As the publishing industry diversifies, writers are becoming more and more thoughtful about writing characters outside of their identities and experiences - a process Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward calls “Writing the Other.” Although it is vital to treat marginalized characters with great care, writers often begin the process of “writing the other” with false assumption that our identities - and, as a result, our power within institutions - remain unchanged over time. But what happens when we acquire or discover identities we never knew we possessed after creating characters we mistakenly othered? If shaping stories shapes who we are, how do we contend with the fact that the very process of writing may drastically shift how we identify? Why are we attracted to writing about “the other” instead of writing about ourselves? In this talk, Dr. Mathangi Subramanian will trouble the idea of a fixed other while offering strategies for working with diverse characters in ways that acknowledge the dynamic nature of identity.
Dr. Mathangi Subramanian is a neurodiverse South Asian American writer and educator. Her novel A People's History of Heaven was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner and the Center For Fiction First Book Award, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her middle grade novel Dear Mrs. Naidu won the South Asia Book Award, and her picture book A Butterfly Smile was inducted into the Nobel Museum by economics laureate Dr. Esther Duflo. A faculty member at the Regis Mile High MFA program and guest artist at Denver School of the Arts, she holds a doctorate in education from Columbia University Teachers College.
This event is colloquium credit eligible.