Hey folks! This past weekend was New York City Pride, and that fact — in concert with a few queries I’ve received recently — inspired this blog post.
I talk a lot on Twitter (at @dreamoforgonon) and in general about my interest in fiction, particularly genre fiction, by and about people from marginalized perspectives. What does that mean? I’ve been advised it’s important for agents to speak very precisely about these things, and to solicit these manuscripts openly. There are a lot of discouraging words out there on the web suggesting that all agents — or the publishers we work with — don’t want to see these books. That isn’t true! It’s actually my passion as an agent to find great work by and about people who haven’t historically had a voice in publishing.
When I say I’m especially interested in ‘diverse books’, or ‘minority books’, or ‘books about marginalized people’, I generally mean I’m looking for books by and about members of the following groups of people:
* The LGBT+ Community
* People of Color
* People with Disabilities
* Religious Minorities
These groups overlap, obviously! You could belong to one or none or all of them, and so could the protagonist of your novel.
I’m not only looking for books with these subjects, and you should definitely try me even if your book doesn’t qualify; this is just something I’m passionate about and a cause I believe in. If your book furthers minority representation, definitely talk to me about it!
A frustrating thing I’ve encountered, though, is people trying to catch my eye by forcing their book into that category when it does no such thing. This isn’t a good idea — it’s presumptuous and dismissive of actual real world issues.
Here’s what I don’t mean when I say I’m particularly interested in marginalized protagonists:
“I have read that you are interested in stories about marginalized perspectives. My novel is about Moonflower, an elf fighting against human oppression of her people.” This is a really common tactic in queries, and it bugs me. When I say I’m interested in stories about minorities, I mean real minorities. Elves and vampires and faeries are cool and all, but until there’s an actual elf population in our real world facing speciesist oppression, it’s not really what I’m talking about.
I’m looking for books that elevate real world voices that have been underrepresented and silenced historically in our fiction.
Obviously there’s a long history of fantastical beings standing in for minorities in fiction, especially in SF/F. Marvel’s original X-Men in the 60s were five white teenagers who allegorically represented the struggle of racial and ethnic minorities. Harry Potter‘s Hermione Granger and other ‘Muggleborn’ characters similarly stand in for the oppressed. There’s nothing wrong with these characters, whom I love, but I’ve always felt — for example — that the X-Men’s minority allegories worked much better in the 80s, when the book focused on Kenyan heroine Storm and her young Jewish friend Kitty Pryde. They were part of the allegorical minority group, ‘mutants’, yes — but they were also members of real minority groups. That’s real representation. Forcing marginalized people to see themselves in fantasy fiction only through symbols and allusions is, to my mind, unfair.
So please, feel free to send me your book about mermaids, or dwarves, or were-ostriches, or what-have-you (just please, no vampires for the foreseeable future). That’s no problem at all — but don’t try to sell it to me as a book about a minority topic unless they are gay mermaids, or dwarves of color, or were-ostriches with disabilities. Moonflower and her oppressed elf clan could be amazing characters! But if they have no connection to real world oppression, trying to equate that with minority representation is disingenuous and just kind of rude.
