This was one of my favourite things in Zhara, and I thought it was really exciting to see that we'd both done this independently. Unlike you, I ended up not doing an author's note for Dragonfall and thinking people would understand why I did both that and the way the narrative positions were braided to avoid third person pronouns for my nonbinary protagonist. I am secretly amused (if slightly exasperated) when reviewers confidently call Arcady she or he throughout, seemingly not noticing they are overlaying their assumptions onto the same words on the page. I also have people capitalise the They/Them for strangers above them in status, and swap once they've shared their pronouns with hand gestures.
However, I often wonder if I was...overly optimistic to think most people would step back and consider why I made these choices through a queer lens. There's a fair amount of grumpiness for the narrative position blend, the capitalised honorific, and the default they. For awhile I worried I'd overcomplicated things or been either too clever or not clever enough. Eventually I decided that no, this was important to me as a nonbinary creator, and the grumpy people can go kick rocks.
I am still currently debating whether I should add an author's note to the paperback. The lecturer in me that taught Barthes and Genette bristles a bit or doesn't want to feel like I have to explain myself, but also in the age of social media and hyper-connection, it seems harder than ever for the author to be dead or somewhere else. My current compromise is there's an upcoming paperback edition with a Q&A in the back and I snuck it in there.
I hadn't heard of the The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis specifically before but it makes complete sense. I have also found myself not as obviously gendering strangers in my mind, subtly. And by weaving this idea seamlessly into our art, we are asking people to challenge assumptions. Others might start to think about their language choices, or broaden empathy. It is definitely political. I, too, yearn for understanding. But I understood you in Zhara, and I wish I'd been able to read it when I was 15 instead of 35.
This was one of my favourite things in Zhara, and I thought it was really exciting to see that we'd both done this independently. Unlike you, I ended up not doing an author's note for Dragonfall and thinking people would understand why I did both that and the way the narrative positions were braided to avoid third person pronouns for my nonbinary protagonist. I am secretly amused (if slightly exasperated) when reviewers confidently call Arcady she or he throughout, seemingly not noticing they are overlaying their assumptions onto the same words on the page. I also have people capitalise the They/Them for strangers above them in status, and swap once they've shared their pronouns with hand gestures.
However, I often wonder if I was...overly optimistic to think most people would step back and consider why I made these choices through a queer lens. There's a fair amount of grumpiness for the narrative position blend, the capitalised honorific, and the default they. For awhile I worried I'd overcomplicated things or been either too clever or not clever enough. Eventually I decided that no, this was important to me as a nonbinary creator, and the grumpy people can go kick rocks.
I am still currently debating whether I should add an author's note to the paperback. The lecturer in me that taught Barthes and Genette bristles a bit or doesn't want to feel like I have to explain myself, but also in the age of social media and hyper-connection, it seems harder than ever for the author to be dead or somewhere else. My current compromise is there's an upcoming paperback edition with a Q&A in the back and I snuck it in there.
I hadn't heard of the The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis specifically before but it makes complete sense. I have also found myself not as obviously gendering strangers in my mind, subtly. And by weaving this idea seamlessly into our art, we are asking people to challenge assumptions. Others might start to think about their language choices, or broaden empathy. It is definitely political. I, too, yearn for understanding. But I understood you in Zhara, and I wish I'd been able to read it when I was 15 instead of 35.
<3 <3 <3