for me?

Rasta
Yeah, I think be able to have that connection with the potential reader for yourself a point of view, a very wonderful experience to be able to share that. And so with, with the desire for connection, do you have a goal of reaching a large audience? Or are you looking to even just one person is enough?

A
And I think I think there’s definitely something to be said for, like quantity of people. Like, I would love to have a large audience of devoted fans, in the sense of like, in the sense of like, like, not like huge, I’m not looking I’m not looking for, like, you know, I’m not getting like a mob paparazzi level, you know, but like the idea of like, knowing that there’s this, like, really diehard group out there. Like, I’d love it to be a lot of people, but if, you know, like, if you notice, it is what it is, like I would I would rather have, I would rather have like 10 really devoted fans versus 100 People who think I’m okay. If that makes if that makes sense. Like, I mean, obviously 100 people lead more sales, which is, you know, when you have to consider writing as a business, it’s always a factor. But um,

Rasta
you know, I can understand that I definitely kind of feel the same way with what I have written. I’d rather have like, you know, maybe five people who are like, that was great. Then 50 people or like, I mean, it was okay, I enjoyed it.

Rasta
But I want to move a little bit to publishing as as a whole. I know we’ve talked a little bit about when it comes to difficulty with transparency of publishing, to understand if it’s welcoming to your points of view and your voice. Do you feel that the world of publishing is showing an increase Seeing an understanding of the levels of diversity within your community in your and your background? Or going? Or would you say that it’s difficult to tell? Because a lack of transparency? Because we mentioned that a little bit before?

A
Right? I definitely have to look at kind of like, what’s out there already got, like, you have to kind of look at like, Okay, what’s, what’s been picked to be published? Because I think that’s going to tell you like, what publishing is trying to do. And it it so I so speaking from, so it’s hard to speak for, like the queer community, because it’s already extremely fucking diverse. It’s already very, very diverse. And so there is definitely an element there of I definitely see it from the from the, from a queer perspective of I have yet to see my specific combination of queerness show up in traditional publishing books is like several indie books that I’ve like really like, you know, hit it, but I have yet to really see it a lot in traditional publishing, because they tend to I think, I think Trad publishing is trying to be safe. And so it’s like, oh, we’re going to Oh, yeah. Okay, so we’re going to create these queer narratives, we’re gonna be safe queer narratives, things that also appeal to like non queer people and people outside, you know, the alphabet soup. And so they end up going very safe, or they end up still adhering to narratives that people are, this is this is hard to hard to describe this, they still they adhere to, like, familiar queer narratives, in that light queerness as a as a primary conflict. Like, oh, you’re gay, therefore, that’s the conflict of the story, you being gay, and it’s like, you still see that a lot when you don’t necessarily need to. I think that’s an artifact of publishing, trying to like, catch up. And I definitely see growth, I definitely see growth in general because definitely a lot more gay books basically out there than they used to be. You are seeing more trans characters, a lot of Allah Ya, a lot of YA is really pushing it. But that in itself is more of an issue like that. There’s a whole complex thing there. But you are seeing more and more. You’re seeing things like you’re slightly seeing things like iron widow like iron widow with a with a presumably with a bot with a non binary author, a prison of a woman main character, whose us whose whose relationship with gender is not very strict, and definitely reads more like genderqueer or non binary, and then to bisexual male characters, and the three of them being in a polyamorous triad, that’s being a why a book that is, that’s huge. That’s a huge like thing. And it took us years to gel like forever to get that book seen. But it’s, it’s an exception, not the rule. It’s a very, it’s an exception, not the rule. And so while you still see a big growth in, in queer books in ya, and in some adult, they’re still they’re still in safe. The narratives are still safe. They’re still safe nears, like, oh, it’s Oh, it’s two boys, and it’s just like, Oh, they’re in love and whatever. So that’s, that’s tricky. That’s, that’s one of those things, we’re gonna have to kind of wait to see like how that grows. But they’re, they’re trying. They’re trying, if only just because they know that stuff sells. Right? Like, they know that people will buy it. Like, I know when I’m like, if I’m like, if I go to the bookstore, and like, I have two options. And this book is all straight characters, and which is like, not representative, the people I know. And like my whole my friend group, we’re all queer, you know, to some degree. So if I see like, a book, it’s all straight people and a book that’s like, oh, we have a diverse mix of different kinds of different kinds of queer and trans whatever I’m gonna, I’m going to pick the second book, I’m gonna pick the book that that mimics my real life friend group a little bit more, because I just, you know, it’s a thing. And so there’s definitely a monetary issue there. And so I think they’re, they’re finally realizing, Oh, my God, we can tap this market financially. Why aren’t we doing this? We want their money. It’s easy, being very financially motivated, but hopefully it also catches up in regards to actually understanding what that community looks like. And developing books that actually match the lived experiences of the community, as opposed to just selling to the community. There’s a distinction there. I feel like we’re still kind of on the edge of it. And then I won’t even I can’t. Man I again, this is the audio medium. I’m a fat person. And like we got more, we gotta have more fat protags y’all, especially in Romans like, Oh my God, Romans is so bad because we’re always what Romans will do is they’ll have a fat protagonist, but they’ll spend half the book being like, complaining about being fat. And it’s like, no, let the woman eat a cheesecake like. So like, that’s something that that that I can say for sure needs to get fixed, that they are not on top of an indie publishing is doing a much better job of Trad publishing, it’s not across all genres, but indie publishing is kind of doing a little better on. So

Rasta
I definitely think it ends up being a point of conflict rather than just a point of existence.

A
Right? Like, I’m fat, and I live in the world, and never ever in my day to day life. Except when I have to go buy clothes, is my fat and it’s a conflict. I’m just existing. Just write a story about that. Write a story about a fat person existing. Like it does not have to be that complicated. I’m doing that I’m working on that. Because even I have I even I even don’t think about it. Like when Why am I making this character size to why am I doing that? I don’t know what that’s like. And then I’m like, that’s up that lets she’s she’s, she’s a fetal at now at least.

Rasta
It’s a good point. I it’s not something I even actively think about. But now that you brought it up, I think my characters have been, I’ve just naturally made them slimmer. Unless they’re like, super thin. Right? I honestly think of them that way. But they are definitely not fat. Not for any reason. I’m not again, yeah, just doesn’t.

A
You don’t feel again, even as a fat person. I don’t think about it. Because to me, it’s like I don’t Yeah, it’s like it’s one of those things, you’ll be thinking about it. When you actually sit and think about it for a minute. You’re like, ha, ha, is that internalized fat phobia? What is that?

Rasta
What have I done here? Yeah. I’m not sure. But it’s

A
something to think. Right? It’s something to think about. It’s something you don’t think about. And then when when you do you’re like, Oh, why do

Rasta
I choose? Like, this goes back wonderfully to what you said earlier about internalized biases that we don’t necessarily notice.

A
Yeah, and it’s yeah, it’s things. Yeah, exactly.

Rasta
So I guess, maybe you’ve already answered this question. But just to make it into a neat thing. If there’s one message you could get to the policy community to hear and understand, what would that be?

A
It Okay, so this is very much a it’s a people, people want to read books, they want to read weird books, they want to experience things that are the app, people want to, obviously, you have some people in the reading community that they want the same thing over and over again, you don’t have to worry about those people. Most people will find what they want, it’s fine. But like, people, there are large parts of the reading community that want new and interesting and weird things. And like, most of the books I pick up, like over the course of the years, sometimes I’ll see sometimes I’ll see you on the shelf at the store. But lots of times, I’m picking them up, I’m getting recommendations from other people. Because the things that the publisher is like promoting like It’s like sci fi stuff, I see it like it like as I get started, like I get ads from publishers in my Facebook a lot because Facebook algorithm, and they’ll advertise a book and I’m like, I don’t want to read that book that you just advertised to me. Like I recently got an advertisement for a book where I was like, Oh, sounds interesting. And I read the fuller description and I was like, No, Ill I don’t want to read that. Why are you why are you even publishing this book? Like why have you advertise this to me? This is absolutely not what I want to do so but I’m so I’m getting recommendations from other people who are finding books that do not get mainstream advertising that I couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to find in a store if I wanted to. So it’s like you have this diversity of books that are getting published, but they’re not showing up in store shelves. They’re not getting like the sort of like off the shelf exposure kind of thing. Like I posted in one of my reading groups, I just finished a book recently. And every time I finished the book, I’m like, Oh my God, this book I just read. This is what it’s like. And the instant I post out this book, I’m getting recommendations of books that are similar to it that I’m just like, add to my list, add to my list add to my list, and it’s like none of this is happening in actual advertising market. This is all word of mouth. And if the publishing community understood that, how strong that how much stronger the word of mouth recommendation is, versus, oh, I’m gonna throw you a Facebook ad I think they would have a much better understanding what people actually want to read. And the the hunger for different and strange and peculiar books that are out there, that they would realize they don’t have to play it safe. You know, like, they can take chances on weirder things, because people want to read up there, they’re sharing it with each other. It’s just, you’re not marketing, the weird books you’re having, like, they’re languishing. And they’re not selling because you’re not you’re not pushing them. But people want to read weird stuff. And you just, you can keep letting it just slide away.

Rasta
I guess this the message would be to not just have diversity of publication, but also diversity of marketing.

A
Right? Diversity of marketing. And then like, though, yeah, like, it’s like, Oh, you’ll pick like your, your two books that you’re going to push. And then, oh, we’ve also put out 20 other books this year, that are all very different, but I didn’t know about those at all. Like, I don’t know how people keep up with new releases, because I don’t see book advertisements. Like I have specific authors I follow and I know when their next books are coming out. But like as far as like just finding new authors, like, I’m lucky if I’ll be like, like, every so often, I’ll go to like the big Barnes and Noble, where I’m more likely to find someone I didn’t know before. But like, I’ll be flipping through and then be like, Oh, I haven’t heard of this author. But this sounds cool. But most of the time, I’m coming in with already an idea of like, oh, yeah, I saw this book. I wanted to grab it next time I saw it. Oh, my goodness. She’s actually here. Yoink. But like Barnes and Noble didn’t sell that to me. The publisher didn’t sell that to me. Some dude on Tik Tok sold that book to me, right? Because they thought it was great. So it’s like

Rasta
I definitely understand most of the books that I’ve read over the years have actually just been recommendations. Like when I was younger, as my parents, my parents would be like, particularly my father would push me to be like, Hey, I read this book. It’s really good. We have it here. Try it out. And I end up reading it and and love. Yeah, a lot of the time. And then he’d be like, Oh, you liked that book? Why? I was checking out these other books. Would you be in some reading them with me? And right, as I’ve grown older, I have friends where I’m like, I read this book recently. What have you been reading recently? The way I read this book recently, and we trade books that we read, and that’s actually most of my reading,

A
Like exactly like, like I the books I grew up on, were the books we already had in the house. Like just my mom had read it at some point, and it was up on the shelf. And she was like, oh, yeah, I like that. Do you want to read it? Sure. West, Vivian, by Harry Harrison shuwaikh. Pray by Michael Craig and the heavy reading Michael Creighton really early. My mom was a fan. So yeah, like No, I’m the exact same way. And then I also got the library. The library was really big, because I could buy up to it. And so my dad was my dad and I would go there like every other Friday. So I had access to books and what was in the house was in the library for the longest time. And then now as an adult, it’s more like, Okay, I’ve read all those. Those books are like, those are the more mainstream books. And so now it’s like book talk, I’m on tick tock, you know, and so like, I’m getting recommendations there. Or I’m in a whole bunch of like reading groups online. And like, they’ll be like, Oh, my God, I just picked up this book, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, Oh, I don’t want to read that. But thank you for bringing it to my attention. Yeah, so yeah, it’s it’s I don’t even

Rasta
Yeah. Recommendations. I mean, that makes sense. It’s trusting the community to find it. The books that you’re putting out there, you’re also trusting that the books will be we’ll have a community that will want to read them. Yep. Yeah, I think that is a very good point of trusting the readers to exist. There’s a lot of people reading.

A
Right, exactly. Peep God, I think, I want to say like, I think we’re at the highest level of like, per capita readers in the past like 20 years, or something right now. Like there are more people reading now than in like the past 40 years or something stupid like that. Yeah.

Rasta
I think that’s a wonderful message to leave it off on. I’d like to thank you, Ashe for talking with me today from being on the rightest triangle. And thank you to all of our beautiful moss for listening. Ashe, can you tell us where to find you on social media?

A
Absolutely. So you can find me so my handle does your my handle that I use as pixels and pins – p i x e l s and pins – p i n s. It’s old, the old handle the good fight the social pixels and pins.com, my Twitter, my my Twitter, my Instagram, my Tiktok are all pixels and pins. So you can find me there and it’s all linked on my website. So I’m pretty easy to find.

Rasta
Wonderful. And be sure to visit cinnabar moth.com or cinnabar or cinnabar moth literary collections.com and check out the transcripts and we’ll also have Ashe’s social media links. Ashe, thank you again for coming on today. It was a pleasure talking with you. Absolutely. And to all of our listeners. Thank you for listening, listening and bye bye