More Notes on Discoverability

Last month I attended the Nebula Awards for the second time in my life. Last year I discovered that I had no idea who most of the nominees were. This year, while I knew more of them, I still didn’t know a significant number.

My personal relationship with storytelling explains a great deal, most notably that I only read novels. It’s not surprising that I don’t know the short story, novelette, and novella authors, but it got me thinking about what I read.

I started thinking about underrepresented voices—you know, like PoC and queer and feminist. I read a lot of women, but looking back over the last year, almost every book I read was written by a Wonder Bread author. So I started looking about and, not too surprisingly, discovered a whole new world of stories from people I’ve never heard of because they operate outside of my silo.

Then something weird happened.

I found a book by a black, feminist author about a 50-something woman general who…well…had an adventure. Fantasy, of course, because nobody that age would have such an adventure in the real world of fiction. Few men (save maybe Rambo) and never a woman. What an idea!

It was beautiful. It was bloody. It was short and painted in bold strokes with subtle shadings and nuance. It was different. (It was the first in a series!)

But that’s not the weird part.

The weird part came when I shared this gem with my fans and told them how I’d found it, and two people took umbrage. “Why should the author being a woman matter to us? Why should her ethnicity or gender identification make a difference? I’m not going to read a book just because of the author!” (I’m paraphrasing the cruder reactions.)

Except they did.

They’re part of my fan base because they like the books I write. They trust me as an author to tell them stories that entertain them. They read my books because I write them. Normally that’s not a problem for me, but it is a problem for the field because I’m only one step removed from “old, dead white guy” status in terms of my identity as an author. Granted, there were only two who spoke up out of hundreds, but I was—probably naively—taken aback.

For many in my audience, this idea that great stories exist where they’re not looking came as something of a revelation. For others, it was a “nice you could catch up” moment. For a few, there was a certain “wtf” reaction.

For me, it was an up-close and personal look at the problem that some RMFW authors know way better than I do because they’re operating in those spaces.

My point in sharing the book wasn’t to promote a book because it was written by a black feminist. I promoted a great story and told my readers where I found it in the hope that they might embark on a similar voyage of discovery for themselves, to share with them what I discovered when I started to look—and to take ownership for not having looked before.

There’s a whole undiscovered universe of storytellers and stories out there that we don’t see because we’re each so badly siloed. The term “underrepresented” is a joke—these authors are buried. Siloed away in spaces I had to search to find. It was like I never learned about pizza because I only ate at the same five hamburger joints.

The problem was that I had to recognize I was missing out on a whole other world of great fiction, and I had to start looking for new voices to read. People who aren’t just like me. People who aren’t already in the silo with me. People whom Amazon doesn’t recommend. People whose lives are equally human, equally valid, but approached from a perspective I’ve never imagined, let alone considered.

There’s an old Twain quote about travel broadening one’s mind. The beauty of fiction is that you don’t have to leave your house to travel in your mind. You only need to discover a place you’ve never visited before and see what kinds of stories they’re telling there.

Happy hunting, and let us know what gems you find.

Image credit: Warren Wong: Searching… [source]