About Publishing, About Writing, Current Events, Diversity in Publishing

The Saga of Sensitivity Readers

by  • 

Emma Shacochis // Blog Director

Not every author who includes diverse characters in their stories is going to be doing so from an #OwnVoices perspective, but they still may hope to properly portray their characters. In these cases, authors will often turn to sensitivity readers, proofreaders and editors whose experiences are similar to those of an author’s characters and can offer better insight as to how they might be more-accurately depicted.

Young adult writer Becky Albertalli was shocked to find that readers felt alienated from her book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda due to an offhand comment from its narrator that was perceived as minimizing the struggles of queer women. Not wanting to make the mistake again, but still hoping to include a diverse cast of characters in her books, she’s committed herself to hiring sensitivity readers for her following stories and their characters that she can’t relate to directly. (In 2020, Albertalli came out as bisexual in response to the mounting backlash regarding her frequent depictions of queer characters in literature. While not directly related to sensitivity reading, this is another case where an author’s identity in relation to their protagonists can often be valued more than their writing itself. Is it better to force writers to discuss their personal life for readers’ comfort than it is to assume that they worked with professionals who helped them create accurate depictions of marginalized identities?)

 Beck Albertalli, who at the time of her interview characterized herself as, “white, chubby, Jewish, anxious.” She has since come out as bisexual.

The way you feel about sensitivity readers might depend on what kind of book you’re trying to write. There are plenty of authors as of late who are interested in their characters being well-rounded and not falling into stereotypes, who therefore seek out sensitivity readers on their own for input:

But then there are the writers who, as sensitivity readers grow in popularity, view the profession as moral policing or censorship (the same way many authors, particularly those who are inclined to write about schools for sorcery, view criticism of their views as “cancel culture”). As recently as this past summer, writers were demagoguing the job as “fiction’s new moral gatekeepers…a seductively cheap way to cancel-proof your book,” despite the fact that, as author James Tilton points out, “In just about every other way, writers as a group are notoriously obsessed with accuracy…Too many of us have a lower set of standards when it comes to our marginalized characters.”

Joyce Carol Oates took to Twitter in 2017 to rebuff the discussion of authenticity reads from a young sensitivity reader and author:

Oates was clearly unaware that the woman she was virtually responding to was Dhonielle Clayton, bestselling author of The Belles series, COO of We Need Diverse Books, and owner of content creation company Cake Creative Kitchen. As a writer, Clayton has used sensitivity readers, ensuring that the experiences she wrote about but couldn’t relate to were being portrayed well. For years, however, she’s been a sensitivity reader herself, working with nonblack authors to create authentic and non-stereotyped Black characters. Growing up, she “picked up fast that in most of the books that I wanted to read – the fun books – the brown people were all coded as evil. The people who looked like me were always the villains.”

 Author and sensitivity reader Dhonielle Clayton.

Clayton has frequently pointed out that describing the work of sensitivity readers as “censorship” is both a misuse of the term and misunderstanding of the job’s role. The work is as serious and important to the book’s quality as the work of a publishing house’s editor. Many sensitivity readers would go through college or writing workshops with classmates and writers reaching out to ask them about their portrayals of nonwhite, queer, or disabled characters. If it’s clear that these questions need answers, why not make a career out of helping authors improve what they write? After all, Clayton explains, authors failing to create well-rounded characters just because they have experiences different from theirs is simply bad writing. Sensitivity readers are not out to be “moral police,” only to prevent unintentionally harmful character portrayals and, as in Clayton’s case, point out when diversity is treated like something for the author to pat themselves on the back about, rather than a genuine part of the character’s life. There are even cases where she finds that authors write insensitive or bigoted main characters with grace, and that their harmful behaviors being broken down are part of the narrative: “Any premise can be interesting, it just has to be written well.”

It’s not as though Clayton has no issues with sensitivity reading and its relationship to white writers. She still believes that, helpful as authenticity reads can be, they are “merely a Band-aid covering up a deep, bleeding wound,” explaining to Katie Couric, “The real censorship is the fact that people from marginalized groups have been blocked from the children’s publishing world for decades.”

“These writers think they’re doing the world a service,” she said in a 2018 interview. “Like, ‘Look at me, I’m showing up for the social-justice movement.’ But the problem is that they’re showing up and they’re taking a seat…Them writing a story about a black kid prevents me from writing one, because when I show up with my manuscript, the publisher tells me that the position is filled.” In a now-deleted tweet, she wrote, “The reason I’ve done over 35 sensitivity reads this year alone is b/c [sic] publishers aren’t hiring black content creators but everyone wants to write about black people.” For all of these nonblack authors that will go to her for sensitivity reads, there are dozens that still assert that, “our very existence (or presumed power) is proof that censorship runs rampant, stifling their freedom to write what they want to write.”

Sensitivity reading, as an industry and in its perception, isn’t perfect. While it offers the chance for marginalized writers and editors to offer their insight to writers looking for their advice, reader databases like the kind on Writing Diverselymore or less rely on their staff having to promote every facet of their identity and list their past traumas. They make a profit, of course, but how healthy can it be for these freelance readers to make a profit off of their identities?

 Two examples of reader bios from Writing Diversely – the readers’ skills are highlighted to a lesser extent than their diversity is.

In a 2018 blog post, Penguin Random House began promoting the work of “authenticity readers,” explaining the readers’ duties and why they might be helpful. It raises the question: should publishing houses have full-time sensitivity readers on their staff? Or is it best that this job remains freelance? In-house editors may recommend that a manuscript goes to a sensitivity reader prior to publication, especially if they believe the book could generate controversy. Other times, authors will independently find readers to offer insight on improvements they could make to their representation. Would giving authenticity readers full-time positions make accurate representation more of a necessity, rather than an optional choice, or would it cause further author backlash on “forced censorship”? The work that the publishing industry puts out is aided by the work of sensitivity readers, as they ensure more accurate and thoughtful portrayals of marginalized characters. However, the freelance nature of these readers, and the amount of white writers whose stories rely on sensitivity reads to make them more successful, points to yet another example of the “one homogenous group [that] dominates publishing.” The real issue is not censorship, as Clayton writes: “It’s not so much about who is writing what but rather who gets published with the content they’ve chosen to write.”

Dhonielle Clayton.

2 comments for “The Saga of Sensitivity Readers”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *